What do William Shatner, Chester Karras, and the Old Testament figure of Jephthah have in common? Yesterday's sermon spills those beans. Drawing from chapters 10 and 11 of Judges, the "Deja Vu All Over Again" sermon landed at this bottom line:   God doesn't want...

Pastoral leaders are supposed to help people navigate change. It’s part of the territory. Sometimes I do it well. Other times I don’t. But someone said something a awhile back that has stuck with me: People don’t fear change. They fear what they’ll lose in change. How...

A new friend at Good Shepherd put their first time guest note on their refrigerator. And then snapped a photo of it to share with friends. All held up, of course, by a Good Shepherd refrigerator magnet.  

As with most preachers, I had a dilemma on Sunday: preach the planned sermon or, in light of Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas, do something much different and focus on this national moment. I ended up doing some of both.  After our Crash Test Dummies bumper played, I...

I received this email on Friday morning, July 8 and considered sharing it with the congregation yesterday. Ultimately, I opted not to. Perhaps the written form is better.   (My regular sermon rewind post will appear on Tuesday.)   On this day when my heart...

Here was the GS Feed from this past Sunday . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha1sE_kxCLY&feature=youtu.be   So, am I funding my own insurrection? Or is something more beautifully benign at work? I report, you decide.

I bet this happens in your life because I know it happens in mine. Somewhere in your house—or your workplace, or your car—stuff collects. For me, it’s the garage. Things just seem to collect in my garage. And in my case the “stuff” is usually little slips of paper:...

I felt so good about Sunday's sermon that I considered giving it on a Sunday other than the 4th of July weekend. But then I realized that God knows what he is doing, and that he would ensure those who needed the message the most would experience with clarity. So I...

A lot of you have seen these in America's hotel rooms: But who is Gideon and why does he have a bible distributing organization named after him? I'm not sure about that second question, but I'm quite interested in the first. Because like most of the characters in the...