I am Salty!

Our family bought it's first TV when I was in the 1st grade. Incidentally, that is when I remember us first having an inside bathroom as well, but that is a story for another time.

Sunday mornings consisted of our family of four getting ready for church. Church was never an option in our family. It was understood by all of us that church is what we did every Sunday morning. Come to think of it, church is what we did every Sunday morning and evening and Wednesday evenings.

I remember that on school mornings we were entertained by listening to the radio while we prepared for school. But on Sunday mornings, we watched TV. Christian TV at that time consisted of Oral Roberts Healing Ministry and Gospel Quartets. I was totally inspired by the Gospel music in particular, and decided at that time I would join a Gospel Quartet and become a Gospel singer. Well, God had other plans for my life, evidenced by the fact I have no musical skill.

Nevertheless, despite my lack of musical talent, I still love music and love worship. I also love to watch children worship. There is something pure and unadulterated in their expression of worship. Children often express truths in worship that we might have missed otherwise.

I will never forget one little 4-year-old boy. He would dress in suit and tie every Sunday. His hair was slicked back and he was the epitome of style. He was a well-behaved boy and loved to sing at the top of his lungs. Boy, could he belt it out.

One of the songs we often sang back then was "I Exalt Thee". That seemed to be his favorite. In his child-like understanding, he would tilt his head back and burst forth in song, "I Am Salty, I Am Salty, I Am Salty, Oh Lord!"

Well, you get the picture. We are SALTY! Enough said.

Have a great day! Make it SALTY!

All About Ministry

It has been too long since I showed up here. In fact, I have written nothing since we announced Dallise was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. With great thanksgiving I can report that she is doing well and the worst symptom or side effect she has experienced is excessive tiredness, and even with that she has not missed a day of work. I recently spoke to a client who was diagnosed with CML a few years ago. He endured everything from steroid treatment to bone marrow transplant to extensive chemotherapy, and is not a healthy man even today. We have been spared those extreme trials and we are grateful.

Now, with that personal report given, "It's All About Ministry."

I have always preached that wherever you work, whatever you do, that place is a place of ministry. I never had to practice that truth until I stepped into the business marketplace three years ago. I find that there are daily opportunities to speak a word of encouragement, pray with someone or to share my faith. There are people out there who may never step into "my church", but I can take church, no, not church, but Christ, into "my world". That may be the most important thing I can do as ministry.

While it was very difficult to adjust to not being "Pastor", I now find my job, my job ministry, very fulfilling. I have been guilty in the past of passing some degree of quiet, private judgment on those who left formal ministry. I thought they just did not have the stamina or they became jaded or disillusioned with ministry. I thought maybe they were quitters, they were giving in to satanic pressures. They were to be pitied and definitely prayed for. They just didn't have what it took. I have even thought that maybe some of those should never even have been called ministers. We read all the statistics of the numbers of churches that fail and the numbers of those who have left the ministry and we feel saddened by those numbers.

Yet, might it just be possible that God just planned, in His own wisdom and for eternal reasons we might never know in this earth, to use some "old Preachers" to carry His message to a different crowd in a different way than he started out.

I'll admit, this may sound like one "old Preacher" trying to justify his own life journey, but I gotta tell you, this feels pretty right for me at this season of my life. So, please do not feel sorry for me, please do not look at me as one who abandoned The Call. If anything, that Call is stronger than ever and I am feeling a holy liberty to pursue it as long as God gives me life. I have an idea this thing is about to become an even greater adventure than I imagined 35 years ago when I launched into pastoral ministry.