In a recent year, 4500 Protestant churches closed, while only 3,000 opened, making it the first year that the number of churches being added to the country had declined. Some saw this coming. I remember a Chapel sermon in the 1980s, delivered by a Senior Professor entitled, “Dead Churches and Delayed Funerals.” In addition, at…
Steve and I sat in the Bar B-Que Restaurant for three hours. Everyone else had come and gone, but we were enjoying one of God’s greatest gifts – the gift of memory. We were reminiscing. Five decades previous, I had gone to The University of Texas as the Director of Baptist Student Ministry. I had…
In Japan it is a 16th century tradition called “Forgetting the Year” party, in which people gather on New Years Eve and burn their old calendars in a way of moving on to the new year. An old Irish tradition is to open the front door of your house at midnight, in order to let…
Birthdays are special days, at least for most people. My early birthday parties seemed to be occasions for other people to celebrate. I remember a birthday party at Playland Park in Houston, the predecessor of AstroWorld. My friends had a great time. I failed to understood why the first stop was the Hot Dog stand…
For many years my favorite joy of Christmas was watching our daughter and son open their gifts, but they grew up. A few years went by and I entered a phase two of Christmas joy – watching our granddaughter and grandson open their gifts, but they too grew up. After a few years, I entered…
One of the first articles that I had published (by the Baptist Standard) began with the words, “I walked the dusty streets of Lull again today.” I was the Baptist Student Minister and Bible Instructor at Pan American University (now University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and as such served with the staff of the…
I’m writing this Manna on December 7, to be posted the following Monday. The fact that my best High School friend was born on this day is significant to me. The fact that this is Pearl Harbor Day, always made it easy to remember that this was also his birthday. He was only twenty-three days…
I watched a lot of football over the Thanksgiving holidays. Sadly, I saw three (or was it four) visiting teams demonstrate their victory by taunting the losing opponent, resulting in large fights between players and coaches. When you win a game on the opponent’s home field, there is a right way to win and there…
On this American Thanksgiving Week, here are a few of my favorite Thanksgiving quotes, Feel free to add yours to my list. “What if today we were just grateful for everything?” Charlie Brown “I think there is a better thing than thanksgiving: thanks-living. How is this to be done? By a general cheerfulness of manner,…
Last week I attended a church convention where many of my former seminary students were also in attendance as well as numerous other friends. Having spent a career ministering and teaching at both the college and Seminary level as well as serving twenty-nine churches as Interim Pastor, not to mention friends made while traveling the world,…