While trying to help someone navigate some particularly difficult terrain in life this week, the following truth occurred to me: Provision follows obedience. The provision of God generally follows obedience to God. Usually, we want it to happen the other way around....
I spent last week in Wilkes County, North Carolina, part of Good Shepherd's student mission team with the Carolina Cross Connection. CCC is a United Methodist-inspired mission organization that has this rather glorious mission statement: Carolina Cross Connection...
Yesterday Chris Thayer and I traded places. Meaning: he was the "live" preacher at 8:30, 10, and 11:30 on Moss Road while I was the "host" pastor at the Zoar Road Campus. It was a chance for me to meet a good number of people who had previously only known me in two...
When I am walking in the flesh — meaning, not rigorously & consistently connected to the Holy Spirit — I can fall into a trap. The trap that says all my thoughts needs to be verbalized. As if I’ll lose it if I don’t say it. Sarcastic thoughts. Condescending...
One Sunday a few weeks ago, one of my best preacher friends was in the worship crowd at Good Shepherd. He had recently retired but had not yet moved to the city that will be his home in retirement. So I badgered him into attending Good Shepherd before the move. Now...
I recently read David Hepworth's Never A Dull Moment, a book that confirmed what I'd long felt but never articulated: 1971 was the greatest year in the history of recorded music. Hepworth goes through that seminal year month by month, artist by artist,...
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...