I'm not objective when it comes to Pathfinder.It's one of the best things we do at Good Shepherd, and I say that because I've been involved with it as a participant.Pathfinder is our easy on-ramp to group life at this church. It's where community begins. It makes a...
This past week, I received an email from someone who attended Good Shepherd for a season and then had to move to another part of the country. Anyway, part of his email said that he and his family still remember and use the phrase "forgiveness is learned, so teach it...
I like giving messages in which I know there are a couple of "I can't believe I'm gonna say this but I'm gonna say it anyway!" moments.Week Three of Rubber, Meet Road has those moments.It's called Rich Man, Poor Man and to get ready for it, read James 2:1-9.And then...
I don't know if I heard it somewhere or thought of it myself (probably the former, hopefully the latter), but in any event I wrote it down:Ministry happens when your fear of disappointing God is greater than your fear of disappointing people.Whew.As a recovering...
With all due respect to my mother who taught me to read when I was four or five, and with apologies to my undergraduate degree in English, I really did learn how to read in seminary.As in close reading. As in learning to observe what's going on in a piece of...
If you're like me, you like things to run on schedule.Trains, planes, automobiles . . . and work weeks.In fact, I typically like to do the same things on the same days each week. So most weeks look a lot like the ones that came before and like the ones to follow.Maybe...
We showed this yesterday to hammer home the idea that "faith without works is dead":Fun to make, more fun to play on Sunday.Thanks to Sonic for their inspiration.And to WHAM for their timeless music . . .
Martin Luther's influence on Christianity is profound. And complex. As a German pastor and theologian of the 16th Century, he re-discovered St. Paul's doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, based on passages like Ephesians 2:8-9. He courageously stood up...
Many years ago, Jack Hayford said this to a group of pastors in a conference I attended: "Don't worry so much about growing a big church. Grow big people, and the church will take care of itself." Obviously, Dr. Hayford was not referring to body mass index.He was...
In the middle of the news of the death of Patrick Swayze and Jody Powell, as well as the antics of various tennis players like Serena Williams, one event barely registered a blip on the media radar screen: the passing of Jack Kramer.Kramer won Wimbledon in 1947 and...