Regular readers will notice that I’ve recently tweaked some things about the blog’s appearance. I changed the background color from a shade of blue to a shade of maroon, and I also changed the font to something a little different. I added in a more recent picture of myself, too. These cosmetic updates simply serve to keep the site looking fresh. Nothing about the blog’s content has been changed or deleted.

On the subject of new stuff, the church I pastor — Roan Mountain Baptist Church — now has a website up and running. The site is still a bit of a work in progress, but we’re off to a good start with it. You can access it at roanmountainbaptist.com. The site provides information about the history of our church, a statement of our beliefs, some pictures of our folks, a schedule of our service times, etc. It also features a link to this blog and will soon provide a link to our new You Tube channel where the videos of our Sunday morning services will be archived for viewing. If you are interested in watching the two videos we’ve already done (for our January 5th and 12th services), just go to You Tube and search “Roan Mountain Baptist Church.” You shouldn’t have any trouble locating the videos or playing them.

As for my family and myself, we are plugging along just fine. I’m now in my seventh month at Roan Mountain Baptist and things are going well. Tonya is still teaching math to the 7th graders at Bowman Middle School. Ryan is teaching Physical Education at Harris Middle School and will be serving as the head baseball coach for the season that will be starting in a few weeks. Royce is currently in his second semester of the General Education program at Mayland Community College. He’s also working at Ingles supermarket three days a week.

As usual, my desk looks like a landfill as it is covered with tons of little notes and papers that have to do with upcoming sermons, blog posts, and whatever else I’ve felt compelled to jot down a note about at some point and time. (By the way, that spotless desk I’m sitting at in the new picture is my desk at church, not my “real” desk at home.) Malcolm and I are still faithfully doing a podcast each week (more or less) even though we’re about as far from professionals as it gets. Our whole goal is to build solid spiritual meat into our discussions and trust God to use the whole endeavor in wonderful ways. I’ve also recently been trying to do a better job on Twitter. Yes, I do have a Twitter account, but for the most part I’ve only used it to advertise new posts on the blog. Lately, though, I’ve also been using it to share some of the zillion quotes that I’ve collected over the years. The plan is to keep doing this, but that’s been my plan before only to have it dwindle away to nothing. We’ll just have to see how it goes this time around.

People sometimes ask me what preachers I listen to each week. The truth is that I go through different seasons of my life, fixating on one preacher for a while and then moving on to another. Currently, I have the television broadcasts of two preachers set as timers on my D.V.R. One is the Love Worth Finding broadcast of the late Adrian Rogers, and the other is The Urban Alternative broadcast of Tony Evans. Rogers has been dead for 14 years now, but they are still showing his sermons. I don’t know how long they will be able to continue doing that because there comes a time when the whole setting looks dated — think back to my opening paragraph — but I’m certainly enjoying the broadcasts now. I’m enjoying the sermons of Tony Evans as well, and for Christmas I received The Tony Evans Study Bible and The Tony Evans Bible Commentary as gifts. That’s just what I needed, right? Another study Bible and another commentary.

In regards to Roan Mountain Baptist, this past January 1st I began a Wednesday-night series of studies in the book of Genesis, my favorite book in the Bible. This series isn’t a verse-by-verse type deal but will still require several months to complete. My Sunday-morning sermon this coming Sunday will cover what the Bible teaches about abortion. I’m preaching this in honor of this Sunday being National Right to Life Sunday. The following Sunday, January 26th, I’ll begin a ten-sermon prophecy series entitled “Things to Come.” If everything goes as it should, we’ll get the abortion sermon and the prophecy sermons posted onto the You Tube channel for any and all to hear if they so choose.

Well, I guess that’s about it for now. I hope you haven’t been too bored by this personal update. I offer this type of post periodically merely as a way of letting you folks know what’s going on with me. Believe it or not, people do ask every now and then.

As always, you have my heartfelt appreciation for reading this blog, and I trust that God will continue to use it as a source of blessing in your life. Please pray for me that He will lead me as to what to write. There’s no magic here, no fairy dust, no “Wile E Coyote Super Genius” at work. (Boy, I’m really showing my age with that reference). It’s just me, the Lord, a Bible, and a laptop. I’ve already written 984 more posts than I ever planned to write, and the jury remains out as to how many more I have in me. If this thing keeps going, that guy in the picture in the upper-right-hand corner will surely start looking more and more older. I guess the best I can hope for is that I’ll be like Adrian Rogers in that by way of technology I’ll be able to keep ministering long after I’m gone. That would be nice. Either way, it’s already been a fascinating ride and I sincerely thank you for joining me for it.