Author: Seth Barnes
One of the hardest things I ever had to do was to help my father to die. We were not close for much of my life. Though he loved me, our relationship often felt awkward. Yet,...
How I Learned to Beat Burnout
Today I’m flying to the Dominican Republic, a place where I’ve experienced abundant life as a young man pursuing a dream, and also burnout along the way. Let me share...
Some People Will Die Hiding Their Pearls
Britt Baker is a Millennial who has a burden for the Boomer generation. She was standing in front of a group of us Boomers. She had described a vision she saw where we didn’t...
Come Home to Your True Self in 2022
So many of us have felt estranged in the last two years – estranged from ourselves and from some of those we’ve been close to. We’ve been isolated, in hiding and...
How Did Jesus Walk? Here are 10 Ways
For much of my adult life I’ve tried to understand how Jesus trained his disciples. It didn’t look anything like the methods we use in our modern churches. It was far...
Here’s the Hill I Would Die On
We have a mental health crisis and people are looking for answers. Are there any?
Living in this lockdown world the past two years, at times I’ve been confused about what...
Beauty for Ashes Goes to Italy
Having been raised as a small boy in the picturesque Italian village of Corrubbio, just outside of Verona. I’ve always loved Italy, so when Simona contacted me a year...
Don’t Despise Small Beginnings
I had seen the power of microcredit working with refugees and those caught in a cycle of poverty in Indonesia. Small businesses that didn’t have access to capital couldn’t...
When God Said, ‘Scale The World Race For a Movement’
I was on a morning run in Swaziland in 2007. I have a practice of praying as I run. And sometimes I hear what I sense is the voice of God whispering. Sometimes his voice is so clear...
Steps to Move to a Bitcoin Micro-economy
In earlier blogs I introduced the idea that those trapped in poverty can be empowered by integrating them into a micro-economy that uses bitcoin as currency. Mike Peterson, an American...
How to Transform a Poor Community Using Bitcoin
In my blog last week, I shared the story of El Zonte, El Salvador, a town that decided two years ago to switch its currency to bitcoin.
Most people, when they think of bitcoin,...
How Bitcoin Will Empower Those Trapped in Poverty
At 60 years old, Adrian Torres had lost all his teeth.
Life has been hard on Torres. A construction worker in El Salvador, he has had to live paycheck to paycheck. He’d never...
How do you make friends with your father?
How is your relationship with your father?
Are you able to be vulnerable with him? I’ve seen so many young people with a poor relationship with their dad – they didn’t...
How to Start a Women’s Movement
What could a man possibly teach us about a women’s movement?
Perhaps the life of David Yonggi Cho, who passed away last week, has something to teach us.
Cho was the pastor...
The Strangest Meal I’ve Ever Eaten
In 1981, Karen and I lived in Jakarta and worked in Bali.
One day, my boss, David Bussau, said, “There’s a village part-way up a volcano that is very poor. They need...
There Has to Be Something Better Than Middle School
What a horrible phase of life middle school was for me.
Barely graduated from sixth grade, I was 77 pounds and suddenly found myself in West Jr. High School. It was a strange and...
How Should I Respond to a Judgmental Person?
Judgmental people frustrate me.
I want to respond in kind – crossing swords with them. But Gene Horne changed my perspective with his story of God speaking to him. Since hearing...
My Epic Journey Driving from Virginia to Honduras
In my book, Kingdom Journeys, I talk about going on my own World Race. I was 22 years old when I started. It took three years, mostly in Indonesia and the DR. I started out single,...
Young People Need the Gift of Remedial Pain
If you are a parent or may one day raise children, what is your philosophy of pain? How much should you allow your children to experience? Surprisingly, many young people actually...
Finding My Italian Nanny 58 Years Later
When my parents arrived in the little town of Corrubbio just outside of Verona (that story here), they already had my nanny lined up. I was two. Maria was 23 and only spoke Italian....
Finding My Old Home in Italy
Thirteen years after WW2 ended, my mom was a teacher putting my dad through medical school. Then – whoops – she got pregnant with me. They did things differently in...
Near Death Experience in the Killing Fields
What would you do if you were going to be killed because you were smarter than your peers? Would you lie about your background?
Last month I was talking Ben, to our local A/C repairman....
5 Steps to Becoming a Radical Christ Follower
We are forever in process, wrestling to narrow the gap between our ideal self and the self who is stuck checking off today’s To Do List. Many of us feel trapped by the status quo...
The Difference Between Being Woke and Awake
I pulled an old box out of my closet. In it were old notes from the last 30 years of ministry. As I looked through them, I saw myself as a young man with five small children, struggling...