Illustration: Teachers

Being interviewed by the school administration, the eager teaching prospect said: "Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids, fill their every waking moment with a love for learning; and I'm supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse; and even censor their T-shirt messages and dress habits."

Preaching from the Prophetic Books

When people hear that I visited Amsterdam on a sabbatical from teaching preaching at a theological seminary, they often ask, "Did you go to the red-light district?" I smile and answer, "Yes, I went to church there." On a brisk November morning, my wife and I attended services at the Oude Kirk, the oldest church structure in the city that dates back to the 1500s-the state-approved pleasure district has grown up around it. There we worshipped with a small but proud congregation in a central space within the great unheated building, surrounded by the graves of past generations of worshippers, their flat stone markers serving as the floor. The preacher read the story of Jacob wrestling the man, the whole story from Genesis 32, two times in two different translations. I had learned enough by that time to know what was going on.

Leading Today: The Power of Praise

Top performers don't work for money alone. They're also motivated by an internal desire to achieve. Workers who are concerned with excellence have an inner source of inspiration. Good leaders recognize these excellence seekers and tap their hidden resources by praising their achievements.

Leading Today: Sound the Alarm

The morning sun finally had begun to defrost the Alaskan landscape. It was a welcome relief after another tough nightand winter. Now it was spring-April 1, 1946, to be exact-and the long wait for a kinder and gentler Mother Nature finally had paid off. Everything, it seemed, was right with the world. All that would soon change.