Preaching Fun Part I

My good friend Dan A is serving as interim pastor at a rural Baptist Church about a half-hour south of Tuscaloosa. He is away for two weekends on a Mission trip to another Baptist church in the Caribbean. Sounds tough eh?

Well, Dan, unaware of my track record as a fill-in preacher, asked me to give 4 sermons on those two weekends. I was THRILLED at the prospect, so I immediately agreed. My motive was/is selfish. I hear from G^d most often whilst I am prepping to teach His word.

I quickly prepped 4 sermons from some passages I love and know pretty well:
1) Parable of the Good Auburn Fan (Lk 10),
2) Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham (Lk 16),
3) Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5, 6, 7), and
4) How to share the Gospel (Lots of Scripts across the Christian Testament).

I got them ready and shipped #1 and 2 to the guy who handles PowerPoint for their congregation. He gently let me know that Dan had JUST given sermons on BOTH those passages.

Back to the drawing board. Pretty quickly I substituted:
1 &2) Sermon on the Mount part 1, and Sermon on the Mount part 2 for sermons 1 and 2.
#3 now became Lk 18:17-30- the story of the Rich Young Fool.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story...

When everything goes WRONG!

Brenda and I were a bit testy with each other. We are trying  to get ready for a drive to Dallas for our Cru Mid-year Conf.

It has been uneventful except for our inter-tensions. And, I get into the truck to pick up the rental car, and it won’t start.  Battery is dead.

We finally get on the road. We take a short detour to see the church where I’ll be guest-preaching 4 sermons next month, and we find it with no trouble. About 90 min down the road we take an exit off the interstate to go to the bathroom. That gas station looks convenient on the left there. But the gas station has now been converted to a title pawn store, and we decide not to ask to use their rest room. It is surprisingly hard to find another gas station, so we visit the bathrooms in Arby’s. It is also surprisingly hard to get back on the Interstate.

We stop for an early dinner, but there is a 30-min wait at Cracker Barrel. We decide that this area is a good place to spend the night, since we are off the road already. After checking in to the Motel 6, we walk back to Cracker Barrel to find only a 10-min wait. Afterwards, I forget to use gift card to pay.

Upon reflection though, as I write this, a LOT worse could have gone wrong. We like our rental car. Enterprise came and picked me up—even though they don’t typically offer that service on Saturday. We traveled about half-way to Dallas. We were NOT in a wreck, we didn’t have any car trouble, no one was sick… And, we learned something. 

It is easy for us to get frustrated when just a few minor inconveniences arise. BUT, G^d is good and a LOT went right. G^d is good—ALL the time and we are Blessed—even when we don’t recognize it.

2019-2020 Deer Season in Review

Last deer season was a banner year for Andrew and me. This year was a lot of fun, but not nearly so productive. I killed a total of ONE doe and no bucks.  Andy got 2 does.  Sad eh?

Well, not so fast. We hunt for the harvest, but the lack of harvest is NOT what deer hunting is all about. During the season I edited papers for friends, I wrote, I read. I read several very good books whilst on the deer stand--indeed it is my best reading time of the year, even eclipsing the beach because deer season starts in Oct. and goes until 10 Feb in Alabama.

We saw many beautiful aspects of G^d's creation. Yesterday (24 Jan), I saw a beautiful hawk start hunting 6-8 feet above the ground about 180 yards and he hunted all the way down to myabe 30-40 yards past me. In a memorable hunt in Greene County Andrew and I watched 2 Harris hawks hunting the big field that we shared with them in 3 hunts. Those hawks are patient, so we can learn a bit from them, which brings me to patience.

As of yesterday I think I have hunted 41 times this season, which I suspect is a new record for me. And I only have one deer to show for it? Yes, patience, patience, patience. But taking some time is not a bad thing in our rush-rush-rush world. Sitting quietly watching is probably more therapeutic than I realize. Probably the patience required is more than many modern folks can bear, so sadly, hunting numbers are declining.

But we do have 3 deer in the freezer--which should be enough to get us to next season. As I have explained, venison is probably the HEALTHIEST red meat you can eat. And we do enjoy this lean goodness.

I could talk too about the meditation, but let's not over-sell it. It's kinda nice not having so much competition in deer hunting.

In fact, forget everything I just wrote!

Life Review: My Spurned Kiss

Anyone who knows my sweet, sweet wife is aware that she does NOT like public attention. She is a big-time INTROVERT who states adamantly that she does NOT want to be in front of people--ever.

Many years ago, prob in the mid-late 90's Brenda and I completed a multi-week marriage seminar put on, in part, but our dear friends, the Drs. Griffiths, along with William and Beverly Scroggins. We finished the course and were asked to go up on the church podium one Sunday morning to give our endorsement to this excellent class. I immediately agreed, because I LOVE being the center of attention, and am always happy to speak, give communion, teach Sunday School, or whatever. Brenda declined without hesitation. As I said, she is shy.

I was asked to sit on the front row to speed the process. Right before I was due to go up and speak, Brenda appeared at my side. I was thrilled to have her alongside me. We went up to the podium and she said a few words. It occurred to me that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I could best illustrate the value of the class by sweeping my beautiful wife off her feet and planting a kiss on her lips.

With this in mind, I took her in my arms, leaned her back...whereupon she fought me off! The audience response was terrific--maybe the best of my speaking career.

So, I would have loved a kiss, I did enjoy the laughter!

Advantages that Christians Enjoy in Life

My all-time most hostile responses to a post was the time I attempted to compliment my atheist friends regarding their positive attributes. I will run the risk again this time, with a bit more discussion of the atheist worldview.

As I get older, (I am 69.9 years old), I realize the end is drawing near. That causes me to pause more often to reflect on the end of life. As Followers of Christ, we know that our destiny is secure. We will live in heaven with G^d and enjoy the pleasures of a sin-free eternity. My atheist friends, sadly, have no such future.

I can relax in the face of global problems like climate change, war, economic collapse, etc. G^d is sovereign. He loves us and died for us, and we have nothing to fear. We can relax, whereas my atheist friends have no basis for believing they will survive any of this.

I can enjoy my health, time, resources, etc. as gifts from a loving Father. I need not worry about the end of these things or of life. Nothing can separate me from the love of G^d! My atheist friends cannot rationally have such a view, and I suppose, they deal with these things by trying to forget them, which must be a tough task, given our excessive media exposure.

G^d has blessed me abundantly. G^d is good, all the time, even when things don't look rosy at all. G^d has promised us eternal life, one much better than this brief earthly one. We ought to relax and enjoy what G^d gives and will give. Our atheist friends have no such hope.

The end of the whole matter is this, "Fear G^d and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." (Eccl 12:13) We Believers ought to be the MOST relaxed, the HAPPIEST of anyone on earth. Let's relax and enjoy life. G^d made it so that we can.

Rejoice, and again I say, Rejoice.

Life review: More on Teaching- Part II

I mentioned last time about how to teach badly but score good student evals. If you are a faithful reader, you know I like to talk about teaching, so here is part II.

Teaching well takes work, vigilance, and energy. I never expected this. I assumed I could learn to teach well, then simply repeat over and over. NOT SO FAST! What happens is that students CHANGE.

I never noticed this until about 2010 or so. I began slowly to realize that there had been HUGE changes in my students. Jokes that had worked literally for years were now inducing tears. Yeah- I have probably told that story.

I just started prepping 4 sermons, a Sunday School class, and a conference wherein I speak 3 or 4 times. It is a LOT of work, but I love doing it. I learn so much in organizing these talks. I do this prep WELL in advance so I can keep my eyes and ears alert to possible useful info to add to the lessons.

And then I hear G^d speak. As I have said before, nothing thrills me more.

The only thing more fun than prepping is delivering the lesson.  Pray for me, as you can see I have a LOT of teaching coming soon.  PRAY!

Life review: More on Teaching- Part I

I am pretty sure G^d created me to teach. I feel blessed to be paid to teach most of my life. My last tour of duty in the USN was teaching NROTC at VMI. I learned then, how much I enjoyed conveying the difficult issues of celestial navigation to novices.

Once I got to Univ. of AL, I learned just how hard it is to teach well. I also learned that teaching poorly is pretty easy and can earn you high marks from students. So, if you care little about how much your students learn, and only focus on popularity, here's how:
1) Be SUPER easy. I was told once, by a university Dean that his college, of all grades given, 96% were A, A- or A+.  Wow!
2) Let them out early/cancel class often. I once encountered students streaming into the hall about 20 mins into class commencement time. When I saw it happening again, a few days later, I asked a student, "Are you out of class already?" Yeah, he replied, we never stay more than 25-30 min. The class was 50 mins long.
3) Give good grades to all (see #1).
4) Be personable.

I once had a colleague tell me that he had a 3-hour grad class which he decided to test a bit. He did the 4 things above-- to the extreme. The students learned little, but his student evaluation of instruction was so very high the dean called my friend in to commend him.

We'll talk more about the challenges of good teaching in the next post.

Life Review: Unfinished Research

In my research life, we accomplished a lot. We published over 200 refereed research papers in a bit over 32 years. That's more than a paper, on average, every 2 months. I know few people realize it, but that is a LOT!.

Like most scientists, I guess, I still had some projects I didn't get to complete. Here, for posterity is a few I wish I could have gotten to:

1) Complete the development of a LOW-COST lever-powered wheelchair with 3 or more gears. Our current propulsion means for human-powered wheelchairs is not very good, and it would make wheelchair users so much more mobile, and healthy, than the current chairs. There are lever chairs out there but they are VERY pricey. We have/had a working model in our lab.

2) Living in a home with stairs- good or bad for elderly. As Brenda and I age, we wonder about stair use. Our current home has the laundry and the garage down the stairs. Getting groceries can require multiple trips up and down. We tried to do a study to assess this, but weren't successful. Maybe using the stairs can be protective, since the motion required--leg extension--is very helpful to health.

3) Drinking seawater--yes, if sufficiently diluted you can drink it.  But why? Because in a survival situation--airliner goes down at sea--the life rafts can only carry so much water. Well, if  quart seawater can be added to 2 qts pure water, we have just expanded our water supply by one third without anything except knowledge. In fact, adding a bit of salt would probably extend life a bit.

There are more, but these are my favorites.  Maybe one of you folks could study these research questions. It could save/extend a life!