About 8 years ago we hosted a small group of students from another country in our home overnight. They were teenagers involved in a Rotary Club International exchange program. When the group arrived in our city, I ended up being the member of our local Rotary Club that hosted them. They were all teenage female, so I enlisted two of the girls in our youth group at church to assist me in this effort. We showed them the sights of…
In 2004, I was teaching a class at a ministry conference on the campus of Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond. During a break, I ran over the convenience store to buy gas and then had plans to grab some fast food. I immediately recognized the gentleman getting gas at the pump just in front of me. Don Vinzant served in the same role that I am serving for the Granbury Church of Christ from 1982 until 1989. He moved to…
I officiated at Horace Hutton’s funeral yesterday. He was 96 years old. Most of us can only dream about being as cool as Horace was in his 80’s and then into his 90’s as well. When he was 80 years old, he entered a business venture with one of his sons. He told him: “Son, I need to careful about what kind of deal I get into, because I probably only have 10 or 15 GOOD years left.” I love…
Today marks the four year anniversary of the death of Alyssa Dix. I am reposting this piece that was originally published on May 30th, 2010 out of respect for her good family. The Dix’s are fine people. I have great respect for each of them. My confidence in the basic decency of people was renewed at Granbury High School’s Commencement Friday night. I was of course the proud father of a son graduating. But my mind has been on another…
Shadowlands is one of my all time favorite movies. The story is loosely based on the life of C.S. Lewis. Anthony Hopkins, who plays Lewis, is wonderful as always. Debra Winger plays the American poet, Joy Gresham, whom Lewis actually married relatively late in life. The dialog in the movie is excellent. The plot is downright moving. It is a movie about a romance. But of even greater significance in my mind, it is about people learning to relate to…
My good friend and colleague Trey Morgan composed an excellent blog last week entitled: Please Don’t be Mean to Your Minister/Preacher. You can read it at: www.treymorgan.com. Here is my response to Trey’s thoughts. I good friend of mine, who serves in the patrol division for a city police department, received six complaints from the good citizens of that community in a one month period several years ago. I am defining a complaint as a citizen either calling or otherwise…
Visiting families at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth has never become routine for me. And it never will… I have been making pastoral visits there for about 20 years. The building has been updated and the technology in the intensive care units has changed significantly during that time period. But the needs of families with sick babies and young children have remained unchanged. Once upon a time many years ago I envisioned myself being a chaplain in a children’s…
The word purpose is being tossed about a lot these days. People are asking: what is my purpose in life? What do I need to be doing? And more specifically what should I be engaged in that this particular stage in life? I have actually been asking myself such questions recently. I am a part of the “Barely Boomer” generation. I was born in 1962. The official cut-off for the Baby Boomer Generation is generally viewed as being 1964. We…
I read a news account today about a man who had his wallet stolen out of his jacket while it was hanging in a hallway of the New York City building he worked in at the time in 1969. Workers tearing an interior wall out of the old structure recently found the long lost billfold after all of these years. Everything was still in it just as he had left it 42 years ago. (The cash of course was gone.)…
When Jan prepares a meal or bakes goodies for noon birthday gatherings for her co-workers, the kitchen remains in a state of order during the entire process. It is disgusting. You can’t even tell that she is working on something. She cleans as she goes. She puts spices up right after using them. Something is wrong with that picture. When I prepare meal, you know I have been there. There are pots stacked everywhere. There is a dusting of flour…