15
May 2023
It has now been seven weeks since the tragic shooting at Covenant School that rocked our community. The grieving and healing process continues in Nashville and in our families. Ribbons remain on the mailboxes as summer draws near. Next Monday night, May 22, we are hosting a special event in our sanctuary called “After Covenant” to continue the conversation about gun safety in our communities. I will be joined by two friends, former Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist and Vanderbilt trauma surgeon Dr. Alex Jahangir. All three of us care deeply about......
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12
May 2023
M. Scott Peck begins his famous book The Road Less Travelled with the following words: “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. Once we truly see this truth, we can transcend it.” So if life is difficult, then we can safely say that leadership is very difficult. Leadership is not for the faint of heart. It takes passion, conviction, nerve, thick skin, and resilience. Tony Jarvis says this about leadership in his classic book With Love and Prayers: “Leaders are caught in a catch-22. If a......
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05
May 2023
I want to THANK everybody who has made a commitment to support Woodmont’s mission and ministries for another year. We have had a very strong response and are now moving into the follow-up phase of the campaign. You can click here to make your commitment quickly and conveniently online. Thank you for your generosity. Every commitment makes a difference. This Sunday, May 7, we will begin a new sermon series on healing. An undeniable reality of being human is that pain and suffering are inevitable. We all hurt. We all suffer. We......
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23
Apr 2023
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10
Apr 2023
Easter Sunday was a wonderful day at Woodmont as we gathered to celebrate the hope and power of the resurrection. After the last few weeks in our community, we all need Easter to stay alive in our hearts. We all need the healing and renewal that it can bring. This Sunday, we will be baptizing our Disciples class at both the 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. services. This is the largest class we have ever had at Woodmont (50 young people). Please keep them in your prayers this week. The Bridge will......
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27
Mar 2023
In his book The Road to Character, David Brooks raises the following questions in the final chapter: • Toward what should I orient my life? • Who am I and what is my nature? • How do I mold my nature to make it gradually better day by day? • What virtues are the most important to cultivate and what weaknesses should I fear the most? • How can I raise my children with a true sense of who they are and a practical set of ideas about how to travel the......
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13
Mar 2023
Selfishness and self-centeredness abound in our culture, even among Christians. It is why Jesus said, “To become my follower, you must deny self, take up your cross, and follow me.” I often hear people make the case that much of today’s Christianity is not indicative of what Jesus taught and embodied. My good friend and retired minister Rubel Shelly once published an excellent book titled I Knew Jesus Before He Was a Christian… and I Liked Him Better Then. His basic claim is that the Jesus of history and the Jesus of......
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09
Mar 2023
Jon Gordon is an expert on the power of positive leadership. He learned the hard way that negativity doesn’t work, and he wrote an excellent book called “The Power of Positive Leadership.” I have enjoyed reading his books, blogs, and hearing some of his talks over the years. He offers incredible insight and hope to leaders in all different sectors. We all know that we live in a very cynical and negative world. All of us must make the decision to stay positive when we face adversity. Mindset and attitude always matter. ......
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28
Feb 2023
Lots of attention has been paid recently to the impromptu revival going on at Asbury University in Kentucky. What began as an ordinary chapel service on February 8 has continued for weeks and has drawn people to the small Kentucky town from all over the nation and world. Why Asbury? Why now? Who knows, but according to many who have traveled there to experience it, God’s spirit is alive and well. We have seen images on the news of people singing, praying, repenting, recommitting their lives to Christ, and drawing together in......
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21
Feb 2023
We begin the season of Lent tomorrow evening with a special Ash Wednesday service in the sanctuary at 6:30 PM starting our forty-day journey toward Easter. Sunday, we start a new sermon series focusing on Mark’s gospel called “WHY JESUS?” In the coming weeks, I challenge you to read Mark’s gospel on your own, in its entirety. It’s the shortest of all four gospels and was the earliest to be written, dating somewhere between 65 to 70 A.D., roughly 35 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The other two......
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