What do today’s low-interest rates, your discretionary funds, and a generous heart have in common? Together, these ingredients create the perfect opportunity to consider a charitable gift annuity! If you have an insured savings account or if your certificate of deposit (CD) has come up for renewal, you may have observed the interest rate has dropped significantly since the first of the year. According to Leimberg Information Services, The 90-day Treasury Bill and the 30-Year Treasury … [Read more...]
Super dad
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to the point of resentment with demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive; nor by showing favoritism or indifference to any of them], but bring them up [tenderly, with lovingkindness] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” – Ephesians 6:4 (Amplified Bible) “My dad is better than your dad!” Little boys often compare dads. They want to be proud of their dad, and, by proving dad is … [Read more...]
What is the next stage?
Governor Parson and the director of the Department of Health and Senior Services, Dr. Randall Williams, are targeting the state-wide reopening for 11:59 p.m. Sunday, May 31. Of course, our state leaders are monitoring closely the data and hope they do not need to draft orders to extend precautionary measures. I hear repeated questions: “When do our churches begin to return? What is the next stage for our churches?” Let’s be perfectly clear: The church never closed and never stopped being … [Read more...]
I’m blessed to have a step-dad like Joe Pratt
On one of the bookcase shelves in my office sits a beautifully hand-made shadow box. It features the baseball I captured off the bat of former Kansas City Royal Matt Stairs during a game Sept. 21, 2005, at Kauffman Stadium. I was sitting in the second deck directly behind home plate when Stairs fouled a pitch straight back that barely cleared the backstop netting. It came directly at me. I raised my right hand and the ball smacked right into my palm, ricocheting straight down. It bounced … [Read more...]
The package deal of truth, love
Big things come in small packages. I think the person who said that sat beside me in my high school geometry class. And even though I was really bad at geometry, I would never copy off that guy’s paper. Because that would be very wrong, yes. But also because the answer would also likely be very wrong. Let’s be real. As much as I tried, I could never make myself care what “Y” equaled. Congruently (see what I did there?), I don’t care what size the package is. Just as long as the package is … [Read more...]
Unsung heroes
There has been much written about heroes lately, as well as there should be. Doctors, nurses, first responders, and all of those who run “toward” what the rest of us are running “from” must surely be commended and celebrated. They deserve every accolade imaginable, along with those who protect our country through military service around the world. I invite you to reconsider the actual appearance of a hero. I tend to think of the young, strong, and energetic. While true, there is … [Read more...]
Three things I wish I knew before becoming a pastor
My first year of ministry was insane. I was 20, single, and was still in Bible college. I had taken a homiletics class and was thinking, “This is awesome!” But I butchered my first sermon big time. Now, I have been in ministry for 10 years, and some may get the idea that it has been an easy-breezy journey that led to the place I am today. But that was not the case. As each year went by, ministry did get better, but the first year was a real struggle. There were many hurdles I needed to … [Read more...]
Sharing your thoughts on reopening church
Like pressure from a shaken can of soda, tremendous factors contribute to the anxiety churches and businesses feel as they engage the public once again. While some say the reopening is happening much too fast, I’m so grateful that most local churches across our state are beginning to reopen for corporate worship and personal witness. Digital communications are here to stay, but sometimes people simply want to move beyond the two-dimensional world of a flat screen. For your marvelous … [Read more...]
Ahmaud Arbery and the image of God
I watched the video. I shouldn’t have. But I did. And it broke me. A young man, the same age as many of my students, shot in the street because neighbors thought he might be a person who matched a vague description of a reported thief. He wasn’t armed. Nor was he carrying anything. He wasn’t even running at a pace to get away from anyone. He was simply jogging. As he approached the truck parked in the middle of the street, he simply went around the truck and they shot at him. The … [Read more...]
The curious case of Jim Bakker, Jay Nixon
Televangelist Jim Bakker, who was once king of the false teaching known as the “prosperity gospel,” has shifted the focus of his messages to “the end times.” It is in that context that Bakker, who served several years in prison after defrauding his viewers out of millions of dollars in the 1980s, now finds himself the target of a lawsuit brought by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. But, before we rush to judgment, we must realize there is an important issue, perhaps unintended, that … [Read more...]
Sold out, soldiering on
Here’s the message I considered texting to everyone I know. I’m at that décor mega-super-store. It’s so mega and so super that I’m pretty sure I’ve been here for four days. I can no longer feel my feet. Please send help. I fought off the urge to send it, but that shopping trip finally ended like this: Cashier, as I’m checking out: Did you find everything okay? Me, unloading my eight carts: Not really but I’m too weary and dehydrated to go on. Cashier: Do you have a rewards card? Okay, … [Read more...]
Family get-togethers
“…not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:25 (NKJV) Will there ever be a better time to have family devotions? The Bible tells us not to forsake getting together and it is not always possible to go to church. When it is possible, of course, we should attend church. Church, however, can never substitute for family devotions. There is much value in setting a … [Read more...]
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