I realized something with a jolt the other day: I have been a pastor for over half of my life. I graduated from seminary and started work at Mt. Carmel & Midway United Methodist Churches in Monroe, NC, in 1990 at the age of 28. I am now 56, so you do the math....
I wish that my foresight was as accurate as my hindsight. I bet you're the same way. We have seasons in life that, as we head in to them, feel like seasons of punishment. They involve duty, training, re-education, and orders from on high. Then once that particular...
It's not just the verses that are inspired. It's the whole process -- compilation, composition, design -- that bear the marks of divine authority behind the Scriptural gift. Nowhere is that more true than with Mark's treatment of all the failures of Jesus'...
Our journey to Easter will go through the Gospel of Mark and just how it is he presents the betrayal, suffering, abandonment, and triumph of King Jesus. Here's the sermon bumper video will says it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux7GSZWAxko&feature=youtu.be...
Our One Sixty Seven series has been one in which the sermons were merely appetizers for the small group conversations to follow. And such was the case last night, when I gathered with a Young Adult LifeGroup I am privileged to lead in order to discuss the sermon-based...
Several years ago I came across a startling statistic: Vocabulary of a three year old in a professional home: 1,116 words Vocabulary of an adult in an under-resourced home: 974 words As mind-bending as that statistic is, its implications are even more troubling. When...
It was Snow White who taught us to whistle while you work, wasn't it? Yet I'm not much of one for whistling. On the other hand, some music while I'm working -- in particular while I am either writing a sermon or writing notes to first time guests -- often provides...
Yesterday's message, which concluded the One Sixty Seven series, also .... got its title from a Bon Jovi song; began with a shout out to Star Wars as the names of celebrities caught up in the Reckoning that followed the #MeToo movement scrolled on the screens,...
It was 1986 and Bon Jovi told us this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrZHPOeOxQQ And that video has had 184 million views! Anyway, our 21st Century American culture has taken giving love a bad name to a entirely new level, hasn't it? A toxic combination of power,...
A collection of thoughts and observations ranging from from the personal to the political and from the light-hearted to the heavy-handed ... The most exciting thing in my life over the past week has been working with a new contact lens specialist to locate a new brand...