As we close the curtain on 2006 and look into the future that is 2007, may your days be long and prosperous. What will you be doing to make this new one a banner year? What stands out as the cream of the past year's crop? What "old" things will you be leaving behind? What "new" ones do you hope to take their place?

I declare that 2007 - by virtue of the fact that it is "007" - is The Year of Bond. Therefore, vote for your favorite Bond.


Sean Connery

Roger Moore

George Lazenby

Timothy Dalton



Pierce Brosnan

Daniel Craig

I listen to a great Christian radio station that broadcasts in our area. The music they play is worshipful and helps me stay focused on the Kingdom when otherwise I wouldn't. Starting the day after Thanksgiving, they played Christmas music 24/7. Now that Christmas has come and gone for 2006, it's cold-turkey. Not one drop of Christmas music. Granted I could pop in a Christmas cd of my own, but then I'd miss out on the occasional news updates and the playful banter between the deejays. My question (am I griping again?) is why can't we taper the holiday tunes out over a week or two?

Do you miss the Christmas radio? or is it just me?

The old parody of the hymn went, "I am dissolved no longer to linger . . ." The hymn itself was pretty good:

I am resolved no longer to linger
Charmed by the world's delights.
Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
These have allured my sight.

I will hasten, hasten to Him
Hasten so glad and free.
Jesus, greatest, highest
I will come to Thee.

Are we resolved? With the new year looming over us, many people will be resolving. Will you? What will your resolution be? Will you resolve something trivial, something demanding, or something lasting? If I get the chance to make some, I'll be posting my New Year's Resolutions in a day or two.

We have always put candy in the kids' stockings for Christmas. This year we had gotten a bag each of "chocolate money" to put in their stockings. Toward the end of their quiet time in their rooms after lunch, the son came out and said, "I got no money." I looked and he had chocolate dripping down his chin. He had eaten every bit of chocolate. When we went to his room to check things out, beside his bed was a circle of foil wrapping.

Merry Christmas everyone.

For those who don't know, my five-year-old is an artist. She is also picking up on her daddy's love for the season. Below you will find her free-hand interpretation of Santa Claus.

Here are some Christmas quotes that may cheer you: (thanks to Danny Sims)

• Christmas is a time when you get homesick - even when you're home. --Carol Nelson
• There has been only one Christmas - the rest are anniversaries. --W.J. Cameron
• Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. --Larry Wilde
• I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. --Shirley Temple
• Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas. --Johnny Carson
• The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other. --Johnny Carson
• The one thing women don't want to find in their stockings on Christmas morning is their husband. --Joan Rivers
• I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included. --Bernard Manning
• Anyone who believes that men are the equal of women has never seen a man trying to wrap a Christmas present. --Anonymous

Cornerstone Community Church is in the Christmas spirit--thanks to you guys.

(click on the link for great Christmas fun)

I’d like to take a brief break from my Christmas tirade (just a short one) to run a few thoughts by my reading public:

Simplicity seems to be a growing phenomenon in our society. People are working hard to un-clutter their lives, their homes, their budgets, their (fill in the blank). Why? Because people want to feel no longer out of control. Take for example the premise behind John Grisham’s book from 2001. Skipping Christmas was about a man who had finally decided to quit making a big deal out of Christmas and for once spend all the money he’d normally spend on the holidays for a holiday trip. The idea—what if we removed the trappings of Christmas and just enjoyed each other? (Oops, there goes that Christmas tirade again!)

Even Google has developed a “simple” mindset with a homepage that is free from extras—those bells and whistles that flash at you from every other homepage/search engine on the ‘Net. Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger cite this trend in their book Simple Church (Broadman & Holnam, 2006). Note the following quote:

“Marissa Mayer oversees the Google home page. She is responsible to keep it simple. She says that ‘once you have a home page like our competitors, paring it back like Google’s is impossible. You have too many stakeholders who feel they should be promoted on the home page.’”

I’ll let Rainer and Geiger make their own point about simplifying church, instead I was just wondering what kind of application this knowledge might have to some other arenas:

Government—is it really true that they can’t cut back on the pork and the fat? According to Mayer that must be the case, because “once you have [interest groups] like [Congress does], paring back to [the essentials] is impossible. You have too many stakeholders who feel they should be promoted . . .” (I think the principle fits.)

Homes—we begin to have a difficult time saying no to the unnecessary things that clutter our lives and tax our budgets because we’ve always done them, had them, or wanted them.

Perhaps you know some other areas that need to be clutter-free. I’d love for you to share them here.

Along with music and movies, I love to read Christmas stories. I've read everything from Richard Paul Evans' Christmas Box to Dickens' Christmas Carol. They are all inspiring. Some would argue that the two little stoies I've mentioned before are strictly Christmas stories (I'll admit to one, but the other simply has Christmas elements, you decide which). This also made me think of favorite Christmas reading. Do you have any? There are so many good stories out there. Some are religious, some are based on the legends and myths associated with Christmas, but what I've found to be true of all Christmas stories is that they are heartwarming or heartwrenching or both. A good Christmas story will, at some point, pull at your heartstrings and make even the burlyest of men wipe the sweat from their eyes.

Here are some of my all-time favorite stories (aside from the original Christmas story, which of course makes all the others dim in comparison):

• The Autobiography of Santa Claus as told to Jeff Guinn (the author followed this up with an interesting How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas which was good but not as compelling as the original. This year Guinn delivered The Great Santa Search in time for Christmas, but I haven't gotten my copy yet.)
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (always a Christmas staple--one which everyone continues to try to copy.)
• The Christmas Wish by Richard Siddoway (I read this one after seeing the made-for-TV movie starring Neal Patrick Harris. Both are good, but if you have to choose, take the book.)
• The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans (This one has become a classic after simple beginnings as a self-published story for his children.)
• The Christmas Shoes by Donna VanLiere (While she has added several volumes, all based around Christmas, to her bibliography, this is still VanLiere's best story.)
• and finally, "The Gift of the Magi" by O Henry (I love to read this story just for me every year. Set in the depression years, when times were hard. If you haven't read this short story, find a copy--you won't regret it.)

If you'd like to join this discussion with your favorite (aside from the Biblical account of the Nativity) Christmas story, just post a comment. I'd love to know what you're reading.

Jamie Manasco has touched on a thought that bears response. Do you have a "being statement"? While we live in a world that fills people up with vision statements and mission statements and goal statements--all focused on what we do, we have forgotten to be.

At the risk of making you come up with another "Life Statement", I was just wondering, do you have a being statement? If so, would you share it here? If not, try developing one and share it here. (Mine is the first comment, if you're interested.)

I think that there is a reason that C.S. Lewis wrote during the years of World War II. His use of the War to bring spiritual ideas to reality in the minds of his readers is well worth the time to read them. Here’s something to think about from C.S. Lewis and Mere Christianity:

"Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we don not know when. But we can guess why he is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I don not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you aer on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? Fro this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it sill be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it."

There is a fascinating new show on TV that has just finished its first season. The show is called Heroes and is about people who seem ordinary but have extraordinary abilities. In life we need heroes. Not the superhero types that abound in comic books (excuse me, graphic novels), but the real life, everyday, simple people who do things way beyond the normal.

Looking through the Bible we have heroes of our faith--men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; prophets such as Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Elijah; and faithful leaders we remember as Paul, Peter, and John.

One of my heroes died this week. W.A. "Bill" Solesbee died on Tuesday, but his legacy is sure. This simple preacher and former missionary was a man whose influence will be felt for years, and throughout the world. Bro. Bill (as he was affectionately known) was one of the first pastors that I had the privelege of serving with. He was a man of faith and little more. He lived what he said, and was concerned for every person he encountered.

I recall being with him as he stopped in to the convenience store for a gallon of milk. He shared his smile and his faith with the attendant without distracting her from her job or allowing her to misuse her boss' time. Once I visited Bill in his home long after our ministries took us in separate directions. He had been "retired" for several years. his ailing wife was at Death's doorstep. He shared with me that he had been concerned that he was no longer of any use to the Kingdom any more. Those who knew Bill will know how wrong he had been. He had even prayed that unless God had more work for him, he could go ahead and die to cease to be a burden to his loved ones. In the next two weeks, the Lord opened Bill's eyes to no fewer than eleven people with whom he had been able to share his faith, with several accepting Christ as their personal savior and others rededicating their lives to God. "I guess," he told me, "that God is still working through me."

I pray that everyone has a mentor like Bill Solesbee. I pray that I may be such an influence on some who walk and work alongside of me.

Do you have heroes? What makes them heroes? For me, Bill Solesbee is a hero because of the extraordinary way he lived his ordinary life.

I’ve been tagged by Danny Sims. He wants to know my favorite Christmas songs. Some of the titles that follow are previously mentioned here. While it’s hard to narrow it down because there are always new ones cropping up—especially when you by new albums every year, the current fave’s (in no particular order) follow. What are your favorites?

“Silver Bells” – I like the cut Bing Crosby did with the help of Carole Richards, the counter-melody on the chorus is especially catchy.

“Carol of the Bells” – Manheim Steamroller has an excellent rendition of this standard made popular several years ago in an Asti Spumante commercial.

“Happy Christmas” – Mentioned previously as “So This Is Christmas” can be found on Rebecca St. James’ Christmas album. This one always lifts my Christmas spirits—it was always a staple when I was completing my teacher duties before Christmas break when I was a teacher.

“This Baby” – I’ve always enjoyed Steven Curtis Chapman, and his first Christmas album has some great cuts. This particular one is a really moving tribute to the One about whom the holiday revolves.

“Mary, Did You Know” – has been recorded by everyone from Kenny Rogers to the Imperials. I lean toward Mark Lowery’s version because he knows where the questions came from.

“A Strange Way to Save the World” – an old standby from 4Him, this song addresses the season from Joseph’s point of view. I tried this myself in the novella Just a Simple Carpenter (Loom & Wheel, 2000). It’s a great exercise in “what if . . .”

“Little Drummer Boy” – Who couldn’t love to sing “pa-rum-pum-pum-pum” at Christmastime? Again many people have recorded this one. I like the versions by 4Him and Jars of Clay.

Now I’m supposed to tag five others, so here goes: Jamie, Hannah, Charley, Tim, and Liz, consider yourselves tagged.