Christmas rings with the sounds of “peace on earth, goodwill toward men”, yet the first Christmas was much closer to a covert operation as Jesus infiltrated planet earth on a quest to change the world from the inside out. Jesus knew all too well we could not be left to our own devices. We had [...]
Entries from December 2008
December 22, 2008
Christmas!
There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
Erma Bombeck
From the very first Christmas celebrated in a stable hidden behind an overcrowded inn, Christmas has revolved around children. The wonder of the birth of Jesus may only be fully realized by imagination and simple faith of a child. [...]
December 18, 2008
Christmas Cuts
Most of the financial news out of Baptist institutions these days is bad news. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary have slashed their budgets due to the bad national economic conditions. The WMU came up with a creative leave rotation to try to keep full employment by asking their employees to go [...]
December 17, 2008
Still a Good Investment: Christian Higher Education
A university graduation offers a glimpse into the future of a nation. Saturday I had the privilege to be an honored guest at the commencement ceremonies of East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, Texas. It had been twenty-four years since I had been on the campus, the last time being when my brother Stephen graduated [...]
December 9, 2008
Give Presence
Christmas captures in a short bluster season the best and too often the worst of life in America. Christmas reminds us in softer tones of the priceless value of “peace and goodwill toward men,” but it also reveals in harsh tones the greed and selfishness of the human heart as people are trampled under in [...]
December 7, 2008
Advent Conspiracy
I would encourage you to check out the Advent Conspiracy website: www.adventconspiracy.org. I stumbled onto it somewhat accidently (yea right!) and the LORD used it to remind me what Christmas is really all about. It also inspired me by what can happen when the Spirit breathes new life and creativity into just a handful of [...]
December 4, 2008
Trust: Responsive Systems
Cooperation among churches and followers of Jesus in the 21st century will look and function much more like a living organism than a large bulky bureaucracy. Loren B. Mead in The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier noted how denominations and convention must adapt and change to face the [...]
