Alongside

As an old adage goes, “the only person who wants change is a baby with a wet diaper”. Let us face it, most of us don’t like change, we love our comfort zones, we like our routines, most of us given the option would rather follow the well-trodden path than take the trouble of pioneering or exploring a new one and for some of us even a slight change in our routines might put us off. History is replete with stories of companies or organisations who failed to innovate or change, ultimately losing out in the race and becoming redundant or dead. If change is so allergic for us then imagine the prospect of “ leading ” change; that is not a great place to be in. But whether we like it or not, if one is convinced about the need for change and if our very survival or growth hinges on it, then we have no other option other than to dive in and lead it. I had the God given privilege of helping lead change in our movement few years’ back- one was a change initiative in our organisati...

  Ø Change agents are catalysts; they initiate the change but does not control it. They fade out pretty fast.   Ø Change agents are averse to status quo and mediocrity; they will challenge it.   Ø Change agents are happy-go risk takers. They love taking bold steps.    Ø Change agents understands and analyses the current reality well. They are pretty good at sniffing out the stink before it hits the roof.   Ø Change agents foresees the future in bright light. They always see light at the end of the tunnel.   Ø Change agents rallies and mobilises people to their cause. They maximise the gift of the gab.   Ø Change agents discuss ideas not people.       Ø Change agents die hard, they do not give up till they see the perceived change.   Ø Change agents don’t stake claim or credit for the change. You won’t find them in the credit rolls.   Ø Change agents own-up a...

This is something that I heard from a youngster recently, “I attend that church because they have awesome worship, man it is a happening place and it’s cool”. This is not a one-off statement, alarmingly it has become the norm of our times. People look for churches where they can feel recharged, refreshed and leave on a high after the worship service, so they engage in church-shopping or church-hopping because the recharged batteries tend to get empty pretty soon, the euphoria seems to wear off in no time and like a junkie we are looking for a new and better high. In fact I came across a church advert tagline that went, “come in for refreshing worship”. Well is there anything wrong in this kind of worship-entertainment, the feel good, feel recharged, with upbeat music, the latest digital instruments, multimedia and laser- Fresnel lights and even fog machines to create smoke effect on the stage kind of worship? Pretty much a duplicate of a rock music concert or a live stage show!! ...

Do you see a familiar connection between those words above?  Another star has taken that route, we are shocked to hear the untimely death of Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput. He has joined the ever growing list of stars who have chosen the easy way out of life. Couple of years back it was the death of Chester Bennington of the Likin Park fame which  shocked many of the music lovers who had followed him for close to over a decade. But his is just one among the many sudden and untimely deaths of movie stars and musicians at their prime who had either taken their own lives or died in suspicious circumstances. From Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain to Heath Ledger, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Prince and now Chester Bennington the list is long. They seemed to have it all, millions of fans following, right at the zenith of fame, multi-millionaires, celebrities in their own right, the who’s who of the Music and film world. But what went wrong for them?   For their fan...

I am not good, I am a failure, or we would have heard from someone,  you are a curse for this family,  you will never succeed in life, you mess up everything that you touch, can you do any thing properly, looser!!  Or it might be, no my sins are not forgiven, i still have guilt feelings, God has not completely forgiven me, does God really love me? I have this weakness and I am addicted to it, I cannot get out of that weakness.  I have inferiority feeling's,  I don't have  confidence, I cannot stand and speak before others, I am not smart like others, why am I not like my other successful friends? why is God not  blessing me? Will I loose my salvation? I am worried and anxious about my future.  Stop a moment, try and listen, we might hear it. These are the lie tapes running in our mind all the time, we hear it, we wrestle with it and for many of us we tend to believe these blatant lies even though we are washed by the blood of Jesus and...

Can we have Joy irrespective of what we are going through in life? Is it possible to experience peace that surpasses all understanding even when everything around us seems to be going topsy-turvy? Does what the Bible promises really come true in my life, then why am I not experiencing it? These might be questions that we struggle with as we try to walk by faith.  Habakkuk the prophet had similar questions, questions more profound and complicated than these, like why are the wicked people prospering and the good ones suffering? Is God not in control of situations? But as he asks those questions, God answers him powerfully in ways only He can and at the end of that discourse  Habakkuk concludes in chapter 3:17-19 " Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no food; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice i...

I won’t be surprised if you are wondering what on earth Jallikattu has got to do with “student leadership and movements”. Well, the recent Jallikattu agitation in Tamil Nadu has a lot to do with it. ( Jallikattu is a traditional bull taming sport culturally intertwined with the ethos of Tamil Nadu, it is deeply and fiercely connected to agrarian culture of the people, their age old tradition of celebrating harvest festival ) This drew thousands of people from all across the state comprising of all age group but the primary group and the most dominant group that led the movement were college students . They were at the forefront of it, leading it, spreading the word, mobilizing the crowds, being the spokesperson, chanting slogans; literally making something that started out as a tiny spark into a wild fire of a massive people movement which brought the entire government machinery to its knees so that they had to take it to the highest authority and get the bill passed. A spontaneou...