Church Life
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One Of Life’s Greatest Blessings
I’m spending a lot of time working on lessons for Polishing the Pulpit, which is coming up in a couple of months. Some of my time is spent just sitting and thinking about the topic upon which I have been asked to speak. This week I’ve been thinking, studying, and writing about being an elder’s wife. Now, you may be wondering about the title for this blog post and how it goes along with being an elder’s wife. There are days when I wonder the same thing! After all, it is a fairly difficult position…the wife of a man whose responsibility (along with other men serving in this capacity) is to watch…
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I Came to the Church [A Poem]
[NOTE: I hope every English teacher I ever had will forgive me for my lack of poetry skills! The meter and rhyme may be lacking, but I pray this message still gets across, including to me! –Adam] I came to the Church building on a Sunday morn, all soured and upset with strife. And, wouldn’t you know it, as I came inside and sat down, no one cared for my life. — Oh, some smiled and some said “hello,” but it was clear they were just doing their job. They asked how I was and acted concerned, but I know their ruse–they were just simple words to lob. — I…
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Do You Have a Favorite Pillow?
Recently, two of our grandchildren spent a couple of nights with us. After they had spent a night back at their house, it was discovered that our granddaughter did not make it home with her pillow. When I told her that we were sorry that we didn’t find it earlier, she told me that it was alright because that wasn’t the only one she had. She told me that it was her favorite pillow, but that she slept fine without it. Her response didn’t seem all that strange to me. She’s not the only person in the world who has a favorite pillow. Her “Grammy” also has one that we typically take with us when we…
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Job’s Reaction to a Really Bad Day
What is your first reaction when things go badly for you? What would you do if you lost just about everything except your life? What if all of that happened almost “all at once?” As I try to internalize those questions, I’m not always completely satisfied with my answers. I’m afraid that, at the very least, I would have a “pity party.” I’m afraid that the question, “Why me?” would come to my mind (and might even be expressed). I would hope that I would not blame God, but I know many who have done just that. Most of us are at least somewhat familiar with the book of Job. As we open the book, we…
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Your Face Says It
Have you noticed how many people aren’t smiling these days? Everywhere I look, lots of people are walking around with a sad, straight, or frowning face. Now, I realize that smiling all the time would seem kind of weird, but when in a crowd of people, shouldn’t we at least try to smile at those with whom we establish eye contact? Thinking about this reminded me of a conversation I had with my mother near the end of her life. She was living in an assisted living home near me, and I was able to visit her every day. As she became more and more feeble, she began to talk about…
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Lucy or Lucille?
Those of us “of a certain age” have fond memories of the television show I Love Lucy. We laughed at the antics of the fictional families of the Ricardos and Mertzs. We knew that “Ricky” and “Lucy” were Desi and Lucille in real life. Some may have also known that things weren’t quite as amusing “off the set” as they were when they were acting. I guess that we didn’t care much about that. I suppose that we were mostly interested in what they could do for us as far as entertainment was concerned. After I Love Lucy ended and after her divorce from Desi Arnez, Lucille Ball attempted somewhat of a comeback…
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Why We Kick Off Lads to Leaders So Early
When this post will be released, we will be just a few days from kicking off Lads to Leaders at Central for the 2022-2023 year with a meeting, meal, and our first event sign-ups. Last year, when we did this so early, I literally got messages from preachers and youth ministers telling me we were nuts. They may have been right, but here we are again. Why? It is because of what we saw at the national convention in Nashville just a few weeks ago. Central is not a large congregation. We are not one of those churches that brings triple-digits in attendees to convention (this year was our largest…
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Keep Checking
I saw something recently that reminded me of an incident and a conversation I had quite a few years ago. I’m glad that I saw what I did. I needed the reminder. It might be that you could also benefit from my reminder and my experience. The incident occurred when our family lived in Dexter, Missouri. I was driving up to the house of one of the members of the congregation where I preached at that time. I thought it would be “just another visit,” but it turned into a life lesson (at least for me). The brother I went to see was doing something to his own house that he did for a living…
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Power of Prayer
Today’s post is not long or overly profound. It is simply a reminder of something all Christians (including me) should know. However, sometimes we forget. We forget to utilize the most powerful resource we have: prayer. And I don’t just mean our individual prayers. Although it is an undeserved honor and privilege to talk to our Heavenly Father (Heb. 4:16; 2 Chron. 7:14), and He wants to hear from us about our concerns (1 Pet. 5:6-7), we are also told to pray for one another (James 5:16). Now, if you are like me, you have no problem getting those requests and being honored to be asked. But when was the…
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Starting with the Heart
I wish I could tell you that, when it comes to living spiritually, I had it all figured out and never had any real issues to work through. I think a lot of people consider preachers and elders some type of “super-Christians” who never have any problems or temptations to work through. That’s far from true. Recently, I had another conversation with Leah that she may barely remember, but in which she helped me (again) with an issue that few, if any, know about. (Don’t get too excited…I’m not about to confess some terrible sin in a blog post!) We were simply talking through a situation–and it was actually a…
