Caring for the caregivers
Caregiving is a ministry. A caregiver is usually defined as an unpaid friend or family member who provides caring assistance for someone who suffers a long term physical or emotional illness. As my...
View ArticleBlue Christmas
Last year about this time I was preaching for the Blue Christmas service held at a church in a another city. It’s one of those services where the church gives a nod to the fact that not all people are...
View ArticleMourning with those who mourn
Like the rest of the country, I watched the news in shock and disbelief just days ago as unspeakable headlines scrolled along the bottom of the screen: “School shooting in Newtown, CT;” “Gunman attacks...
View ArticleIn good company (or, the futility of theodicy)
It was the innocence of the twenty youngest victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, all the ages of my son and his first-grade classmates, which made this latest mass shooting most...
View ArticleHow a Nativity re-kindled a mother’s hope
During the season of Christmas and Advent, a variety of nativity scenes are being displayed in home, churches, and communities around the world. At First Baptist Church of Pensacola, there is a small...
View ArticleReal hope for tough times
You can sustain a lot of losses in your lifetime, but when you lose hope, life can become depressing and your previously strong faith can become as weak as stump water. During tough times, hope becomes...
View ArticleMedicare, end of life and living our theology
Medicare is consistently a wedge issues for both sides of the political spectrum. The issue becomes even more controversial in the reality that more than 30 percent of the cost of Medicare comes in the...
View ArticleRemember infertility on Mother’s Day
This Sunday dads will wake up extra early to make their wives breakfast in bed, or at least a good cup of strong coffee. Children will work diligently during their Sunday school hour cutting out...
View ArticleThere is life after the storm
In 1994 I was serving at the First Baptist Church of Williams near Jacksonville, Ala. when a tornado touched down on Palm Sunday near Ragland and cut a trail to Rome, Ga., demolishing hundreds of...
View ArticleTime to count our blessings
My ministry “day job” is to give leadership to my church fellowship’s national disaster response. In this role with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, I interact with our churches, other churches and...
View ArticleMaking (theological) sense of natural disaster
Like many, I’ve followed the story of the tornado-spawned tragedy in Oklahoma. The images called up memories of when an EF-4 tornado swept through Murfreesboro, Tenn., where I served as a pastor at the...
View ArticleThe gift of a ministry of presence
It was impossible to go to all of the breakout sessions at the CBF General Assembly in June. Because of this, my wife and I chose sessions that would be most applicable to us as a pastoral couple...
View ArticleA prayer for peace
In his recent lament over the Trayvon Martin tragedy, evangelical leader Jim Wallis implored: “If there ever was a time that demonstrated why racially and culturally diverse congregations are needed —...
View ArticleZimmerman verdict reveals flawed jury selection process
A jury comprised of five white women and one Latina has acquitted George Zimmerman on all charges. This outcome was largely determined by the way we select juries in America. Imagine that two women who...
View ArticleAngle of repose
Death is bigger than us. All of us. And when we brush up against it, we leave wounded—especially when we lose the ones we love (i.e. friends, family, etc). We leave hurt. Over two years ago my wife’s...
View ArticleBetween the lullaby and the requiem
The hospital waiting room on the fourth floor at Northeast Alabama Regional Medical Center in Anniston was empty and quiet. The only sounds were the dinging of the elevator in the distance and the...
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‘Forever Changed': Fellow Warriors
My Journal Writings from Balad AB, Iraq April 2005 – Sept 2005 The following is an account of my fourth deployment into the Global War on Terror. I wrote this as a weekly journal/email account I sent...
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The shortest blog on record
“That is why I started to write. To save myself.” Eldridge Cleaver in Soul on Ice I suspect that is also why some people started to preach.
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Forever Changed #2: giving life and those who have given theirs
I have been wondering all week what God was going to give to me to share with you all and now I know. I have been in country 7 whole days now, and we have had more mortar attacks than days on the...
View Articledisinterested religion + the art of unemployment
Occasionally, there are days-and even moments within days-when heavy clouds pull in front of the sun, blocking its light from view and casting everything in the empty parking lot outside my office...
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