Good day, friends. I am writing to let you know my new book is out and is available on Amazon. In a way, it is the result of 40 years of teaching Sunday School. However, it should not take nearly that long to read. It is my take on characters, stories, and themes in Scripture. You can pick and choose what looks interesting to you. These are my thoughts as one who lives on the edge of the inside. The teacher, while not an insider, loves those on the inside while keeping a foot on the outside. We do our best work by remaining just on the edge of the…

A dozen years ago I was asked by a friend if I would consider sharing what I am thinking: “People are curious about why you think the way you do.” Whether it was false humility, fear, or an aversion to being put in a box, I declined. Two years later, I changed my mind when I remembered the old saying that you don’t know what you think until you have written it down. It was not out of a desire to share that I started writing a weekly blog but, selfishly perhaps, a desire to know for myself what I thought. Just as Thoreau went to the woods to live…

Years ago, a friend made a large donation to help a new organization get started. The founder was an acquaintance and not only persuasive but passionate about the new organization being able to meet a social need not being addressed in the community. The venture failed within two years and ended badly for everyone. I told him he had paid his “dumb tax” on giving. We all pay it either early on – like him – or later. It always comes when we venture into areas about which we know very little and, typically, with people we do not know well. The tax tends to decrease with experience but I’ve…

Some blogs are diaries – personal and revealing by making you feel you have been invited into the interior of the author’s life. Others are more like almanacs – filled with useful information and resources by pointing you to other people and places. I’m more like the latter. I want to point you to a wonderful example of the diarist who draws you into the interior of his life. Such is the case here. This is a short excerpt from David Wayne, a pastor in Baltimore, Maryland wrestling with God and cancer. “I have tried to play the good soldier in my battle with cancer but have secretly nursed a…

I pray none of my college professors read this late confession. I went to school in a time that valued citations and footnotes – not so much original thought. I learned this the hard way but over time figured out how to game the system. Here is the part I hope they do not read. If I had something I thought original to say and obviously did not have a recognized source, I would make one up and create a fake footnote. I knew the professor was far more likely to give credence to a published source than a student. I also knew the teaching assistant quickly grading the paper…

I pray none of my college professors read this late confession. I went to school in a time that valued citations and footnotes – not so much original thought. I learned this the hard way but over time figured out how to game the system. Here is the part I hope they do not read. If I had something I thought original to say and obviously did not have a recognized source, I would make one up and create a fake footnote. I knew the professor was far more likely to give credence to a published source than a student. I also knew the teaching assistant quickly grading the paper…

Some of you know I have taught a Sunday School class for 40 years. It’s my anchor as much as my pulpit. For much of that time I taught on topics or passages I chose but then I put myself under the discipline of teaching the “lectionary.” Baptists don’t call it that but that’s what it is. It is the assigned passage sent from Nashville. There are times when I would rather break out and go back to being independent but I guess this is my feeble attempt at growing in sanctification. For years, the word “sanctification” conjured up images of determined efforts to do better. You know Grant Woods’…

It’s not just me but a growing number of people have made comments about a theme running through commencement speeches for the last several years. Do what matters most to you. Find your passion and follow it. Explore your deepest self. Follow your dreams and, most importantly, find yourself. It seems that the primary task is to make the world a better place for you chiefly. While that sounds like a value hatched by Baby Boomers and passed along to the next generation, the roots of it are found thousands of years ago in a passage from the book of Numbers. The tribes of Israel had managed to be obedient…

Periodically, I think about full retirement and what that might mean. I asked one friend about it, and his response was, “Retire from what? You have the job that everyone would like to find when they retire.” He was right but I still think I’d like to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You can quit now.” Fortunately, that is not God’s plan for my life. I came to realize this in a couple of ways. First, I read the Genesis account of creation again and saw it in a new way. Man was not created as the pinnacle. His work was not meant for his own fulfillment. Rather,…

There is no topic more widely discussed and fretted about in family philanthropy than that of donor intent. Horror stories (both true and fabricated) are floated by institutions and endowments warning parents there is a high likelihood that their children will abandon their values and wishes almost as soon as both parents have been laid to rest. The classic example is that of the Ford Foundation whose trustees, according to the story, were so blatant about diverting from Henry Ford’s instructions that his son resigned from the Board in disgust, claiming the trustees had betrayed their responsibilities by funding causes that would have been abhorrent to his father’s intentions. In…