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.…

It’s a blessing to have more than one preacher “on staff” at a congregation. It is a great way for people to use talents and it also provides a built-in network of helpers. J.D., Harry and I split several responsibilities, and one of those is preaching. Our elders want all three of us to spend time in front of the congregation presenting lessons from the pulpit, although I preach the majority of the time. J.D. preached yesterday morning. His lesson was tremendous. Many, after services were over, were saying things to me like, “You’d better watch it,” or “It’s about time we heard some good preaching around here.” They were…

It’s sad that I’m celebrating the fact that my beloved Yankees have finally broken over the .500 mark. They really aren’t very good, but they are playing quite well right now. Maybe they can make a little run against the “Mess” (Mets) this weekend. Today is going to be great, as the teams play a day/night doubleheader with one game in each stadium! We finished our VBS at Lebanon Road and now we are on to more great things. I’ll be out of town next weekend for the 4th, so there may not be a links roundup. We’ll see. I’m looking forward to speaking at the Memorial Parkway church of…

We had a great VBS this year. Last night marked the end of VBS 2008. We celebrated those who brought the most visitors. We also took a moment to thank all those who helped teach, lead crafts, be in skits, and so many other areas. If our calculations are right, over 1/3 of our families were directly involved with leading VBS! That does not include others who brought refreshments, invited and/or brought visitors, and the many who prayed for the effort. Jeremiah Tatum delivered a great lesson last night as we studied Zacchaeus. All our adult classes were amazing, and those who listened were challenged by the lessons presented. We…

Here are some pictures of several of our VBS activities. 1. “The Good Samaritan” about to get attacked. (Sorry the quality of the skit pictures is not very good. The room was dark, so this is the best my phone will do.) 2. Our innkeeper, Earl Flynn. After that, the Levite passes right by. 3. Our Tuesday night speaker, brother David Shannon from Mount Juliet, Tennessee. 4. I had a picture of this classroom earlier, but it was not complete. I thought you might like to see the entire treehouse. 5. The nursery is not a baby-sitting service. These teachers do a fantastic job. When we got home last night,…