Dave and I lost touch with each other after I left my first pastorate. He worked at the same engineering company I worked for. He had been a nice man, not always agreeing with my religious side of “coffee break discussions,” but never was rude like some were.
When I moved away, I lost ties to my former friends. So when my phone rang 20 years later and a husky voice on the other end asked, “Are you the Danny Carpenter that used to work in Dallas?” I was blown away. It was Dave.
It turns out Dave had converted after I moved away. Married, had a kid, and was now, 20 years later, a Sunday School teacher. And on Sunday his pastor had challenged members to remember the person or people who had impacted them for Christ, and find them to say “Thank you.” So Dave was calling me to thank me. Twenty years ago, he said, I made a lasting impression on him. It was a humbling moment.
After we hung up, I began to reflect on my own mentors. Men who had shaped my life. There were two men who made a huge impact on me. One was the principal of my 7th and 8th grade years. Harold Lichtenwald, principal of Sidney Lanier, took me under his wing and helped me. Saved me. One of the greatest men I’ve ever known.
The other was Fred Gregory, my high school drafting teacher. One of a kind. Cared about his students’ futures, not their grades. He showed me that character was more important than skill. And he helped me long after high school.
I decided to look them up. Mr. Gregory was easy. He still lived in the same house in Mesquite. I phoned him, and wrote a column about him in the local newspaper. My way of saying thanks.
Mr. Lichtenwald was a little harder to find. When I did, he was dying in a nursing home in Dallas. Parkinson’s, diabetes, and something else. But I walked in his room unannounced, and he asked, “Are you looking for someone?”
“You,” I said. “I’m a voice from your past.”
He smiled. “How far back?”
“Sidney Lanier,” I said, knowing he’d never guess. But to my surprise, he teared up and said, “Danny Carpenter.” I couldn’t believe it. He cried a while, and then, embarrassed, told me he couldn’t move his arms, and he could really use help with his running nose and eyes. It was my privilege.
I loved those two men. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they loved me, too. Mr. Lichtenwald passed away a year after I found him. Mr. Gregory just passed away a day after this past Christmas.
I am glad I found them. I’m glad I thanked them before they slipped away.
Who do you need to find? Find ‘em. And thank them.
You’ll be glad you did. Read full post... (498 words, estimated 1:60 mins reading time)

President Obama tried to be coy when he admonished Christians by asking which Christianity we should choose: “James Dobson’s Christianity; or Al Sharpton’s?” You mean they’re different? Maybe a better comparison would have been: “James Dobson’s, or Jeremiah Wright’s?”
But the truth is, if they’re both following Christ, and lifting Him up as Lord Almighty, then the chances are they’re both in the “body of Christ.” And the “body” has many members: eyes, ears, noses, feet… you get the picture. What part of the body is your church?
If you practice the analogy given in I Corinthians 12, you’ll have to learn to accept people of differing denominations. Our faith is still in the Lord Jesus. Be we have different functions in His body.
The apostle Paul pictures a body’s members arguing with themselves. The ear “looks” at the eye (since it has no eye, I don’t know how) and it says, “I must not be in the body, ’cause I’m not like the eye.” I don’t know how it spoke, since it has no mouth. But Paul must have been having fun trying to point out the damage done when Christian churches downplay other churches, or outright condemn them, because of denominational doctrinal differences.
Truthfully, most denominations developed doctrines of exclusivism. Such singular doctrines were essential, in the minds of the founding fathers, to preserve the uniqueness. And today, although many modern pastors may quibble privately at their own denomination’s staunch preservation of its “preservation doctrines,” they won’t do so publically.
Paul was clear about the reason we need to accept each other, even though we are dramatically different. Christ prayed that all who “believe” in Him “may be as one” (John 17:20-22). And when Paul wrote his clever piece in I Corinthians 12 about the “body” being comprised of many completely different parts, he declared that there should be “no schism in the body” (vs25).
So whether your church is the eye, or the ear, or the nose… or maybe the knee… the point is that you should simply be gald to be who you are, and not look disdainfully at other churches that you don’t understand or agree with. If they worship the Lord Jesus Christ, and they’ve received the revelation that He is Lord, they are His. And so are you. So rejoice and be happy in your faith. And let the “eye” do the same. Read full post... (417 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

I have noticed that a number of radio or television ministers are speaking about America’s need for a revival.  Sometimes it is a genuine call from ministers who are agonizing over the demise of godliness in America, and sometimes it is simply a “get on the bandwagon” response to what’s current.

At any rate, the troubling thing about the call to Revival is that it is so “corporate.”  It is not directed at us individually, but at America generally.  And that’s the rub, so to speak.

As long as we sit silently by, lending our “Amen!” to a stirring sermon, then hurrying to dinner, and hurrying home to grab the remote and watch our nightly nonsense, and then spending six days away from church, and from our devotional sense of God, then revival will not come to America. Read full post... (336 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

I enjoy watching the bowl games at this time of year.  Young men on their way up in the world of football.  They’re playing to win a game, but they also know the eyes of scouts are on them.  The pros are watching.  Their future could be hanging on a great performance.

This football season was the first for my young grandson.  It was fun to watch him, to wonder if he’ll play in high school, or in college.  It was fun to watch his transformation, suddenly wanting to “muscle up,” and becoming much more conscious of “team.”

But I think the most joy this football season has brought me has been watching my grandson’s mother (my daughter) go through her own transformation.  This was the woman who a year ago might have said, “Ewww, don’t touch that bug, it’s nasty.”  Or, “Look how dirty you are.  Get in there and clean up, young man.”  She certainly said, “You be nice!” Read full post... (446 words, 1 image, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

At about five this morning, the day after Christmas, one of the best men I’ve ever known slipped away. He was my high school drafting teacher, a principled man who loved his students more than any teacher I’ve ever seen. He had a good Christmas, surrounded by his grandkids and great-grandkids, his lovely wife Evelyn, and his son Chris, who shared him patiently with all his students. And then this morning he quietly left.

Several years ago his wife invited me to emcee his 80th birthday party. Dave Tanner, an outstanding entertainer out of Dallas performed, several students spoke, and I did my thing, and told a few stories of Mister Gregory. I never felt right calling him Fred, although I tried it a time or two. Read full post... (616 words, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)

NBC is already coming out with a special show called “The Secret Life of Tiger Woods.”  Two or three of the women with whom Tiger was intimate are already on “news” shows giving interviews.  And they sound so innocent.  Not evil and nasty like him.  Not secretive or seductive.  Just sweet women minding their own business until Tiger swooped down and fooled them into having a relationship.  Do I sound cynical?

Our obsession with gossip is troubling.  We almost seem to think we have a “right” to know the sordid details of anyone’s private affairs.   “They’re in the public eye,” one commentator justified, “and that gives the public the right to know.”  We don’t think or care about the other lives affected by our pursuit of the latest, dirtiest tidbit.  Standing in line at a grocery store scanning the covers of the magazines (“We’re the First to Break the Story of…”) reminds me that gossip is a business.  A high-dollar business. Read full post... (600 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

I watched my former pastor’s daughter at her son’s funeral 24 years ago, and I wondered how she would ever be “normal” again.  Her only son, a senior at UT, shot down by a 17-year-old who had bummed a ride from him.  A beautiful life ended in a moment of evil.  How would she ever smile again?  What would she dream about?

Her story is remarkable, and a brief glimpse of it is in December’s issue of Good Housekeeping, page 174.  She took a long time to lose her hatred of the young man who killed her son, but she did.  She found forgiveness.  She was able to forgive him.  Not that he asked for it.  She just gave it.  In her words, she “started seeing him as a human being and not just a murderer.” Read full post... (425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Christmas may be called "Holiday" these days, but it doesn’t change the fact that Christians know what this time of year is really all about. We may stand in lines and buy the latest product for our kids, but we never forget that this season is a special time to remember the birth of a Savior.

While some Christian groups advocate boycotting stores which don’t use the word Christmas, and some simply advocate not shopping at all, you find yourself walking a tightrope sometimes trying to please your family, your church, yourself, your God, and your radical friends. As if you didn’t already have enough stress at Christmas.

But whether you buy or don’t buy, or whether you shop certain stores or shun them, is really not going to change the world. How we share Christ, not just at Christmas, but as a part of our daily routine, is of much greater importance. Read full post... (427 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

This is the time of year they are flying.  We were standing on a tee box last Sunday afternoon, and could hear them honking, high in the sky, their erratic V-formation painted on a blue autumn sky.  When you contemplate their magnificence, you wonder why anyone ever came up with the phrase “as silly as a goose.”

For one, the V formation is critical to their migration.  Instinctively they fly this way.  Like some inner voice lines them up. They cannot know that flying in such a way enables them to fly 71% farther and longer than if they flew solo. Each bird creates an uplift that buoys the birds behind.  I wonder how many of us recognize the value of belonging to a church?  I wonder how many people have hung on a little longer, flown a little further than they might have, simply because they were buoyed on by the faith, love, and strength of those friends at their church? Read full post... (646 words, 1 image, estimated 2:35 mins reading time)

I heard it twice from the same woman in a mall store:  “Thank God!”

She wasn’t actually thanking Him, though.  She was telling her girlfriend how lucky she was they had the pants she wanted in her size. “Thank God!  I’ll look so hot in these at Thanksgiving!”

I smiled all the way up to the food court. I could just imagine her family gathering at Thanksgiving next week, and all her relatives slipping by her whispering, “Girl, you look so hot in those pants.”

Right.  Well, thank God.

It got me thinking about how many phrases we throw out that once had religious meaning, and now are pretty much meaningless. Read full post... (302 words, estimated 1:12 mins reading time)

• “Thank God.”
• “Jesus.”
• “Jesus Christ.”
• “Dear God.”
• “Mother of God.”
• “Holy Christ.”
• “Holy… anything.”
• “God bless.”
• “God in heaven.”
• “Good God.”
• “Mercy.”
• “Hell.”