Mike Leake

I thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from David Murray’s latest book, Reset. It’s a phenomenal book on preventing burnout. Though not specifically about burnout, I want to share a paragraph I read that was incredibly helpful. In the seventh chapter Murray encourages his readers to assess their calendars. He suggests making statements of purpose over four life […]

Chew on this: In his wisdom, God has crafted a life for us that does not careen from huge, consequential moment to huge, consequential moments. In fact, if you examine your life, you will see that you have actually had few of those moments. You can probably name only two or three life-changing situations you […]

I’ve read quite a few articles lately about something sociologists are calling FOMO. That’s short for “fear of missing out”. It’s why you keep your phone with you all the time and are almost constantly checking out social media. But I can save you from FOMO…at least a little bit. Here is what you are […]

There is a type of shrewdness that is pastoral. There is another type of shrewdness that is Satanic. Knowing the difference is key to church revitalization. Pastor Jim normally threw away all the ads that piled on his desk on Monday morning. Most of them frustrate him. He’s been pastoring this little church for a […]

In a sense a depressed Christian is a contradiction in terms, and he is a very poor recommendation for the gospel. –Martyn LloydJones (Spiritual Depression) I’ve labored over this quote for quite some time. I battle depression. So when I read statements like this from a pastor I revere it causes me to be a […]

A team of archaeologists recently unearthed a new scroll containing 2 Samuel 12. It is now being dubbed the King David Version, as it presents the king as not incurring all the guilt for his murderous affair with Bathsheba. Randy Hogan, chairman of the Super Convenient Archaeology Team (SCAT), remarked that this finding came at a “tremendously helpful […]

“Can you tell us a little about your call to the ministry…” I’ve gotten that question, I believe, in every church interview I’ve had. And every time I talked about how the Lord called me to himself and then a bit of jumbled mess about not being sure in college but really having a compulsion […]

You are on a diet. For the past week you’ve been exercising like a professional athlete and eating nothing but rabbit food. Then you walk by a kid selling strawberry pies. You buy three of them hoping to share with your family. You eat all three. But you justify this by saying, “I’ve done so […]

In 1845, when the American Baptist Home Mission Society, refused the nomination of James Reeve (a slaveholder) the seeds were planted for the birth of a new denomination. By May 1845 white delegates from the deep South gathered (293 in all) together and formed a new mission society—The Southern Baptist Convention. Yes, our beloved denomination […]

We are community makers. I see this in my daughter all the time. The other day she had a group of friends, a flashlight, a cape, and their imagination. They’d only been playing for about five minutes and already formed a club—the Ghost Hunters. About ten minutes into this little charade community rules developed. They […]

Is it just to allow an innocent person to pay for the crime of a guilty person? Let’s try that out in story form. A wretched woman stands trial for murdering a husband and wife. The jury finds the woman guilty of all the heinous crimes she is accused of. It is now the day […]

I’m not sure which one of these collections is the most insane. So many questions go through my head as I scan through these 43 weird collections. I mean, what causes a guy to start collecting traffic cones? Where has all of my uncollected belly button lint gone to? Is the toe-nail clippings guy married? […]