I truly enjoy teaching First Step, our membership exploration class at Good Shepherd.

It allows me to get to know a group of 20-25 people who are new to the church in an informal, conversational setting.

It gives me a forum to lay out what I believe are the essentials of being a Christian, a United Methodist, and a part of the Good Shepherd community.

It provides people in the church an opportunity to ask questions that they otherwise hold in check.

It's at the heart of Walking Together. We gather as a group on a Friday night and Saturday morning and take our first step into what this church is all about. Together.

Our next First Step is this weekend: Friday, June 18 from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m. and Saturday, June 19 from 8:30 a.m. - 12 noon. Childcare provided. You can sign up here.

I like the rhythm we have going the last couple of weeks.

Text in the morning. ConTXT at night.

Last night, we moved the ConTXT event into the Worship Center.

The event itself featured a panel discussion moderated by Chris Thayer our Discipleship Intern.


Rich Tuttle, our Pastor of Congregational Care, Ron Dozier, our Pastor of Missions & Community Impact, James-Michael Smith, formerly of the GS Staff and now an itinerate teacher & lecturer, and I made up the panel.

Chris led us through conversations regarding the Prosperity Gospel and Faith Healing and how reading Scripture in context is essential in wrestling with those two particular theologies.

Then there was a time for Q & A.

Whenever we got into a difficult situation, the default response was to turn to James-Michael and ask, "what do you think?"

ConTXT takes Father's Day off and then reconvenes on June 27.

Wednesday's post will feature some of the closing reflections from the Sunday morning message, which was a satellite view survey of the design of the Bible.

And then the follow up ConTXT Seminar Panel discussion at 5:30 p.m. You can preregister here.