A few years ago, I was attending a doctoral class in Pennsylvania. One of the students was a Canadian serving as the pastor of a church in the United States.

I have become accustomed to American television evangelists raking in huge amounts of cash while pleading poverty in their appeals for ever-increasing needs for money.

We had a bit of a crisis recently. On the weekend of July 4, our cable TV went out, our Internet connection was lost, and I misplaced my cell phone.

A couple of Mondays ago, I arrived by car in Selma, Ala., at about 8:30 p.m. The temperature on a local bank clock proclaimed that, as the sun was sinking in the distance, it was 100 degrees. One hundred degrees at 8:30 at night. I thought about going to the pool at the Jameson Inn where I was spending the night, but it was just too hot. I would have felt like a lobster going for his last bath.

My oldest son Jason, now a lieutenant with the police department, was a sergeant at the time. As the department chaplain, I often attended roll call and then rode in the police cruiser with an officer. That night, I was there to ride with Jason.

Forty years have passed since the United States landed a man on the moon during the summer of 1969.

Forty years since astronaut Neil Armstrong dropped the three and a half feet from the bottom rung of the ladder on the lunar vehicle and planted the first footprints permanently in the dust of our closest neighbor.

It was 40 years ago and I was looking to a summer like no other. Ever since the summer before the eighth grade, the hallowed time between the end of one school year and the beginning of the following school year had been cut agonizingly short. In the 1960s, summer vacation was a full three months long — 13 weeks in which to bask in the reality of no school. Until the eighth grade.

Welcome to the People’s Republic of San Diego County.

According to an article on HolyCoast.com, “A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold Bible studies in their home.”

When I was a child, my father would often say to me, “Son, no one owes you a living.” His intention was that I would know that I was responsible for my own life and, should I get married and have children, my own family. Evidently, Dad was wrong. Everywhere one looks it seems that an incredible number of people believe that other people owe them something — especially a living.

Forty-eight times a year, on Friday mornings at 7:30 a.m., 100 professional people gather at First Baptist Church in Peachtree City, Ga., people who have a common mission and who are united in purpose.

A crime may have been committed recently at the Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn, Ala. Mary Norman, according to an Associated Press report, was visiting her family’s burial plot at the Pine Hill Cemetery when a man walked over and removed a flag from a grave, snapped it in two, and drove off.

One would think that a week-long meeting on theology would not be a riveting affair. At least, that was my assumption before I traveled to Orlando, Fla., a few days ago to be an observer at our denomination’s International Theological Conference.

I have recently discovered that I am a potential threat to the safety and security of the United States of America.

It was, of course, a great surprise to me. I have always considered myself a good American, a patriot, a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen, and a lover of country. I vote, I stand during the National Anthem, say the Pledge of Allegiance with my hand over my heart, and have attended Memorial Day services for over a decade. I have flown the Stars and Stripes from my front porch every single day since Sept. 11, 2001. And now, agents of the land I love have suggested that I may be a threat to the nation.

It was a solemn and sobering event.

A few evenings ago, over 30 men and women gathered in Peachtree City, Ga., to, once again, raise their right hands, take a solemn oath, and swear to “uphold and defend the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America.”

In the hours that followed the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples were men whose hope had vanished. Their expectations, plans, dreams, and ambitions had all disappeared with Jesus as the stone rolled over the tomb. They were frightened, despondent, and discouraged.

[Editor’s note: The community service mentioned below is this Friday, noon to 1:30 p.m., at the Peachtree City First United Methodist Church on Robinson Road near its intersection with Ga. Highway 54.]

[Editor’s note: The community service mentioned below is this Friday, noon to 1:30 p.m., at the Peachtree City First United Methodist Church on Robinson Road near its intersection with Ga. Highway 54.]

There was a time when the Church was one. There had been heresies, defections, and departures but, for the most part, for a thousand years there was the “one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”

I knew the letter would come someday. I had been leaving a task on the back burner and left it there much longer than I intended. Finally, after several years, the letter came. I was informed that I was under a deadline and, if I didn’t complete certain non-negotiable requirements, my life would unceremoniously be terminated. My academic life, that is.

My oldest son called the other day with a prayer request. He was, it turns out, about to be “Tazered.”

Jason is a lieutenant with the Peachtree City Police Department, and some officers are going to be equipped with Tazers.

I heard a few days ago that a news network was going to do a program about how the American taxpayers came to buy Wall Street for $2 trillion. I’ve also noticed that people are saying that certain banks are now owned by the taxpayers and how much more the taxpayer is going to own in the months ahead. Um — I don’t think so.

In a stunning disregard of the Constitution of the United States, the Connecticut Judiciary Committee recently proposed a bill stripping Roman Catholic bishops of their authority to govern fiscal and administrative diocesan affairs, according to a report by Fox News.

I was writing a postcard earlier this week to a young lady who is enduring boot camp in the United States Navy at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in the frigid and wind-swept area near Chicago.

Several weeks ago, the Rev. Mark Anthony, senior pastor of Trinity Fellowship Assembly of God, called and asked if I would be willing to teach a portion of a class for seniors at Trinity Christian School. I would be one of many local pastors who were being invited to teach and share.

The Associated Press reported recently that Clifford Cornell has returned from Canada. Cornell, a soldier in the United States Army, fled to Canada in 2005 as his unit was preparing to deploy to Iraq. It is likely that Cornell would still be in Canada except for the fact that Canada was apparently about to deport him. Cornell faces possible charges of “desertion” and imprisonment for his actions.

These are difficult times for many people. A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting with a number of pastors when the question was asked, “Is anyone finding that the offerings in church are down?” Every hand went up. People, businesses and organizations are finding that this is a time of adjustment.

On the “Family Research Council Blog,” (www.frc.org), Tom McClusky asks the question, “What would you buy with a trillion dollars?”

Like many teens in the 1960s, I was in a band. Those were the days when a rhythm guitarist could play nearly any song if he knew the chords of G, C, and F.

Barack Obama is now the President of the United States of America. It is my commitment and covenant to pray for him, his family, the Vice-President, and all who serve the current administration. It is an historic time in American history. It is also a time of increased danger for the most innocent, vulnerable, and voiceless Americans.

Several evangelical heavyweights have joined together in something called the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI). The Initiative, anchored by over 250 “senior evangelical leaders,” including Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Gordon MacDonald, Jack Hayford, and a gaggle of Christian college presidents.

A news channel featured a program recently and posed the question: “Is this the end of the United States?”

It is not an outrageous question. In our own time, we have seen the sudden disappearance of the Soviet Union as that massive superpower broke into numerous fragments. The Third Reich, which seemed unstoppable, died in writhing agony. History is replete with powers and empires that once ruled the land or the sea yet came to an ignominious end.