A FEW MISTAKES HAVE BEEN MADE in my 22 years as a pastor; all were embarrassing. There are two in particular that cause me to get red-faced when I remember them:
At a Communion service several years back, when reflecting on the punishment Jesus received, I said to the congregation that "Jesus was beatilly bruten on our behalf."
For a person confined to a wheelchair, one or two stairs may as well be a cliff, requiring able-bodied help any time he or she needs to leave or enter the house.
Problem is, the cost of a ramp for a mobile home — typically 40 inches off the ground — is almost $1,000, and that’s just materials.
General George Patton died of a heart attack. Spaghetti western director Sergio Leone also died of heart failure, Shemp Howard, the fourth Stooge, and Carrie Fisher, too. Apart from those famous people dying of cardiac arrest, you know what else they had in common? All were only 60-years-old.
I turned 60 two weeks ago and climbed Enchanted Rock on my birthday, stopping every few minutes to check my heart rate to see if this was my time to go.
The children are bright-eyed and happy; it is the parents who have a continually worried look on their faces.
They’re in Piedras Negras, Mexico, across the river from Eagle Pass, Texas, and they’re stuck there for no-one-knows how long. They are reugees from violence…street gangs in Central America, warring militants in East Africa, government oppression in Cuba.
They can’t go back home, even if they had the money, because of what awaits them there: death, political prison, or sla ...
MY BEDTIME NIGHTMARE CAME TO PASS. I was sound asleep for about an hour and a half the other night when I felt something at my toes, so, I pushed it away with my feet. I tried to think of something else, like baseball, or imagine that it was a wrinkle in the sheet.
In 1957 a severe and extended drought held central Mexico in its unyielding grip. The animals were starving, crops were failing and farmers were forced to abandon their dusty fields and to head into the cities to find scarce work. Such were the conditions there when my father was called on a mission to build eight meetinghouses for his church in that country.
A plan was devised whereby young men who were unemployed would be called as building missionaries for two years.
I WENT TO A NEW DENTIST a few weeks ago and was impressed by what I received after my initial visit, apart from the good news that I had no new cavities or tooth problems. They gave me a gift bag with all sorts of cool stuff in it: toothbrush, toothpaste, a custom coffee cup and a few more items.
On a December night in 1982 Larry Echo Hawk and his wife, Terry, were awakened by the ringing of the telephone. When Larry answered, all he heard was sobbing. Finally, his sister’s struggling voice said, “Tommy is dead.”
A 20-year old drunk driver, speeding at more than 85 miles per hour, recklessly ran a stoplight crashing into the car driven by his youngest brother, Tommy, instantly killing him and his wife, Joan.
I WENT TO A NEW DENTIST a few weeks ago and was impressed by what I received after my initial visit, apart from the good news that I had no new cavities or tooth problems. They gave me a gift bag with all sorts of cool stuff in it: toothbrush, toothpaste, a custom coffee cup and a few more items.
Pastors say it all the time when assessing their flock. Church members try to avoid sounding braggadocious when speaking about it. Christian leaders warn never to make this your focus.
What am I talking about?
Have you ever heard the phrase: “It’s not about the numbers.”?
I’m here to say it is about the numbers.
