The Bible-Believing, Bacon-Eating, Blog-Writing, Bald-Preacher

     Around 2000 years ago, give or take a hundred years, there were two angels hanging out after angel choir practice. Art & Herald were angles that sang in the glory section of the choir. The choir had been practicing for many years to get ready for their most important concert ever. Nobody knew when or where this concert was to be held but they knew they would be announcing the birth of the new born king. Not just any king but the Son of God. Art and Herald were excited because they heard rumors that it was about time for the concert.      Gabriel had been sent to deliver an important message on earth. He mentioned to some other angels before he left that he was headed to Nazareth to talk to a young virgin. All the angels knew that Jesus was to be born of a virgin so everyone was excited. That was what Art and Herald was talking about. They knew the final tryouts for the angel choir would be soon. They were discussing the songs and going over the different parts. Each wonder

     Does your family have Christmas traditions? You know the things you do the same way every year or a place you always have to go? It may be the way you exchange gifts or a place you go look at Christmas lights. It may be a recipe that you family makes, a song you always sing or a movie you have to watch. There are a lot of Christmas traditions out there. Some are unique and others are common among many families. Do you know where and why your family's Christmas traditions started? Sometimes those stories are as good as the tradition itself. The hows and whys of some Christmas traditions are great mysteries. Nobody knows why they have to do it every year or how long they have done it they just know they do it.      What happens when the Christmas traditions get broken or stopped? Can Christmas still go on? Will it start a new tradition? Will it be a temporary stop in the tradition? Will anyone notice the tradition has stopped? Those are real questions for many families each yea

     So, I am a band dad. Am I qualified to be a band dad? Let's see. First I have to be a dad. Check. I have a daughter. Next my child has to be in the band. Check. She started playing in the band when she was in the 6th grade and is now a freshman member of the high school band. So I qualify to be a band dad. Wow, that was easy. What did I do for such an honor? Nothing. It is all my daughter's doing. It was her decision to join the band. It is her hard work, her time spent practicing, and her dedication that makes me a band dad. I just wear the t-shirt.      I could never be in the band. I tried. In the 5th grade we took a "band test" to see if we should be in the band. I had high hopes. I wanted to play the drums and go straight from elementary school band to being a rock star. When the test started I was all business. The test consisted of counting beats and picking out the higher or lower pitches. There was 10 "questions" on the test. I listened and

     Some years ago when Abby was in Elementary School she brought home some math homework. It looked easy enough so we sat down at the kitchen table to have some father daughter bonding time. I thought I remembered how to do the problems she was working on but as she begun working the first problem I couldn't figure out what she was doing. After several minutes of struggling to figure out what she was doing I did what all good parents do when they are stumped by their children's homework, I went to Google. After searching for a few minutes I realized that I did know how to do the problems. So I begin to show Abby how to do them. This didn't go well.      As I showed her the method I learned that only took a few steps and mostly could be done in my head she wouldn't listen. She kept telling me that wasn't the way her teacher taught her. Now I purposely left our her grade and her teacher because I loved all her teachers at Sawmills and I am Facebook friends with