My two adult children are married, raising families, and actively involved in their church. They are doing well and although I don’t get involved in their personal finances, I am sure that they both have excellent credit ratings.  That was not always the case. When they were in elementary school there were a number of times where they needed to “borrow” five or ten dollars for various needs. During those years, my wife and I developed a taxi service shuttling them around town for their various church, school, sports, and social events. When they both got older, we transitioned into the h ..read more

Over the years of my life with Christ, I have experienced the blessing of great Bible teaching. Men and women are able to study God’s Word, communicate the meaning in creative and impactful ways, and challenge me to respond to God in my everyday living. Unfortunately, I have also had the infrequent and unpleasant experience of hearing Bible teaching that was not particularly biblical and devoid of any effort to help me integrate the teaching into my life. One example that comes to mind is the sermon I heard was about tracing wood throughout the Bible. The preacher began with the wooden tree o ..read more

When I grew up and left home on my own, I missed many of our family traditions, one of which was the conversations we had around the table. My dad usually facilitated discussions that included current events, biblical teaching, politics, family matters, and other contemporary issues. I missed the banter, exchange of ideas, debate, persuasion, and sometimes plain old debating. Over time, I realized that so much of that “discussion” was not focused on listening but rather on making my views and ideas known and convincing others. The Importance of Listening Found in Scripture In Deuteronomy 11 ..read more

Some of my favorite high school memories were in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana with my dad fishing and enjoying the typically calm, balmy beautiful ocean. While the surface may be placid, lurking below the seabed are oil deposits created by decomposing organic materials that create oil and gas under enormous pressure. From time-to-time efforts to tap into those oil reserves are overcome by immense pressure, leading to catastrophe. On April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon floating oil rig suffered a critical failure, the oil well exploded killing eleven people, leading to ..read more

The teaching was on being frank and honest with God, even when we are discouraged, frustrated, or even angry. We were examining Jonah 4, where Jonah expresses his frustrations and even suicidal anger to God. Rather than getting a new prophet, which is what I would have done, God continues with Jonah, teaching him and helping him navigate his feelings, based on error as they were. One of the activities was to take a blown-up balloon and paint your face on it, depicting how you were feeling. The kids had fun, including one of my high school helpers. Later that Sunday afternoon I received an e-m ..read more

It was early in my service as a children’s pastor when I visited a family that asked their boy to come out and recite Isaiah 40:1-8, a beautiful passage that was set to music in Handel’s Messiah. When I asked a question or two it became apparent that he did not know what the passage meant although he had committed it to memory. In fact, he had no idea. The parents were enormously proud of his accomplishment as it was an impressive feat of memorization. However, it is possible that this passage of Scripture their dear son had committed to memory may have had limited value to him if he didn’t u ..read more

We were pulling out of the garage and my granddaughter shouted out from her car seat to stop the car. We needed to “check both ways.” After doing so, she gave me the go-ahead to back out. She is three years old. It is no secret in our family that we have had generations of strong women tracking back to my wife’s grandmother and continuing to my granddaughter through four generations. Some of that may be “factory equipment,” but modeling is also a factor. I have watched the four generations and can see the mannerisms, and even speech patterns, that have been passed down from mother to daughter ..read more

Last Sunday, we drove to a local Christian University for an afternoon performance of Handel’s Messiah. My wife and I have made a tradition of attending a performance of this masterpiece every Christmas season. Usually, it kicks off the advent season and sets the spiritual tone for our celebration. Advent is a time to look back at the coming of the Christ child in the manger at Bethlehem. It is also a time to look forward with hope to His second coming in His full glory. We are always amazed when the program notes explain that Handel wrote their entire three hour “Messiah” in less than thirty ..read more

When I was growing up there were a few key phrases that were repeated often: A place for everything and everything in its place. Clean your plate. If you take it, you eat it. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Children are to be seen and not heard. A penny saved is a penny earned.  Some of these were probably passed down from generation to generation. Some I did not agree with. However, they were repeated so often that they became a part of the family culture. These repeated little “ditties” were shared before dinner, at dinner, when we cleaned the house, and when we had guests. They we ..read more

I had just met my new friend and after just a couple of days he told me that he had a “problem with God.” He knew I was a minister. I asked about the problem, and he expounded that a young baby brother had died suddenly at age two. Another died young from a sudden heart attack and a third had died from AIDS. The third brother had been adopted. He had tears in his eyes and the pain was palpable. He then asked me “Why did God let all that happen?”. That was the opening question, and we spent hours after that discussing God, pain, sorrow, loss, a broken world, and a host of issues that flowed ou ..read more