Author Archive for GKB

Maintenance Completed

Published
by
GKB
on May 17, 2007
in General
. 13 Comments

As of a few hours ago, PreacherMike is fully live, serving you posts and comments from its brand new servers at a new hosting company.

Sadly, due to an upgrade in the software we’re using here, the old “template” is no longer compatible, so we’re going with a different look. There are a great many advantages to this new layout, which I’m sure you’ll discover as you play around. The key features are the LiveSearch option (just type and wait and see the results appear like magic!) and the LiveCommenting. Also, there’s a new little section which shows you the most recent comments on various posts.

One feature you’ll probably want to take advantage of is the new ‘Subscribe to Comments’ option. At the bottom of the commenting window you’ll find a place to check a box if you wish to be updated on future comments. This way, you enter your email address, and if you want to follow a particularly interesting post or discussion, you’ll be automatically notified of updates.

As with any transition, there are likely to be some potholes or speedbumps, so feel free to leave a comment with any “issues” in the comments section of this post.

Peace,
GKB

Desperate

Published
by
GKB
on September 16, 2004
in General
. 8 Comments

Waiting for further word from Pensacola . . . . My sister and her husband lost their roof in the storm. Who knows what Pensacola and Pensacola Beach (and several other communities) will look like when cameras move in later this morning.

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I’ve listened to the new Zoe CD called “Desperate.” It’s incredible. Great job Brandon and gang. See you all in a couple weeks. (I hope several in this blog community will be there. Registrations have been closed–maxed out at about 1050.)

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John Lackey gave up one run and struck out 10 last night in 7 2/3 innings . . . and didn’t get a win! Come on, Angels.

Diana & Erin

Published
by
GKB
on September 15, 2004
in General
. 5 Comments

We’ve been through two hurricanes. In 1984, we endured seven hours of Hurricane Diana in Wilmington, NC. The highest winds were 115. It was a memorable night as we were joined by members of our church who lived in trailer homes. We lost nine trees in our yard–along with our front screen door and the guttering. One of the people staying with us that evening had an artificial leg. In the middle of the storm, he took it off. Matt, two at the time, woke up and walked in only to see the guy missing a leg. He thought the storm was worse than he’d imagined!

The second one was in our beloved Pensacola Beach in 1995 when Hurricane Erin made a direct hit. This was not as strong as Diana had been, but still had wind gusts of up to 110. We have fun memories (especially nine years away!) of spending a couple days with the Porches in the home of Buddy and Stephanie Bell, who had just moved a few miles inland.

Our prayers continue for all those in Florida and on the Caribbean islands who’ve been impacted by the three hurricanes this season as well as for all those in New Orleans . . . and Biloxi . . . and Mobile . . . and Pensacola Beach . . . who wait to see which way Ivan will go this morning.

A Reading Confession

Published
by
GKB
on August 10, 2004
in General
. 11 Comments

I’m going to make this confession here in this private place (limited to the viewing of only those who have internet access.) Then I’m going to move on. And frankly, I blame my mom.

The last couple weeks we’ve been at the beach. I’m not a beach person. My beloved is a beach person. I’m a Type A person who tends to go NUTS at the beach. I’m not into the whole suntan lotion, sand between the toes, and skin cancer thing. (This despite the fact that this little spot in Pensacola Beach is like holy ground to us.)

I get by during our beach stays by activity. I’m up early for a bike ride–often down Ft. Pickens Road to the end of the peninsula. Then there’s the trip to get two papers (USA Today and the Pensacola News-Journal) which I read over my sticks-and-twigs cereal. Then my brief appearance at the beach, followed by lots of tennis and the daily mecca to Joe Patti’s seafood to pick out the amberjack, shrimp, or grouper. Then I cook what I “caught.”

But amid all that, there’s plenty of time to read. This year I took a book on the Congo (King Leopold’s Ghost) and another on Paraguay (At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig), along with a book my mom gave me. It was Nicholas Sparks’s book that I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Three Weeks With My Brother. He interweaves a travelogue of his trip around the world with his older brother, Micah, with the amazing story of their lives (stark poverty, loss of parents and sister, etc.). And it made me want to read one of his novels.

Now, I don’t know many guys who read Sparks’s novels, even though they’re regularly right at the top of the bestseller list. So, I snuck into Barnes and Noble and bought Nights at Rodanthe . . . then went back for The Wedding and The Guardian . . . and then once more for The Notebook. So here is the confession: I read five books by Nicholas Sparks. In the absence of a new Grisham novel and after a summer of coaching eleven- and twelve-year-old boys, it was a nice escape.

I liked that Sparks’s faith is interwoven in the stories without overwhelming them. Plus, I liked that all the stories were set in coastal North Carolina, where we lived 2 1/2 years. But how in the world does a guy (former track star, no less) write so well about romance and women’s intuition? I’m thinking of Jack Nicholson’s explanation from “As Good As It Gets,” but let’s not go there. The man’s just creative and gifted.

Well, I’m back home. Thanks for the reading detour, mom. I walked in the door to our house Sunday night, and there were two Sports Illustrateds waiting for me. Ah, Rick Reilly . . . .

Baptism and Patriotism

Published
by
GKB
on June 1, 2004
in General
. 34 Comments

Very insightful comments yesterday.

The truth is this: baptism makes you a bad American. Of course, it also makes you a bad Brazilian, Ugandan, etc.

In one sense, it makes you a much better citizen, because you become a person of character and prayer as the Spirit works in your life.

But in another sense, you become a “problem” to your country because you are no longer identified primarily as a citizen of that nation. You are an alien and stranger, whose citizenship is in heaven. You have come to see God’s mission for the whole world–not just for the country you happen to live in.

You realize that nations come and go–just as the one you currently live in may one day go–but the kingdom continues to break in. You understand that the goal isn’t to produce a strong country, but to participate in the countercultural work of God among us.

I consider myself a patriot. And yet at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance (which I gladly recite), I usually feel like I should turn to people around me and say, “Please take this with a grain of salt. I pledge allegiance to the flag. But not my ultimate allegiance. My ultimate allegiance is to Jesus Christ–the one who loves ‘all the little children of the world.’”

I’ve known so many people who can get whipped up into a political fervor by some ranting and raving radio shock jock. But they yawn through the church’s assembly.

I believe . . .

-that there is more power in the prayer of a nursing-home-bound elderly woman who spends her waning hours consumed by thoughts of God than in the decision of important people who gather in city halls and state capitals;

-that I have more in common with an urban Kenyan who has never traveled a mile beyond his hut but who confesses the name of Jesus than with a neighbor who lives in middle-class America but who isn’t a Christ-follower;

-that as an “alien and stranger” in this world, my primary identity is as a baptized believer and not as an American (as thankful as I am to be a citizen of this country);

-that the church’s job isn’t primarily to wave flags in support of war (though, according to strict “just war” theories war may sometimes be reluctantly necessary) but to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”