We are now getting close to Thanksgiving and the Advent Season, truly the most wonderful time of the year! For over 40 years now, Woodmont has been putting on Walk Thru Bethlehem for the Nashville community, and many who travel in from out of town. What first started as a live nativity scene up at South Hall in 1983 put on by our youth (to honor Anne Keith) has grown and evolved into a major community event where thousands walk through the doors of our church to experience what it was like......

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We are coming off a very exhausting, heated, and divisive election season that we will long remember: Emotions have run high. For Christians, the results of any election simply do not change our primary mission. We are called to follow Jesus Christ and spread his love to a hurting world. I heard David Brooks recently speak in Nashville where he said, “Our nation is full of lonely and hurting people. Lonely and hurting people tend to turn to politics to solve many of their problems. That doesn’t work.” What we don’t seem......

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It’s been said before that life is twenty percent the hand you are dealt and eighty percent how you play that hand. What we all recognize is that wise living requires making good decisions and responding to unforeseen circumstances as you go. Most of the world’s religions offer guidance on what it means to live a meaningful and purposeful life. This might not be the same for everybody but is it possible to boil that wisdom down into certain core principles? Here is my humble attempt to do that. 1.  Live by......

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This Sunday, October 27, we will begin a brand new sermon series focused on “The Life of Moses.” Moses is a pivotal figure in the Old Testament, called by God to lead the Israelite people out of slavery in Egypt, through the wilderness, and to the Promised Land. He was given up by his mother at three months old because Pharoah was putting all newborn baby boys to death. Ironically, he was discovered by Pharoah’s daughter floating in the Nile River and raised in Pharoah’s house with his own mother being brought......

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This Wednesday night, October 9, we will conclude our “Faith, Values, and the Public Square” series with a panel of ministers talking about “Being Christian in an Election Year.” This is a difficult yet very important topic. The civil and political landscape in America remains fractured and polarized, affecting every aspect of our culture including the unity of the church. Christians have a responsibility to model and be advocates for civil dialogue among people of different backgrounds and political ideologies. The anger and incivility of our culture has become a challenge that......

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I recently preached a sermon on the importance of humility because I believe it is a Christian virtue. If you read the gospels carefully, it appears that Jesus lived a humble life. But why is humility often lacking among so many Christians in today’s world? Yes, we all want to be admired. We all want to be appreciated. We all want to be heard and respected. But pride and ego can so easily get in the way. Everything in our culture seems to be moving towards self-absorption and self-promotion. We hear, “Put......

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Rabbi Harold Kushner once wrote a powerful book titled Overcoming Life’s Disappointments. The book is based on the story of Moses, a pivotal figure in the Hebrew Bible. We can learn a great deal from Moses’ life and the many disappointments he had to face when leading the Israelites through the wilderness. He persevered and pressed forward despite ongoing setbacks, inconveniences, and frustrations. Kushner asks, “What if we could be like Moses in our ability to overcome disappointments, frustrations, and the denial of our dreams? What if we could learn from Moses......

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Teacher, writer, and pastor John Mark Comer recently published a fascinating book titled Practicing the Way. His basic claim is that many people in our culture are Christians, but a much lower percentage of those Christians are actually serious about being disciples, or apprentices, of Jesus. He says, “Apprenticeship to Jesus – following Jesus – is a whole life process of being with Jesus for the purpose of becoming like him and carrying on his work in the world. It’s a lifelong journey in which we gradually learn to say and do......

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