My friend, the late Sam Orr, served as pastor of Hardwick Baptist Church near Milledgeville, Georgia. His parents, Sam and Doris, were members of our Fayetteville congregation. One week, Sam wrote in his church newsletter column an article about marveling.

We know something about anxiety. Sometimes it shows up on an x-ray. You can hear it in the pacing rhythm of footsteps late at night. Troubled eyes and wrinkled foreheads are also telltale signs. Desperate silence and nervous chatter are dead giveaways.

Every church has a process for making disciples.  In other words, all churches are doing something with the hopes of making disciples.  Unfortunately, most churches are not very successful in making disciples. 

A young boy went into the drug store along the town square where he lived and asked the pharmacist if he could make a phone call. Of course, the man said yes. He knew the lad to be a good boy who came from a fine family.

Eva Thelka Eisenhut was born in 1928 in Apolda, a small town that later became part of Communist East Germany. She was the oldest of four girls living with their parents in a four-room upstairs apartment.

We have all been bombarded with television advertisements, phone calls, text messages, emails, billboards, posters and multiple conversations about the 2024 presidential election and all the other ceaseless appeals to vote for one candidate or another.

​A well-known South Georgia pastor once shared about his spunky, senior adult sister who drove a sports car. She got pulled over for speeding. The officer walked up to the car and asked for her license.

Visitors will once again have the opportunity to get a close-up look at the Christmas decorations at the Georgia State Capitol during a series of Christmas prayer tours scheduled starting December 4th.

Christian philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig, said, “Man cannot live consistently and happily as though life were ultimately without meaning, value, or purpose. If we try to live consistently within the framework of the atheistic worldview, we shall find ourselves profoundly unhappy.”

I recently watched with amusement as Vice-President Kamala Harris spoke at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta on Sunday where she was likened to the biblical Esther because of her readiness to rescue her people from annihilation.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States was speaking at a rally last week at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse. In her speech, she was focusing her remarks on the economy and other salient points frequently highlighted in the 2024 campaign cycle.

As Jackie DeShannon sang in the Bert Bacharach/Hal David hit from the 1960s, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love; it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” And though the song came out nearly six decades ago, its message is more relevant than ever. 

I recently received my first Social Security check. Having served in interim pastorates and freelance research, writing, and speaking in recent years means there will be no “formal retirement” or closure to ministry. In fact, I hope to continue doing all these things as the opportunities avail themselves. Yet, a wave of nostalgia has swept over my soul during this transition.

The Georgia Baptist Mission Board is encouraging all of our churches to hold a Religious Freedom Sunday in their church. This initiative is for the purpose of emphasizing the importance of religious freedom.

A man with a nagging secret could keep it no longer. He confessed to his priest that for years he had been stealing building supplies from the lumberyard where he worked. “What did you take?” his priest asked.

The roads were littered with fallen power lines and abandoned cars. Heavy duty work vehicles with license plates from all over the country filled every open lane. These are some of the scenes that greeted us when we arrived in Valdosta Georgia on October 3, 2024. Our mission was to help those who had been impacted by hurricane Helene. I was privileged to be among the fifteen unique individuals from TMU who felt a burden on their hearts to partner with Samaritan's Purse to do disaster relief.

Much has been written and said about Dikembe Mutombo since his untimely death on Sept. 30, 2024. To me he always seemed larger than life, and although he valiantly fought a maleficent brain cancer, he succumbed to the disease at the all too early age of 58.

When I graduated from high school, I received a gift from a family in our church with the following note. “Hope you can use this throughout your whole life.” I have. Over 40 years later, I still use that gift almost weekly. The gift? The Random House College Dictionary. (I know, I’m a luddite, still using a real, hard-cover dictionary.)

Often I feel led to do or to write something that proves most appropriate and even fruitful. Recently, I came to realize how often I do things unaware that it is the result of the Holy Spirit’s leadership. I have even come to depend on His guidance in many of the things I do.

Not long ago I officiated a wedding ceremony that followed the predictable theme of faithfulness. I, groom, take you bride, to be my wedded wife. I promise to love you, comfort you, honor and keep you, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, and forsaking all others, be faithful only to you so long as we both shall live. Soon, the bride pledged the same loyalty to her new husband.

 Once upon a time, the renowned 18th Century English preacher George Whitfield was getting the people of Edinburgh, Scotland out of bed at 5:00 am to come hear him speak. On one occasion, a man on his way to a service was surprised when he met up with David Hume, the Scottish philosopher and skeptic.

As a Georgia woman, wife, and mother, I’m incensed by Fulton County Superior Court’s ruling last week to strike down the LIFE ACT in favor of more liberal abortion regulations in our state. It is important for everyone to understand what is at stake, and what outcome may exist as a result of this ruling.

J. Vernon McGee summarized philosophy well. He said, “All systems of philosophy lead up a blind alley.” I agree. You can spend your time and money studying this subject and find sooner or later that it is a mere waste of time.

​Recently, we traveled to South Carolina’s Lowcountry to keep our grandsons while their parents attended an all-day workshop. We enjoyed our outing and were heading home after lunch. As I traveled north on US 17, I switched to the inside lane, anticipating our left turn up ahead.

Church leaders, congregants, and pastors verbally acknowledge the need to reach young adults with phrases like “Young people just don’t come to church anymore,” “Growing up, we never missed a Sunday,” or maybe even “We have a lost generation, Lord come quickly.” Why are young adults so hard to find in our communities?