Illustration: Judgment, Urgency

On the outskirts of a small town, there was a big, old pecan tree just inside the cemetery fence. One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts."One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me," said one boy. Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence.

Illustration: Service, Leadership

Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, tells about the aqueduct built by the Romans in Segovia in 109 A.D. For 1800 years, that aqueduct carried cool water from the mountains down to the hot, thirsty city. Nearly 60 generations drank from the water that flowed through that aqueduct.

Churches and the Web

At his well-read blog, Ed Stetzer shares news of a new LifeWay study on the expanding use of the web by churches. He quotes from a Christian Post article based on the research: "Though most churches have a website, there is a divide between congregations that use their sites only for one-way communication and those that maximize their online presence with interactive technology. That is the finding of a new LifeWay Research study sponsored by Axletree Media, one of LifeWay's partners in the Digital Church initiative.

Illustration: Imagination

Several weeks after a young man had been hired, he was called into the personnel director's office. "What is the meaning of this?" the director asked. "When you applied for this job, you told us you had five years experience. Now we've discovered this is the first job you've ever held."