This past weekend, I got to go to one of my happy places – Freed-Hardeman University – for one of my happy events – Makin’ Music. I love the show: the energy of the social clubs, the amazing musical talent displayed, and the friendships revisited. I also love the school where it occurs: the values it upholds, the Christian mentors it employs, and the lifelong lessons it teaches. As wonderful as the Saturday night show was, the music I was most excited to make was not a pop ballad or rewritten lyrics to an old rock favorite. My favorite songs had quite a different focus. One did occur on Saturday…

As I type these words, I’m well into another year of a practice I started a number of years ago. Part of my morning routine is to begin each day listening to the Bible. I have an app on my phone that allows me to do that. The app that I use has a variety of plans, but I have always chosen one that will take me through the Bible in a calendar year. Most of the time I choose one that presents the text in chronological order. That is what I am doing again this year. It has been a few weeks since I listened to the material in the book of Exodus that…

I read a post the other day about a teacher who had a unique way of getting to know her students. Every Friday afternoon she asked them to write down the four people they wanted to sit with the next week, and then to write down the name of the person in their class who had been the best example that week.  She spent time over the weekend, not changing her seating chart, but seeing what children in her class were left out and ignored. The lists sometimes indicated who was being bullied and who might be doing the bullying. It told her where the cliques were and who didn’t fit in…

Let me begin by letting you know this is not an article about a tragic accident. It is, however, an article about the family of God. Last Saturday, we had the somewhat unusual experience of having two memorial services in our congregation’s auditorium. Both of the individuals being remembered and honored had passed away sometime before but both families had chosen to wait on a service.  You may be thinking: “Wait. Both families? I thought you said there was only one family.” I did, so keep reading for the explanation. The first memorial service was for an older man who spent over 60 years preaching the gospel. His faithful widow…

As I type these words, we are still dealing with something that most of us had never heard about a couple of years or so ago. When we did start hearing about it, most of us probably thought that it would be ancient history by now. As I recall, we were concerned at first with something called the Coronavirus. Over time, that concern was focused on something called COVID-19. I won’t pretend to be intelligent enough to explain how all of that is related. I’ll leave that to others who have a lot more information and understanding. What I do know is that it seems like we’ve been shooting at a moving target for a…

Maybe you’ve read the story behind the picture above. Apparently, the woman who is buried here was well known for her Christmas cookies. Her stock answer to anybody who asked for her recipe was, “Over my dead body.” I’m not sure that the lady had this tombstone in mind when she said this, but it seems that her family “honored her wishes.” At least I guess that it could be said that they got the last laugh. You may be familiar with other interesting inscriptions on tombstones like: There goes the neighborhood – comedian Rodney Dangerfield That’s all folks – Mel Blanc the voice of Elmer Fudd (and many other…