Julie, Taylor, Riley, and I spent much of the Thanksgiving holiday in the Hill Country of Texas helping the rest of my family celebrate my mother's 95th birthday.To get an idea of the kind of person she is these days, she recently launched her own website.Here she is...
Something seemingly insignificant made my day yesterday.My message involved an object lesson in which I cracked open a raw egg and let the yolk drop into a bowl. The idea was that the shell is not the substance.The same is true of the church (the shell) and the gospel...
Many of us have experienced the ways in which church can be an obstacle to faith rather than an empowerer of it.When that happens, is there life after church? Is there faith after church?To enter that conversation, check out Philippians 1:12-18.And then hear for...
I love the last line of the Apostles' Creed: [. . . I believe] in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.While the Creed may not have the same level of authority as inspired Scripture, it nevertheless represents the best of the collective wisdom...
Thanksgiving Week is also rivalry week in college football.Historically, the best of the conference battles and border wars happen over the next six days: Alabama-Auburn, Texas-Texas A&M, Ohio State-Michigan, and many others.So what are my five favorite through...
I experienced three different altar calls this past weekend, each of which took place in very different surroundings with varying degrees of impact.For those of you not familiar with the tradition, an altar call is a distinctively evangelical and predominantly...
Two things have me eager for this weekend:1. On Saturday, I have the privilege of leading a seminar in a ministry class at Gordon-Conwell Seminary on funeral ministries. I'm helping my friend Steve Klipowicz by teaching 23 young pastors and pastors-in-training on...
My cyber friend John Meunier has a interesting post on house to house visitation on the part of pastors.The timing was ideal.Just last evening, I went "blessing houses" with another preacher friend -- this one from Huntersville and he's a man I've met him in person...
As a lot of you know, my son Riley recently finished his senior season with the Charlotte Christian School football team. The team did well, making the playoffs and losing to the eventual state champion.For me and Julie, Friday nights this fall were full of...
This blog title is a bit presumptuous as it suggests I've got it all figured out.Well, I don't.Yet for a variety of reasons, Good Shepherd has long had financial health as a church. In the worst of the recent recession, for example, we had our best of years in terms...