#TBT — Menendez Brothers, 1985

While cleaning out some of our file cabinets recently, I came across a file containing many of my old Trentonian columns, including this one on a pair of brothers you may have heard of: Erik and Lyle Menendez. Say WHAT?! At the time, the Menendezes lived in Hopewell,...

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Simplify The Message, Multiply The Impact Workshop Starts

Yesterday, sixteen United Methodist clergy from the Western North Carolina Conference began an eight month journey with me into Simplifying The Message And Mulitplying The Impact. This is the second year that I have been able to lead this project and as a lot of you...

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Top Five Tuesday — Top Five Places My Dad Took Me

This past Saturday, Julie and I traveled over to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to join our son Riley and his wife Natalie for the UNC-Miami overtime thriller. Being there as father & son got me remembering some of unique places my dad took me when I was growing up....

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“Thank God For Science,” Week 2 — “Do The Math”

I think every pastor longs for those Sundays when you set the table, sit back, and watch God work. It seems like that's what happened LAST Sunday as we opened up "Thank God For Science" by looking at "The Wrong Question." Many of you were alternately tearful and...

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The Background Music Of Life

Over the last couple of months, my Men's LifeGroup and I have been reading through the letters of Paul. We all read the same chapter each day -- at least, we're supposed to! -- and then I send an email with some thoughts and guidance on context, history, and genre. If...

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How You Know A Church “Gets” You

A Good Shepherd friend recently took a trip out west and brought this back as a memento for me. It's nice to serve a church filled with people who "get" how you think, talk, and live.

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Top Five Tuesday — A Random List Of GOATS

Sunday's message began and ended with the subject of GOATS -- Greatest Of All Time. I explained that just because Genesis 1 is the GOAT of creation hymns, that doesn't mean it is the GOAT of scientific explanations of the universe's origins. That's not its intent....

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