Christ is being received by my dear faithful ones back in Burleson as I write this.  Under the faithful ministrations of Pastor Reed, my precious people are having Christ put in their ears, and laid on their tongues.  Ours is a different church that way.  Lots of churches will tell you (with varying degrees of […]

Upon arriving in Novosibirsk, I reported that the minus thirty something temperatures had not seemed to keep people away from church.  But this last Sunday, the temperatures were much warmer by Russian standards (while by Texas standards, it’s all just a silly academic distinction between various shades of “too bitterly cold to go outside for […]

Our Lord prays “that they may be one.”  Thus, this week has been set aside by those who would like to see that unity more visibly realized as “the week of Christian unity.”  It is a noble desire that the sad divisions of Christendom would cease.  So, how do we overcome them? This is the […]

The Aeroflot airliner touched down in Novosibirsk at about 5:45 AM local time.  The news reports I had been reading suggested that the local temps would be a relatively mild -15, but reality did not disappoint:  -36.  That’s okay, though . . . lack of sleep (about 30 hours) seems to have helped make me […]

A Pastor friend of mine resigned a few days ago from the Lutheran parish he was serving in Detroit.  Fr. John W. Fenton announced that he would be joining the Orthodox Church, i.e., the Church of the East.  He did not specify whether the congregation he joined would be Greek or Russian or one of […]

Well, it’s October 31st today.  And that day always makes me a little edgy, maybe even a little combative. It’s not that I’m one of those hopeless Halloween haters.  I got five kids.  They like trick-or-treating.  I did too as a kid.  If your kids are going, I guess I wish you wouldn’t dress them […]