One of my dad’s favorite pastimes was fishing. He rarely caught anything big, but he loved to go to the lake or a river, or a stream, and “drown a worm.” I have a nice bass on my wall that was caught with my dad on Watauga Lake in East Tennessee. I cherish the memory […]
Have you ever stood face to face with someone who has never heard of the name of Jesus? If so, it is not an experience you will soon forget. Several years ago, a family from our church was serving as Christian workers in the mountains of China. After being on the field for about four […]
Do you know the internal struggle of trying to forgive someone who has deliberately hurt you or someone in your family? Reverend Anthony Thompson knows exactly what that feels like. His wife Myra was one of the nine people murdered on June 15, 2015, at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. Recently, I heard […]
Churches all across America will be taking short-term mission trips this summer to places like Cleveland, Boston, Uganda and Thailand. Recently, I asked some missionaries, church planters and missions leaders a strategic question: What did the best mission teams do that made you glad they came? The insights listed below were gleaned from their answers. […]
When I heard that Billy Graham had died, my first thought was purely selfish. “I never got to meet him.” For more than 40 years, Billy Graham has been my spiritual hero. My dream was to one day shake his hand and thank him for the impact he had on my life. Since that dream […]
Recently, I went to Southeast Asia with some other leaders from across South Carolina. The night before I left, a friend of mine came by to pray with me. He used to serve as a missionary in one of the countries we were going to visit. He was excited that I would finally be in […]
As I write this, we have just finished an amazing three days of revival as two churches joined together to seek a fresh move of God. As John Avant with Life Actions Ministries concluded the final service, I approached the stage for some final remarks. That’s when I noticed something on the platform that I […]
I learned a lesson in Cleveland this summer. We are planting a church there, and I had to step in at the last minute and lead a mission trip. Here’s what I learned: Taking your people on a mission trip is better than sending them! I honestly think that I benefited from the trip more […]
Early on the morning of June 7, I was walking my dog and reading Twitter to pass the time. I read this post from Kevin Ezell: “16.7 million … the number of gospel conversations if all 46,000 SBC churches would share with 1 person each day for a year.” For a minute or two, my […]
About 5,000 of the Southern Baptist family traveled to the “dry heat” of Phoenix this year for the 2017 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. There were some special moments that made this year’s meeting a moving and memorable experience. The first came on Sunday night. The leaders of Crossover Phoenix decided to take a new […]