This is the time of year for new leadership transitions. In the Catholic world, May to July is usually the season for ordinations and new church assignments. Some are becoming pastors for the first time- others are just moving on. You might be taking over the reins from a great leader, or someone who didn’t […]
Year: 2016
I’m posting this week from California at Saddleback Church’s Global PEACE Conference. I’m here with Brian Crook, our Director of Missions at Nativity. It’s been an inspiring and thought-provoking experience. Pastor Rick Warren had the vision of bringing together pastors from countries around the world to share ideas and learn from one another how to […]
This past week, our “Message Team” met for an all day off-site to finalize our plans for our message series for the upcoming year. The message team consists of 7 people on staff who meet each week to help develop and evaluate my weekend messages. A few times a year we take extra time to […]
Over the years we have been able to predict with some accuracy who is likely to show up in our lobby on any given Sunday. We always talk about Timonium Tim, the name we’ve given to the quintessentially unchurched guy and his family in our community. We plan every aspect of our weekend experience around […]
This is the third and final installment of blogs dedicated to our groundbreaking events. Last week, I wrote about our formal dedication liturgy with the Most Rev. William Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore. It was a day of great rejoicing and perfect weather. We’re hoping for a repeat on weather. This weekend is our groundbreaking celebration. […]
One of the casualties of our new construction will be our old chapel. It sits on what will eventually be our new lobby. The chapel is in no way architecturally distinguished—its only artistic distinction being the stained glass windows—which will be preserved and reused elsewhere. Mostly the chapel was used for quiet prayer and daily […]
The good news of Jesus’ resurrection was groundbreaking. The Apostles and first generation disciples carried this news out into the world and made the Church a groundbreaking movement. They led with acts of mercy, healing, and preached a message of redemption from sin and life-change. Most of all, they made disciples. That’s what this weekend […]
Our latest message series at Nativity for the Easter season, called “Groundbreaking,” has got me thinking a lot about what the Early Church did and looked like. This message, by the way, is all about how Jesus’ resurrection changed the face of history, and how deeply that resonated with the Apostles and the first Christ […]
Since Pope Francis has declared 2016 a Jubilee Year of Mercy, I’ll try at least a couple times to write about this theme over the year. Mercy is operative in every healthy and growing church, and this is a good week to bring it up since Pope John Paul II established the tradition of celebrating […]
For all of my blog followers and friends out there, I hope you had a joyous and meaningful Easter celebration with your family and church family. If you were here at Nativity, we were thrilled to welcome you, along with upwards of 7,000 others between the Triduum and Easter Sunday (as well as thousands more […]
