by Greg | Oct 4, 2012 | Blog Posts
In this emerging era of social media, particularly Facebook, it is very easy to be a fan. For the uninformed, on Facebook one is frequently asked to be a fan of most anything and anyone that makes a request. Company’s like Amazon.com and Target will request that you “become a fan.” One can be a fan of a celebrity or a politician or a political cause or political party. Our church has a page on Facebook and we are constantly soliciting others to become a fan of FBC Augusta. The idea is to generate as many fans as possible because that helps get your message out and, after all, the one with the most fans wins, right? Here is the thing about being a fan: it requires absolutely no commitment. None whatsoever. Whether one is a fan on Facebook, or a fan for a favorite team, being a fan requires nothing. In fact, sometimes a fan is just part of a fad. When I was a kid I loved the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburg Steelers. One Christmas I received one of those cheap athletic jackets with the colors and logo of the Steelers. I watched them a bit on television, but I was not particularly devoted. I just liked the idea of being a fan. That phase lasted maybe a season or two and then I moved on to other things. Have you ever heard of the phrase “fair weathered fan”? It refers to fans who look fully engaged and devoted when the team is winning, but let them go through a losing streak and they are absent in...
by Greg | Sep 20, 2012 | Blog Posts
This past Father’s Day I was gifted, to my agrarian delight, with a Lemon Tree. I have grown up around peach trees, pear trees and apple trees. I know a little about figs, plums and blackberries. Growing lemons is something completely new to me. I did a little reading on the subject of lemon trees, repotted my cherished plant, and counted ten small but growing green orbs destined to be lemons that will brighten our future. In the ensuing months several of the fruit did not make it due to deer who evidently like a little lemon with their tomatoes. Still I had several more on limb. One in particular had gotten fat and ready for the picking. Weeks past and it remained green. I worried that it would turn brown before yellow. While it stayed green my patience was getting about thin. All of my family speculated and advised. The group consensus was that this was no lemon tree, but a lime in lemon clothing. Further reading revealed that the foliage of a lemon and a lime was practically indistinguishable. Figuring the matter settled, I hastily plucked my juicy lime before varmints or time rendered it lost, and brought it into the kitchen. I had no edible plans for my solitary lime. It was just joy enough in knowing I had saved it from certain demise. Slicing into it, first by smell and next by sight, I realized my mistake. This was no lime in lemon’s clothing. It was a lemon, still green, still waiting to let nature do its work, but apparently nature’s lesser evolved creature (yours...
by Greg | Aug 23, 2012 | Blog Posts
For a hypocritcal sermon, click this link:...
by Greg | Aug 22, 2012 | Blog Posts
It was a good tent. If memory serves correct we bought it when Clark was a baby, if not a bit earlier. This means it is somewhere around 20 years old. It is a dome tent that advertisers claimed would accommodate four, but soon after Aaron entered the picture we realized it was going to be too small for all four of us to sleep in comfortably. Still, we used it camping through the years because it was easy to set up. As the boys grew larger and longer we bought a second tent to allow for extra space and parental privacy. We have other tents: small backpacking tents, a newer dome tent, and a large cabin tent (sleeps six!), but this one old tent has staying power. In the last few years I would throw this tent in the back of my car whenever I would go camping but was not planning to backpack. It has held up quite well on a foot of snow with temperatures in the single digits. It has been of great service along a stretch of lonely beach on Little Tybee. It was even of service last fall when we took the high school juniors and seniors camping (I think it was leaking then too). It was a good tent. Amy used it last week when she headed up to the Great Smoky Mountains and camped for a few days all by herself. I was able to get away and join her for just one night, but had to head back the next day and leave the camping for her to carry on...
by Greg | Aug 8, 2012 | Blog Posts
Yesterday without much fanfare and just a bit of sulking, we experienced our very last first. It was the very last first day of school for the family. Aaron, our youngest, is now a senior and so the rituals of closing a summer with the first day of school are now over. I baked cinnamon rolls, even though he did not want one, and we snapped pictures, even though he is “too old” for such nonsense. Traditions and rituals are hard to break; we have been doing this, after all, for a total of fifteen years. Once you become a parent the seasons marked by school take on a heightened significance. I remember holding his hand walking with him to his kindergarten class and worried and thinking to myself, “This school is too big for my small son.” What I did not know is that he seems too big for any school to contain his dreams and ambitions. The school bus no longer stops for him because he drives to school. It has been years since he brought home a drawing to post on the refrigerator. I am no longer invited to eat lunch with him in the cafeteria. There have been many “last firsts” along the way; I just did not always know it or recognize it. This is the way of life. Things come and move and have their being and then are no more. Life cannot be frozen or halted. Children grow up; parents get old; employment changes; friends move and the seasons unfold. Growing involves shedding or losing things along the way. We were never...
by Greg | Aug 1, 2012 | Blog Posts
Come on…admit it…we have all nodded off in church. Blame it on a lack of sleep; a stressful week; or just that you cannot quite connect with the preacher who is trying to articulate the nihilistic culpability of Pilate in light of modern consumeristic tendencies…see, you are doing it again! Have you ever nodded off to the point your head lobbed one way, jerking you awake and then you glance around wondering who saw you? Remember, we televise every Sunday! It is okay to admit it – church can be boring. It has had that reputation for a long, long time. It did not start with me. In the Bible there is this story found in Acts 20:7-12, about a young man named Eutychus, whose name means “good fortune.” I am guessing he did not feel so fortunate at the time. Eutychus was attending “church service” on a Sunday evening. The guest preacher (Paul) just did not know when to stop. I had a lady in my last church who would sometimes criticize a speaker, (never me of course) by saying, “The fellow missed several good exits.” Anyway, Eutychus nodded off during the service. Usually that is not a problem except that he was sitting on a window sill three stories above ground. He fell to his death, but Paul said do not worry, Eutychus will be fine. Sure enough, Eutychus’ life was restored, and Paul kept preaching until sunrise. You have to admit, if that ever happened at our church we would not have a problem packing the pews. Church can be boring and some may wonder if Church matters...
by Greg | Jul 25, 2012 | Blog Posts
I have to be honest; church has not always mattered to me: As a teenager church did not matter much when it came to my dating life, unless there was a pretty girl in the youth group. Amy was and still is a pretty girl, but she was not in my youth group. Church did not matter as much as my first car – a 1969 Ford Mustang Fastback that I bought for a $1,000 and added an 8-track tape player so that I could listen to my Marvin Gaye tapes. (see previous point) Church did not matter in terms of the clothes I wore. Can you just imagine what the Baptist fashion scene was like in the early 80’s? Church did not matter when something better came along and my car was drivable (see second point). Even though I am a pastor, and more to the point I am the pastor of this great congregation, I must confess that church has not always mattered to me. Somewhere along my “growing up” church began to matter. Church mattered when I realized that life is more than pretty girls, cars, and yes, the music of Marvin Gaye. Church mattered when I began searching for meaning. Church mattered when I knew I wanted to make a difference in the world. Church mattered when I needed transcendence and mystery. Church mattered when I discovered relationships that would change my life for the rest of my life. I still believe deeply that church does matter. Does church matter to you? I would assume it does or you would not be reading this blog....
by Greg | Jun 27, 2012 | Blog Posts
My nose is not much in terms of looks, which is too bad since it is more or less the center of my face. It has been broken twice – once when I was six and fell face first from a silo and again when I was a teenager while playing football. It is a bit crooked, wide, and, although you cannot see it, there is a deviated septum that limits my inhalations. This seems like a good reason to get a nose job. On the other hand, I like my nose. It goes with me everywhere. Nonetheless, tomorrow morning I am getting a nose job. Well, sort of. I am having just a smidgen lopped off due to too much time in the sun. This is probably more than you wanted to know but when you see me donning bandages across my face you will have the rest of the story. Not only is it a good time for a nose job, but it seems like an equally good time to take a vacation. This will allow my nose some time to recuperate. Come to think of it, I think the rest of me is looking forward to a bit of down time with my family and friends. For the last decade or so we have traveled back to St. George for our beach time. This year we are watching weather reports because it has been pummeled by a tropical storm. Every year there is always some challenge. One year the little Gulf Island was inundated with mosquitoes. Then there was the year jelly fish saturated the surf....
by Greg | Jun 13, 2012 | Blog Posts
The last few years my reputation as a farmer has suffered. I have planted and labored in the fields only to find the deer and other varmints beating me to the harvest or droughts beating down my plants or insects beating down my hopes. It is enough to make a preacher…well, you understand. It is not like I have flowing pastures of excess to watch over. Really it is just a couple of small raised beds, and three containers. Therefore every squash counts and every tomato is special. Perhaps my vigilance this year paid off. Maybe it was the “nasty” spray I used that repels deer, varmints, traveling evangelists and my wife from entering the back yard. Whatever the reason I am happy to report that today there are Better Boys among us – nice, ripe, fat, juicy tomatoes that are making their way to the supper table. Some say the summer begins when school ends for the year. Others remark that it does not really begin until the neighborhood pool is open. Still others mark the beginning of summer with Memorial Day, while technically it does not arrive until Summer Solstice. For me summer begins with the first ripe tomato. All gardening involves hope and trust. At some point you do all you can then you have to trust to the earth what you have planted and hope that it will come to fruition. Many times it ends in disappointment and some times it exceeds expectations. I love that line from Jesus when he compares the Kingdom of God to someone who goes out and plants seeds “…and...
by Greg | May 30, 2012 | Blog Posts
Summer is the time for travel: to beaches; to ballgames; to the mountains; or just simply wandering along the back roads of Georgia and taking in the sites. Summer, in other words, is the time for road trips! Have you ever been on an honest-to-goodness road trip; eating at questionable diners; stopping at shady gas stations because you just cannot go any further; all the while foregoing a map? (who asks for directions anyway?) With that in mind I am going to focus for the next four weeks on a road trip. The Christian faith – or taking a road trip with Jesus – is as much a reminder that the journey is the point. The destination is just a result of the journey. How do you travel on the road when covering a long distance? Most of us seek out the quickest way possible, which probably includes interstates and major highways. Taking side roads and driving through small towns is usually avoided. I do not wish to pick a fight with the DOT, but for the most part I do not care for all these by-passes that have been built around many of America’s small towns. These bypasses take the traveler around a town, instead of through it. I realize it saves time and it perhaps reduces unwanted traffic through a town, but think of all the traveler is missing when they choose to take a bypass. They never get to see the mom & pop stores, or the turn of the century architecture, or the sheer character that every small town holds. For most of us...
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