One question I love to ask guests on my podcast is: “What do you want your legacy to be?” The illustration below shows what happens when your answer goes astray. A young man was to be sentenced to the penitentiary. The judge had known him from childhood, for he was well acquainted with his father—a […]

When I talked to a few frustrated rural pastors, at the heart of their frustration was the sense that because there was not a large influx of people coming into their community, there were not many ministries to do. What is needed is an attitude adjustment. Sometimes out of our most desperate situations comes the […]

In his 1983 acceptance speech for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn] recalled the words he heard as a child when his elders sought to explain the ruinous upheavals in Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” He added, “If I were called upon to identify briefly the […]

Former heavyweight boxer James (Quick) Tillis is a cowboy from Oklahoma who fought out of Chicago in the early 1980s. He still remembers his first day in the Windy City after his arrival from Tulsa. “I got off the bus with two cardboard suitcases under my arms in downtown Chicago and stopped in front of […]

“Can’t see your nose in front of your face “ Idiom Meaning – Being oblivious to something obvious, in clear view. On the Road to Emmaus Jesus had His faithful disciples not recognize him. It is easy to focus on the disciples short-comings. To see the disciples as men with a weak faith or just […]

This story is familiar. In 1972, and after 308 years, the First Church of Newton, Mass., called it quits. It gave its assets to a museum, sold its building to a Greek Evangelical Church, and disbanded. Started in 1664, the church rose to a high of 1,200 members in 1952 but dropped to 325 in […]

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.[1] Luke 24:34 Near the end of Irving Stone’s powerful novel, Love Is Eternal, about Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln, there is a moving conversation between Mrs. Lincoln and the President’s bodyguard, Parker, who had been summoned to Mrs. Lincoln’s room. “Why were you not at […]

There’s an old saying, “God couldn’t be everywhere at once, so he made moms.” That statement has horrible theology in it. But it attempts to convey the importance motherhood plays in our lives. Mothers hold a special place and role that no one else can fill. This post is about the importance of motherhood. The […]

Urban Ministry is messy. It involves loving all people. Some come into our stream of consciousness with messy and broken lives. Because of the struggles their lives have gone through that makes our ministry with them will look messy. Our need to include others makes our partnerships with community leaders and congregations outside the comfort […]

I grew up in the great state of Louisiana. It was a very diverse community of people and cultures. When I think about the church on Sunday mornings, it looks more like Tomato soup. Now don’t get me wrong on cold winter day there nothing better than a good bowl of Tomato Soup and a […]