Dare Great Things For Christ

DGT Episode 263 - The World Goes As The Family Goes - Impact Culture For Christ Part 6

All of us want to make a difference for Christ in our culture today.  But most of us don’t know where to begin.  A wide variety of issues competes for our attention.  One thing the Catholic church has consistently argued is that the family is the root of society.  As the family goes so the world will go.  Maybe this is why for the Catholic church so much attention is spent on developing family ties.  Why is this so, however?  And what importance should we give the family in our own efforts to transform the culture for Christ today?

DGT Episode 262 - Playing A Good Ground Game - Impact Culture For Christ Part 5

Most Christians today recognize the importance of engaging our culture with the Gospel.  Changes are afoot that would radically alter the way that we raise our families and understand our fundamental freedoms.  This sense of urgency has led many to find the most effective ways to impact the culture.  How do we transform a culture before it transforms us?  One of the most overlooked methods, however, is the simplest: the direct encounter we can have with the people around us.  If cultural leadership were football, this would be the ground game, and this is the method our Lord, Himself, showed us. 

DGT Episode 261 - Making The Case For Prayer - Impact Culture For Christ Part 4

By now any Christian who follows events in the world knows how important it is for us to act.  The news headlines are filled with reports of things that are happening and calls for us to get involved.  On the other hand Christians are equally convinced that we need to pray.  Prayer is a part of our spiritual tradition and something our Savior commanded us to do. Is there a connection between the two?  Is there really a value to prayer when so much of our brain space is taken up by issues, and confrontations, and worry about the future.  I think there is and I want to make a case for it.

DGT Episode 260 - Aiming At The Right Things - Impact Culture For Christ Part 3

So much of what makes a leader successful comes from their ability to take people where they need to go.  If we don’t have vision then we really are the blind leading the blind.  But oddly enough when it comes to shaping our culture it seems that many people don’t know what we should be aiming at.  The world will indicate many different values as its’ arbiter of success, but what does Jesus ask for from us?  What does our Lord ask for from a follower of His in the culture in which we live?  How do we aim at the right things?

DGT Episode 259 - How The Church Raises The Bar For The Rest Of The World - Impact Culture For Christ Part 2

Today it’s fashionable to separate the Church from society.  We claim that the legitimate separation of Church from state means that the state should proceed without any influence from the Church.  The Church, however, has a different opinion.  How are we to evaluate of the Catholic Church’s contribution to our society?  What impact can the world really expect from the Christian message?  What’s the value of the culture that we’re proposing?  All these question are central to the discussion about how Jesus raises us up to lead our culture today. 

DGT Episode 258 - Culture Is Shaped By Its Leaders - Impact Culture For Christ Part 1

There are many people who speak about the need for cultural leadership.  The issues and values of our society today are constantly under discussion.  But most of this discussion seems to be from the outside.  A competition of competing visions and views that clash and sometimes divide.  Is there another way to have this discussion?  How would Jesus Christ have his followers lead the battle to shape a culture in His image?  In this first of our series we look at what culture is and try to understand the Christians role in shaping it.

DGT Episode 257 - To Do Or Not To Do - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 6

We’ve journeyed together through the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas about making decisions.  We’ve learned about discernment, about counsel, about timing and about so much else.  And now is the time to act.  In this final segment on our series on making winning decisions with St. Thomas Aquinas, I want to look with you on the theology of the imperium or the command that our mind tells our will to make - getting over the hurdle of constantly wondering whether or not we should something and crossing the threshold of success.

DGT Episode 256 - When People Just Don’t Want To Work - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 5

Anyone who wants to be successful in leadership needs to be really good at working with people.  The more a leader understands human behavior the more effectively they’ll deal with it and reach the goals of their organization and their mission.  This is where St. Thomas Aquinas gives us a distinct advantage.  He represents a wealth of knowledge coming from the Catholic tradition about how we work, how our hearts work, how we make decisions.  And in this fifth part of our series we look at how he solves the problems of when people just don’t want to work.

 

DGT Episode 255 - Leading As If Seeing The Invisible - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 4

Some do it more from a personal charisma than from a studied approach, but all leaders have to bring people with them towards the vision that they’re casting.  And so that begs the question: “How can we who have to make decisions everyday make them in a way that other people will find attractive?”  Well, reaching back into our Catholic theology we find this subject matter already treated by St. Thomas Aquinas.  And in this fourth part of our series we explore it today.

DGT Episode 254 - Leading From The Heart - Leadership Lessons From Aquinas Part 3

All great leaders are capable of casting a vision.  But casting a vision is not easy to do.  To have a vision towards a goal means you want to have that goal.  And sometimes are hearts are just afraid to stretch out into the unknown and into the unforeseen.  The grace of God can help us to heal and to have the daring we need to want the things we don’t yet have.  And when we do we become leaders of the heart.  St. Thomas Aquinas helps us understand this process and how we can actualize it in our own lives as leaders today.