POWER LOSS Living just outside of town has its drawbacks. For me it was having to take my garbage to the area dumpster. It was the summer of my first pastorate. I found myself dropping off two bags of garbage on the hottest day of the year. The heat was terrific, so the reek of …
Dependence | Power | Rest | Submission | Trust | Worldliness Read More »
AN INAUSPICIOUS END Li Bo, considered one of China’s greatest poets, led a wandering life, briefly enjoying spells of court employment. He was a lover of beauty and wine and met his death appropriately. According to popular tradition, he was out in a boat one evening. Trying to embrace the reflection of the moon, which …
Chemical Abuse | Love | Self | Sin | Worldliness Read More »
BANQUET INTRO Frank Mosley, Pastor of the Evangelical Community Church of Jackson, Tennessee sent in this one, suggesting it might be used in an introduction of someone at a banquet where you want to give him a bit of a bad time: 38301 During a dream I had last night, I died and promptly met …
FREE, INDEED! The warranty on a new color TV set had no sooner run out than the set started causing trouble. The lady of the house called the company and they sent a man to fix it. When he found that the warranty had expired he tried to talk her into signing a contract for …
Communication | Deceit | Joy | Money | Stewardship | Worldliness Read More »
MATURE LOVE A young boy of about 12 noticed a young man polishing his nice Corvette one afternoon. The boy went up to the young man and asked where he got the car. The young man said, “My brother gave it to me.” Then the boy said, “I wish . . . ” and paused. …
WHO’S IN SCHOOL? The following incident occurred on Monday morning following Ronald Reagan’s announcement of his candidacy for his second term. While seated in a local restaurant, waiting for a colleague of mine to come in, I had the good fortune of overhearing three waitresses on their coffee break, and they were discussing Reagan’s announcement …
CANDOR ABOUT TRUTH IN ADVERTISING At the heart of Madison Avenue’s new, elaborately engineered system of persuasion lies one fundamental premise: Each group in our society has its weaknesses and deep-seated emotional needs. If Ad Alley can uncover these psychological problems in the course of its lengthy interviews with citizens and then devise 30-second television …
Burden | Deceit | Materialism | Self | Worldliness Read More »
SPECIAL OLYMPICS I had a great experience three years ago down in Los Angeles — I went to the Special Olympics and there were several people from our church who were competing. I was sitting in the stands one day as they held the 220, which is about half the track in distance and there …
Endurance | Perseverance | Risk | Servanthood | Service | Success | Worldliness Read More »
EPITAPH FOR A GODLESS PEOPLE A cry from the North, from the West, from the South Whence thousands travel daily to the timekept City; Where My Word is unspoken, In the land of lobelias and tennis flannels The rabbit shall burrow and the thorn revisit, The nettle shall flourish on the gravel court, And the …
Evangelism | Lost | Poetry | Salvation | Sin | Sports | Worldliness Read More »
DISILLUSIONED Santa Clara County Supervisor Dianne McKenna recently told the following story at the DeAnza College Commencement that she read in Bloom County: Opus, the penguin was suffering a crisis of faith. While standing in front of the television he says, “I believe in our government,” only to have the TV announcer say, “Today the …
COMPROMISE OR OPPORTUNITY Jack Longley, Presbyterian Pastor from San Jose, California recently sent me a clipping from the local classified section. One of his members had clipped it out and passed it on to him. It read: PREACHER. We would like to find a clergyperson who will marry us in a cocktail lounge on February …
FADS, POPULAR RELIGIONS This running after every religious fanatic who starts some doctrine of the devil reminds me of the old Arkansas farmer who, when asked what was the matter with his hogs, they were so poor, and he replied, “When I lost my voice a year ago I could not call them to their …
Appearance | Doubt | Ideas | Truth | Worldliness Read More »
IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER I ‘d dare to make more mistakes next time, I’d relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been this trip, I would take fewer things seriously, I would take more chances, I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers, I would …
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT The following item was clipped from Time magazine’s “American Notes” section, Oct 21, 1985. “Caesars Hotel-Casino in Atlantic City hit the jackpot when Brian Molony became a regular customer. In 1981 and ’82, the assistant bank manager from Toronto gambled away more than $7 million at its tables. Molony bet as much …
Discouragement | Judgment | Justice | Worldliness Read More »
THE HUMANIST’S PRAYER Lyman Abbot once paraphrased the Lord’s Prayer to reflect the philosophy of those without God. We might call it the Humanist’s Prayer: “Our bretheren who art on earth, Hallowed be our name. Our kingdom come, our will be done on earth, for there is no heaven. We must get this day our …
THE PRAYER OF DESPERATION — HOW SINCERE? Charlie Brown is in school and it is time to give a report. He just knows the teacher must be about to call on him. But he is not prepared and he is talking to himself: “Why do things like this always happen to me? Because I don’t …
Commitment | Discipline | Disobedience | Prayer | Worldliness Read More »
VALS According to William Meyers in The Image Makers, Madison Avenue’s most widely used categorization of people in our society is that suggested by SRI International’s VALS (Values and Life-Styles). This divides people into five basic groups, as follows: BELONGERS: The typcial traditionalist, the cautious and conforming conservative. Archie Bunker is a Belonger; he believes …
THE WILL TO WIN RUN AMOK Kathy Ormsby was a success story. She was a dean’s list student at North Carolina State, majoring in pre-med. She was an All-America distance runner. At the Penn Relays in April [1986], she set an American collegiate record for 10,000 meters with a time of 32:36:2. She was on …
WE PLAY THE GAME UNFAIRLY A Hassidic story tells of a little boy playing hide-and-seek with his friends. For some unknown reason they stopped playing while he was hiding. He began to cry. His old grandfather came out of the house to see what was troubling him and to comfort him. After learning what had …
Evangelism | Lost | Procrastination | Salvation | Time | Warning | Worldliness Read More »
A MODERN PRAYER O Son of God, we beg, we beseech, we supplicate, we petition, we implore You to hear us. Lord, be good to us. Christ, make things easy for us. Lord, deliver us from the necessity of doing anything. David Head, He Sent Leanness (Epworth Press, London, 1959), page 24.