#TBT — Cotton Bowl TENNIS, 1983

When I was a kid, the week between Christmas and New Year’s typically meant the Cotton Bowl. The tennis tournament, not the football game. Huh? That’s right. Dallas was then and is now the host of a holiday-flavored, mostly-indoor tennis tournament. Back in the day,...

read more

“God With Us,” Week 5 — “A Bigger Bang”

A little known fact about Advent and Christmas: in Christian thinking, Jesus first appearance is designed to heighten our anticipation for his second. What does that mean? What will it look like? What about all the books, charts, and graphs that we can buy that tell...

read more

Christmas Eve, 2019 — The “Get A Grip” Sermon Rewind

My message from Tuesday night's Christmas Eve services ... Began with our congregation standing and reading Luke 2:1-7 out loud and together;Pivoted on Paul's affirmation in Philippians 3:12 that Christ Jesus had first grabbed on to him;Was about 2/3 the length of a...

read more

“God With Us,” Week 4 — “Stuck On You”

Lionel Richie may have sung it, but Paul wrote about it and I'm going to preach it. God's "with-ness" can't be separated from his "love-ness" which, as you'll see, is stuck on you. What does all this have to do with Christmas? Only everything. Check it out. Sunday....

read more

Who Shook Who?

In the aftermath of Sunday's sermon in which the bottom line was God shakes you up to send you out a Good Shepherd stalwart approached me. "Thank you for that sermon," she said. "I always thought that it was Satan who gave me cancer but after the message I think maybe...

read more

They Kinda Just Wana Hold My Hand

My Good Shepherd friend Susan Salzman brought her daughter Brooke Cantrell (right) and granddaughter Makaylah Cantrell (left), and they got a kick out of a certain photo collage that's part of our lobby gallery:

read more