Last week, I received an email from a friend at Good Shepherd.  My friend is in recovery from alcoholism, so that is a frequent subject of our conversations together, and he knows how much joy I get from his journey to sobriety.Here's part of his email:...

Last week I met a woman who told me she has a son named, of all things, Talbot.(I posted a condensed version of our conversation yesterday on Facebook here.)So that encounter prompts me to re-visit a blog from a couple of years ago having to do with my name. ...

Yesterday was both fun and serious, whimsical and reverent.First of all, the worship program was shaped like a comic book. Then choir led us in worship, we celebrated a bunch of babies, were treated to the second promo video (see Friday's post), and then came this...

Hidden Heroes is such a good series that it has not one but two sermon bumper videos!Here's the first, revealed last week.And here's the second, revealed right now.I wonder which one we will play on Sunday?The best way to find out?Sunday.8:30.  10. ...

As I round the bend of life into my 50s, and as I see some of the highest of the high profile preachers step away from active ministry, I've been thinking:Why should an individual enter vocational ministry in the first place?In processing that question, I've come up...

Here I am with newlyweds Hal Watson and Nancy Donosky Watson.They are from Dallas, TX and yet had a Charlotte, NC wedding.  On a Tuesday.  Huh?Here's the backstory.  Hal is the stepson of my oldest brother Harvey.  Thirty years ago, when Hal was...

There is something about music that connects you deeply with time and place, isn't there?You hear a certain song and IMMEDIATELY your mind takes you back to where you were and who you were with when you a) heard that song for the first time or b) heard it so often in...

It's hard to preach poorly after the band does a cover of Paramore's acoustic cover of the Foo Fighter's "My Hero."Not that I didn't almost pull it off, mind you.  But the morning set up was such that I got the ball deep in enemy territory.And what followed was a...

We don’t like to look for our heroes, do we?  We like them to come to us.It’s why our superheroesfly through the air.  It’s why our sports heroes leap from our television screens.  And why our artistic heroes sing from our radios, act in our movies, and...

The folks in this picture just completed four weeks together in the Next Step Membership Exploration Group.And, after spending those weeks talking about Christianity, United Methodist, and Good Shepherd itself, they joined the church last night surrounded by staff and...