We preachers spend a lot of time crafting the opening moments of our sermons. Or, if we don't, we should. Because it is in those moments that you either capture your listeners' attention or lose it. In the opening you either establish common ground with the...
Yesterday's message featured ... A stand-alone door on wheels that was an indispensable prop; A slight window into how United Methodist preachers behave around authority; A title from a Charlie Rich (or was it Charlie Pride?) country music song; One of my strongest...
One of the guys in my LifeGroup brought me this gift earlier this week. It's the perfect concept for a book and the perfect gift for this pastor.
Whew. The opening page of John Piper's Seeing And Savoring Jesus Christ. Heavy, mind-boggling, soul-stretching stuff, and I for one am grateful to have the chance to read it. Now Dr. Piper doesn't just love Wesleyan-Arminians, but we have so much to learn from his...
One day awhile back, I looked out the front door of our church and saw a man whom I did not know using his smart phone to take pictures of our facility. I was immediately alarmed. Is he casing us out so that he can break in and rob us later? Plotting an attack of...
How do you fit insights from the latest Great American Novel, the recovery community, Psalm 37, and some wordsmithing around "explanation & excuses" all into the opening message a series called Love Handles? Well the result is below. I knew from reading Nathan...
Love Handles Some of us have them. Some of us hold them. Some of us want to get rid of them. They’re love handles. But they’re actually more than a part of our mid-section. They’re the source of a question: do you have a handle on love? Romantic love? Family...
I've got to confess something this morning. No, it's not that. Lord knows, there's enough folks already caught up in that these days. No my confession is this: when people talk about leadership and bible and church in the same sentence, I usually respond with an eye...
A number of people at Good Shepherd for whom I have the greatest respect share a common characteristic: they have an exalted view of Christ. In academic terms, they have a high "Christology" -- doctrine of Christ. For example, one of my Good Shepherd friends will...
A few years ago, I repented of my attempts to be cool. At that time, I'd led Good Shepherd to have a "church crush" on a large congregation in the northern part of the US, and so for a season we tried to mimic much of what that church did. And that church was cool....