I have been to a great many Baptist meetings this year, including in-person and by zoom. Last November, at our Tulsa Metro Baptist Network (TMBN) annual meeting, when I was again elected to serve as the Clerk/Secretary of the Association, I reported that I would serve one more year.  I desire less meetings. Tulsa Baptists have been in the middle of an intense self-examination as a network of churches, and I wanted to finish my commitment to that process. At this year’s meeting on November 1, most of the findings were presented and well received. I would like to share with you some of the framework of the efforts.

In church leadership circles the question is often asked: If your church closed today, would anyone in the neighborhood notice?  A more positive question that we addressed was: If the churches of today were to invent an association, what would it look like? We have been working on this “simple” topic for two years now, led by a national church development group in partnership with a half-dozen similarly sized associations from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Washington. We’ve redefined who we are: We are a network of leaders helping one another fuel the mission of the local church. A key discovery was found in the personal pain and conflict many of our congregations, and their key leaders, are facing. Healthy churches require healthy pastoral leadership. Our group outlined an overall vision and strategy: Encouraging Leaders; Forging Partnerships; and Planting, Replanting and Strengthening Churches. To this purpose, we have organized the work of the Network into three working teams: a Church Health team, a Leader Care and Development team, and a Church Planting team. This is a work in progress and is being refined as we go forward. 

I want to personally thank Dr. Charles Cruce, Missions Director, and the Officers and Administrative Leaders of the Tulsa Metro Baptist Association for allowing me to be a part of this reshaping effort. At the annual meeting, I was recognized for over 40 years as the TMBN Secretary with a plaque and a gift certificate for Dorothy and I to spend a few days in Branson. I think they are suggesting the time away may help us model a healthy relationship.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Model healthy. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

I had a hankerin’ for a western, so I read the Louis L’Amour book Rider of Lost Creek. Louis L’Amour wrote 120 books before he died in 1988. All of his books are still in print. The struggles of the Old West (1870’s to 1890’s) still resonate with us today for a reason. I saw a glimpse of what he was really writing about—the cowboy, the cattle drives, the free range were being replaced by a new Fenced West (1890’s to 1920’s) of ranch hands, cattle trains, and barbed wire. In the Old West, outlaws were deputized as lawmen and lawmen turned outlaw, if the opportunity seemed worth it. L’Amour wrote briefly about Watt Earp and Bat Masterson as good guys and gunslingers. I remember the old Radio and TV shows about the Old West—The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke and Wagon Train, and those of the Fenced West—Bonanza, Roy Rogers, and Hop-a-Long Cassidy. All those shows were about righting wrongs and making a new start.

The real Wyatt Earp retired from the old west, moved to Alaska to find gold, then eventually went to Hollywood where he became a motion picture consultant to Tom Mix, William S. Hart and a young actor named Marion Morrison, who became John Wayne. Wyatt Earp died in 1929.  Bat Masterson, who reportedly killed more than 26 men before he was 30, died in 1921 sitting at his typewriter in New York City as the sports columnist for the New York Telegraph. The  Old West and the Fenced West became the Wild West in the imaginations of the storytellers. The cowboys who lived through those changing times constantly reinvented themselves. They learned the power of a new start, a new beginning.

I remember once, when visiting a church in the East, our daughters were asked, “Do Indians live in teepees in Tulsa, Oklahoma?” The Wild West, Hollywood-style, lives on in our collective stories. It is a new day. Today’s cowboys have hardly driven cattle anywhere unless the cattle were in their trucks. It is a different day for life on the range. Do you need a re-start, a reinvention, and transformation of your life today? God is the One who said, “Behold, I make all things new.” It is never too late for a fresh start.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Start anew. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Dorothy and I were enjoying a leisurely breakfast this past Thursday, when we were startled by a loud, pulsing siren-like sound. We thought our home alarm system had been triggered. Not seeing or smelling smoke but alarmed that every smoke detector in the house was screeching, Dorothy called 911 and asked the fire department to send someone out to determine the cause. There was no smoke or fire anywhere that I could see. My next thought was that it might be carbon monoxide that set off the alarms. I opened the front and back doors to let in some outside air. The freeze warnings and steep temperature drop had caused us to turn on the heat on Monday night. I went to the garage, opened the attic and looked up. Still no smoke or flames. I went outside to look at the roof, front and back. All was quiet. While the firetruck was on its way, I moved the cars out of the garage and out of the way, while Dorothy waited outside as the fire department personnel had ordered. 

The first cold week of the season is a dangerous time for house fires and carbon monoxide poisonings. Heaters, fireplaces, and furnaces have been sitting unused for months, getting dustier and rustier. A tiny gas leak, a worn-out electrical cord or connector, or a failing fan motor can do a lot of damage. When the firemen arrived, they spread apart to assess the whole house. They were each wearing carbon monoxide detectors, which were indicating everything was normal. Soon they found the source of the problem: the smoke detectors had malfunctioned. I did not know that smoke detectors have an expiration date of about 10 years. Ours are 17 years old. Not only are we to replace the batteries when needed, but also the smoke detector units themselves after 10-12 years. One fireman patiently showed me about our units, how they were connected and the kind to buy. They suggested we replace them all. Fortunately, I was able to find the same model on-line. Before they left, they told me to call them when we got our new units; they would gladly install them for us at no cost.

After that alarming experience, we warmed our coffee and food as best we could and talked about it all. We are thankful for alarms that work and firefighters that are caring and patient. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Check your alarms. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1439 and the world has never been the same. Gutenberg’s big project was to print the entire Bible in his native German. It was a good place to start. The printing press revolutionized the world.

In my life long ago, I served as the full-time Serials Librarian at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. That’s serials with an “s” not with a “c.” We did not serve breakfast. Serials are periodicals, magazines, and annuals. I had a staff of eight people to supervise and over 4,000 different titles to keep catalogued and filed. It was an amazing and diverse job with the opportunity to help students, professors and Biblical scholars research the most current materials available in religious studies. I am continually grateful for the skills I learned in that position. I learned about the budgeting process and living within its constraints. I learned about managing a staff and scheduling. I learned how to read quickly and accurately, and how to research current topics through periodicals. 

Many years later, I went to the library of a local theological seminary to check out a couple of books. I had not been in an actual theological library in a long time. Over the years my personal library, the church media center and the kindness of friends has seen me through. I was researching a sermon series on Jesus and his relationship with the women who followed Him. I needed to find very specialized books and articles. But I needed help. The card catalog had been recycled long ago; now everything is found by computer. The student librarian patiently showed me how I could find and check out anything that I needed in this library from any computer in the world!

C. S. Lewis once wrote of how the power of reading opens our perspectives: We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own. Many people never go to a public library anymore, although the library is cheaper than a bookstore, and more technologically advanced than many homes. While there will always be a place for holding a good book in your hand, you may be reading your favorite author from a hand-held tablet already. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Keep reading. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Do you remember your first job, the one with an actual paycheck? I remember opening that first pay envelope and seeing a check for about $30, big money for 1963. Yet I was disappointed to see what they had taken out of my paycheck. I was told it had to do with death and taxes. It was Railroad Retirement and union dues. I was the fill-in-where-needed summer vacation relief Yard Clerk for the Miami railyards of Seaboard Airline Railroad (CSX today). I was working there because my father was one of the Yard Masters.

The railyard is where incoming and outgoing freight cars get sorted out and sent off to their various destinations. My job was to inventory every box car, flat car, tank car, hopper, engine, and caboose on more than a dozen tracks. I listed the cars on a form sheet in exact order, by numbered track. My job also included climbing on top of box cars and over to refrigerator cars to check the level of ice they contained before they left the yards. It also meant I learned how to step up on and jump off a moving freight train to save me walking to the other side of the yard. This is harder than it sounds at 3 a.m. on a moonless night. 

The only time I was really frightened was one afternoon when, lost in thought, a voice inside a box car suddenly shouted out, “Hey, boy!” I jumped. There, right before my eyes, were three grizzled hobos. They wanted to know the time. I had never seen a real hobo in person. I had heard about them and even watched Red Skelton play one many times on TV. We call them the homeless today, but a hobo was supposed to be someone who traveled the rails in search of work and a place to build his family. People provided extras for the hobos: extra food, extra clothes, and a place to spend the night between train rides. Some hobos took advantage, but most were genuinely grateful. 

Times changed and the emotionally wounded, physically afflicted and financially insecure have found themselves with fewer trains to ride. Our Wednesday night outreach to our community provides emergency supplies—bags of groceries, extra clothes, a listening ear and promise of prayer. I invite you to join us as a volunteer in prayerfully ministering with our neighbors and those who may be passing through. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Get on board. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.