By Rod Denton, Equipping The Next Generation

“The future is as bright as the promises of God.”
— ADONIRAM

By Rod Denton, Equipping The Next Generation

I will never forget the day I invited John Smith, the

By Rod Denton, Equipping The Next Generation

You can know a person

By Rod Denton, Equipping The Next Generation

The remarkable life of Jesus was brought home to me when I read these words,

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By Rod Denton, Equipping The Next Generation

For twenty years Douglas Hyde was a member of the Communist Party in

Not Our Circumstances

By Rod Denton, Equipping The Next Generation

Your attitude quotient (AQ) is more important than your

Words that have impacted my life and leadership

1. “START AT THE TOP AND WORK YOUR WAY DOWN. THEY MIGHT SAY 'NO' BUT THEY COULD SAY 'YES'."

Dr. Robert Clinton, a former professor of leadership at Fuller

By Rod Denton, Equipping The Next Generation

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CHRISTIAN ATHEIST: Is a person who believes in God but lives as though God doesn’t exist or is largely irrelevant to the everyday business of living.

The term CHRISTIAN ATHEIST is a figure of speech

I was most interested to learn from a family in my church about their recent holiday in another state. Even more so when they had taken the time to visit a very well known church in that state. I asked them what was it that impressed them most about the church and what could we learn from them.

There is much to suggest that the church in the west is living in a post-Christian generation. Evangelism has fallen on hard times, and ironically it seems that seminars to help people learn how to share their faith are doing no better.  And yet our denominations, although

One of the wisest persons in the Bible wrote the following words that have served me well in my life of ministry:

“The righteous choose their friends carefully, But the way of the wicked leads them astray.”
— Proverbs

An important leadership lesson: What do you do when your mates desert you?

It can be lonely at the top. Like the time the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy from a damp, dark prison cell, on trial in a Roman court, believing that the time for his

We live in a world where emotional intelligence (EQ) is of more importance than intelligence quotient (IQ). “Emotions impact everything we do, think and say, and for this reason, a whole set of skills are all enhanced by emotional intelligence. Emotional

My favourite place in my house is in our lounge room looking out of a bay window into our garden. One day, I felt a strange prompt; this garden needs a bird bath. So I purchased a bird bath and placed it in the garden. To my surprise, it wasn’t long before the local birds

You are probably familiar with a leadership review. But there was one that caught my attention recently as I was reading of the life of Jesus in Matthew 23. Interestingly, Jesus had been reviewing the religious leaders of His day, unbeknown to them. And it seems that they failed the

All of life is a learning experience. Throughout the course of my life, I have participated in learning experiences that have been of a formal, non-formal, and informal nature. Some of my best learning opportunities have occurred in the less

Your Destiny... it's in your hands

I have heard it said that the greatest buried treasure in any city is to be found in its cemetery. For this is the place where the

I was recently reminded by our [Australian] Prime Minister that I am now old enough to be regarded as a protected species that needs to

We live in a generation that is not noted for its ability to wait patiently. The demonstrators of the world march and chant in unison, “What do we want” and “When do we want it?” And the answer echoes back, “We want it now!” Waiting is rarely seen as a virtue. Rather, we associate

In 330 BC, Alexander the Great had conquered the Persian Empire and in the process had become ruler of most of the known world. With the greatest army ever assembled, he decided to continue

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time.” (John Kenneth Galbraith) Whenever God wanted to get something done, He raised up a leader. That

One of the most important lessons I have learnt has been to live intentionally according to the seasons of my life. It has helped me understand God’s unfolding plan for my life and to see how He is at work in various areas of my life at any particular time. There is a liberty that accompanies the person who lives in harmony with the seasons of life. It frees

Did Jesus really mean what He said?

The Church of Jesus Christ is the most powerful body in the world today. It is the group of people that Satan fears most. Consequently, one of Satan’s main assignments is to suppress this truth so that the church will never find out about it, and start living it out in the power and authority

The person who modelled to me the key to growing. The first principle of mentoring is “the attraction of the mentor to the mentee.” I was first attracted to Doctor Robert (Bob) Boyd Munger when I was a student at

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The following worksheet is provided to help clarify your calling in life. It is organized to help you see how God has worked in the past, is working in the present, and how He will work in your life in the future. In the past, God used specific

In 1964, Nelson Mandela was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of incitement to sabotage, treason and violent conspiracy against the South African regime. He spent a total of 27 years in captivity, most of them in the notorious prison on Robben Island. For those long years, he broke rocks, did hard labour, was

My wife Sue’s birthday was fast approaching, and try as I may, I couldn’t think of a memorable present that she needed, that I could buy for her. We had been married for forty years and memorable presents were now more difficult than ever to find. However, in the

“Is this a tragedy?” John Piper asked an audience of 50,000 young people when he spoke of two 80-year-old ladies, Ruby a nurse and Laura a retired doctor, who were killed instantly when their car

When 12 spies were sent by Moses to explore Canaan, 10 of them returned with a discouraging report. They saw a land with powerful people and large fortified cities, and strongly discouraged the people from entering the land. Caleb and Joshua saw the same land differently and

By what you create or what you tolerate

I was recently reminded of the valuable responsibility leaders have in shaping the culture of their organisation. They can shape their culture intentionally, or they can

One of our core faculty members, Rod Denton, has been going through a trying season the last several years. After wave upon wave of disappointment and agony, he shared the following wisdom. I'm sharing it here with his permission, and I hope it encourages you...

It is not always easy

A basic building block in making disciples

It was John Maxwell who brought to my attention the fact that experience is not the best teacher. Otherwise, everybody would be getting better and more mature as they grow older. Rather, evaluated experience is the best teacher. Evaluated experience is the experience that is reflected upon and where lessons are learned and growth

Read to have fellowship with great minds

John Wesley knew the importance of reading good books when he exhorted the younger ministers of the Wesleyan Society to “either read or get out of the ministry.” Obviously, Wesley had a passion for reading in the midst of a very busy life.

The critical battle between Culture and Values

I recall participating in a seminar set aside by a church where a group of its leaders came together to identify the values of the church. The group, seated around tables, were led through a day where the end product of identifying its key values was achieved. Much has changed in

The Forbes.com’s number 1 Business Book of 2016 was, KEEP IT SIMPLE: Unclutter Your Mind to Uncomplicate Your Life written by Joe Calloway. The book challenges us to resist the temptation to overcomplicate things and to boil things down to the essence of what matters most. It confronts our natural almost unnoticed tendency to drift towards complexity or away from the purpose for which we exist. It takes some continued resolve to keep it simple and focused. Calloway’s advice is to

Where have all the leaders gone?

Could there be any more desperate cry than this in our world today? We have facilitators, administrators, managers, academics, coordinators and people with various titles and qualifications, but very few

Each day at our Jubilee in Jakarta highlighted a different theme. On Day 1, we focused on our pioneering days, originally as the Language Institute for Evangelism in 1967 and later LIFE Ministries in the mid-1980s, which was focused on Japan. Our theme for Day 1 was aptly

Asian Access Faculty, Rod Denton, reflects on "Growing Big People" (an approach we celebrate at Asian Access!)... “When people grow, everything attached to them grows. But when we try to grow the activities attached to people, but we neglect to grow the people, we finish up with small people trying to handle and grow big things. This results in getting people who are burned out and exhausted and resentful. These people are then involved in constant changes of roles because

During a recent conversation with a friend of mine, he mentioned a word I had not heard before... brachiate. He suggested I search it out on google when I returned home. He said it is a word worth discovering... and even more important, a word worth living. I did as he said and discovered

God's choice training ground for future leaders

It took some time for me to understand God’s University of the Desert and then to trust Him in those deep experiences. But then it took even further time to recognise not only God’s presence in the loneliness of the desert, but also God’s purposes in the

Qualities of a Great Leader, Part 4: Seventeen Essential Qualities

This is the final post of my 4-part series about great leaders that took me 36 years to write. Here is a summary of what I've shared: Six Foundational

Qualities of a Great Leader, Part 3: Two Relational Qualities

This is the third post in a 4-part series about great leaders that took me 36 years to write. Here are the categories of the 30 leadership qualities I will enumerate: Six

Qualities of a Great Leader, Part 2: Five Spiritual Qualities

This is the second entry in a 4-part series about great leaders that took me 36 years to write. Here is the outline of the 30 leadership qualities I will cover: Six

Qualities of a Great Leader, Part 1: Six Foundational Qualities

This is the first installment of a 4-part series about great

I was sitting in a coffee shop in Beijing Airport waiting for my plane when a red faced airport attendant came up to me and asked,”Are you Mister Rod Denton?” When I replied that I was, he then said, ”I have been searching for you. We have been calling your name. You have missed your flight. Your plane has gone