faithrunner

Two unexpected events effected my emotions today. One was that Brett Favre retired. I now have no hero in the NFL. What I liked about Favre was that he was a leader. He could take any group of men over the past 17 years and somehow get them to work together as a team. You could see it in his eyes and how he handled his teammates. They liked following him. The other thing I liked about him was that he loved the game. Even when he got sacked you saw him smile and say something to the guy who just busted him. At 38 he played like he was 22, and I loved that about him. Finally, I liked him because he had a life outside the game that counted . Yeah, he holds a ton of records for passing and scoring, but He loved his wife and served her during her battle with cancer. He did not leave her, but cared for her, and that's huge to me. The other unexpected thing that happened was that it snowed in Dallas last night . Not much but enough to look like winter--in March! Those of you I know who...

After we finished the conference Friday morning-- N. T. Wright and communion--we headed to the nearby beaches to enjoy the beautiful San Diego area. Here we are on the boardwalk at Mission View Beach. Kenyon, Libby, Michelle, Asher, Troy, me, Angela, and Scottie with Kim taking the picture made quite the roving tourist tribe. Kim had a blast practicing being a grandmother by holding Asher every chance she could. Asher was a great traveling child. I hope my grandchild will be as good. Troy and Michelle lived in this part of CA for a year before they came to Legacy. He could not resist the waves when we got near the water, which was a warm 57 degrees and the air temp was about 70. So, when he looked at me and said let's surf, I said, let's go. The rest of the group walked along the beach and chilled while Troy and I fought--I mean--rode the waves. (Troy can actually surf. I chose a boogie board.) Here we are before getting wet. Here I am coming out of the water later. Only my t...

Got up this morning and wrote. This was easy to do since my body is still on Central Standard Time. I then ran from the hotel to the convention center and the joined the running group which is part of the convention. Twenty of us circled the nearby mall in the most ideal weather to run in that I have experienced in a long time. It was fun listening to the runners from MI and WA and other places talking about this was the first time they had worn shorts and a t-shirt to run in for months. I was glad I live in N TX again. This morning Charles Colson was the plenary speaker. His new book, The Faith , What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and Why it Matters, was the center of his talk. It was a reminder of the power of the Gospel and historical, orthodox faith in a culture like ours that continues to push it to the sidelines. He defined culture as, "Religion incarnate." Interesting. I was encouraged to continue to preach and teach the basics of the faith in order to jo...

I'm headed with the pastoral staff--minus Markus and Lisa, who are staying home to have a baby-- to San Diego and the annual National Pastor's Convention . It's always a great time to connect with partners in ministry and hear some thought-provoking people. I love the break and time of inspiration--and the fun of being with people you like being around all the time. I'm looking forward to hearing Greg Boyd and Phyllis Tickle , along with some of the other great authors and speakers there. I'll post along the way to let you know what I am hearing and let you in on some of the conversations.

I'm teaching through 1 Corinthians for B H Carroll Theological Institute at Legacy, and last night we were supposed to cover 1 Corinthians 13 . If you remember, Paul explains that love is supreme to any claim to spiritual giftedness. One of the ways he did that was to write that when he was a child he talked like a child, he thought like a child, and he reasoned like a child. (v. 11) I had kept a note from Storey when she was 7 with my notes to illustrate child-like reasoning. Check out the scanned note attached here. That IS an example of both child-like spelling AND reasoning. Cute, but inaccurate. Cherished by a Dad, but her reasoning would never win a national mock trial tournament. Paul went on to say that now that he was a man he put away childish things like public displays of ecstatic utterances to prove one's spirituality. (v. 11, 12) He had picked up the adult-like work of love, which was not as cute, but made a difference in the lives of those he served. It was g...

I ran across this picture of my youngest daughter from her trip to Costa Rica this morning. (She's the one on the far left.) Legacy's Mission Team is hosting an informational luncheon this Sunday to introduce everyone to our planned mission trips this summer, and I started going back over pictures from trips Summer and I made last year when I ran across this one. The picture also caught my attention as I prepare for my message this Sunday , " Winning the Race ," 1 Corinthians 9:19-27 . That group of girls looks something like Paul longed for the ekklesia in Corinth to become. We usually talk about either verses 19-23 as a topic : being all things to all people so that we might win some, an evangelism sermon; or, verses 24-27 as another topic on running the race of faith, a message on spiritual disciplines. We seldom read the verse together as Paul wrote them. (Partially because of the verse numbers, paragraph divisions and headings put in the text centuries after...

I started a separate blog that will follow a series of four articles for Let's Worship (LifeWay, Spring 2008), called "A Coach Approach To Preaching." It is an effort to connect the conversational aspects of coaching and the biblical essentials of preaching to connect more effectively with your listeners. If you are a practitioner of either coaching or preaching , or, just curious you may want to check it out. It's called Coaching Pastors . See you there!