One of my earliest memories — say from when I was four or five years old — is the awareness that I have a very unusual first name. And early on, I didn’t like it. First, it was easy to make all kinds of vaguely insulting nicknames out of it. TalBUTT was the name of...
I still buy books and CDs. Books you can touch and CDs you place in a player. My children (28 and 25) consider it almost inconceivable that I buy music in CD format and books in bound format. To them, music & books are what you download, and I’m wasting time,...
Throughout the years, I have told a number of Good Shepherd staffers that as much as I love planning and preparing sermons as well as leading LifeGroup conversations, there come times when I simply have "to feel like a pastor today." By that I mean the urgency to...
Years ago, I heard a clergy-coaching-type ask a rather provocative question of a group of us: Do you pastor so that you can preach or do you preach so that you can pastor? Meaning: as one who leads a local church, do you provide a ministry of presence in people's...
I am a Christian first of all. But within that larger confession of faith, I have identified with the particular expression known as Methodism for the last 35 years. Now: the denomination has its flaws. Its future is far from certain. So I continue to ask: why have I...
Bouncebackers wound up yesterday in a message that was a bit of a departure from the previous four. We landed in the New Testament rather than the Old and we delved into a familiar figure rather than obscure. Bottom line? Your worst moment is no match for his great...
Here are some thoughts originally posted in 2010 but worthy of a revisit. Ironically, after this post seven years ago, Brad heard about it through some internet friends, and we reconnected. Teenage rivalries tend to lose their intensity in middle age ... I always...
Here is "Page 2" from last week's "Shame Off You" sermon from the Bouncebackers series. What? And what is the deal with all that purple? Well, here goes: each week, after about 12-15 hours of studying, scribbling, and outlining, I write out a nine page, 2,000 word...