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The Way of the Towel: Greatness, Redefined by Jesus

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by Bart Denny Central text: John 13:12–17 (NIV) Over the years, in church settings, I’ve done a lot of dishes. I’ve raked a lot of leaves. I’ve painted plenty of church walls. I’ve plunged more than a few clogged toilets. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. But if I’m honest, at this age, with this many years in church, there’s a part of me that wants to say, “I’ve done my time.” I don’t usually say it out loud. I dress it up. I call it wisdom. Focus. Stewarding my time well. But the feeling sneaks up on me. It shows up when another need pops up. When the same few people carry the same load. When I feel tired. It shows up when I think, “Shouldn’t somebody else take a turn now?” And I’ll confess something else: I don’t mind serving. I just want to choose the terms. And if I’m not careful, I start thinking and acting like the low places belong to somebody else. Now let me be even more honest: I don’t struggle with getting my hands dirty. I struggle to keep my ego in check....
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A Rust-Bucket Ship and a Struggling Church: The Leadership Development Imperative in Two "Turn-around" Stories

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 The Ugly Baby made pretty: a sea story. by Bart L. Denny, Ph.D., Th.M. As I stared into an aft storage locker crammed full of apparently useless detritus and surveyed a ship’s fantail cluttered with more junk—a rusted-out barbeque grill, alleged spare parts that didn’t seem to belong to any of the ship’s installed equipment, and big sealed metal cans of who-knows-what. Rust covered the deck and all the deck fittings and equipment I surveyed. In the background, I could hear Miguel Rivera, our crew’s boatswain’s mate first class petty officer, whistling the theme song of “Sanford and Son,” a 1970s television show where Red Fox played the owner of a junkyard. Pretty appropriate. How could a commissioned U.S. Navy ship have gotten like this? Just two days before, Petty Officer Rivera and I, along with the rest of our California-based crew, had been assigned to a slick, fast, and well-maintained coastal patrol ship. For the past year, I had been proud to be the captain of that ship...
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“Where Did Everybody Go?”: A Pastoral Reflection on Church Decline and the Urgent Need for Leadership Development

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“Where is everybody?!” Buella’s dismay was as unmistakable as her thick New York accent—untouched by sixty years of Florida sunshine. At 101 years old, she still drove herself to church, the grocery store, and the beauty parlor. Frankly, she was livelier than almost anyone else in the sanctuary. “This is terrible,” she said, looking around the nearly empty church. “This place used to be packed!” It hadn’t been packed during the month I’d been preaching there. The modest building easily swallowed up what remained of the once-thriving congregation. How Buella could only now be shocked was a mystery—surely she had seen the slow unraveling. She remembered the good days—kids in the pews, young families, laughter in the halls. But those days had faded. The church hadn’t had a pastor in over two years. Before that, pastors came and went like Florida thunderstorms. Feuds, splits, and drama filled the gaps. At 62, Gloria was the “baby” of the church. She had worshiped there since its foundi...
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