I recently had a sit down talk with two top tiered leaders (Sandals’ Senior Pastor Matt Brown and Executive Pastor Dan Zimbardi), who spoke boldly and directly about three areas of needed growth in my life. I know some of you are assuredly reacting right now, “No way! We all know you, Gary, and you […]
Continue readingMore TagCategory: Misc
The “Useless” Feeling – Part 2
In a first season Lost episode, one-hit-wonder rock star Charlie, while in the initial stage of kicking a heroin habit, mentions feeling useless. When you can hardly make it an hour, or a day without a fix, or if you are constantly reminded of the shameful things you have done, or if you have emotional […]
Continue readingMore TagThe “Useless” Feeling – Part 1
Why do Christians feel useless? Two very interesting ideas pop immediately into my head. First, many believers have never experienced mission success. One day while training a small group on evangelistic engagement, I asked the members what would help them grow in faith-sharing confidence. One guy replied, “Actually reaching someone.” His honesty was poignant and […]
Continue readingMore TagBlessed are the Blocked
I went through a long stretch of being underemployed, but this year I received an offer to join Sandals Church staff full-time. Before starting the new position, Pastor Matt Brown invited me to meet with other leaders to discuss the church discipleship path. I knew it was an important meeting and set out plenty early […]
Continue readingMore TagThe Parable of the Point
The Bible teacher charges his people to take the gospel to the world. Metaphorically speaking, each person gathered gets handed a spear. The spear is the only weapon they have at their personal disposal to use for the gospel. Yet something’s wrong. The spear has no point. The shaft is plenty balanced and strong, yet […]
Continue readingMore TagTime Magazine’s Take on the Church . . . Right or Wrong?
This March, Time Magazine ran a one page titled: Preach Like Your Faith Depends on IT. Written by Religion editor, Tom Meacham (I googled his name and discovered that Tom is from the Episcopal Church with many academic writing credits to his name). You don’t always see a page like this in a major magazine; […]
Continue readingMore TagSoul Whisperer Released!
In late February, Wipf and Stock Publishers officially released the book. With this being my first, we have learned that both the publishing and marketing processes take time. Several weeks after the release, the Kindle edition was posted on Amazon, and then weeks after that—the paperback was made available with chapter previews. We also learned […]
Continue readingMore TagThe Gospel Key Live!
Mission can be excitedly unpredictable! During a recent new believers course, God showed up in an unexpected way. Brittany, one of our new believers, knowing we would be discussing outreach, took the initiative to bring her not-yet-believing friend, Jocelyn. In this session, we introduced “the gospel key” (a method I teach on how to speak […]
Continue readingMore TagOscars Observations
Being a self-declared movie buff, I have a penchant for the Oscars. As a pastor who is trying to be culturally in-tune, I have viewed this event as a window to the popular culture. From year to year, you never know what you might pick up. So, here is my take on this year’s red […]
Continue readingMore TagPeer Learning
One of the ways to increase faith-sharing effectiveness is to allow Christians to learn from each other. Peer or “experienced based” learning gives others a chance to hear about “live” interactions. It takes us away from irrelevant didactic teaching and moves us into the more intuitive skills of relating. Forming a missions group in your […]
Continue readingMore Tag