I love the podcasts from Quick and Dirty Tips. I subscribe to several and really enjoy all of them. Here is a rundown of the ones to which I subscribe, followed by a general comment about the entire group. 1. Get it Done Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Work Less and Do More. This may sound like a “lazy man’s” podcast, but it really is not. While the podcast is more for those who are in the business world, the tips are universal. Each episode deals with items such as organization (so needed by me!), delegation, and contacts. If you can listen with your particular line of work in…

Of all the All-Star games, the Major League Baseball All-Star game is the greatest. MLB always does such a great job of celebrating baseball, and that was so true last night. In this final year of Yankee Stadium, the pre-game was amazing. 49 Hall of Fame players were on the field. The only negative was the Nolan Ryan was not there. There may have never been a greater collection of players on one field. Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ralph Kiner, Yogi Berra, Brooks Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Al Kaline, and many more were all represented. Yankee Stadium is a special place, and I’m sad to see it go in a few…

I mentioned that we had an open house last Saturday night. If my count was correct, we had 102 attend in a “come and go” fashion. There may have been more. I was trying to visit with folks and count at the same time, so I may have missed a few. We truly enjoyed the night. The fellowship was great. Here are some pictures of that night. Our official greeter

Actually, this report begins on the 12th. We had an open house at the Faughn house on Saturday night. We wanted the congregation to know that we enjoy having people over and we wanted a great night of fellowship. We got it! Over 100 people from Lebanon Road came by our house. Leah did a fantastic job having everything ready (as I knew she would), and the evening was filled with joy and togetherness. Then, on Sunday, we had another tremendous day. I began a series on Sunday morning on first principles. I’m calling the series “Christianity 101.” The lesson, “Is There a God?” was well-received (especially the part where…

Tired of hearing about the new iPhone yet? Me, too, but I’m thrilled that I am getting to update my “old” phone for free. I won’t have the 3G capability (basically, high-speed internet without a Wi-Fi connection), but I can add so many great features. I’m downloading the software as I type this, in fact. There have been a lot of great posts over the past few days, so let’s get on to the list: 1. JD at Out Here Hope Remains recently lost his son. I mentioned this several weeks ago. For the past few weeks, as you might expect, he has been blogging about this loss. However, this…

If you have been reading the blog for some time, you may have noticed that I don’t complete as many books as I did in past years. For those who are new, I write at least a one-paragraph “review” of each book I complete. There are a couple of reasons for this slowdown: 1. The books I am currently reading are longer than others I have read in the past. Many of the books I have reviewed in the past were youth classbooks, and could be read in a day or two. I still read class books every so often, but currently I’m reading some longer works. When I finish,…

For the past few weeks, I have played softball on Monday nights with the Lebanon Road church of Christ team. We’re, well, not good, and I’m terrible, but we do have a lot of fun and we enjoy being out there together. We’ve only won a couple of games, which makes what happened last night even more amazing and uplifting. In our first game, we lost despite a furious comeback at the end. Then came the second game. Early on, our youth minister ran home on a close play. He touched the plate and the umpire called him “safe.” The catcher for the other team began to argue, saying, “I…

We were saddened by the loss of our brother Charles Harris, who died last Wednesday, and a couple of our members recently lost family members. News like this causes us to grieve. But there was also some fantastic news at Lebanon Road yesterday. Brother Micky Bell (the former preacher at Lebanon Road) was visiting with us yesterday and he was able to baptize his youngest son, Aaron, into Christ! Aaron responded to the Lord’s invitation and Micky immersed him for the forgiveness of his sins. Here are some pictures of that greatest of all events: Brother Micky continues to battle cancer, and will begin treatments this week in Houston. Please…

I wanted to have a links roundup this week, and I’ll be away from my computer for a few days as we visit family for the 4th of July. (And trying to blog lengthy articles from my phone is carpel tunnel syndrome waiting to happen!) So, here are some great links from this partial week: 1. Our summer camp theme is “Turning the World Upside Down.” Ironically, Paula Harrington recently wrote an article with that same idea. By the way, it’s great to see Paula back blogging regularly again! 2. Steve Higginbotham shares a great story of faith in “Views from the Pews.” Young people never cease to amaze me.…

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had finished volume 1 of David Roper’s commentary on Revelation. Now, having completed volume 2, I would like to offer some more thoughts on the two volumes together. Obviously, Revelation is a very difficult book and one that has led to numerous controversies. In his commentary, Roper is able to write helpful thoughts about the text, while keeping the comments on a level where nearly every Bible student can “follow along.” One aspect of this commentary I appreciated was that Roper did not spend excess time and pagination refuting false teaching. Usually, “major” controversies were listed and then the truth was presented.…