Interim is a term describing the space of time between an ending and a beginning. When used for a church it refers to the time between the departure of one pastor and the arrival of another pastor. Since Baptist churches do not have Bishops who appoint a successor, the interim time can be long as each church…
You suspect God is calling you for some special task or even for a career of ministry. How can you know your call is from the Lord? In the Bible, people such as Samuel (1 Sam 3:4-10) and Isaiah (Isa 6:8) experienced direct, audible calls from God. These instances left no doubt about the divine…
The last couple of weeks I have written about movies that I should not have attended. Let me go a different direction today and mention a favorite movie of mine. I could go back to my early years and mention a couple of films that few of my readers would remember but let me mention one that…
My manna of last week, including a confession of attending the movie “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in spite of my Pastor-Farther advising me not to go see it, stirred up a lot of response. All of which reminded me of another movie I should not have seen, only this one was during my college…
Memory is one of God’s greatest gifts. The writer of Proverbs says, “The memory of the just is blessed” (Proverbs 10:7). I’m a member of a Facebook group called, “Houston Memories.” Recently a picture of the inside of the Majestic Theater brought back memories of Friday night double dates. One particular, Friday evening, as I…
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…