There is a stretch of road I travel often. We call it the Military Highway. It runs through places like Fort Leonard Wood, Killeen, Newport News, West Florida, Hawaii (I know it’s in the middle of the ocean), Sanford, the NC Capital Area, and Colorado Springs. Soon, it will run through Clarksville, TN. The time … Read more
Commencement is a strange word. In higher education, we use it to describe the end of something. But it actually means beginning. Every May at Manna U, we gather to celebrate degrees earned, assignments submitted, research defended, and perseverance proven. Families fill the room. Names are called. Applause rises. It feels like an arrival. But commencement is not an arrival at all It is a … Read more
Every year, someone asks me a version of the same question: Why the UK? It is a fair question. In a world of digital classrooms, Zoom lectures, and AI-driven research tools, why put students on a plane and fly them across the Atlantic? Why invest the time, money, and energy required for international travel? Simple. Because formation requires exposure. At … Read more
Family has a way of exposing us. I come from a large one. Two brothers. Two sisters. Fourteen nieces and nephews. A growing collection of grand-nieces and nephews. Add in aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws and you get a room full of people who know exactly how to push each other’s buttons. There is no argument quite … Read more
Division is not new. In the twentieth century alone, we watched governments weaponize difference with devastating efficiency. Nazi Germany built citizenship around bloodline. Apartheid South Africa organized daily life around racial hierarchy. Belgian colonial policies in Rwanda hardened ethnic distinctions into permanent identity categories, setting the stage for unimaginable violence in 1994. Each of these systems relied on … Read more
Hope may be one of the most misused words in Christian leadership. We often talk about hope as optimism, relief, or resolution. Hope becomes shorthand for things working out, pressure lifting, or circumstances improving. In that framing, hope functions like escapism. Resurrection hope is something different. In Scripture, resurrection does not erase suffering or rush past it. It … Read more
Leadership looks different depending on where you stand. That may sound obvious, but it is a lesson I keep relearning every time I travel to Rwanda. Not because leadership principles change across borders, but because context exposes assumptions we do not realize we are carrying. The longer I lead, the more convinced I am that leadership formation … Read more
One of the most humbling lessons leadership keeps teaching me is this: being present is not the same thing as paying attention. I can be physically in the room, emotionally invested in the mission, and sincerely committed to people, while still missing what matters most. That realization has shaped how I think about leadership, discernment, and formation more than any leadership … Read more
There is no shortage of innovation in education today. There would probably be no “Dr. Serrano” without these innovations. I took my first college course by way of correspondence back when I was a private first-class in the US Army. My first Bible college diploma? Earned via distance education. In fact, I earned all of my degrees through online, asynchronous … Read more
In an earlier post, I wrote about listening as a leadership discipline. That post focused on what leaders choose to attend to and how intentional listening shapes discernment over time. This post addresses a different, and in many ways more sobering, reality. Even disciplined leaders can lose sensitivity. One of the most dangerous leadership failures is … Read more
