It is Spring Break time in Texas. It may freeze again on Easter weekend, but this week the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, and the grass is turning green again. What to do with such a time when you are too old to go to the beach, and too broke to go to…
In the spring of 1952, Billy Graham preached a crusade in Rice Stadium, on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. I was eleven years old and lived only blocks away from that 70,000 seat football stadium. My father was on one of the committees that served the crusade, and I attended the meetings. …
“Sending thoughts and prayers your way.” How many times did we hear some politician or dignitary say these very words in the days following the recent school shooting in Florida (or any previous mass shooting). I suppose it is an attempt to comfort those who are hurting. In fact, one politician said in a T.V….
I was a college student when on a family vacation, we made a stop in El Paso, Texas, and for the first time in my life, I crossed the U.S. border into a foreign country, Mexico. A few years later I went with my Dad to a meeting in Detroit, Michigan and crossed over the…
When I was in college, all my friends were Democrats, except for one roommate, who was a member of the Young Republicans club on campus. But we were still friends, and in fact he was in my wedding. For the past four decades I have worked in a religious environment described as a “Conservative Resurgence”…
The little child was running around in the airport waiting area, laughing, full of joy, with seemingly not a care in the world. Suddenly all activity stopped, and the child realized the surroundings were unfamiliar. Then in the midst of fanatic crying, the child spotted a parent, and ran quickly in that direction. Have you…
Many organizations, and not a few churches, talk of “unity. It seems this is a much to be desired characteristic for groups. The fact that it is so often discussed, is an indication we have not yet arrived at the unity we desire. There is a good reason for this. True unity is not natural….
I first met Jim Essian when he played 3rd base for the Fort Worth Cats minor league baseball team and I worked with the team Chaplain. I next met him years later as he was starting a church in downtown Fort Worth. Many church plants don’t make it seven years, but many are not started…
I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone who loved their pastor more than my wife loved hers. Joanne grew up as a member of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio where Buckner Fanning was her pastor. I learned a lesson early in our marriage, that led to a decision that, partially at least, shaped my…
Growing up I lived with my grandparents in Bellmead, Texas. It was during World War II and my Dad was in Germany. My mother had contracted Tuberculosis, and was in a sanitarium in west Texas. My grandfather worked hard six days a week, but Sunday was our day. We went to church, followed by lunch,…