Eleven years ago I received a manila envelope with a cordial letter and a vhs tape. The letter was an invitation from Gil Sanchez, who directs Casa De Le Esperanza, a children’s home in the Northern Mexico state of Chihuahua. Somehow Gil became aware that I had led groups of medical professionals to conduct free clinics in several Mexican cities. That prompted the invitation I received in the mail in 2000. The vhs tape was a promotional video telling the…
In a recent blog post entitled: Things I’ve Learned About the Preaching Life Since I Quit, my friend and esteemed colleague Dan Bouchelle lists 5 things that he has indeed learned since leaving ministry on a church staff six months ago. All of 5 of his insights are excellent, but I am just going to share the first one in this forum. I am not inclined to whine about my role as a minister (except occasionally on Monday mornings when…
Some of my friends laugh when I tell them that I get excited about trips to Lubbock, Texas. But my classmates and other friends that grew up out there can appreciate my enthusiasm for West Texas. Yesterday I made a quick run to Lubbock to pick up 40 copies of a hymnal that is printed in Spanish. Time did not allow for me to visit with longtime friends, but I did manage to grab a bean burrito at Taco Villa…
I encouraged the church to participate in a media fast today. Fasting from media would entail refraining from television, internet, video games, and even our cell phones. I am told that a couple of our teenagers start squirming when I mentioned a fast from text messaging. Teens get the bad rap when it comes to being hooked to everything electronic, but that is not fair. There are retired couples at church that stay glued to cable news constantly. They are…
I am an organizational virus. My contribution to the cause is to complain. I know you have met me before, because I exist in most societal institutions. I am the person at your place of employment who gripes about everything from the work load to the way that the toilet paper is mounted in the restroom. And somehow I manage to worm my way into non-profit organizations that are trying to do something helpful in the community. I am the…
I am way past the point of being effective as a youth minister. But if I was completing my graduate level education today, I would be drawn to a form of youth ministry that urban churches everywhere should consider embracing. Teens’ living in impoverished homes is nothing new. But in more recent years there has been a significant increase of students that are homeless. On the surface, Granbury appears to be an affluent bedroom community to Ft. Worth. It is…
18 days and counting…. I spent part of my afternoon with a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper’s family at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas. He was struck by an intoxicated driver early Sunday morning in Mesquite while placing another suspected drunk driver under arrest. The sprawling medical facility is overwhelming. It is just a huge hospital. I felt like a country bumpkin that had come to town as I entered “Parking Garage #5.” As the trooper recovers in the…
I abandoned my erroneous assumptions regarding the composition of America’s homeless population many years ago. The book: Same Kind of Different as Me further challenged my view of people living on the streets. (Incidentally I highly recommend the book.) An encounter this past week further confirmed that there is nothing stereotypical about those who struggle to have a stable home environment. In Granbury, we do not have a significant homeless population. And furthermore as a community we are lacking any…
Processing personal criticism is not a favorite pastime for anyone. Critical comments are often delivered in an atmosphere of anger or frustration. Sometimes what is said is not very nice. And frequently it is not communicated in a very polite way! I am currently reading a fictional book that contains a lot of generational conflict in the plot. As I read through the plot, it just makes me cringe to see how easy it is for good people to misunderstand…
Excuse #1-These guys are all younger than me. That was a weak excuse, because it turned out not to be true. Excuse #2-My job does not entail knocking doors down or crawling through weed infested lots in the heat of the summer. Now the excuses are getting better! Excuse #3-When athletic ability was being distributed; the Lord took a break when I was being created. I really like that excuse. Blaming someone else for not being physically fit takes the…