The Nutcracker is an 1892 two-act Russian ballet performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season. I remember being exposed to it somewhere along the way, but also remember not being very interested. We’re not sure where he heard about it but my 3 1/2 year-old great-grandson, Crawford, asked if I had a video of…
I had employed all of my well-learned, ministerial detachment along with a determination not to get emotional, but I still lost it during “Amazing Grace.” The funeral soloist, obviously a good friend of the deceased, struggled through the first verse, eventually, chocking up to complete silence. It was at that point that many in the congregation…
I overdid it a couple of weeks ago. Two thousand miles, numerous luncheon, dinner and banquet visits, seven hours of preaching/teaching, four different beds, ten days. I’m too old for this kind of schedule. Twenty years ago, maybe. These days, maybe not. Even as some are reading this on Monday morning, I am 325 miles from home,…
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…