Blog
Building Space Into Our Lives
The secret to building a good fire is to put some space between the logs so the fire can get some oxygen. Without proper oxygen, the fire has trouble burning. We all need to build some space in our lives to keep the fire burning. Otherwise, all the demands and...
What Grace is About
What Grace Is About This year marks my thirtieth year of fulltime pastoral ministry. In 1988 I served my first year of fulltime ministry with Dr. Hugh Kirby as the Minister of Youth at First Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia. However, my ministry started long before...
The Lessons The Broccoli Tree Have for Easter
Easter Sunrise Service One spring day a photographer living near the Southern shore of Lake Vattern, Sweden took a picture of a tree and posted it on Instagram because he thought it looked like a stalk of broccoli sticking up out of the ground. Forty-three people...
This Is How People Know You Are a Disciple
For most of us, the thought of washing someone’s feet is repulsive unless it is someone we know really, really well and even then we are not very willing. A few years ago, I served as the camp pastor at a youth camp at Ricks Institute, which is sixteen miles outside...
The Mystery of Quieting the Babies
One of the favorite services of the year for most of our members is the candlelight Christmas Eve service. It’s amazing how much musical talent we have in our church and some of this talent is always on display at this service. Latecomers missed Hannah Safley...
Finding Life After Loss and Grief
Almost every day my life crosses with someone who is living with some form of loss. One day I am standing in a driveway talking to a man who is slowly watching Alzheimer’s claim his wife one memory at a time. Another day I am visiting a woman in a nursing home with...
Mia, Irma, and the Butterfly
I was playing outside with Mia, my 18-month-old granddaughter, a few weeks ago when a butterfly decided to join the party. At first, it just circled, to Mia's delight. Then, it decided to land, not more than a foot from Mia's hand. While the butterfly was harmless,...
The Most Difficult Part of This Job
Less than two hours after landing in Monrovia, Liberia, a land that had been devastated by civil war, I stood in the pulpit of Second Providence Baptist Church in 1995 to preach a sermon. As I looked into the faces of people that had waited three hours for us to...
Recognizing Those Behind the Scenes
Every year the Jefferson City Schools begin the year by inviting the community to a breakfast, which is followed by a gathering in the Performing Arts Center. The community joins the faculty, administration, and the school board, in a pep rally of sorts. Dr. John...
There is No Greater Love: A Memorial Day Tribute
Memorial Day is a day to honor men and women who went into battle but did not survive. With their lives, they paid the ultimate price. The late U.S. Army General Norman Schwarzkopf once said, "It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one...
Looking for Tom
Turkey Season. Opening Morning. Temperature 56 degrees. Overcast. The alarm went off at 4:00 A.M., three hours before sunrise. My son John and I got our gear together and we ate breakfast on the go. We drove to a Wildlife Management Area (WMA) "destination top...
Removing the Johnson Amendment Would Make Us “Great Omission” Churches
I prayed for President Trump during a recent Sunday morning worship service. The prayer prompted one man to ask following the service, "So, did your man win the election?" His wife tried to rescue me by interjecting, "Now you should not put the pastor in that...