Classic City Rev

I go for a walk around 6:30 every morning as I start my day.  Obviously, getting exercise is one reason for my walk.  Yet, my walk also provides me a time for me to pray.  Some mornings I'm done praying by the time I get to the end of the street on which I live.  Other times I'm still praying when I get back to my house.  It all depends on what is on my heart and on my mind that day.There are days when I preach on my walk.  No, I'm not a street preacher but I do go over my upcoming sermons in my mind as a take my walk.   Now that schools have resumed their normal schedules following their summer break, I've noticed that there is a more routine traffic pattern on my walk. There is a young man on our street who attends Athens Academy.  Each morning he stands at the end of his drive way waiting on the Athens Academy bus.  As I finish my walk the bus is usually turning  down my street. The bus turns around in the cul de sac in front o...

This week the President mentioned that he felt that it would be a great idea if our country purchased Greenland.  Greenland is a semi-autonomous island near the North Pole that is controlled by Denmark. Needless to say the President's remarks set off a swirl of controversy among people, many of whom had never given any thought to Greenland prior to the President's comment.  Those who love the President now have suddenly became wildly excited about Greenland and those who generally oppose the President probably have found the idea absurd. I certainly will not venture to discuss the pros and cons of purchasing Greenland within the space of the this blog. However, I will offer that such a purchase would probably be one of the largest real estate transactions in the history of the world.   Toni and I just purchased a new home and we had to jump through the hoops of home inspections, offers, counter-offers, title searches, earnest money, and other such steps that were...

With the scorching temperatures that we have had the past few days, it occurred to me that it is common to equate heat with anger.  We sometimes say that when someone is mad that he or she got a little "hot under the collar."  On other occasions when something makes us angry we might say, "that makes made blood boil."  There are other examples of course but I believe I've made my point. This leads us to a larger discussion of anger.  What roll does anger play in the life of the Christian?  Is it proper for a Christian to become angry?  If so, what type of things should anger a Christian?  How should Christ's followers deal with the anger they feel? In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible the word "anger" appears over 300 times.  Most of those references come from the Old Testament and often speak of the anger of God.  In addition the word "angry" appears in the same version of scripture approximately 100 times again with...

I did not preach a special sermon last Sunday morning in light of the recent mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, though I did mention the tragedies prior to the sermon.   I urged my congregants to be in prayer for those affected by the shooting and to pray for those in leadership who would respond to the shooting. I am left wondering should I have said more.   Perhaps not only should I have asked my congregation to pray I should have also asked them to do something. Over thirty years ago, prior to my entering the ministry, I heard a sermon that had a huge impact on my life.   The sermon was preached by the Reverend Ted Bass at the former Lynmore United Methodist Church in Macon.   In that sermon he wondered aloud if at times Christians weren’t guilty of using prayer as a “cop out.”   He proposed that often times Christians were guilty of saying “lets pray about it” when the better response might be “let’s do something about it.” Those words ca...

          I’ve been dealing with the death of my peers a good bit in the last few weeks.   I’ve lost three colleagues in ministry, a friend from the neighborhood of my youth and a classmate of mine from the University of Georgia.   Each of these persons I would say died young.   Of course the older I get the older young seems to be.   None of them died from accidents but rather from natural causes.               I t has left me wondering if this how the remaining years of my life will be.   Will life become like a bucket with a slow leak with my friends and loved one’s simply leaving drip by drip?               Then, to be perfectly honest, the fact that my peers are passing from the bonds of earth has caused me to contemplate my own mortality.   Further, after having a heart procedure a couple of years ago and my wife having a hear...

I went back to my hometown of Macon today to offer words of hope and comfort at the funeral service of a friend.  I grew up in the same neighborhood as Beverly and we attended the same church in our formative years. The last few years had not been kind to her.  She had lost both of legs due to medical issues but that did not stop her from being an inspiration to many.  At her service today I remarked that "She did not let her condition define who she was." This leads me to ask a question of all of us and that is "What defines you?"  For some it is a profession or occupation.  For some is a family name.  For some it is the size of a bank account.  For some it is some accomplishment.  For a few identity it might be found in one's physical appearance.  There are some that might be defined by a medical condition. At his baptism the voice of God told Jesus that he was God's "Beloved Son."  For the Christian it is our baptism that de...

Human beings first walked on the moon fifty years ago.   It’s surprising what I remember about that event.   I even grasped the importance of the event or at least I grasped as much as a seven year old kid could grasp the importance of anything.   (I will pause for a moment and allow you to do the math to figure out my age.) I remember very distinctly the weekend of the moon landing because my Dad took my sister and me to watch the Braves. I remember that we stayed in an Atlanta hotel rather than driving back to Macon after each game.   I remember my mom hung back at the hotel on Friday night and didn’t go to the game but went to the Saturday night game.   I even remember the Braves swept a double header from the San Diego Padres on Friday night and beat the Padres in a single game on Saturday.   On Sunday, we actually skipped church, something we never did, and drove home to watch the moon landing on television. So it was on that ...