Read Luke 19:1-10 The Bible is full of unexpected converts. One of them was a wee little man named Zacchaeus. (“And a wee little man was he.”) This short-statured Jewish man from the city of Jericho was, by trade, a tax collector. In his world, this was one of the most despicable lines of work a person could be in. Of course, people have never liked having government agencies come for their possessions—I feel for IRS agents and accountants this time of the year—but in Zacchaeus’s day, tax collectors were seen as......
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Have you ever been oblivious to something big going on around you? This week, there was a lot of hullabaloo surrounding the unfortunate decision of United Airlines to forcibly pull a man off an airplane. The news spread like wildfire, and social media went nuts with all sorts of jokes and spoofs of this embarrassing debacle. Nearly twenty-four hours passed before I was in on the jokes. People kept on talking about them, but I was too busy to investigate what actually happened. When I did, what a shocker it turned out......
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When I was a seminary student, I took a job as an administrative assistant for a theology professor on campus. I’ll never forget a phone call a student made to the office one Monday morning. I literally answered the phone on the worst day of his life. His voice was trembling on the other line, “Can you please tell the professor that I won’t be in class today?” “Sure,” I said, “I can tell him. Is there something we can do?” “I . . . I . . . just found out......
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I’ll be the first to admit it. I was a bit of a picky eater growing up. When I was a kid, my parents would take me through the McDonalds drive thru, and I was that weird kid who had very specific instructions about how I wanted my burger: no onions, no lettuce, no ketchup or mustard. “Just the meat, the bread, and the cheese.” (I still find myself ordering burgers this way complete with hand motions.) I’m a little better today, as living in New Orleans will do that to you.......
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This coming Sunday, March 12, is Daylight Savings Time, and no, it’s not the good one in the fall where we gain an extra hour of sleep. It’s time to spring forward—something we will enjoy in a few weeks when the sunlight lasts long into the summer evenings, but something we sort of hate the first few weeks we do it. The guy who decided the clock should roll back on Saturday after midnight must have been mad at his pastor because pastors and parishioners have been fighting the Sunday morning sleepies......
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Hey Church Family, I just wanted to remind you that we are in the final legs of preparation for the Wild Game Supper, which is tomorrow night in the fellowship hall. Several men should be commended for their hard work. First, Clyde Ethridge for dreaming this event up so many years ago. Second, Russell Wright has taken the proverbial deer by the antlers and done AMAZING work getting this thing back off the ground. He has spearheaded the whole thing, and we are so blessed to have his leadership in this. Third, many men......
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This last weekend I had the privilege of speaking at a statewide BCM conference at a university in the Little Rock, Arkansas area. I spoke to roughly a thousand college students about Jesus and other hot-button issues they have to wrestle with in this culture. That was a lot of fun–really fun. The part that wasn’t so much fun was the drive home Saturday evening. In case you aren’t aware, there’s no really easy way to get to New Orleans from Little Rock. There are no direct flights. There is no straight shot down......
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Most of my evenings when I come home from work, I am occupied playing foil to a black-and-gold clad four-year-old Drew Brees-wannabe. He wants to play football. All the time–even after football season is over. And when he doesn’t want to play football, he wants to play basketball, baseball, or soccer. Were it not for his dashing good looks–he looks like me after all–I might think we brought the wrong kid home from the hospital. Even when it’s dark outside, we have created a little path in the living room his Mama......
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