The call from a close friend came out of the blue last month. “Bishop, I’ve got some bad news. Billy has died.” Stunned, it took a moment to register. On this, the week we celebrate All Saints Day (Nov.1), I pause to recognize a theological giant ...
I was recently asked about special songs or hymns I would like sung at my Oct. 24 Retirement Celebration at Arborlawn UMC in Fort Worth. My first thought was that this was an especially gracious invitation on the part of the organizers of that ...
Like most Americans, I can remember precisely where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001. I had been the Senior Pastor of University UMC in San Antonio for just five and a half weeks. That morning, I was preparing for a staff meeting when ...
Imagine the following true story and place yourself in it. You are kidnapped sometime in your teenage years. Hauled in chains to a different country, you are sent to work in hard and dangerous labor – slave labor. Much of your time is spent alone,...
The Martyrdom of Polycarp is a famous story in early Christian literature and lore. Polycarp was an early Christian bishop and probably had a close (student to teacher) relationship with John the Apostle. As a revered older figure of leadership in ...
As Jolynn and I watched the evening news, a report came on about the Tulsa massacre. By now you may know the story. At the end of May 1921 mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma....
The Pandemic swept through the world. It is said that 5, 000 died in one day in Rome. Anyone with resources and means fled from major cities and sought sanctuary in remote locations. Social distancing was practiced long before the term was ever ...
When I started this blog site approximately 10 years ago, I chose to title it “This Focused Center” based on 2 Corinthians 5:14-15. “Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same ...
While much of the United States is focused on the impeachment trial of President Trump taking place in the U. S. Senate, I am in Israel on a Holy Land pilgrimage. The same day this writing is scheduled to be posted, we will be at the site of a ...
Kathleen Crane, a Presbyterian pastor in Wisconsin, shared an incident that happened to her while flying a number of years ago. “Two Sikhs, men from northern India, with their heads in turbans, sat down beside me (on the plane). We had a pleasant ...
It is the morning after St. Patrick’s Day and I find myself musing about what this great Christian hero would teach us. I invite us to get past green rivers, green beer and the wearing of the green for there is a towering Christian who stands both ...
Next week, I will be on renewal leave for a time of study under Dr. Kenneth Collins, Professor of Historical Theology and Wesley Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. For some time, I have been concerned that for many American Christians (and ...
Allow me to step back into the narrative of a four part series of posts entitled Christ and Culture in Today’s Chaos. If reader has not read the previous three, I urge him or her to do so before reading this particular blog. Part 4 is based on and ...
Two pieces of reading and variety of reflective conversations with a wide and extremely diverse collection of people have caught my attention recently. As he commonly does, Gil Rendle offers insightful reflections on the challenge a nostalgic longing...
In preparation for Thanksgiving my wife has decorated our house beautifully. If you step into the living room and look at the mantle over the fireplace, four elegant figurines peer out from the fall foliage. On the left are the classic looking ...
The phrase stuck with me out of Sunday morning’s sermon – “the trajectory of Christianity.” So too did the lectionary passage read for the day – Matthew 24:36-44. Those who follow the lectionary constantly encounter the juxtaposition between advent –...
The Dictionary defines distraction as: “Having the attention diverted” or “Suffering conflicting emotions; distraught.” From an online Thesaurus the following notation was offered, “having the attention diverted especially because of anxiety.” I am ...
In the midst of my sojourn in Florida (i.e. General Conference) and my re-immersion in the Central Texas Conference, I have kept up my reading. One of the recent books I’ve read is Gabe Lyons’ The Next Christians: How a New Generation Is Restoring ...
Yesterday I received a special gift from Dr. Michael Patison, chair of the Central Texas Conference’s History Book Committee. Fresh off the press, Michael handed me a copy of The Central Texas Annual Conference 1866-2010: At the Center of Texas ...