[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Last Saturday, my friends at Seedbed published an article I wrote on how it is that Good Shepherd has become a full-color church under the pastoral leadership of a, well, not full-color guy. Here it is: I am a 53-year-old white male...
Presence Versus Process
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A colleague of mine at Good Shepherd recently summarized a ministry dilemma in two words: presence vs. process. My friend correctly observed that I place an extraordinarily high value on the ministry of presence -- that I personally...
Top Five Tuesday — Top Five Songs I Forgot I Liked
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]You've probably had this experience: you're driving down the road and a song comes on either the radio or you iPod and you realize, "Oh, I haven't heard that song in forever and I forgot how much I like it." It's a song you...
New Week, New Look
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you come to this space regularly, you'll notice that www.talbotdavis.blogspot.com has become www.talbotdavis.com and the design of the page has been considerably modernized. Why? Well, I'd had the previous design uninterrupted...
#TBT — Tennis In Fiji, 1976
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Date: May, 1976 Place: Fiji Islands Player: Me Age: 14 Racket: Spalding La Vitesse Court Surface: Grass Footwork: Absent How in the world did I get to Fiji and on a grass tennis court? Well, in January of 1976, when I was in...
How A Reluctant Mentor Learns To Be An Adequate Leader
If you've read this space before, you know that I have made confessions like:I'm better at leading the congregation than I am at leading the staff; orI'm a disciplined person but not a very disciplined leader; orI'm better at dealing with one or with 2,000 than I am...
Top Five Tuesday — Top Five Possible Top Five Subjects I Could Write On Today
So on a day in which I feel some blog-indecision, here are five possible subjects I could then do a Top Five post on.Here goes:1. Top Five Upcoming Events For Beyond. Tempting . . . but I don't want this space to read too much like a church e-newsletter. That's why...
The Beyond Now Sermon
Below is yesterday's sermon involving hand motions, focusing on the generations, and confessing to my own therapeutic need to deal with balls bouncing in church: I’m going to do a few hand motions and I want you to do them with me, OK? This is not like Sweatin’...
Beyond, Week 2 — Beyond Now
Just think of all the phrases in our lives that focus on the now. "Right this minute." "I need this ASAP!" "Right now!" "This instant." "Stay in the moment." On and on it goes. But what if all the focus on now, today, this moment prevented us from seeing...
How A Blessing Goes Triplicate And Becomes A Trilogy
Some of you might remember the post in November telling the improbable story of how I had signed a contract with Abingdon Press to publish the Head Scratchers sermon series as a book and study guide.You can read that post here.One of the ironies I describe in that...