Gordon MacDonald
Gordon MacDonald is an author, speaker, and teacher. He was a pastor for more than forty years, most recently the senior minister at Grace Chapel, Lexington, Massachusetts. When he stepped down from that position, the Grace Chapel congregation honored him with the title, Pastor Emeritus. Other pastorates were in New York City, Southern Illinois and Kansas. For three years MacDonald was president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
MacDonald has written more than a dozen books and co-authored others with his wife, Gail. Perhaps his best known book has been Ordering Your Private World which won the Gold Medallion and the Platinum Awards from the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association. There are almost a million and a half copies of this book in print, and it has been translated into a dozen or more languages. Among his other books are Secrets of a Generous Life (Published by Tyndale, Fall 2002), The Life God Blesses, Renewing Your Spiritual Passion, When Men Think Private Thoughts and Mid-Course Correction (a book on “deep life-change). A revision of Ordering Your Private World was released in January ’03. He writes regularly for each addition of Leadership Journal and also writes a column (“Out of my Files”) which appears on the LeadershipJournal.net website. A Resilient Life, (now also in German, Korean, and Dutch) was released in early 2005, and a new book, Who Stole My Church, will appear in January, 2008.
MacDonald serves as an Editor-at-Large with Leadership Journal, a publication of Christianity Today, Inc. He is Chairman of the Board of World Relief Corporation, an NAE-associated relief and development organization committed to the alleviation of suffering and poverty in the areas of HIV/Aids, micro-enterprise development, refugee resettlement and disaster assistance. He also speaks frequently at conferences for the Willow Creek Association both here in the US and in other parts of the world. Privately, he engages with company leaders as an executive coach.
As a speaker, Gordon MacDonald addresses conferences of leaders both in the world of the church and business. These have included the American Standard Co, ServiceMaster, the Greater Orlando Leadership Foundation, and the DeVos Family Foundation leadership conferences.
His academic background includes a prep school graduation from the Stony Brook School, a B.A. from the University of Colorado (’62), and a M. Div from Denver Seminary (’66). Barrington College (later merged with Gordon College) awarded MacDonald an honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree in 1979.
Gordon and Gail MacDonald, married 46 years, live on an old farm N.H. Their great satisfaction is in their two married children and five grandchildren. Beyond that the MacDonalds are hikers, bikers, kayakers, and voracious readers.