There has been a lot of noise coming out of Asbury University over the last two weeks. University President, Dr. Kevin J. Brown, explains the humble beginnings. He writes, “At the completion of a regularly scheduled chapel service on February 8, 2023, at Asbury University, students lingered to pray, worship, and share. They have not stopped and, moreover, have been joined far and wide by hungry...
Making Every Sunday Super
There’s a meme that resurfaces every year right around Super Bowl season. It says, “You should be as excited about church as you are about the Super Bowl. So when your pastor makes a good point this Sunday, pour Gatorade over his head.” Without fail, this meme peppers my social media feeds as people tag myself and my pastoral brothers and sisters to share the joke. I have a deep and abiding...
Step by Step: Lessons from a Can of Coke
During a recent meeting of our youth ministry, The Attic, we conducted a little experiment that I found both interesting and illuminating. The experiment was inspired by two seemingly simple questions provided in a Grow Students teaching guide. “What is something so easy to do that it doesn’t require instructions?” “If you were to provide step by step instructions for that activity, what would...
Plan B: Our Plans and God’s Plans
“Man plans and God laughs.” This phrase is a restatement of an old Yiddish proverb. The original wording of the phrase is, “We plan; God laughs.” If we keep going down the rabbit hole, we learn that this particular phrase takes its inspiration from the book of Psalms. At least three times in the Psalms, the author notes that God does, in fact, laugh at the planning and plotting of humanity. If...
Fear or Faith: What’s Driving?
I was in second grade during the first presidential election I can remember. The year was 1988 and I was eight years old. We held a mock election in our classroom. We were given several days to talk to our parents and other adults we respected and to watch the news or read the paper to discern for whom we wanted to vote. The candidates for that particular election were then Vice President George...
Going for a Ride: Finding Excitement in Every Day
Like most people, there is a fairly predictable pattern I follow on a day to day basis. On most mornings, I get up, go through the motions of personal preparation, head down to the kitchen to make my coffee, then load into the truck to take my son to school. My office is just across the street from the high school, so once I’ve dropped him off I head directly to the office to get about the...
Are You Forgetting Something?
“All good things must come to an end.” The truth of this statement will ring loud and long in the hearts and minds of children and adults alike over the next few weeks. It isn’t just the truth that is ringing, though. It is the bells calling students back to their classes and adults back to the working world. It is the ringing of alarm clocks, both literal and metaphorical, waking us up from the...
It’s All Good (It’s All in How You See It)
“It’s all good.” This small phrase has been running through my head for several days now. It grabbed my attention after an encounter in an overcrowded convenience store (Buc-ee’s) somewhere in southern Georgia. As we were all attempting to navigate the cramped space, a hurried lady ran into me pushing me into another gentleman, sending the items we were holding bouncing off other patrons like...
Resolutions and Lasting Results
The New Year is almost upon us. As is often the case, we find ourselves standing on the precipice of the potential and promise of another 365 days, wondering where the previous 365 have gone and how they went so quickly, while wishing we’d done more with the time that has passed. In an effort to better utilize the time available, many of us make New Year Resolutions. Perhaps you have been...
Hope for Dark Days (The Light Still Shines)
There is much debate over when the Christmas season officially begins. Some, like myself, get the party started early in late October or early November. My personal practice is to dress up as Santa Claus during our annual Trunk or Treat event to mark the arrival of the season. Others prefer to follow the church liturgical calendar and wait until the start of Advent to deck the halls and fire up...
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