It's pretty easy to get caught up in the hoopla around a successful Easter weekend:  more people than ever before, jaw-dropping music, and a positive response to the message that was delivered once on Saturday and then four times on Sunday.You can see the service...

So we wind up our Journey Of Stones with an Easter experience called Rolling Stone.No, the band won't sing Satisfaction.It won't even do the Stones' most theologically sophisticated song, Sympathy For Devil (it doesn't mean what the title suggests). Instead, will dig...

This coming weekend, as you might expect, I long for God to do something through me.  Through us, actually.I hope and pray that he takes our welcome teams, our music teams, our audio-visual volunteers, and ultimately the words of my sermon and through all of...

Last Sunday, a proud father handed me these notes that his eight-year old daughter had taken during the sermon that morning:She caught all the highlights of the message.  And not a few of the asides, the "oh by the ways," the throwaway lines that apparently...

A few years ago,  United Methodist Communications adopted this slogan for our denomination:Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors . . . The People Of The United Methodist Church.As part of the marketing rollout, the church produced a series of television...

Ryan Gordon is our Director of Children's Ministries, and files this report from his Kids Core Discipleship class offered this past Saturday morning:"I am a new Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ…so now what?”  “How do I have a living relationship with...

Some of us have had pet rocks.But not of us have had talking stones.We'll see what Jesus was talking about in Luke 19:40. And we'll also see that -- as is true of so much else in the bible -- context is everything.  You can't understand this verse unless you know...

I know a preacher is in trouble whenever he or she says, "Webster's defines ___________ as __________________."  Why is a dictionary reference a sure-fire sermon killer?Because in preaching you should never define a word with more words.You define a word...

I have lived through seasons of life where Jesus was an occupation.I read the bible only to search for sermon material.  I prayed because that's what preachers are supposed to do.  I served so that others in the church could see me serving. ...

Every so often, I come across a pair of rock songs that are really just twins separated at birth.  To my untrained ear, characteristics in melody, chord changes, and vocalizations make certain pairs of songs sound eerily similar.  Sometimes it...