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

     In December of 1987, Jimmy Hester set out to come up with a Christian Sex Education program. By 1992, he was presenting his work to LifeWay. In February of the following year, the youth group of Tulip Grove Baptist Church in Hermitage, Tennessee became the first youth group to sign their purity pledge. This was the start of the True Love Waits Movement. Youth groups for the last 31 years have signed similar pledges, studied the material, and received purity rings. There have been ceremonies before the church, special dinners, and even festivals put on by churches to promote True Love Waits which simple states that the best way to handle premarital sex is not to have it.      As a youth leader and later as a youth minister I did my share of True Love Waits studies. I gave out pledge cards, purity rings and lead the ceremonies. One year's study stands out in my mind. Not because of any reason that had to do with True Love Waits. It has to do with some guys cutting up as they

     Do you remember the blizzard of '93? Or that year is snowed three Wednesdays in a row? What about the other year when it rained for almost two weeks straight. Or the tornados that come through our area several months ago? How can we forget the drought that happened, well it happens almost every summer here. Weather, it is a strange thing. It can change in a minute and twice in two minutes. What's the saying that has been going around a lot lately? If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes and it will change. It seems odd to say but a lot of days, including these past few weeks, it is true.       All this changing weather makes life rough. We dress for the wintery mix in the morning but by lunch we are shedding layers because the sun came out and warmed everything up. We start the day off in our short sleeves because it was warm when we went left that morning but by the afternoon we are grabbing that old sweatshirt out of the back of our car because the wind

     A couple of weeks ago I ran into Walmart on a Friday evening to grab one thing. I was able to accomplish this task because neither my wife or daughter was with me. What I needed was near the Garden Center so I went to check out there. The young man in front of me had a grill sitting on top of his buggy which was filled with steaks, hamburgers, hotdogs, buns and different spices and sauces. Another man behind me asked the young man if he was planning on eating good over the weekend. I did notice 2 packs of bacon in his buggy so I knew he would be. He smiled while telling us that his wife had paid off a credit card the week before and since they had talked about getting a grill he decided to get one along with some meat to grill. I noticed the sticker price of the grill was over $300. and there was easily another $100. worth of meat in the buggy. The man behind me spoke again. He asked if the young man's wife knew he was buying the grill and meat. The young man shrugged his s

     The countdown has begun to Valentine's Day. You know the day when every husband/boyfriend must declare their love with chocolate, flowers, jewelry, cards, fancy dinners, romantic lines, thoughtful gifts and of course they must declare their love on social media for all the world to see. Every wife/girlfriend on the other hand not only receives all of these wonderful tokens of love but they only have to give a card and maybe a shirt or a bottle of cologne in return. For many years I have felt this holiday was started by a woman. So this year, I decided to research my theory.      I first researched St. Valentine. That wasn't helpful. The Catholic church recognizes at least 3 St. Valentines. Each had their own "love story". One did underground marriages after marriages were declared illegal. One fell in love while sneaking Christians to safety when the Roman government was putting them to death. The other was in jail when he fell in love with somebody's dau

     When people talk about the Holiday Season they usually mean Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's but there is an unofficial holiday that comes soon after New Year's that I feel completes the Holiday Season. The countdown has started for that unofficial holiday, it is called the Super Bowl. We have finished the NFL season and went through the play offs to find out which teams will be playing and now in a few short days we will have what NFL fans have waited for since last February, the Super Bowl.       The Super Bowl is unlike any other championship.It is a one game show down. In the NBA and in MLB you have to win four out of seven games and the championship series can take over a week to play. It becomes a test of endurance not just who is better. This is also a longer build up for the Super Bowl. There is less than a week from the conference championship and the championship series in other leagues but there is two weeks between the conference championship and th

     Have  you ever asked yourself, "Is this worth all the trouble?" I am sure most of us have asked that question about many things. We evaluate everything from relationships to cars to cooking to hobbies to anything else that can cause us troubles. At some point we get tired of all the troubles and start evaluating weather the troubles outweigh the benefits or enjoyment. That is how we decide to continue putting up with the troubles or to start over with something else.       I fought the battle of troubles vs enjoyment with my Xbox. The original one that came out in 2001. Not that I got it in 2001 because I was married and my daughter was born that year. I finally got mine from a guy at the Jamestown Flea Market a couple years later. I had talked to him a couple of times because I really wanted one. I had an original Nintendo and a Super Nintendo with several games and accessories. After a few weeks of negotiations he agreed to take all my stuff in on trade for a Xbox a

         Every year at this time I remember back to the years I worked at the Nautilus Fitness Center. January was crazy. We would sale memberships by the dozen to all the New Year Resolutionist. They would come by the masses. A few would sign up for a 3 month membership to see if they would stick with it. The majority wanted the year or the two year contract. They were going to stick to their diet, workout everyday and become a more healthy person. I and every other instructor were happy to sign them up even though we knew many of them we would never see again.      The regulars hated January. There were so many people in the gym that they couldn’t get to their weight machines. They had to wait for the cardio machines. They were elbow to elbow in the aerobic classes. There was even lines to the hot tub and steam room. Finding an empty locker was an adventure. Most knew this was only a temporary inconvenience and that soon they could have their gym back. They also understood that t