I continued our series on “Total-Life Stewardship.” My message was on the stewardship of speech. I tried to tackle it in terms of three relationships – God, self, others. My major points were: (1) God is listening to what you say; (2) your words tell on you; (3) your tongue has powerful effects on others.

Among our guests Sunday, there was a young man from Detroit. Pastor Tolar Morgan, whom I preached for several years ago, pointed him to our church. There was also a young man in town for business from Houston. Pastor Ralph West had pointed him to our church. Cool.

This was the second week that my sermon manuscript was nine pages long. I try to keep them down to seven pages. Eight is long. Nine is an eternity. And I think it has really showed in the past two messages. I need to work harder at editing down my messages.

I was praying for my friend, Pastor Romell Williams to feel better.

Sunday afternoon, we worshiped with the Redeemer Baptist Church of Los Angeles. Pastor Curtis Monroe was being honored for 10 years of pastoral leadership at Redeemer. I brought the message. I preached from Romans 8:28. I know that this was a strange text to take for a pastor’s anniversary service. But this really was what was on my heart. I wanted to say a word of encouragement.

There was something different about this service. Rather than each choir singing, the various musicians and choirs met together and sung together as one group. I don’t know if I have seen that happen before. It was encouraging. However, it didn’t make the service any shorter.

I was glad that many members of MSMBC attended the service, our first church outing of the year.

Crystal and I spent five hours at the hospital Sunday night. She was in quite a bit of pain. So we went to the emergency room. She was having early contractions. But she was not going into labor. Praise God. We have about five more weeks to go. And we want this little one “in the oven” to finish cooking.