Get ready for an ouch. A lot of you like storms better than you like calm. Why? Because when it’s calm it’s much harder to complain. And some of us simply cannot be happy unless we have something to complain about. It’s why we sabotage relationships. It’s why we...
If you've never doubted, you've only half-believed. Faith has never been easy, and doubts are not your enemy. Pretending is. Hear that again: Doubts are not your enemy. Pretending is. If we've never doubted, if we've never wrestled with issues of faith, our belief...
Yesterday, November 30, 2015, was a normal Monday in ministry. I've been through more than a thousand such Mondays in my years of full-time ministry. Yet if you read between the lines, look beneath the covers, and wash behind your ears . . . you can see some pretty...
Here's why I liked what we got to do yesterday: 1. We had a Campaign that had nothing to do with pledging money and everything to do with pledging prayer time; and 2. We rescued Psalm 46:10a from its Hallmark card safety and repositioned it dangerously into the...
Inspired by Fred Craddock, involving an Operation Christmas Child Radical Impact Project, including a stellar sermon from my friend and colleague Devin Tharp, Only Human has been one of my favorite series. And now it culminates on Sunday with "Human Racing," a message...
The hymn Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing has this puzzling line: “Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come . . .” What in the world is an Ebenezer? And how do you raise it? An Ebenezer stone comes from I Samuel 7:12 where the prophet raises a large...
I spent this past weekend with my immediate and extended family in Austin, Texas, where we celebrated the 100th birthday of my mom, Betty X. Davis. An eclectic crew of over 100 family members, writers, tennis players, politicians, and neighborhood friends gathered in...
I spent the past weekend in Austin, Texas, celebrating my mother's 100th birthday. (More on that particular extravaganza on tomorrow's Top Five Tuesday.) So one of my favorite people on earth, Devin Tharp, our Pastor of Student and Family Ministries, delivered the...
Here's a question I recently thought of regarding conversion, Calvinism, and predestination. It's based partly on my early faith experience as a 17-year-old and then partly out of an Ephesians-based bible study. Here it is: Do Calvinist Christians (great people, great...
So this happened yesterday: What was all that about? Well, Laurel University is an intimate, picturesque, undergraduate institution with a distinctively Wesleyan approach to its theology and practice. After all, its name until 2011 was John Wesley College and many of...