The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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A colleague accosted me in the Monday morning pastors meeting after Bob and Kay joined our church the day before. He told me he’d invested many hours in marital counseling leading to their recommitment, and he was disturbed to hear they’d presented themselves for membership in our church. He believed I’d “courted” and persuaded them to leave his church. I’m still unsure how he knew this so quickly in days before social media. Actually, I was surprised when the couple presented themselves...
The last couple of months have only had a few nice days and hardly any nice ones in a row. This week has been different. March has started off warm and sunny even though a long period of rain is in the forecast. My intentions of perusing the woods to determine last year’s deer activity never came about. That will change almost forcibly. Why? Because turkey season opens in April and for the first few weeks the leaves will not be in full bloom. I will be able to gain deer information while I...
The wind in my face was bitterly cold in downtown Dallas a few years ago since the winter weather was yet lingering. My continuing education classes had ended at the seminary in nearby Ft. Worth, so the afternoon was free for some sightseeing. A chill came over me independent of the temperature when I walked onto Dealey Plaza and saw firsthand those sights emblazoned in my memory from childhood: Elm Street, the triple overpass and the sixth-floor window. I thought back to that terrible Friday...
Jim came to see me with a message from the finance committee he chaired. The group met when I was with another group, so I missed their meeting. I’d begun to use cards for Sunday guests that were actually envelopes. The simple message on the envelopes was “Please use my gift as an expression of my love for Christ.” My predecessor schooled the church on a doctrine of the “contemporary” church; namely, no visitors should be asked for money. The argument is that many people thought the church wa...
A newly-called music minister asked for long-range sermon plans. I told him I had none, though once I did. A seminary professor required us to submit a year’s pulpit work. We students did the same kind of thing, beginning with special days like Mother’s Day and Easter and Christmas—we knew what we’d talk about on those days. And then we generally looked for short-term series to fill four or five or six weeks and the like. I continued this practice for a number of years, gathering notes and out...
There’s no doubt what we do makes an impression on our young people and those who look up to us. Just as I remember buying my first new gun, I also remember my first new knife. Not only was I enamored by the knife itself, but I was also very interested in the paperwork that came with it. While most would only throw away the unnecessary stuff, I made it a point to find out about my new Buck knife. It talked about how to take care of it and how to sharpen it. But what caught my attention was t...
An old fable tells of a frog who envied his pond friends, the geese, when they prepared to fly south in the winter and escape arctic temperatures. The more he pondered, an idea formed in his head. The frog asked two geese to hold a stick between their beaks. He would clamp onto it with his mouth and thus be transported with them when they departed for sunshine and warmth. This plan worked fine until some geese from another tribe flew near. “Wow! What an idea,” one goose exclaimed. “Who thoug...
She was a devout Christian, a devoted church-goer and normally possessed a gentle spirit. But I remember the day she came to the church office in anger. The Sunday previous we had some international guests from a local university in worship. Their skin color wasn’t the same as ours, and this lady was upset. She suggested I’d invited them to force the church into confrontation. She said I’d given an unusually fervent invitation at the conclusion of the service in order to bring them forwa...
A recent trip to the Draughon Library Special Collections at Auburn University filled me with nostalgia. I was an AU student and returned some years later to nearby Chambers County as pastor. One of my Saturday afternoon tasks was taking our children for outings to give their mom some alone time. We often grabbed hamburgers and made the trek to the university campus to visit the eagle cage adjacent to Jordan-Hare Stadium. I frequently found myself visiting church members at the East Alabama Medi...
My hunting season is over. I have scheduled a couple of fishing trips, but they are a few weeks away. Until then, I am surrounded by everything man-made. I don’t mind this too much after a season of God-made stuff, but I need to return to the God-made stuff quickly. But not for the hunting or fishing, but for the God of the stuff. You see, most of the time when I go to the woods I am going for the purpose of pursuit – whether that is for the purpose of scouting or hunting. When I’m in the woods...
David waited for me on Monday morning. He abandoned all formalities and quickly said he was upset over my sermon the day before. “You criticized Ronald Reagan, and I didn’t like it,” he said. “And other people didn’t like it, either.” Since no one else ever talked with me about the matter, I have no idea how to gauge the anger meter. But critics often bolster accusations by suggesting they’re leading an angry mob with torches and pitchforks. I preached about money and shared what one writer call...
I had the privilege of serving the First Baptist Church in Selma for seven years. This is a inner-city church with three others nearby, and I commonly walked downtown for lunch or shopping. One day I made the first lap of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. The now-called “Bloody Sunday” event occurred on March 7, 1965. After Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed in nearby Marion in February, civil rights leaders talked about a protest--taking his casket from Marion to “George Wallace’s doorstep” (Alabama...
“The Crickets” sang, “I Fought The Law, And The Law Won.” I fought two ladies in church, and the results are mixed. The first was a long-time volunteer with our children’s ministry who wanted choir robes for the boys and girls. The cost was about $5,000. This idea never took fire. The children normally sang at Christmas and Easter when their parents adorned them in colorful dresses and navy blazers. Some of the parents thought robes were unnecessary after they went to the trouble of finding ...
The Roman god Janus was the god of two faces. A mature face looked back with reflection. A youthful face looked forward with anticipation. How fitting the first month of the year is named for him in the sense that we do both things. I looked back at 2025 in my inaugural sermon this year suggesting we’ll remember January 2025 with the images of two U.S. presidents. Former president Jimmy Carter died shortly after Christmas in 2024 after celebrating his 100th birthday the previous Oct. 1. His f...
Jason and I eased up the hill toward the place of our morning hunt. He had come a few days earlier and took a leaf blower to the trail to make sure we had the quietest walk possible. Just over the crest of the hill, only about 400 yards from where we parked, was his hunting house. A house might be an exaggeration. It was only about 4x8 and was in need of a remodel since the year he first built it, but it was still a luxury for any hunter during the cold days of November. As soon as we got...
Our parents thought they were anarchists and subversives sent across the pond to corrupt our morals—something of a payback for the Boston Tea Party. The Beatles had long hair. They were trend-setters. We teens began to follow suit. The pictures look funny now. I remember one night watching the news with our family. Anti-Vietnam protestors were storming some town. My dad sneered and said, “Look! They all have long hair!” Though a clueless teenager, I knew hair follicles had little to do with...
The late radio teacher, J. Vernon McGee, had a famous line: “When Satan fell, he fell into the choir loft!” This comment may be a bit arcane since contemporary churches may not have a loft or choir, but a ‘praise team” on stage or platform. But maybe McGee was onto something—at least in a few cases I know. One Sunday our pianist (this was many moons ago) played a beautiful arrangement just before the sermon. When I stepped to the pulpit, I thanked her and mentioned how I was moved by the rendi...
She called and asked if I’d like to look through her father’s library since she needed to empty the house. I found some old classics, and a book by Millard Fuller that I thought was unavailable. Fuller established Habitat for Humanity after his time at Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia. Koinonia was founded by Clarence Jordan as a Christian interracial commune in 1942. The farm community faced threats, boycotts and drive-by shootings, but yet exists. Fuller told a story and added more det...
Our Alabama Baptist campsite at Shocco Springs is a gorgeous place, and I’ve enjoyed every event I’ve attended there. Several years ago, I attended a two-day training course for pastors. A conference for senior adults was on site at the same time. I saw that the other group was having a concert that night when our group wasn’t meeting, so I went. The singer did a great job. He sang some “oldies” like “Silhouette” by Peter Noone and “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” by Elvis. He sang the...
One of the conditions that hunters must face this time of year is the fog. Sometimes it lingers seemingly all day making it difficult to see, especially when hunting with firearms. And then there’s the drive to the hunt. Just seeing each turn can sometimes be almost impossible without some type of marker. This is the case at one of my hunting locations. Over the years I have marked a particular turn by a light. While driving down the road this light creates an illusion that it is in the m...
Both my mother and my father-in-law were diagnosed with dread illnesses just after Thanksgiving and one year apart. It's been debated whether there's more sickness and death at the end-of-year holiday season than at other times. Some sages insist it's like sap in the trees. According to my friend, AI, "Sap flow in most trees decreases significantly during winter because the trees enter dormancy, photosynthesis stops and cold temperatures slow or even freeze the movement of sap." So, the argument...
While at Judson College I was summoned to an evening meeting at the National Guard Armory in nearby Demopolis. The organizer forgot to confirm the meeting with guard personnel. We couldn’t find an open door. We tried them all. Someone suggested we find an unlatched window, but we quickly decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to break into a National Guard facility. We live in a world of locked doors. “Motzki” was a German TV sitcom modeled after the American Archie Bunker of “All In The Famil...
My long-time mentor and friend, Pastor Jim Auchmuty, died this summer. He had a unique ministry in his later years conducting countless memorial services for families without local pastors. I’d talked with Jim earlier in the summer about superintending my funeral, so this matter is yet out for bid. I must admit I’d not read Jim’s book until recently. He published “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Funeral” in 2018, and in it he regales with stories about funerals he superinte...
I have hunted big game most of my adult life. I have written about my experiences over 20 years. Those experiences are not spectacular. Most of them have come in random places at random times, and without the resources to make them anything special. That is, I have only paid for one hunt but have relied on special friends for the opportunities I have been given. I have no trophies that would cause anyone to think I am some special or gifted hunter. I am a blue-collar, mediocre private land...
It was some ten years ago that we upgraded our sanctuary lighting to an LED system. I was bold enough to suggest we add a screen and projection system at the same time. I didn’t have much experience with a system like this, but I thought it would be beneficial. I remember a lady who reacted with some trepidation. “You won’t put hymns up there, will you?” she asked. I told her we had no plans to, and this was true. However, it was a music leader who later encouraged us to do this. He reasoned tha...
