Mercer Chapel on Spring Road was a little white-frame community church. Like thousands of others, a fixture of the American countryside. Set in a cemetery, its patriarchs and matriarchs slept near by. It was a pleasant slow-paced congregation. Volleyball league and Ladies’ Aid. Strawberry suppers and ice-cream socials. Pot-luck dinners and Class parties. Christmas pageants and Easter bonnets. Good cooks and farm kids. American Traditional. Sort of a Norman Rockwell print.
The people were good to us. Elmer Brown introduced me to “punkin’ blossoms.” His wife Edith worked at the phone …

I just got a call from a dear friend. He is a pastor. He needs to lose some weight. He read that I need to lose some weight. He challenged me to a weight-loss race. He has to lose 30 pounds. I need to lose 40 pounds. Here’s the deal: the first one to his goal is the winner (the big loser). The prize is this a hard-bound edition of Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon published by Banner of Truth.

I have a copy but mine is an old …

It’s fun to find yourself in the right place at the right time with just the right thing you need to help someone whose options are very thin. That happened to me yesterday. I saw a man having trouble. His car wouldn’t start. It was full of children. I saw him looking around. He didn’t know what to do. I asked him if he needed a “jump.”

I’m in a really good mood today so I am going to give you some advice you will thank me for, for the absolute rest of your life. Get on iTunes and download all the Fernando Ortega you can afford as soon as you can. While you are at it surf over and check out the picture of his newborn daughter on his website. You can listen to one of his beautiful songs here. Now you owe me… Bigtwime.

Sometimes people are out to get you, but probably not as often as you think. The sad fact is most people really do spend most of their time thinking only of themselves. They are not guilty of malice toward you as often as they are guilty of indifference. In my thirty years of ministry I have noticed that part of the Devil’s craft is inspiring people to do just the wrong thing at just the right time to confirm the worst suspicions of the best people. Not everyone is out …

Here is the title story from my book Sunset on Summer. Download and enjoy. Let me know what you think.
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Sunset on Summer
Thanks to Daniel for producing the podcast.

I do have a wife. This is a picture of her and our youngest daughter.

photo by Lois Pierpont
I have often thought of things I like in a church building. I love a soaring white steeple glistening against the blue sky or lighted jutting up into the night. It would, of course, have a large pulpit in the very center, symbolic of the priority of the ministry of the Word. Maybe it would have the white colonial furniture, too.

Sometimes you can be enjoying a beautiful, mundane afternoon and be plunged into a heart-rending crisis within a few seconds. That happened to us one quiet spring afternoon a few years ago. I was walking out across the yard enjoying the laughter and play-sounds of the children coming from the other side of the barn.

I’m not all that sharp but I have learned a few things from being a father of eight and husband of over twenty-five years. Left to themselves young boys usually do not do a very good job on cleaning the garage. They either fight with each other or they just frog around and do a halfway job.