1986 Lenten Topics #16 A WORD FOR THE WAYWARD SOUL Bill and Harry started a house-painting business, but found the going rough. So to give a little oomph to their profits, they began to thin…
Sermon Illustrations
PERSPECTIVE Conversation between a six-year- old and a five-year-old: "Are you in Linda's room at school?" "No, I'm not. But she's in my room!"
CHOIRBOY "Sing praises unto Him, rejoice;" Shares quarters with a guinea pig How sweetly the soprano voice A hamster in a whirligig Beseeches us; eyes fixed ahead A snake, a rabbit, and three fish He…
PRIORITY When a husband is waiting for his wife to dress, the first thing he wishes she would put on -- is a burst of speed. On The Upbeat.
RADICAL, FORGIVING LOVE During the Korean war a South Korean Christian civilian was arrested by the Communists and ordered shot. But when the young Communist leader learned that the prisoner was in charge of an…
THE PAIN OF FOLLY: CHAGRIN V S. PLEASURE Benjamin Franklin didn't write much about his childhood -- but he did include the following lines: When I was a child of seven years old, my friends,…
COMMENCEMENTS The following is from a Baccalaureate address that was given by The Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes, Minister of Memorial Church, Harvard, at the Stanford Chapel back in 1977. He said (as near as I…
THIS MAY BE STRETCHIN' IT A LITTLE Joe Cannon (West Lane News) suggests these ways to know when you need to lose weight: When tourists say to you, "I didn't know the Pillsbury Doughboy lived…
YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN A SMALL TOWN WHEN The airport runway is terraced . . . Third Street is on the edge of town . . . Every sport is played on dirt . .…
LOYALTY TO THE END The wealthy old man was very enthusiastic about his lovely young bride but sometimes wondered whether she might have just married him for his money, so he asked: "If I lost…
THE POWER OF THE WRITTEN WORD A few years ago we visited the castle of Elsinore of Denmark. The guide reminded us that about 1200 A.D., the king of Pomerania built Elsinore Castle, and also…
TEACHER'S CREDENTIALS Sometime ago there was a school teacher who celebrated her eightieth birthday. It proved to be a marvelous occasion, highlighted by the presence of a great number of her former students. It seemed…
THE EASTER STORY No matter how often we have heard the Easter story, we need to hear it again. As one person said: "To the child it is wondrous because it is so new; to…
MARRIAGE Young couples often bring pastors their problems, Rev. J. Harold Stephens says. I'm thinking of the bride, a poor cook, whose husband came home to find her crying. "The dog ate the biscuits," she…
ODDS AGAINST YOU Are you thinking of writing a first novel? The annual odds against publication of novels submitted to major publishers? Novels, approximately 29,998 to 2; stories, 249,511 to 489. Context
PITHY WORDS I 'm always noting posters or plaques that hang in offices with little mottos on them. One I saw recently in two different offices expresses my feelings on some days: "One day I…
LOST CAUSE I found New York City immense and confusing on my first trip there. One evening during the rush hour, I stopped at a newsstand in the heart of Times Square and asked the…
A GOOD QUESTION FOR THE CHURCH TO ASK FROM TIME TO TIME In the Q&A section of InfoWorld I read an interview with George Morrow of Morrow Systems (computers). He observes: An article in the…
ADVICE TO THOSE CONTEMPLATING MARRIAGE I was calling on one of our senior types the other night, Lillian Davenport. A delightful lady from Georgia, she told me about her early life in the South. Then…
CARRYING A BURDEN Dr. Albert Schweitzer was 85 years old when I visited his jungle hospital at Lambarene, on the banks of the Ogowe River. You can imagine the deep and profound effect of that…
