On my mind today

Rylee Anne Davis, daughter of Ryan and Tracci Davis, was born last night around 8:45 PM in Dallas - all 6 lbs, 15 ozs of her. The Davis' firstborn, she is doing well as is her mother. Dad's just plain cool about it, as is he is usually. Congratulations Davis family! Rylee has a heart problem that will require surgery sometime in the next 4-5 days. Please pray for this surgery to go smoothly. Pray also for grace and peace for Ryan and Tracci during Rylee's period of recovery.

On Monday, my lovely wife came to my office. Just as she was about to leave, she mentioned the trouble her SUV had starting that morning. I recognized it right away - a dying (if not already dead) battery. We jumped into her SUV and drove to Johnny Wheeler's auto parts store. One of Johnny's fine employees came out to check on the battery with the tester - dead as a hammer. All the other machinery worked beautifully, but without the battery to set it all in motion, it's all worthless. Fortunately, Johnny sold me another battery (after he made a number of jokes at my expense, each of which I found hillarious! Like this one: "Don't trust anyone who's profession starts with a 'p' - preacher, politician or parts man!"). I took it home and swapped the old one for the new one and put Julie back on the road. No problem. I wish it was that easy for our spiritual lives. Running low? Not much power in your life? BANG! Presto-changeo, swap the bat...

I spoke this morning with our friends at Galveston about our upcoming mission trip. We'll convene a meeting with this same information right after Easter, but here it is in advance. DATES: We'll leave around 2 PM on Sunday, July 19th. Our return date is Friday, July 24. If you'd like to stay around and find something fun to do, you're welcome to do so. If you'd rather head for home, most of us will head home after rush hour that evening. WORK: We'll be working on homes and / or churches in the Greater Galveston area. They'll have to wait to tell us final details about where we'll be working until later in the summer since they have numerous other groups coming in ahead of us. Suffice it to say there's plenty to do! ACCOMADATIONS: We'll be staying either at the University Baptist Church in Galveston (the host church who is coordinating the recovery efforts for the island) or at FBC LaMarque, just across the bridge from Galveston. Both have...

When I was writing my dissertation, one of the resources I used was a majestic work written by Dr. Reuben J. Swanson. Essentially, his works represent his life's blood. He poured his heart and soul into it and it showed. What a blessing those works were to me (and still are!) and to countless other scholars. Dr. Swanson passed away this week near Cincinnati, OH. A devout man as well as a scholar, Dr. Swanson's legacy of work survives him and not just in book form. His son is a pastor there and his memorial service will be held in his church. Furthermore, his grandson Erik produced a video about Dr. Swanson. An admirable tribute, I've placed it here for your viewing. My apologies - the video doesn't begin until about the 50 second mark. Dr. Swanson, you'll be greatly missed. May the Lord bless your family and here's to solving those textual problems by talking with the Lord Jesus himself!

Do you have an artistic flair? Do you have a desire to be used by the Lord? Do you have a paint brush and/or a roller? We're looking for some PAINTERS! We need some PAINTERS! Did I say we need some PAINTERS? Several months ago, we discussed the need for the inside of the church to get painted. It's been 10 years now and it's well-past time. We're hoping to get the church painted on the inside before Easter (April 12). If you'd like to help, we're planning a work day for April 4th (that's one week from Saturday). We've got rollers, brushes, scrubby things and the paint. We need PAINTERS! If that includes you, look for details in this Sunday's bulletin.

It's late March and that means NCAA Tournament TIME! I love the weekend of basketball! Even with baseball practice starting today, this weekend is all about basketball. So far (in my bracket competition with my wife), I'm doing okay. Tune in any time today, but especially at 7:15 PM tonight when our Texas Longhorns play Duke!

We're looking for some special people! They don't have to be especially skilled or exceptionally talented - just willing to be used by the Lord for some special purposes! Perhaps you're one of them! Here's your chance to get in the game. - NEED 1 - We need some additional Children's church workers. As it stands, our children's minister, Barbara Railsback, and her assistant, Mary NeSmith, never get to attend worship. Each and every week they are in the children's service, leading worship for them. They do a great job and we're not trying to replace them. Rather, we're trying to add to their number. We're looking for people who would be willing to serve a Sunday per quarter in Children's church to allow our leaders to participate in the adult Worship service. I'll be visiting with the church about this, but please pray with me about the people we need in this role. - NEED 2 - Like to work with technology? We need some help there...

When I was in high school, I had a dear friend. He was several years older - a seminary student in his mid-20's - but he took a keen interest in myself and several others, teaching our Sunday School class, leading a youth Bible study and providing a guiding hand at a critical juncture in life. His name was Dave Steward. Dave was an awfully bright guy who could've gone places other than Joshua, but the Lord brought him to us and I'm glad He did. Dave was at times the confidant, at times the counselor, at times the discipler, each in turn and each with effectiveness. What I haven't told you about Dave is this: he was stricken with cerebral palsy, a disorder affecting the cerebrum and muscle coordination. For Dave, an oxygen deprivation at his birth caused the malady. It caused him to walk with a distinctive gait, a swaying, hip-gyrating swish regularly resulting in a fall. Imagine someone walking as if they were hula-hooping and you have an idea of what it was like...

I was unaware of the problem with my blog until my lovely wife alerted me to it. A quick change in the template repaired the problem! Thanks for your patience and welcome to my new look! Please take a moment to check out the first post from yesterday about military personnel and their pictures. We're hoping to get that video rolling in the next few weeks. If you're family has a military connection, please consider participating.

- A warm word of gratitude to our friends Matthew Hollensworth from Sand Springs Baptist Church near Athens and Debbie Mulholland from New York Baptist Church for the exceptional job they did last night. Their presentation regarding their mission experiences in the Ukraine was outstanding. - Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ at the FBC of Maryville, IL.. Yesterday morning, a deranged individual shot and killed Senior Pastor Fred Winters during a morning worship service. I've never been to their church nor did I know Bro. Winters but I'm certain their grief today is overwhelming. It's comforting to know the great and powerful God of the universe stands at the ready to console us in our time of deepest sorrow. - This week's buisness meeting will feature a discussion about the flooring in our church - both what we do have and what we need. Please make plans to join us Wednesday night for that discussion. We'll begin about 7 PM. - A shout-out to o...

We've got an idea for a special video this coming spring. In conjunction with the National Day of Prayer, we'd like to assemble a video honoring our military personnel and asking for prayer for them. If you have a family member serving in the military and you'd like to participate, please loan or email us a picture of your loved one in uniform for use in the video. The picture doesn't need to be a formal or staged photo - it can be anything as long as they are in uniform. For those who participate, we'll provide a complimentary copy of our video we produce. Join me in praying for our men and women in the service today.

I found a video today of someone who is learning the power of consequences. While I don't condone all of the judge's language or his conduct, the power of his words is clear - or ought to be. The dude being sentenced is receiving a 120 year prison term. Hmmmmm. I think I would at least TRY to be nice to the one man who can make that a slightly shorter term. Take a look at this 1 minute video. http://video.ap.org/?f=201264&pid=zKU_xjb4Dnw3tAAYXe0_tGSRXdExvOEL

This Wednesday night's activities - all of them, including Wednesday night supper, TeamKid, Prayer Meeting and Youth Activities - have been CANCELED! We had a reasonably serious flood in the building last night during choir rehearsal. All carpeted areas except the auditorium have been affected. What will we do about it? We've had ServePro, a carpet cleaning service, in here since last night cleaning and moving furniture. However, because the carpet was badly soaked in places (like the nursery suite), there's a good chance the carpet will not be suffciently dry by Wednesday night. Thus, rather than a take a chance of mold or something similiar, we're canceling everything until we figure out what our long-term remedy will be. If you're an FBC member, please make special pains to be at our March Business meeting on March 10th to discuss this issue and its solution.