If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Or you can select your feed type by clicking on the "Subscribe" button on the right. Thanks for visiting!
“I am created for His kingdom and purpose. I want to fulfill what I was created for.” That was Connie Holloway’s firm belief and determination. Little did she know where that would take her.
Four years ago, Connie was in a marriage that ended in a head-on collision. A believer in Christ, she carries no anger toward her former husband. He’s a brother in Christ, she says, and she means it. She has seen her share of hurts, but Connie is the second-happiest person I have ever known. I’ve about decided that Molly Brown would have nothing on her. Connie’s unsinkable. She has that crazy idea that abundant life is available here and now – not just when we die. What a concept.
One of Connie’s major breakthroughs happened a couple of years ago. “We were in worship, singing ‘Enough,’ and God asked me, ‘Am I more than enough for you?’”
“Yes!” she said with joy.
On that day, Connie was set free from believing that a relationship with a man could heal her. She learned – not just in her head, but in her heart – that our completeness is in Him, not in a marriage or the things she thought she needed in a spouse.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. Connie was enjoying a movie with Kaylee, her daughter. The credits were rolling, and Connie saw someone’s name and thought how beautiful it was. There she was seized with a thought: It’s time for a new name. For four years she’d carried a stranger’s name, and it was time for a change.
She mentioned it to Kaylee, who just seemed to get it. Kaylee always seems to get her mother. So there they stood – credits still running – and they started having fun, practicing new names based on the running list.
But how do you pick your own new name? What would you do if you had that kind of freedom?
[click to continue…]
(A Turning Point Story)
About 20 miles east of Denton, Texas a small ridge runs north and south along what people in Dallas know as Preston Road. Visible from 10 miles away, all along the top and slope of that ridge rest the homes, churches, and schools of Prosper – a community of farmers and commuters to Dallas. I had the first of what would be many of these picturesque views in September 1981, when I virtually limped there for a job interview. Little did I know the significance that town would have in my life, family, and ministry to this day. This is about the roads that led into, out of, and back into an unforgettable town nobody had ever heard of.
Four months earlier, I had loaded up all my earthly belongings in a Hertz rental truck, put my gorgeous Irish Setter puppy, Dixie, in the cab, and left Mississippi for Texas. I was to start seminary in the fall, and thought I’d get a head start on a job and hopefully a church to serve. I was so happy, so optimistic, I literally sang my own version of a Swaggert song:
On my way to heaven,
Stoppin’ off by Texas on the way!
I got a sales job representing the prestigious Ft. Worth Chamber of Commerce. Rented a really nice house. Was leaving a wonderfully successful youth ministry. God was good! Life surely would be good, too.
It didn’t turn out that way. [click to continue…]
Not once did the thought occur to me. Not once.
We knew at 10 weeks we were having twins, courtesy of those dandy new ultrasound machines. And we were excited. Fresh out of school, still using wedding dishes, living in our own home, and picking out not one, but two sets of names.
Two boys? Joel Andrew and Jeremy Adam.
Boy and a girl? Joel Andrew and Jessica Leigh.
I was pretty quiet as we headed home from that latest ultrasound. The images were beginning to form in my mind for the first time.
Two girls?
Cosmic shifts started taking place in my little brain. And they all culminated in a wedding.
Since I was old enough to understand what fathers were, I wanted to be one. I was blessed to have a dad who loves being a dad, to this day. In whatever ways I have failed to live up to his example, I caught the whole load on that one. And in doing so, three deep convictions emerged:
- I would be the first representation of the nature and character of God to my children.
- We were called to raise adults, not children.
- Mommies build nests, but for daddies, children are arrows in their hands, and my job was to launch them.
[click to continue…]
Thirty years ago, on the first Sunday of April 1978, I became part of a church pastoral staff for the first time. (This is me about 10 years later, in 1988.) Yesterday the awesome people I get to do life with every week made a special day even more special by surprising me with a gift clock.
Over the last 30 years, the Lord has been a very faithful teacher, even when I wasn’t being faithful to him. Here’s a sampling what I have learned, and continue to learn – listed in reverse order of impact.
30. There is nothing on God’s green earth like a seventh or eighth-grade girl.
29. To be effective in youth ministry, kids should see you as an advocate, and adults should see you as an authority. When that gets reversed, it’s time to get out of youth ministry… maybe be a senior pastor.
28. Age, young or otherwise, does not dictate your effectiveness in ministry.
27. The truth of God’s word and a love for people transcends culture and location.
26. Like Jonah, you can’t run from your calling for very long.
[click to continue…]
I love pastors. I love being one most of the time. Michael Spencer, aka the Internet Monk, has helped remind me why. (Read here if you dare, and remember why it’s important to pray for and encourage YOUR pastor, whoever it may be.)
A. W. Tozer used to tell this imaginary story. It’s the first Palm Sunday, and here comes Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowds are shouting “Hosanna! Hosanna!” Some in the crowd throw their coats in the road; others spread out palm branches. “Well!” says the donkey, swishing a fly off a mange patch. “I had no idea they appreciated me like this! Listen to those praises, would you. I must really be something!”
Funny, isn’t it? The only thing the donkey did was bring Jesus to the people. And that’s all an effective pastor does, too. For a donkey to receive the praise offered to Jesus is silly. For a pastor to do so is suicide. The effectiveness of any and all ministry is measured by how well we bring Jesus to the people.
E. V. Hill once said that “preachers are like fertilizer. Pile them up and all you get is a big stink. Spread ‘em out and they can do some good.” [click to continue…]
