You know why I like Amazon? Because it’s easy to get justice. You order something from them. It doesn’t come in just right, wrong size, different color, a little damaged, and you just send the thing back. Voila! Instant justice. They either send you a new thing or refund your money. No harm. No foul.… Continue Reading
Psalm 53, Proverbs 25, Isaiah 53:1-6 Doris, my wife, has an amazing gift of unknowing. She has a birthday coming up in a couple of months. About a week before, she and I will go out shopping. We will walk through endless aisles of hoity-toity dress shops. (I keep saying they have great stuff at… Continue Reading
Psalm 56, Proverbs 24, II Corinthians 1:3-11 Doris asked me last night why I choose the scripture each day that I do. Well, the Proverbs chapter is just the chapter that corresponds with the calendar day. That way we read through the entire book of Proverbs every month. I have done this for years. The… Continue Reading
Psalm 56, Proverbs 23, I Peter 2:21-25 Here’s an interesting story. In 1896, Charles Monroe Sheldon wrote a little book about a small-town church that was challenged when one Sunday an apparent, homeless beggar came walking into the middle of their worship service. The events that unfolded caused that little congregation to ask themselves, “What… Continue Reading
Today read Psalm 56, Proverbs 22, Acts 16:19-28 In case you are wondering, I don’t start these things with some great plan of how they will end. I am very much a “stream of consciousness” kind of writer. When I get to the end of a blog, I am about as surprised as anybody how… Continue Reading
Reading for today: Psalm 32, Proverbs 20, Romans 8:31-39. (How am I doing Pastor Gary?) It is hard to believe we are only two weeks away from the end of Lent and the end of our 40 Day Adventure together. I hope this has been helpful and especially over the next two weeks begins to… Continue Reading
This is a little long but I promise it is well worth the read. It is my all-time favorite story about the church. When I was a pastor I would read this story to every class of new members. This is the church I dreamed of. This is the church we can make happen. This… Continue Reading
We are flying through this thing. Thank you for all of the kind comments and messages that I get from those of you following this exercise. I have never thought of myself as particularly bright, particularly devout, particularly deep. What I want to be is willing, willing to risk, to look foolish, to be too… Continue Reading
I wrote a tell-all book many years ago. The good news is that it told-all about ME. It is no Pulitzer prize winner but it is perhaps one of the most healing acts I have ever done. To put on paper, with pen, the complete and honest account of your own sins is to be… Continue Reading
Right out of Trevecca Doris and I were called to a church in Augusta, Georgia to do “youth and music,” two absolutely, completely incompatible jobs, that only someone with the blind optimism of youth would even attempt. It was my first introduction to a “big” church, about 200 people, as opposed to the “small” church… Continue Reading