Last week, I went to PASSPORT Kids Camp at Wingate University to spend four days with nine children from FBC. Two of the nine were my sons and our group needed a male chaperone. So as parent and pastor I couldn’t escape the obvious. It had been a long while since I had spent a week at a church camp. “Back in the day,” (when I was much closer to their age) I led many a youth and college students to weekend retreats at the beach and in the mountains as well as far off places like Tennessee, New Mexico, and Canada. So I’ll admit I was a little rusty. But it didn’t take long to start enjoying the experience of being a kid at camp...

Clarence Jordan died in rural Georgia in 1969 at the age of 57. He was a radical pioneer of the gospel in the racially charged south of his day. Over the years he wrote a “version” of the New Testament scriptures that was called “The Cotton Patch Version.” It is written in the language of his day—which is not exactly politically correct today. But it is what it is. This Sunday I’m preaching the old familiar story of “The Good Samaritan” found in Luke 10:25-37. But I’m afraid there is too much of a disconnect between the Samaritan of Jesus’ day, as the hero of the story, and the potential “Samaritans” of our day. In Clarence Jordan’s day, his version of the story would have raised quite a fuss. It goes as follows…

 I’m off to St. Louis this week to officiate a wedding for a couple of kids who were 7 or 8 years old when I came to be their new pastor over 14 years ago in Webster Groves, Missouri. For the past seven years I have lived halfway across the country while they survived their youth group, high school and college years. Now they are ready to launch into a lifetime together. You never know what might happen when you go to church and actually stick with it. For these two promising young adults, it all goes back to their parents who faithfully led them to a small Baptist church, dug in their heels week after week, and stuck with a particular community of God’s people...

I almost did not write this blog because… I’ve been too busy. It’s been an incredibly busy time as of late—visiting the sick, going from hospitals to hospice, from funerals to pre-marital counseling, writing sermons, meeting with committees, planning worship, counseling, coaching baseball, shuttling children to multiple baseball and basketball games, school functions, and trying to keep the home fires burning brightly just to name a few. But the truth is… everyone is busy. How many times have you heard a retiree say, “Since I retired I’ve been busier than ever!”?  Mothers are busy, fathers are busy, kids are busy, churches are busy. The world often looks like a giant ant pile that has just been stepped upon by a size 13 shoe...

Guess what the top grossing movie was at the box office last weekend? A Nightmare on Elm Street… the remake, that is, raked in almost $33,000,000. I just don’t get why people spend their hard-earned money during a recession in order to willingly have the living daylights scared out of them. Isn’t the world scary enough, as it is? Why would someone choose to drop $20 at a theatre for one ticket and a greasy tub of popcorn only to have Freddy haunt them in their dreams for weeks to come? It is a troubling world indeed…

According to the findings of a new LifeWay Research study, two thirds of Americans born between 1980 and 1991 identify themselves as Christians, but most do not regularly pray, read the Bible or attend church. One in four attends religious worship once a week or more, but two out of three rarely or never attend a house of worship. Fewer than half believe the Bible is the written Word of God and is totally accurate in all it teaches...

For some reason unknown to me, I accepted an invitation a couple of months ago to coach a baseball team made up of 11 and 12 year boys. (Of course, the driving reason behind my accepting this task was the fact that I have an 11 year old son.) Somebody had to do it so I said “yes.” We held practice 2-3 times a week for over a month and then the season began after Easter break. So far, we are 0 and 3. That’s zero wins and three losses...