I heard someone use a term today that made me stop and think. Someone that I was talking to spoke of a time when the profoundness of their Christian faith reached a new level. They called this moment their “deeper conversion”. When I think about that as a category, I think about some times when…

I remember a song from the 1990’s that had the refrain, “Hope I never lose my wallet…” The song went through a list of the things that you could lose in this life: obviously your wallet, your hair, your direction, your mind, your sense, your youth, etc. The thing that the song doesn’t talk about…

Not Monday. Not Mandy. Maundy. Taken from the Latin, “mandatum” = “to command.” The command? “Love one another as I have loved you.” The “I”? Jesus. Let that sink in. Love one another as Jesus has loved you. As Jesus has.  Stooping at the feet of His disciples and washing their feet. Praying for them…

A young woman was hosting a dinner party for her friends with a pot roast being the centerpiece of the menu that evening. One of her friends enjoyed it so much that she asked for the recipe, and the young woman wrote it down for her. Upon looking over the recipe, her friend inquired, “Why…

In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, Japan defeated the United States the other night in the World Baseball Classic – a “world series” that identifies more with the “world” than the MLB version does. This means that for at least a year until we have to concede that we were defeated in our own…

This week is Spring Break for FSU, FAMU, TCC, and the Leon County Schools. This means that you will see more students out and about this week because they don’t have school, but there will also be other students that you don’t see because they are traveling. Europeans have taken spring break apparently since the…

I grew up in the ancient days of the “household telephone,” when our entire family shared one telephone line. In those days, I remember my parents training me to answer the phone when it rang. “Hello, Winters residence…” is what I was taught to say. It was pretty fun, as many of the people who…

Many of you know that I spent many of my weekends while I was at the Seminary working for a banquet and event facility in downtown St. Louis. Most of our events during the year were wedding receptions. Given this and my current vocation as a pastor, I’ve seen my fair share of brides.  It…

Just yesterday we began the season of Lent. This season begins on Ash Wednesday and counts down to Easter, forty days excluding the Sundays.  As you’ll hear this Sunday, the number forty figures into the first Gospel reading of the season of Lent. In this first Gospel reading from Matthew 4, we hear that Jesus…

This past Sunday, a number of us watched an NFL game. This was perhaps something that we had not done since last year, perhaps even longer. And if you were one of the occasional NFL game watchers, it’s likely that you weren’t even watching for the game. You were watching for the commercials or the…