Today, I took my first ever protected left turn from South Tryon Street onto Moss Road, leading directly to the Good Shepherd campus.Ahhhhhhh.See, for the last several years, that particular left turn has been unprotected. And because of the incline of South Tryon...
Yesterday at the 8:30 service, we received a new member into the church.She did not have to go through First Step, our membership exploration class. She didn't even have to come up on the stage to join in front of the congregation.She is in her late 80s, lives in an...
I love that title, I have to admit.Inspired by an unlikely source, it speaks to the motivation of the Macedonian Christians in 2 Corinthians 8.I cannot wait for this message.Ever since I came to understand the nature of Christian hedonism and how it relates to The...
We have two cats, Thunder and Lily. The look sort of like these two at the left. One is a tabby cat and the other a tortoiseshell. They live in our garage.I heard on the radio yesterday that in a majority of households, dads are the most reluctant to bring pets into...
Many churches make a critical mistake in ministry when they confuse activity for effectiveness.In this line of thinking, the busier a church is, the more it is doing for God. So the goal becomes to fill up the calendar and clutter up the bulletin with as many events,...
Last Saturday night, my son asked me, "Dad, why do you have paint all over yourself?"Because I'd spent Saturday morning painting one of the homes at the Hoskins Park Ministry in northwest Charlotte.You should check Hoskins Park out. They do deep work with a smallish...
We showed this towards the end of my sermon yesterday. It gives a glimpse of the kind of life-giving ministry happening in our Corner Campus:Take a special look at the student in the UCLA T-Shirt -- that's my son Riley.What I appreciate most about our efforts to open...
Every time we finish a series, I have a sense of grief. Usually, I'm not sure we can live up to what we just did with the next one.That's how I felt after Still. And after Piece Of Work. And after Rubber, Meet Road. And after The Fight Of Your Life.But each time, it...
While I loved my three years in seminary, I realize now there are some pretty important things I didn't learn there. Or . . . I wasn't paying attention when these things were taught.In no particular order, here they are:The Framework Theory Of Genesis One. Reading the...
A couple of weeks ago, I posted on the Class Matters training seminar we hosted at Good Shepherd.Of all the statistics and anecdotes regarding the differences between those raised in chronic poverty and those raised in middle class comfort, this one has haunted me the...