“Do unto others downstream what you want those upstream to do to you.”
Tag: serving others
Way back in the summer of 1992, I went to serve as the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Winchester, Virginia. That’s when I met the family of Butch and Eva Gates. The first day in my office, Eva called me and asked me to officiate at a marriage vow renewal service that […]
I saw petroglyphs in New Mexico last week. “Petroglyph” means “rock writing” and refers to art carved in volcanic stones lying about the desert hills just west of Albuquerque. According to the scientists who’ve studied the petroglyphs, Native Americans from the Pueblo nation produced those markings during a few centuries before and after 800, c.e. […]
Some years ago, I stood with a cousin of mine on a balmy June evening at the edge of a field on our late grandfather’s farm. It was about 10:00 p.m. and the field stretched away for nearly a mile to a distant tree line, visible as a dark jagged ribbon against a luminous night […]
You never meet an individual. Oh, sure, you can run into someone standing by herself in the line at the coffee kiosk, exchange greetings, and have a two-way conversation analyzing the coffee, but the fact is: she’s responding with a style, using vocabulary that she learned, and referring to cues she picked up from a […]
Lesson #6 has to do with the resistance to Support Teams that I’ve encountered among pastors and, indeed, it comes in two parts. Here’s Part One and it’s a heart-felt sympathetic description of why one encounters resistance. There’s a good reason for it. Part Two will come next Wednesday (March 9, 2016), and it’ll be […]
I love the Geico commercial that has fun with the “loner cowboy.” Have you seen it? The cowboy sits on his horse while his girl comes running out weeping hysterically and yelling, “Don’t go, Jessie!” He says, “I’m sorry, Daisy, but I’m a loner. And a loner has to be alone.” He then kicks his […]
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The Ministry of Watching Football
“What do I love to do?” the young man asked. He opened his palms upward and shrugged his shoulders. With a laugh he said, “I love to watch football.” Others in the room laughed with him. The man had responded to a question I’d asked a couple of months ago while I was in Tuscaloosa. […]
Community Support Teams 