In my years of ministry as a pastor, some of the most important things I was a part of were meetings about the Bride of Christ. Working with committees, teams, staff, deacons to determine God’s will for the situation strongly influences the future of churches. Taking the time to Pause and follow God’s plan is so important. Yet as leaders in the church, many times we just show up with no prayer, no plan, no forethought before the meeting. We must do better. In Discovering Relational Wisdom 3.0 by Ken Sande, he gives a strong acrostic called PAUSE. Here is a quick recap of the first three steps ..read more

Mom, I’m so glad our life isn’t boring. We were buckling our seatbelts in the plane, preparing for takeoff. Our family was in the middle of discerning and confirming a major ministry move, and it required several trips back and forth out of state. My teenage daughter’s statement stirred emotion in my heart. At age 17, where relationships are everything, she had the most to “lose,” and for this moment, she was embracing the adventure of it and acknowledging that ministry life is anything but boring. Sarah’s very un-boring story Reading Genesis and examining Sarah’s story from her debut in Genes ..read more

     Our practice for forgiveness to others reflects what we think and understand about God’s forgiveness.  When you get to the heart of the Gospel it is all about forgiveness. Because of Jesus sacrifice and death on the cross we can be forgiven when we accept Him as our Lord and Savior.      Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.”   Scripture commands us to forgive others in the same way we have been forgiven.  Genuine forgiveness is a decision w ..read more

I will never forget seeing Mary for the first time at our informational meeting in the fellowship hall at Stroud, First Baptist Church. She attended to hear about the mission trip that her church would be taking since 1993. I wrongly assumed that she was there to learn how to pray for the team. In my defense she was 79 years old, and I have had the honor of many people her age pray faithfully for me and teams as we ministered around the world. Mary wasn’t there to just pray; she was ready to go.    Mary had been recently widowed, never had a passport, never been on a plane, and not ..read more

My Father and mother moved to Shawnee a couple years ago after their house flooded a couple of times back in Louisiana. One of the great but problematic things of their move was the consolidation of tools! My dad and I are both “wannabe” handymen. So, we have many tools and even some inherited tools. The task of going through to see what we had yielded many duplicates and even some “holes” in our tool collection! After analyzing and neatly laying out all the tools we began the process of both pairing down and organizing the tools in my shop. Now, Dad and I can go straight into the shop and kn ..read more

About Suriname This team will travel deep into the jungle on the Suriname River to share the Gospel with the Saramaccan people group. According to the Joshua Project, the Saramaccan are less than 1% evangelical. Most believe in communicating with spirits and the ghosts of their ancestors. In recent years, many have experienced the mighty power of God to overcome the fear that these spirits bring upon them. This team will go into schools and villages utilizing multiple ways such as VBS, Jesus Film and village gatherings to share the Gospel. Suriname Why serve in Suriname?  Sc ..read more

We southern Baptist preachers often either avoid the Old Testament or relegate it to the kid’s ministry. As the professor of Old Testament at Your Oklahoma Baptist University, I engage with students who have an Old Testament knowledge that is severely lacking the “so what” factor. I remember when Jesus was a flannelgraph and when The Greatest Adventure came out. Sadly, both of these modes of Old Testament teaching limited my Old Testament depth, until I went to grad school and later PhD Work. Dr. Andy Taylor has graciously asked me to start a column in this newsletter to aid pastors of Oklaho ..read more

I will never forget seeing Mary for the first time at our informational meeting in the fellowship hall at Stroud, First Baptist Church. She attended to hear about the mission trip that her church would be taking since 1993. I wrongly assumed that she was there to learn how to pray for the team. In my defense she was 79 years old, and I have had the honor of many people her age pray faithfully for me and teams as we ministered around the world. Mary wasn’t there to just pray; she was ready to go.    Mary had been recently widowed, never had a passport, never been on a plane, and not ..read more

I will never forget the first time I took a team to Santo Thomas, Nicaragua. We had an amazing medical team, lots of medicine to help the people, and a great VBS team with all the supplies. Everything was pretty perfect. We were the first team to ever go into this village and share the gospel so I couldn’t have been more excited.  The best word that could describe what happened that day when we left the village was disastrous. No one came to our clinic because the priests told everyone before we got there that the medicine we had would poison them, all the children’s supplies for VBS got ..read more

In the mid-’90s, Paul Powell of the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention wrote a book titled “Taking the Stew Out of Stewardship.” While the book was well circulated, many pastors still find themselves in a “stew” regarding teaching and preaching about stewardship. Perhaps it is the fear of being misunderstood or having our motivations questioned. Many pastors shy away from teaching and preaching about our responsibility as managers of all of God’s resources. I have a pastor friend who confesses he will spend 15 minutes talking to his congregation about stewardship and 15 minutes ..read more