It is the end of a long, good day. I am winding down now, preparing for bed. At this point, it’s been more than twenty-four hours since I have slept. I pulled an all-nighter last night to finish my message for our Thanksgiving Day service this morning. My message was on the story of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9. I was going to call it, “Surprised by Grace.” I did not get to preach my message this morning. Our Thanksgiving service is the one service of the year our congregation has open-floor testimonies. The past several years, I have been...

The Dallas Cowboys beat down the New York Jets 34-3 yesterday to go to 10-1 for the season. How 'bout them Cowboys!!!

I listened to a lecture from the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice this morning. It was the first part of a series of messages he delivered at a pastor's conference hosted by John Piper's Desiring God Ministries in February, 1991. Dr. Boice, a great Bible expositor and commentator, led the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia for more than thirty years. I encourage my pastoral colleagues to go to www.desiringgod.org to find and listen to this great man of God lecture on biblical preaching. At the end of the lecture, Dr. Boice fielded questions from the floor. A young man...

I preached today for Pastor Tyrone Skinner at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Altadena. It was their "Men's Day" service. I am not often out of my own pulpit on Sunday mornings. But Pastor Skinner is one of the men I am willing to make an exception for. Pastor Skinner is a godly, kind, and humble leader. And the Lord is blessing him to do a great work in the Altadena/Pasadena area. I have preached for him on several occasions throughout the years - from church anniversaries, to pastoral anniversaries, to church revivals. And the eagerness of the congregation to hear...

Crystal and the kids (including the one in the "oven") this morning as we were leaving for church

I have been on the go since my last post. Last week, I was in revival at New Pleasant Hill in Los Angeles - Pastor Melvin Hill. And it’s always harder to preach a meeting at home. If I am away, I can order my day for preaching. But when I am home, I almost have to get ready to preach around the regular stuff that I have to do throughout the day. I preached Wednesday and Thursday nights. But Friday afternoon, Crystal called me at my office and told me to come home. She was not feeling well. We...

Here is a note I wrote in our November church newsletter about my pastoral anniversary. It was a Monday night. It was a church business meeting. It was a vote to decide my father’s successor. These were all good reasons for me go to bed early, as I had planned. But I decided to go to the meeting anyway. I had even determined the person I was going to vote for that night. Several hours later, I left the meeting as the newly elected pastor of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church. I was only 17-years-old. I was in the senior...

This evening, I will begin a three-night meeting (Wed.-Fri.) at the New Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Los Angeles, where Dr. Melvin Hill is the pastor. Please join me in pray for power for preaching, the salvation of souls, and the building up of God’s people.

First, an update. Joshua scored a TKO over me in the fifth round! I spent the first half of this year getting to preach through the book of Joshua. Honestly, I have never had so much trouble getting out of the starting gate with a book like I did with this one. I spent the past several months trying to get through Joshua. I'd get a message ready. Then It would take me several weeks to get to the next one. Ultimately, I never made it to chapter 5. I don’t know what went wrong. Honestly. I was just not...

I am in Tucson, Arizona. I am here to speak tonight for the Progressive Missionary Baptist State Convention Fall Session and Revival. Pastor Ricky B. Harvey is the president of this group. And his congregation, Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, is hosting the services. Pray for me.

This weekend, the pastoral leaders and staff of MSMBC are together in downtown Los Angeles for our annual retreat. This is when we do the heavy lifting for our plans for the upcoming year. This is about this sixth year in a row we have met together in this way. And this is about the fourth year we have met at this hotel. We are finishing up dinner now. And we will take on work for a couple of more hours, before we quit for the night. We will start again early in the morning, and go through tomorrow afternoon....

Here is the book review I wrote about a month ago for our church newletter. Steve Brown introduces his book What Was I Thinking? with an illustration: “One Time Mark Twain’s wife got furious with him and did something she rarely, if ever, did. She started cursing. Twain started laughing, and that, of course, made her even angrier. She asked him what he thought was so funny. ‘My dear,’ he said through gales of laughter, ‘you know the words, but you don’t know the tune!’” This humorous story is Brown’s explanation of where he is in his walk with Christ...