Tom Cannon

Have you ever experienced a week that started out bad, and you wondered if it could get any worse?

Every year, we celebrate the most notoriously bad start to any week, ever. The week of Easter started out extremely bad for Jesus, didn’t it? Being falsely accused by paid-off snitches, hauled off as a common criminal in front of your friends, lied about, spit upon, beaten, stripped naked in public, and finally crucified on the hill called, Calvary.

Yeah, to most people, that week definitely would qualify as a week from you-know-where.

Perhaps you’ve had weeks that started badly, too, and you were left wondering what possible good could come from a week like that? Read the rest of this entry »

Secretly, I have always envied chefs who could discern the various flavors or scents within an entree or dessert, and with little effort, identify every ingredient by their sense of taste or smell alone. It amazes me how they can differentiate between all the combined ingredients, and not only tell you what’s in the dish, but how much of each item is in it.

Its embarrassing how little talent I possess for cooking. One time, a few years ago, I tried making fresh bread for our family, but to my chagrin, the finished product was so hard, even our dog wouldn’t eat it. Try as I might, all of my attempts at creating sumptuous meals have fallen far short of their culinary goal – both in taste and presentation.

When it comes to cooking, its easy to see that some people simply have more talent than others.

But recently, something interesting happened to me, when I was cleaning the garage – I opened a metal storage cabinet where I Read the rest of this entry »

The story of Hannah’s life is miraculous, and the results are amazing. But there is a story within Hannah’s story that is tragic. When Hannah prayed, she was confronted by Eli, the High Priest. As Hannah prayed, Eli rebuked her, because he thought she was drunk. But Hannah was not drunk; she was anointed with the presence of the Holy Spirit. She was abiding in that place of intimacy with God, where she no longer could speak her request with human words, but had to cry out to God, from the depth of her heart and soul.

Eli didn’t know what was happening within Hannah, because he apparently could not recognize the anointing of God upon her life. And that’s what makes this ‘story within the story’ so tragic. At the very moment when God was getting ready to open Hannah’s womb, so she and her husband could conceive a child together – a child who would become one of the greatest leaders Israel would ever know – the spiritually blind leader of Israel (High Priest), judged Hannah by the presumptions of his flesh, rather than by his knowledge of the Spirit.

It’s not good, when the one praying (Hannah) is more righteous, godly, and spiritually mature than the person leading the church (Eli). Such was the case with Hannah and Eli. Read the rest of this entry »

That is my philosophy on people, ministries, and churches. People often think they have to be super-talented, a well-known ministry, or mega church to accomplish something significant for God. But is that true? Do you have to be someone ‘specially gifted, ultra-talented, famous, or wealthy’ to accomplish something significant for God?

We all love talking about new life, the birth of a baby, and fresh starts, don’t we? Yet, we often forget that new days, babies, and fresh starts typically begin with SMALLNESS. People who doubt the effectiveness of small churches haven’t studied history, because God has used many small churches, and seemingly ‘insignificant’ pastors in amazing ways.

Need proof? How about small church pastor, Smith Wigglesworth? Though his flock was never large, his impact (and theirs) was tremendous, wasn’t it?

Have you heard of a small woman, named Gladys Aylward? A parlor maid with a heart for God, who was rejected by China Read the rest of this entry »

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

If you really want to build an effective leader, who walks in the likeness of Christ, then you need to “root out” all forms of nepotism, bigotry, gender bias, racism, and personal favoritism that exists in your life. Failure to do so, will earn you the fitting reputation of an unfair leader, and cause the people in your church, or ministry, who are not “numbered among the favored ones,” to lose heart, and 1) leave the church, or 2) develop a “who gives a rip attitude,” because they figure they don’t stand a chance to earn legitimate place of ministry anyway, since those positions are always filled by people you have pre-selected.

Credibility is a strange thing; it can take years to earn, but only a moment to lose. And whether you like it or not, people are determining the level of your credibility every day, based upon the decisions you make, as a leader, and the fairness with which those decisions are carried out. So be careful what choices you make, as a leader, because they are revealing who you are much louder than your words, and by them, people know how fair you are to those you lead.

Example: If you consistently exclude women, or minorities from places of equal ministry opportunity, then you can expect a certain label to be attached to you, as a leader. You may not like it, and may even protest how that tag is unfair, but if your leadership choices never include women or minorities in substantial places of leadership, then you have no one to blame, but Read the rest of this entry »