You are only young once but you can stay immature indefinitely.

I have too much in my head. So hang on; I have no idea where this is headed.

I played golf this morning...badly. Thankfully, I'm unlikely to see those three men every again.
Joe asked me before we'd hit our first tee shots if I was retired.
"No, I'm still working."
He then asks the question I knew was coming: "What do you do?"
I hate answering that one on the golf course, not because I'm at all embarrassed but because I know it puts a real kibosh on their "freedom of expression."
Sure enough, almost immediately after I told him I was the pastor at Pathway Bible Church he was over whispering in his buddy's ear. I'm sure it went something like, "OK, you gotta watch your mouth. That guy's a preacher."

I should have watched this short but valuable video on the golf swing, taped off an ESPN program:
J.C. Anderson's Golf Tip

Forgive me; I need to go back to last night's topic for a minute.
Pathway is a White church, and I don't feel the least bit guilty about that.
It's not that everyone there is White. They're not. But culturally we're White. Try as I might (and I've tried) they are intractably White. They can do the "call and response" bit for about three and a half minutes before they're back to listening quietly like good White folk. But that's OK 'cause I'm White too, and those rare C & R efforts aside I preach like the White guy I am. My sermons are linear, are structured around a proposition and last 35 minutes (OK, sometimes 36). The first part of the service is White, too. Scripture reading, prayer and singing...White singing.

Black worship, regardless of the color of the people involved, is very interactive. The preacher does what's called "narrative preaching." His sermons typically lack a proposition and aren't linear; they tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. They may be entirely biblical in every way but he won't exegete a passage or make use of parallel texts. He'll turn the content of his passage into a narrative...and the people will preach it back to him every step of the way. The music is narrative, too. Whereas White worship music, including contemporary Christian music, quotes and/or alludes to biblical texts, Black gospel music uses imagery and Bible stories.
"One of these days I'm going to cross that river, sit down at the Master's side. Forget all my troubles and sorrows. I'll be satisfied."

Pathway is a White church. We have some non-White people, but everything about our worship culture is White. It seems unfair to criticize our church because we're primarily White racially. That's no more fair than it is to criticize New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church because it's primarily Black racially. We worship most effectively within our own cultural context.

Note: try listening to the "Traditional Gospel" channel on Pandora and note the narrative nature of Black gospel.

I came across this today. I can't give credit where credit is due because I don't know who's responsible.

In 1986, Peter Davies was on vacation in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The young elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached very carefully. He got down on one knee, inspected the elephant’s foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on his face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day. Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago zoo with his teenage son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted his front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in Kenya in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing, and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped his trunk around one of Peter's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.
Probably wasn't the same elephant.

This is for all my friends who send me those heart-warming bullcrap stories.

I've got more, including an interesting and significant tidbit about elephants. But I'll save it for tomorrow night.