Chris Turner

Jeff Vanlandingham is not the mayor of Lawrenceburg, but I’m pretty sure he could be if he wanted. 

I recently sat at a table close to the door of Co-Work Coffee Shop with Jeff and he knew every person who entered. There was a greeting, a handshake, a question about family, or school, or a job, or something else, and then we’d resume our conversation until the door opened again. People came and went, and the process repeated itself for 90 minutes. 

Jeff has been pastor at First Baptist Church of Lawrenceburg for 16 years, so in a way it seems obvious that he should know a lot of people in a small town over that period. But Lawrenceburg isn’t that small, and it’s growing. 

After interviewing one of his church members for a story, we went to lunch elsewhere in town. Again, a handshake, a greeting, a question, a comment, a joke, a word of encouragement with people walking past our table. Some might call him Mayor Vanlandingham, but that doesn’t fit him. He’d rather be known simply as pastor.  [Read more…]

Yale University was founded because Harvard University was deemed too liberal. 

How ironic is that, considering both universities are light-years away from their founding principles. My wife, Jeanne, and I were touring Yale last year with a young tour guide who used the word “secular” more than a dozen times during the 90-minute tour. It felt like an intentional effort to position the brand. 

In a moment away from the group, I asked if he knew about Yale’s beginning. He wasn’t sure, saying that maybe it was founded by some Jewish people. Actually, Yale was founded in 1701 (renamed Yale in 1718) by Protestant New England pastors, along with businessman Elihu Yale, as a reaction to their concerns over the secularization of Harvard. 

Harvard launched with the mission of being a place for students “to be plainly instructed and consider well that the main end of your life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ.”  [Read more…]

Duggin

When I received the call to serve as prayer catalyst for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board’s new “Prayer Matters” initiative, I couldn’t help but feel God’s hand in this new chapter of my life. After 24 years as an educator and decades leading Bible studies and prayer groups in my hometown of Murfreesboro, this role feels like a natural extension of my lifelong passion. 

Prayer has always been a hot button for me. I’ve spent my life being active in church, but I remember a time when I felt totally overwhelmed with my prayer life. I felt like such a failure. That changed when I heard Anne Graham Lotz speak years ago and adopted her structured approach to prayer journaling. 

Now, I organize my journal by days of the week, which has helped me become more focused in my prayer life. I don’t feel so overwhelmed anymore because I know that all the things I feel God is telling me to pray over, I will address at some point during the week.  [Read more…]

For Christians, Easter is the most important festival of the church. During this time, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus who died on the cross and rose from the dead. 

Parents have many opportunities to establish traditions for their children in remembering this important event. Read the story of the crucifixion, Christ’s death and resurrection in Matthew, chapters 27 and 28. Use some of the following ideas for your family this Easter season:  [Read more…]

Here’s a bold, yet certain resolution.

Resolved: Tennessee Baptists are pro-life from conception to the grave (and we are certainly pro-life beyond that).

The two greatest gifts God offers us are life itself and Jesus as the only way to reconciliation and eternal life. Why would He do that? Love. The Heavenly Father does it because He loves each of the eight billion individuals He created who currently populate the planet He created. And as believers, He calls us to love them too. [Read more…]

I have a friend and former boss, Rob Phillips, who has the misfortune of knowing even less Spanish than I do. Because of that, he was easy to dupe — at least on one particular occasion.

We were on a remote backpacking mission trip in Honduras. We had just dropped our gear when our guide asked if someone from our group could preach to the villagers in an hour.

“What did he say?” Rob asked.

“They want you to preach to them in an hour,” I replied. [Read more…]