Tomorrow night, the Lebanon Road church of Christ will have a special Thanksgiving service. Many congregations do similar things, since so many are out-of-town and since there are so many visitors. That “flux” makes it difficult to continue a curriculum in Bible classes. Also, since our minds (hopefully) are on thankfulness, it serves as a good time to have a very focused service. I was honored that our elders asked me to coordinate the evening. Brother Harry Middleton provided me with some outlines of services from year’s past, and I was excited that several men had been involved. With that in mind, I outlined a service, and 23 men will…

We had a ton of folks traveling for the holidays yesterday, and we also had some who were leading worship in Pearlington, Mississippi, so our numbers were a bit down yesterday, but that sure didn’t dampen the spirits on “the Pike.” It was another uplifting day. We were even spared from the cold weather a bit and enjoyed a beautiful day. I preached a sermon yesterday morning entitled “The Truly Thankful Life,” based on Psalm 107. Instead of preaching a “count your blessings” sermon for Thanksgiving, I decided to preach a sermon on what a thankful life looks like. Here were the points: I. It is a Secure Life (v.1a).…

Tonight at Lebanon Road, we are having the annual “Harvest Banquet.” It is a dinner for our older members, featuring a full production of Hee-Haw, put on by some of us young-uns. (I’m just thankful I can still be in the young-un group!) One thing about Lebanon Road is that they don’t half-do anything. Don’t believe me? Just look at the set for our show tonight: I hope to have someone take some pictures of the evening, so I can post them later. Since I was sick last week, there are several links this week. It’s two weeks’ worth. Enjoy! 1. David Lemmons posts an article from Adam Cozort entitled…

Last night, we got to witness a baptism at Lebanon Road! Mandi Cofer was baptized for the remission of her sins at the conclusion of our devotional period last night. She was baptized into a denomination a few years ago, but wanted to be certain that her baptism was for the forgiveness of sins. We are so proud of her thoughtfulness and courage in making this decision. To make the night even more special, she asked her husband, Shea, to baptize her. And one more special note: this sweet young couple is expecting their first child in the near future. Now, that child (a girl named Cleo) will be raised…

When I was a kid, I used to sit around for hours setting up long lines of dominos. I had over 1000, and, at times, would set up nearly all of them. I had them all over the downstairs of our house, and got pretty good at doing tricks with them. Yes, I know, that officially qualifies me as a nerd. When I was a youth minister, we even had a couple of days where the elementary young people would have domino competitions, setting them up and knockin’ em down. They loved it. Yes, they are nerds, too. Why all this domino talk? In case you haven’t yet seen it,…

John MacArthur wrote this very basic book subtitled, A Biblical Guide to Using God’s Wealth. Simply reading the title and subtitle, the reader gets the basis of the book: what we have is not really ours. There are a few things readers will enjoy about this volume: 1. Each chapter is brief, but filled with information. Truly, there is no “fluff” in this book. It is straightforward, but helpful. 2. MacArthur does not believe in tithing as a necessity, and lays out a very logical way of thinking about this discussion. 3. The appendix is a special chapter dealing with gambling. Though short, it provides the basic arguments against gambling…

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, especially the Friday Links Roundup. I have been sick since the middle of the night Thursday/Friday, and was barely able to get out of bed, except to go to the doctor Saturday morning. They gave me some medicine and it is helping. In fact, it helped enough that I was able to worship yesterday morning, and preach last night. We were scheduled to have Micky Bell preach yesterday morning, and that was a blessing in a lot of ways. He did a great job, and it also helped me, knowing I could just go and not have to worry about making it through…

Some podcasts are not updated every day or week. Some people put a series of programs or lectures out there and you can choose which programs to listen to, then the program is over. I have subscribed to several of these on a few different subjects over the past few months. 1. Memphis School of Preaching 2007 Lectures. MSOP put every lecture on iTunes for listeners to enjoy. Admittedly, I did not listen to every single lecture, but I listened to about 10 or so of some of my favorite speakers. This was a great way to dig deeply into God’s Word while traveling. (Average length: 30 minutes) 2. Money,…

I’m a little behind on my book reviews, so I thought I’d just mention two books I finished in the last couple of weeks. 1. Failing Forward (John Maxwell). Maxwell is the leadership guru, and has written many books on the topic. I have a stack of them (thanks, Mandi!) and look forward to reading them over the next few months. This book deals with a topic we don’t like to think of, but one that is common: failure. We all fail, but how do we handle it? Failing Forward is filled with stories of those who used failure to learn and move forward. Instead of thinking “failure is not…

The weather started to turn cooler (finally!), but things continued to go well at Lebanon Road. Even with the time change and the sun setting much earlier, we had good attendance at our evening service, too. A couple of our work committees met to plan some of our upcoming activities, so it was a busy day, but a great one. For several weeks, off-and-on, I have been presenting some basic Bible lessons called “Christianity 101.” Yesterday I preached on the Lord’s Supper in a lesson entitled “Examine Yourself,” and this was the final lesson on worship. In a couple of weeks, I’ll pick up with a lesson or two (I…