Rev. Dr. C. Dennis Shaw is a retired Elder in the Mountain Sky Conference of the United Methodist Church. He served Hilltop United Methodist Church in Sandy, Utah from July 2012 to June 2019 and Stratmoor Hills United Methodist Church in Colorado Springs, CO from November 2003 to June 2012. Dennis was in ministry within the Rocky Mountain Conference of the UMC before that in other appointments. Pastor Dennis' believes that God loves us and wants a deep relationship with us. He believes that God has showered us with Grace and forgiveness and that through the Scripture we find healing and hope. Education is a core family value. He has an eclectic education focused on excellence with two degrees from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC: a Doctor of Ministry, awarded in May, 2012, and a Master of Divinity in May 1999 (Summa Cum Laude). He also holds a Master in Business Administration (1979) from Rochester (N.Y). Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Music (1971) from Georgia State University in his hometown of Atlanta. In 1994 Dennis retired as a Regular Army Lieutenant Colonel. Military responsibilities included light infantry, human resource management, and cost analysis. His assignments took him to Alaska, Colorado, New York, Virginia, Kansas, Korea and Germany with brief excursions to other European countries and Japan. Pastor Dennis and Marilyn White have been married for over 35 years and are parents to a blended family with four adult children living in Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia and Texas. Praise God!
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. – 1 John 4:18 ESV Fear is a natural element of the human condition. It is easy to utter the words “fear not,” but it is much more … More Casting Out Fear
Isaiah 28:11 — For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people. Methodism grew out of two “Great Awakenings:” The first in England in the 1730s and the second in the United States in the early 1800s. Both awakenings were marked by enthusiastic response to the … More Strange and Foreign
Many, if not most, of us are familiar with the Syro-Phoenician woman. Her story appears twice in the Gospels, Mark and Matthew, and because they are a little different, I want to focus on Mark … Mark 7: 24-30 (NIV) 24 Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.[a] He entered a house … More Listening Like Jesus …
There is a story from Medieval times … Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they noticed a scorpion that was drowning. One monk immediately scooped it up and set it upon the bank. In the process he was stung. He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell … More Understanding our Nature
Assumptions matter. They matter a great deal. There was a story I heard years ago about a physicist, a chemist, and an economist who were stranded on a desert island with no tools and a can of food. The physicist and the chemist each devised an ingenious mechanism for getting the can open; the … More What are our Assumptions?
The Mindful Leader 