Community is good. I had a chance to attend a chamber of commerce banquet recently and really enjoyed the time, the networking, and the speaker. It was great seeing many people I knew as well as meeting several community leaders for the first time. The banquet was the annual time to recognize outstanding businesses, individuals who have excelled this past year and volunteers who have gone above and beyond the call of duty. The community recognized them all for their great work in building community. They had all given themselves to their work and community.

The definition of community is a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. Look at how the early church began in Acts 2, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” Sounds like the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce. They met together, ate together, sold and purchased to support each other and just enjoyed being together…networking.

What a great example and reminder of how important community is for nurturing relationships. How important it is for us to be in the community of friends and believers. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “Christian community means community through and in Jesus Christ.” There is something to say about community. We need it, it is healthy for us, it brings conversations, closeness, connection, and most importantly it unites us as followers of Jesus. I believe it is difficult to grow in your faith without community. We need each other.

Hebrews 10:24-25, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.”

The church is a place to connect, be encouraged, and to be together in community. “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.” Psalm 133:1

This morning I sat down with eight other men who were studying the Bible together. They were in Romans. They were engaged, passionate, and seeking to discern God’s truths. It was an early morning group that has been meeting for years. These men were older than me, some even 30 years older. Many of their Bibles were well worn, well read, marked up, and beloved. They invited me to join them and I am glad they had coffee. What a blessing for me to be in the room with them. I wasn’t there so they could teach me a thing or two or for me to show them a thing or two. They just wanted me to join in…join in on the reading, the conversation, the discussion and camaraderie of being with men. Men who have hope. Men who understand where their hope comes from, from the Maker of heaven and earth.

They didn’t claim to have all the answers, in fact, these older men were sometimes hard on themselves to living up to the truth. I am so glad I decided to get up and join them this morning. It was an invitation from these men, but I knew God really was the one who invited me to see, hear, and be around men who hold on to hope. It was evident in their worn out Bibles that their hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
My prayer is I will also hold on to my hope in Jesus Christ. There is a great need in our country and in the  world for more men to know and live this hope. I’m inviting you to “hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.”

Lord I need you…

I am not amazed that daily someone calls to ask for spiritual guidance.  Most of the time the words they speak are “I need help, I am at the end of my rope, I am lost, I need to talk to someone.”  More and more people of all walks of life are looking for a word, a thought, a way, something to help them through their difficult situation.  In life it is all kinds of things: cancer found in a loved one; trouble in a marriage; financial problems; loneliness; insecurities and anxiousness; and many more struggles.

Scripture says, “in this world you will have many troubles.”  These troubles will come, you can’t stop them, they are a part of life and they will come.  So many people try to find their own solutions or quick fixes to some of the problems.  They live and act independently of a Creator.  They believe that they just need to believe and have confidence in themselves to pull up their boot straps and press on.  Others take on the weight of the situation and crumble to the point depression and defeat.

If you are looking for help for whatever reason, the place to look is nearer than you think.  Psalm 121 says, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”  The Creator, the one who made the heavens and the earth.  Would He not be the answer, would He not be the solution to your problem?  When my dad was living I leaned on him and called to him to be my help.   God became man that He may experience the flesh and its struggles and understand our needs.  He, God the Father, became our help.

You need help?  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

He was a dear friend, a friend, and a shepherd to many. He was a tremendous influence in my life. I did not know him that long but we developed a strong bond as I worked alongside him for six years. He believed in me, and because of his faith in me, he gave me a lot of responsibility while I was serving as the assistant dean at Truett Seminary. We talked often in his office, we laughed together, cried together, prayed together, shared meals together, played a lot of golf together, and traveled down the road together. I learned so much from him.

He taught me how to love people and to love the church. He brought pastors to the seminary and trained them to preach and lead. While we were together we started the Black Preaching Conference and the Hispanic Preaching Conference. We also hosted the Bi-Vocational Small Church Conference and the Cowboy Church Conference. He showed me the value of connecting to Texas Baptist pastors and churches, and of course he taught me how to ask people for money. He would always say, “We want you to do two things for us – pray for us and give to us. If you can only do one, give to us. We will find someone else to pray.”

He befriended my dad and my dad loved him and always wanted every book Paul would write. I also have many, if not all, of his 50 books. Books about how to be a pastor and preacher – that was his passion and that passion definitely rubbed off on me. I cherish the time I served along side of him, even when he asked me to blow the leaves from the porches of Truett each morning. At times he we would ask me to sit with him and Dr. Reynolds, the Pipers and the Baughs, and others who loved and believed in his leadership. I learned so much from him and will always be grateful for his influence in my life.

More than anything, he believed I could lead a university. Not just any university, the most strategic Texas Baptist university. So he called and recommended me to the BUA trustees. I was proud to serve there and to have his support and to office in the Paul Powell Presidential Suite.

I talked to him often and most recently in early December. I thanked him for his new book and told him about my new work at First Woodway and he said he was proud of me. He was a dear friend and I will miss him. Thank you Paul Powell for believing in me.

I love this quote: Dances with Wolves! I am Wind In His Hair. Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?

What a gift! I have received a lot of wonderful gifts in my lifetime, like my first bike, and the record player I wanted as a kid, not to mention that army set with a rifle and bayonet, canteen, two grenades, and a lookalike army helmet (which I lost right away as I stuck my head out of the car window on the highway). I also remember my first ID bracelet from my girlfriend in junior high, it was so special to me and I wore it for three whole months. More incredible gifts came later in life, my wife, Sabrina, is an amazing life-long gift; my daughters are also precious gifts, not to mention the bonus son-in-law Ryan who is an answer to prayer.  I am so thankful for how God has blessed me, some would say that I am lucky, and I agree. There is one gift that made so many other gifts possible. This gift has molded me and shaped me into who I am, this gift was sometimes taken for granted, and I didn’t realize at times how precious and wonderful it was. This gift was not a perfect gift, but in that imperfection I still had a great gift. I wish that gift was still around, I lost it.

My dad would have turned 91 yesterday, December 11, 2016. I remembered…and I missed him, I miss that gift. The definition of a gift is “something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone.” I do realize that my dad was a gift from God. He showed me and family great favor by the dad who loved his wife, loved his family, and above all…loved God. My heavenly Father, gave me a gift, the gift of a wonderful earthly father, a gift that I will never forget. What a gift!