Tiger’s Christmas Gift to Us

Everyone say it together now: “Thank you, Tiger Woods!”
I have lately tended to avoid blogging on such stories as this, but yesterday began to think of all the hoopla that has followed from Tiger’s car accident from a different angle.
One of the things I try to keep constant on this blog is looking at and [...]

Brand Loyalty

I don’t usually think of myself as particularly brand-loyal.  Something I did this weekend has me thinking otherwise.
Rachel and I were in Arlington for my parent’s 50th anniversary, and, upon checking into the hotel Thursday night, realized we had forgotten to bring toothpaste. I went on a quick quest for toothpaste.
As I pulled into the [...]

More Effective Preaching in Central Texas

Preaching in the Central Texas Conference has been weighed and found wanting.  So says Bishop Mike Lowry.
As a consequence, all the clergy in the Waco District received an email a month or so ago about our attendance being required at a workshop on preaching.
I was insulted at first.  Not only do I think I am [...]

Love v. Control

Surprise!  Ben Bernanke thinks the Fed ought to maintain control over banking.
Like many of my posts, this one is not actually about the topic with which I open.  Well, at least not the obvious one.
I do not, for present purposes, care what the role of the Federal Reserve is in regulating banking.
I want, instead, to [...]

Will God Save Every Person?

I just started into Gulley & Mulholland’s book If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person.  I have to tell you, I’m skeptical.  I have borrowed a copy of this book.  My mother-in-law asked me a couple of months ago what I thought of this book, and then she offered me a copy [...]

Giving Advice

I am in a sometimes awkward position of having an adolescent child while I work with a couple hundred adolescents.
Professionally, I think I am pretty good at what I do.  I have the skills, the passion, and the dedication to keep me level-headed (for the most part) and consistent. I communicate well with adolescents (generally); [...]

Finding Identity-Thinking Ethnically

I have trouble dealing with ethnicity. It isn’t that I have trouble dealing with people who have an ethnicity. No, my problem, like that of very many of us, is that Anglo-Americans have generally grown up without any ethnicity. In fact, I would argue that the American Myth is that the only identity or ethnicity [...]

Maybe Jesus was a carpenter…

We went around the table, each of us sharing something we got from the devotional that had just been read.  Toward the end, most of us settled into repeating something like: “Take your problems to God; God can solve any problem.”
The final girl said, almost under her breath, “God can’t solve every problem.”
Without thinking, almost [...]

Blame

It is NOT my fault.  I didn’t get the email.
Wasn’t that someone else’s responsibility?
If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell,* to the unquenchable fire.* 45And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut [...]

We’re all Users

I’m reading Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint’s Come on People: on the path from Victims to Victors. On p. 32 they write:
One way slaves survived such brutal conditions was to turn the Christianity they had learned into a liberation theology.  The stories of the Hebrew slaves became their own. Even as slave owners used the [...]