One In Jesus

John C. Maxwell, famous author of countless leadership books, has come out with this idea —

Now I’m sure my readers are WAY ahead of me on this one, because it’s just so obvious: Preachers should market their voices for ring tones! You can supplement your salaries. From home. No regular office hours required.

Every time one of your congregation’s member’s phone rings, they’ll hear your deeply spiritual baritone voice intone, “If anyone has any needs — any needs at all — please come forward as we stand and sing.”

Better yet, when someone’s phone goes off in the middle of church, rather than Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” it’ll be one of the preacher’s greatest hits! Maybe no one will even notice that it’s not the real preacher! It’s insurance for those members who just can’t figure out how to put their phones on silent ring!

And what could make someone holier than hearing the preacher’s voice before every phone call? Maybe you should market a ringtone along the lines of “Thou shalt not gossip!”

I’m sure you can think of other applications for this brilliant and timely idea! What a leader that John C. Maxwell is!

I have one last story to tell. While Shon was preaching about the ability of those suffering with barrenness — not just the inability to have children but any kind of burden or unfulfilled want, I was drawn back to an event that happened while I was in law school. We had just moved to Tuscaloosa and only recently placed membership at the University Church of Christ. An announcement was made asking for volunteers to sit with a dying member of the church, a former elder whose lung condition left him barely able to breath and with just a few days to live.

This wasn’t a comfortable sort of thing for me to do. I had never been around death or even serious illness, but I’d just graduated from college and figured I was supposed to do adult sorts of things. And so I volunteered. Continue reading →

I’m going to try to explain what church was like Sunday, but I’m not sure I’m a good enough writer to get it right. Still, I’m going to try.

Shon’s sermon was about the call of Abram. He focused on the barrenness of Sarai and explained how devastating it was in that culture and time to be barren. That was a society all about building a heritage through their descendants. That’s one reason Abram was so thrilled that God promised him many descendants; that was one of the greatest blessings imaginable in that society. Continue reading →

I’ve gotten a couple of questions about how things are going here in Tuscaloosa after the tornado.

I can’t adequately express how much I appreciate the many, many volunteers who’ve come to help. We’ve had so many relief workers come that we had to cancel Sunday school classes — the rooms were filled with volunteers and air mattresses! At times, we’ve had over 100 people living in our church building — being fed breakfast and supper by our many volunteers, who formed 7 cooking teams to prepare two meals a day for 9 straight weeks. Continue reading →