It was a gift book, presented to me by the pastors that I had been teaching in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. “100 Reasons to Love the Cardinals” was a book about my favorite baseball team, the St Louis Cardinals. I read it on the flight back home. When we landed, I put the…
It happened to me again last week. Have you ever arrived at your destination after your drive, and noticed that you didn’t remember a single thing you saw during your trip? I challenge you, as well as myself, let today be a day of awareness. Consciously pay attention to what is going on around you…
I’m sure of it. My High School Spanish teacher would be so proud of me – if she were still alive. During my time in her class I gave her absolutely no reason for pride. The truth was I just couldn’t memorize a foreign language. I had the same problem a few years later with Greek, then…
If today’s youth think life is a challenge, all I can say is you should have been a Southern Baptist youth in the 1950s, and if that was not challenging enough, go ahead and have a Pastor for a father and a mother who felt called to be a missionary and you became her personal…
On the day of the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II, one of her quotes was shared by the media: “Grief is the price we pay for love.” There is a lot of truth in that statement. For believers, however, grief is not because we’ve lost someone. We know exactly where they are. Grief is because we will, for a…
Social media is abuzz with the question of how long a sermon should be. Some say 45 minutes to an hour, reasoning that one can sit that long or longer at a concert, in a theater, or at a sports event, so why not for a sermon. Others argue that we are a TV generation, thus we…
I was sharing about my recent experiences teaching young pastors in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where my lectures are live streamed to several hundred in Mexico and Central America, when a friend commented, “ You’re just now reaching your prime.” At age 80, I’m not so sure about that but, if true, I am…
It does little good to walk in someone else’s calling. When I was twelve years old, I thought God was calling me to be a missionary to Canada. It was not to be. It wasn’t my calling. I couldn’t be a Hospital Chaplain, even though Chaplain Joe Luck was one of my teen-age heroes as…
Last week had been marked on my calendar for a long time – “Vacation!” The “want list” was simple: Go somewhere that the scenery was conducive to relaxation, a place that both Joanne and I would enjoy. No flying (I don’t mind flying; I just get tired of airports). No long driving (see flying/airports). Good…
Hard to believe, but this month it will be fifteen years since I retired from the faculty of Southwestern Baptist Seminary. At that time, I declared that I was retiring from a position, not from a calling. Since then, I have served eight churches as Interim Pastor, made at least three dozen trips to metro…