When people say their farewells, we listen more closely. Their words move from interesting to influential. The same is even true of Paul, the pastor, missionary, and author at the center of so much of the activity and the thinking in the New Testament. His...

We distributed this video last week to answer the question, "When are we coming back?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv0I9iJwh4g&t=90s Here are the principles in writing: We value being right over being first. We anticipate a rush to open by some churches in our...

I’ll admit it: I have an uneasy relationship with leadership. In some ways I think I lead well. In a lot of others, I know I don’t. Nevertheless, in this ongoing life tutorial about leadership, I learned a valuable lesson recently. And that lesson stemmed from this...

Julie and I spent last Thursday - Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee, where we visited our daughter Taylor Underwood and her husband Nate. Here we are in front of Parnassus Books (see #5, below). Five Reflections, in no particular order of significance. One.  We flew...

For the second straight Sunday, I interrupted a series to deliver a message more designed than written; more mapped than manuscripted. Here's the general flow of what I hoped to accomplished.  I did in fact lead to a pretty coherent bottom line: Why be color blind...

This is from a Mixed Doubles exhibition match I played with three other juniors from Dallas during the 1980 Avon Championships at SMU's Moody Coliseum. The Avon tour was the successor to the Virginia Slims and the predecessor of today's WTA tour. I know the other male...

What in the world is ear writing?  And why would I give this post that odd title? Well, ear writing is the process of writing with the understanding that what you write will be HEARD more than it will be READ.  Which is the opposite of how most of us were taught to...

A lot of you know this already, but I'll repeat it again:  I love the Steele Creek section of Charlotte.  We've lived in the same house since our arrival at Good Shepherd in 1999, and I like almost everything about this unique corner of our region. Yet I have been...

How do you have a "written" sermon rewind of a sermon that you never wrote? How can you recap a message that had a spontaneous delivery, far from the norm of an internalized message stemming for a carefully prepared manuscript? Well, two friends from social media...