Giving Answers (1 Peter 3:15)

I have always been a superhero geek.  During my youth and adult years, I have collected many comics from both Marvel and DC.  I follow superheroes, not just for the fantasy (I mean who doesn't want to run the speed of light or fly), but for the compelling characters and struggles these characters must triumph over. Many of the successes on the big and small screen today had their origins in the pages of a monthly comic.  You think waiting a week is a long time to see what happens to your favorite hero next, try waiting a month.  Yet, if you are an avid comic book junkie like I was, you memorized which week your favorite comic hit the stands so you could be at the store on the arrival date.  Then, you would go out to your car and spend the next 20 minutes consuming the next chapter in the story colorfully splashed across a couple dozen pages.  A satisfying tale could sometimes take a year or two to flesh out. Marvel has done an astonishingly good job in ...

Let me be blunt for a moment. Our generation and our children's generation is getting punked concerning living together and marriage.  Through countless cultural icons and generations affected by the sexual revolution, they have been told that living together is a stepping stone to marriage. On TV and in the movies, scenes reminiscent of marriage proposal scenes take place between men and women with an elongated rectangular box replacing the traditional square one.  A key to an apartment or house replaces the diamond ring reserved for a deeper commitment.  What's inside the box, when you think about it, is as pitiful a replacement as the notion of living together is to a life long commitment in marriage. What is so sad concerning this trend is that it is marketed as a progression toward marriage when in reality, living together is the exact opposite of marriage.  It is just a step away from true commitment, they are told.  And unfortunately, they are buyin...

During advent, our church is reading through parts of the Christmas story week by week.  These ponderings are based upon those readings and designed to get us thinking about Christmas keeping Christ at the center.  I hope you will enjoy them. Luke 1:5-20   Have you ever wondered why Zechariah was dumbstruck by Gabriel?  I mean, on the surface, it seems harsh.  Zechariah asks a simple question followed by an obvious observation:  "How can I be sure of this?  I am an old man and my wife is well along in years."  (Luke 1:18) Zechariah was just promised some incredible things.  He and his wife were going to have a son in their old age who was going to be "great in the sight of the Lord" (v. 15).  I think that I would want some assurance too. The problem with angels Wouldn't the appearance of an angel be enough to heed whatever words he was saying?  If there was an angel that suddenly appeared to us in all of his glory that tol...

He walked up to me visibly stung by an interaction that he just had.  I didn't know him, but he began to talk to me as if he was doing me a favor. "Be careful of that lady over there." pointing to the one across the room in a red dress, "I don't think she's got it all together." "Really?  What happened?" I asked. "Well, I went over there, introduced myself, held out my hand for a friendly handshake and after a few awkward moments, she simply turned away and started talking to someone else." "Maybe she didn't mean anything by it."  I interjected. "I don't know.  She just didn't seem all there.  Not the type of person I think I'd like to hang around." "You got all that from a refusal to shake your hand?" "I'm a pretty good judge of character.  Trust me, if you have a chance to get around her, you'll see."  All of a sudden a smile began to creep on my new frien...

Yesterday, our church started the 52 Week Challenge.  It is a challenge to personally invite 1 person/family to church each week for 52 weeks and see what God will do with our faithfulness.  We made cards for our congregation that has our website, address and meeting time (along with our church name and mission statement).  Each person/family who accepts the challenge is given a set of 52 cards to personally hand out (some have taken more than one set). I took two sets for my family and it is already changing my outlook on things.  I currently have two cards in my back pocket and I am looking for ways to connect with people to hand them out. Today, I had lunch with one of our congregation members.  While I was totally there for them, I found myself looking for a way to talk with someone (waiter, hostess, etc...), so I could learn their name and invite them to church in my moments in-between our conversation.  Unfortunately, the waiter who serviced our t...

"To what can I compare this generation?  They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:  'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'  For John [the Baptist] came neither eating or drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'.  The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."'  But wisdom is proved right by her actions."-- the words of Jesus (Matthew 11:16-19; see also Luke 7:31-35) Most people don't realize that to be tagged a "friend of sinners" was a slight toward Jesus.  We have taken the name calling as a badge of honor and used it to say that as believers, we too, should be "friends of sinners".  However, this is a dangerous misunderstanding of how Jesus responded to the insults to both Himself and to His cousin, John the Baptist.  I am afraid that American...

My family went with another family to see "The Last Jedi" a few months back.  After the movie was over, there was endless critiquing by my family concerning the movie.  Needless to say, we didn't like it.  It isn't that we hated all of it, but the errors that it made were, in the end, unforgivable. I have been a collector of Star Wars books for years.  I don't own every book that has been made, but enough to respect the universe that the creative authors of the series have created.  One of the things that became established after 40 years of fiction development is the character of each of the fictional individuals represented in the series. Going into the movie, we all knew that creative license would be taken by the filmmakers as Disney was trying to build their own history of Star Wars that was going to deviate from what had been written before.  The first of the new trilogy "The Force Awakens" definitely changed the history from the books, ho...