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

     Every family has a family recipe that is passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes it is something that other families make but maybe in a different way. Sometimes it is something that other families wouldn't even eat. My family has one of those recipes. It is chocolate gravy. Over the years I have found very few other families that make chocolate gravy. I have found a few places that make chocolate gravy but it doesn't taste the same as my families. We either pour it over a biscuit or dip white bread in it. Some of us really get wild and add peanut butter in it to give it a different taste. My mom's chocolate gravy has gotten better over the years until it is as good as my grandmother's was.       There is another food that I really enjoy, bacon. It isn't a family recipe but I enjoy it like it is one. I have had bacon milkshakes, bacon gum, bacon flavored toothpicks, bacon cheeseburgers, bacon spread, bacon sundaes, bacon candy, bacon ...

      Do you remember the year 2019? Back in that time we hugged our friends and our family. We didn't know what social distancing was and we certainly didn't own a mask. We probably had to think what the CDC stood for and we had never been to their website. Churches had cover dish dinners. We shook hands and sit right next to each other. Stores were open normal hours and restaurants filled every seat. We went to movies and concerts. We went to Friday night football games at the high school and the band marched at halftime. Professional athletes reacted to actual crowds and not piped in crowd noise. Students went to school everyday and did social activities. People went on cruises and flew in airplanes. If you needed to go to the doctor or the ER, you just went. We wished the DMV would take appointments so we didn't have to spend hours in line. You could walk down any aisle you wanted at Walmart and you could sit down to eat at all the fast food places. There was parades ...

     I have a uncomfortable situation. My sock on my right foot will not stay up. I don't normally have this problem but today I do. I like normal socks, thick ones that go up your ankle but my wife likes what is called, "no show socks." She buys my socks so guess which ones I wear. Today I have on a pair of "no show socks". I have worn them several times and I have never had a problem with them staying on my feet but today my right sock keeps sliding down my foot. I have removed my shoe and pulled it back into place several times today.      It is amazing how much of my day has been dedicated to my sock. I put on my sock this morning. I pull it up. I took off my shoe and pulled it back up. I think about how to keep it up. I thought about using some T-rex tape to keep it up but I don't like pain. I figure it will be painful to take off the tape. So, I just keep pulling it up. What is a man supposed to do?      To many people my sock problem...

     Welcome to our new world. A world of no activities, no where to go eat, no where to go watch a movie, no sports to watch, no concerts, empty store shelves and no touching anyone. We live in a world of watching to see what event is cancelled or postponed next instead of the rushing to get to all the things on our calendars. We live in a world that makes you question if your outing is really needed before going out. We live in a world of fear, worry and wondering. It seems each new day brings us a new shutdown or a new ban. Every health organization in the world publishes a new guideline everyday. Almost every time you turn on the TV the President or the Governor is on giving an update or issuing something. How do you like this new world? I am not a fan. I know it is only temporary but I am already for it to be over.       My regular weekly schedule only left me at home one or two nights a week and now I find myself home seven nights a week. You ...

     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 som...

     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 ou...

     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 shru...

     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 somebod...

     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 conf...

     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 s...

         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 thei...

     My family went to see the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway. They say there are over 3 million lights on display. I will take their word for it because I am not counting them. We drove around on the 3.75 mile course that took us on around the speedway, on the track, in the infield and many other places. We could watch Elf on the big screen as we drove around and listen to it on the radio. There were blinking lights, lights that made pictures, lights that formed moving pictures and lights that just were bright. We walked around the Christmas Village which was not very Biblically accurate but was pretty to look at. We stood under the "snow" and got our picture                                           took. We walked by the "shops" and feed some animals in the petting zoo. My daughter got to pet a llama and was very excited. I left still not in the Christmas Spi...

     As I was driving to the office this morning I saw something that brought back a scary memory. I was driving on 321 and I glanced over to the lane beside of me and saw some snow fly off the top of a car and come crashing down against the windshield of the car behind it. It wasn't a big amount but I am sure it was enough to give the driver a scare. Now the memory it brought back to my mind had a lot more snow in it. I was driving down a two lane road a day or two after a heavy snow. It was the first day the roads were not covered in snow and ice so it was the first time many people ventured out. I was following a minivan with enough snow on top of it to let you know it was on its maiden voyage out. As we drove down the road a few small lumps of snow came flying off so I backed off some. A few minutes later I assume the minivan driver figured out the roads were not as icy as once thought because they went from driving Miss. Daisy to driving the last lap at the Daytona 5...

    A little over 20 years ago my wife was asked by some of her family to join them for some Black Friday shopping. They told her about all the sales and deals that stores have on that day. She reluctantly went. They only went for a few hours and they didn't go early when all the stores opened. She come home that afternoon with bags in her hands, a sparkle in her eyes and excitement in her heart. She was hooked on Black Friday Shopping. The next year she went again and came home with more bags in hands, a bigger sparkle in her eyes and more excitement in her heart. I realized that it was now in her blood. I knew she would be a regular and she has been.      Her third year something changed though. Going later in the day wasn't going to be good enough. Only going for a couple of hours wasn't going to be good enough. I will never forget coming home one day to find her sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by sales papers. She turned around to show me a toaster ...