It happened again.Just this week a woman who was reluctant to come to a Methodist church because she had heard how theologically liberal the denomination has become . . . told me she decided Good Shepherd was the church for her when we lifted...

This past Saturday I watched a bit of the game between South Carolina and new-SEC-member Missouri.Along with new conference membership, Missouri has a new helmet design.  And it is just plain awful.My first thought was "what in the world is THAT on the...

Last night our new Clubhouse ministry got off to a roaring start.Fifty-three fourth and fifth graders plus nine volunteers equaled eighteen pre-teens making professions of faith in Christ for the first time.Along the way, they shared dinner together, heard from Ryan...

I'm eager to give this, my first message in the Lowlife series.It's called Keeping It On The DownLOW, it comes from Philippians 2:1-11, and I think you'll learn something new in it.  I know I did in preparing it.What is unique about Lowlife is the fact that we...

Julie and I had a recent conversation about her time as a high school sophomore in Southbury, Connecticut.But I realized during our talk that I had no concept of where within Connecticut you could actually find Southbury.(Even worse, I realized I couldn't place the...

In preparation for the December 2, 2012 launch of our fourth worship gathering -- this one all in Spanish -- Sammy Gonzalez and I visited another Latino service in our area.We wanted to see what this particular Spanish-speaking congregation does well, where it...

In honor of one of my favorite people on earth, I give this Tuesday's list to Eric Clapton.Julie and I actually saw him in concert in Madison Square Garden back in 1986.  In other words, shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs and before the invention of...

Here's the video John Pavlovitz used to wind up his message yesterday.The story actually began a month before the video was shot, when our Student Ministry went to Eastern North Carolina on its U-Haullelujah mission trip.While ministering in the hamlet of Cameron, NC,...

You'll be so blessed.You'll be so blessed by the music.You'll be so blessed by the choir.You'll be so blessed by the atmosphere.And most of all, you'll be so blessed to find out what kind of people make up Good Shepherd.Friends In LOW Places.Sunday.8:30. ...

In the summer of 1983, just before my senior year in college, I taught tennis at a place called Camp Of The Woods in Speculator, New York.Two of us were hired for the tennis program that summer; my partner was a Hong Kong-born, pre-med student and varsity...