The message for Palm Sunday ... Recognized that King Jesus' Coronation actually took place on the cross -- it's just that mockers and scoffers didn't realize it;Developed the pattern of the "testing" of Jesus while he was on the cross -- "if you're the Savior, save...

Several years ago, I attended a worship event where I was surrounded by an eclectic group of 20s and 30s. On several occasions that evening, the primary speaker referred to "our Savior." It's not a novel description of Jesus to be sure, but it nevertheless impacted me...

Yesterday, I met with a man from Good Shepherd in advance of his baptism we will celebrate on Easter Sunday. And as part of his preparation, we looked at Romans 6:3-5:   3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his...

Andy Stanley has spoken helpfully about the distinction in church life between tensions to be managed and problems to be solved.   In other words, there are certain dilemmas that pastors and church leaders will simply need to learn to live with because they...

Yesterday's message: Centered around the most famously insignificant governor of all time, Pontius Pilate;Open and closed with anecdotes involving funerals;Took a title from a relatively obscure Steve Winwood song while also referencing Lynrd Skynrd and Pink...

One of my favorite laws of literary structure is inclusio. The less technical term is bookends. Whatever you call it, it's when a section of literature (biblical or otherwise) begins and ends with the same phrase or idea. Any author who employs inclusio wants to make...

Every once in awhile, I get a fresh reminder of how the division of the bible into chapters and verses can actually get in the way of our encounter with Scripture. Case in point: some time ago, as part of preparation for a Life Group Bible Study I lead, I read Acts...

Throughout most of the 20th Century and now into the 21st, charismatic and Methodist Christians have had very little to do with each other. Charismatics, who trace their modern origins to the Azusa Street Revival in 1906, define themselves by expressive worship,...

I spent this past weekend in Austin, Texas where I had the twin delights of presiding at a wedding involving a family I've known during my entire tenure at Good Shepherd AND staying with my mother, 103-year-old Betty Davis. So Wayne Hobson started the new series off...