The picture on the right comes from June 9, 1984.So today marks the 25th wedding anniversary for me and for Julie.Some reflections from that day 25 years ago:1. It was hot. 100 degrees hot. In Princeton, New Jersey. And the Princeton University Chapel, where we had...
Ministry requires flexibility.Yesterday, something was slightly off in the flow of our service at 8:30. We were trying to teach the church a great new song, celebrate communion, and still leave enough time for a serious teaching on Homosexuality: The Elephant In The...
It's there, but no one acknowledges it.It's there, everyone knows it's there, but no one talks about it.It's there, and some people believe if they ignore it long enough, it will simply go away.It's the elephant in the room.It's the subject of homosexuality and the...
Every so often, someone will ask me, "How many members do you all have over there at Good Shepherd?"The truth is, I don't know.That's because membership is an inaccurate measure of church health. The typical church in United Methodism, for example, has about three...
In spite of his shocking loss at the French Open on Sunday, Rafael Nadal has taught me something about ministry.I'm not even a great fan, but I've learned something nonetheless.It's this. Early in a match -- especially on clay -- Nadal will extend a point he could win...
For each of our Sunday series, we put out a roadside banner with the series title, dates, and visuals.They have proven effective at drawing people into the church.For unChristian, our banner looks something like the graphic to the left.And on Sunday night, someone...
I was so proud of Angela Hynds, Chris Macedo, and John Pavlovitz as they led into yesterday's sermon with a haunting version of DC Talk's "What If I Stumble?" Enjoy:It was an ideal segue into the first message of unChristian -- a talk which confessed that we 21st...
I get excited about every series we do.Some more than others, I must admit.unChristian is one of those.It's based on the provocative book of the same name. We'll spend the next several weeks taking a close look at the image problem that Christianity and Christians...
Not too long ago, Rolling Stone magazine had a cover story on the "100 Greatest Singers Of All Time." I won't get near to one hundred, but I thought I'd share some of my favorite voices of all time. And all these below are in addition to four of my favorite, those...
From the left, that's Heidi Starnes, the Chair of our Church Council, Don Ligon, the Vice Chair of the Council, Carol Hardison, the Executive Director of Crisis Assistance Ministries, Ron Dozier, our Pastor of Missions & Community Impact, and me.So why are we all...