A student died last night. That is all I know right now. I don’t know who he or she was, I don’t know if he or she was a freshman or a junior. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know if he or she was a Christian. I don’t know if we will…

I sat down in my seat, 21 A, the window seat. I’m not real thrilled about the window seat, I’d rather have the aisle, but hey – at least I’m not in the middle seat. The guy who IS in the middle seat comes. I say hello, ask the usual first barrage of questions –…

We will be starting a new sermon series this Sunday. The series will be called “Trust” and comes along with the tagline, “finding the “us” in trusting God”.  Trust is the gateway to community, it is what enables us to live as the Body of Christ together. To be a healthy church, we have to…

It is the beginning of another school year in Tallahassee. It’s a time of promise and expectation. Walking through the first “Market Wednesday” on campus, bumping into organization after organization trying to get members – I felt that promise and expectation. There are 6,000 new students on campus. They feel it. They have been accepted…

This is based on a short talk that our own Professor Henry Fuelberg gave us last week after worship.  Pastor has been saying,  The students are coming!  The students are coming! He is like our very own Paul Revere—but without a horse, and not telling us at midnight. What’s the big deal? And why is Fuelberg talking…

Put away those books on Millennials (or Gen Y, or Mosaics, or whatever generational term you have been taught to call people that were born from the late 80’s to the early 2000’s). It is time to pick up a book on Gen Z (or Homelanders, or Pluralists, iGeneration, or whatever generational term you have…

The predominant narrative in the Winters family is Christ’s narrative, however, our secondary narrative seems to be shifting. We had been a “Sofia the First” household, but we are steadily becoming a “Care Bears/Care Bear Cousins” household.  I appreciated Sofia, but I actually like the Care Bears. I’m talking about the new Care Bears that…

My Aunt Elsie was our family’s amateur genealogist. Every time we visited Aunt Elsie (who was actually Great Aunt Elsie), she would impress upon me new stories and things that she had learned about our Winters side of the family. She would display pictures and tell stories of the heroes and outlaws of our family…

Many of you know or have heard that I have cut my hair. It’s to the point now that if you haven’t seen my haircut I know that we haven’t been interacting that much. It’s a new look for me. This week I got another “new look” in that I updated my glasses. The update…

Every year I take a series of days away from the office (for the most part) in order to participate in what I have called “reflection days”. I started this in 2009, at the celebration of my 2nd year of ministry, and I have done it around the anniversary of my ordination and installation at…