Living Letters of Appreciation!

 

Pastor David Chauncy, Dr. John Sullivan, Pastor Gary Crawford

2You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, recognized and read by everyone. 3It is clear that you are Christ’s letter, produced by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God — not on stone tablets but on tablets that are hearts of flesh. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

The man on the right in the picture is Dr. Gary Crawford who has been my pastor at Westside Baptist for almost 21 years during two phases of our lives here in Gainesville. The man in the center is Dr. John Sullivan who has been my boss as the Executive Director – Treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention for the last 20 years. Gary was also my boss for the 8 years that I served on Staff at Westside Baptist from 1987-1995. The man on the left is Dr. David Chauncey who is my new pastor at Westside.

Over the last few weeks I have been at several events to mark the re-deployment of these two men. Dr. John doesn’t mind the word “retirement” but for some reason Gary doesn’t want to use it! Probably because he is looking forward to the next season of ministry and he is a bit younger than Dr. John! There was a chance for people to submit letters of appreciation to mark their end of their current ministry assignments for each of these men. I chose not to send it letters to each of them because I didn’t want mine to be one of many. Instead I wanted to let them know that just like Paul who didn’t need a letter from the Corinthians or to them to show his significance, they didn’t need a letter from me to show the significant impact their lives had on my own.

These two men have had the most influence on the kind of minister I have become over the years and thus they have influenced every student that I have worked with as well. Their influence has produced students who are currently serving in many positions around the world, some inside the church, some on the mission fields, and some in the world of “secular” employment. Although there is no such thing as a secular job when a believer is using that job as a platform for sharing the love of Jesus every chance they can!

Both of these men have demonstrated the highest integrity and character for me during trying times as leaders. They have remained steadfastly committed to the truth of the Bible. They have loved their families well and loved mine equally well. They have set the bar very high for me in my desire to serve the Lord with skillful hands and a gentle heart in the place where the Lord has me until He calls me somewhere else. They are both men who have a passion for loving Pastors of our local churches. They are both heroes of the faith to me and to many others! They have laughed with me, cried with me, comforted me, counseled me, and corrected me when needed. They have provided me a safe and secure place from which to utilize my gifts in service to the Lord for almost 30 years!

No they need no letter of recommendation from me, for their letter of recommendation continues to be read daily by those who see me and those who see the students that I have been fortunate enough to influence for the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are their letters!

Thank you Dr. John and GC for allowing the Lord to use you to mold and shape me into the man I am today! I hope that you are proud of the letter you have written to the world through my life. The process hasn’t been easy. The parchment and the writers not perfect. But I can’t imagine that my life without your influence would have been any better than it is today with it. Thank you for modeling how to finish well or in Gary’s case to transition well!

May the Lord bless and keep you!

Eddie Gilley

Review of Emissary from Thomas Locke

Emissary is the initial release from author Thomas Locke. If you enjoy reading The Hobbit or other fantasy fiction, you will definitely enjoy reading this work. It has all the elements that make for great fiction.

The readers are introduced to Hyam the central figure in the story on the first page and from there they join him on his journey of discovery. During the story he must deal with his past and the affect his past will have on his future. We discover a race thought to have been long dead. We find that the way forward is often to visit the ancient past.

Without giving the plot away, readers will enjoy traveling along this journey with Hyam. The characters that are introduced are believable and engaging. The action is enough to keep the reader engaged without being too intense for the young reader. The romance is well done and definitely tasteful for all ages.

If you are looking for a last minute gift book for readers of any age, then Emissary is a rare find. Young and old will find the story engaging and hard to put down. It’s the perfect book for the holiday travel season or to start off your 2015 reading plan. I highly recommend Thomas Locke’s initial offering and look forward to reading the next volume as soon as it is released. I think you will too!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Revell in exchange for my honest review.

The College Football Playoff Championship and the New Coach at UF!

So many people over the weekend asked me two questions, so I thought I would answer them more fully today after having a little time to mull them over.

Question 1, “What did I think of the hire of the new head coach at Florida?”

The University of Florida hired Jim McElwain as the their new coach to replace Will Muschamp. Both share a common thread in that they were on Nick Saban’s staff at one time. McElwain is considered an offensive minded coach. His offenses have been very successful wherever he has been. Clearly this is a positive step for a Gator team that has been offensively challenged over the last four years to say the least. Whether it is a great hire will depend on how well he can assemble a staff. Think about it, most head coaches do well when they have great coordinators on both sides of the ball. Guys who will probably move on to the NFL or become Head Coaches themselves. When that isn’t the case on one side of the ball, the HC is usually the coordinator in reality if not in title. Coordinator are usually only great when they have really good position coaches under them who can get guys to do things they never thought they could do and do them over and over again with success. And all of the coaches are only as good for the most part as the players they can recruit. If you give me guys who are more talented and stronger and faster than my opponents on a regular basis, I think I could coach them to more wins than losses. And the guys you have on the team are only as good as the strength coaches who train them. Everyone gets their fair share of 4 and 5 star recruits at the big schools, but what happens to them once they get there. Do they get better or stay the same? Do they get bigger, stronger, and faster or do they plateau? This is the job of the strength staff and to me that is the most important hire that McElwain will make in the coming weeks. If you want to win the battles on the field, you have to put the work in during the off-season and conditioning periods. Can you find a guy who can get your players to work to get better off the field so they can do more on it? I like the hire, he wasn’t my first choice but he might have been the first choice of the reasonable candidates!

Question 2, “What do you think of the playoff rankings?”

I would have kept FSU at four to maintain the regional battle to sell tickets in New Orleans but I like the four teams that were selected. If OSU hadn’t lost their starting/backup QB the week before I think they would have been #4 then. The committee had to think like I did that the loss of the first two QB’s would be too much for Urban Meyer’s team to overcome. But they were wrong. I actually picked OSU to beat Wisconsin in my picks league. I have seen the kind of magic Urban can work first hand. There is no better coach at getting guys to believe they can win than that guy. My Bama friends ought to be nervous about that matchup too. I know that Saban is a great big game coach as well and is probably my second choice for getting a team ready to play a big game. Neither of them will sleep much in the next three weeks! Oregon was lock and there was no way you could keep FSU out as the defending champ and being undefeated, even with a less than stellar schedule. I am not sure that TCU or Baylor played a tougher schedule than the Noles either.

Here’s a suggestion for the NCAA or the power picks or whoever is now in charge. Let each conference have a true championship game regardless of the number of conference teams! Decide it on the field and yes I know Baylor beat TCU. Ole Miss beat Bama too but that doesn’t mean they are the better team. And here’s another suggestion, go ahead and expand the system to either 8 or 16 teams. The FCS players do it and it’s not too much on them academically, physically, or too much money for their athletic programs. Do you really think more Florida fans are going to go to Birmingham for the no-name bowl against ECU than they would for a first round game against someone in a playoff, not that the Gators would be anywhere near a playoff this year?

Schedule the early bowl games as the first couple of rounds if you want to keep the bowls. More people would come than have been coming to the games in the past years anyway. And let’s keep the games moving along. Don’t wait 30 days to play the games that count the most. Play them next week or give one week off for finals and then start the tourney. Heck drop one of the games against a FCS opponent and start a week earlier. Share the revenue among all the teams and most would still come out on top. Just give us more games that count. I’d rather see two teams that had a chance to win the National championship really compete than see a game between Utah and Colorado State where nothing is on the line. And by the way if they were in a playoff, McElwain would still be there coaching his players in the bowl game instead of here in Florida and I would still be okay with that.

If there were an 8 team playoff the first round matchups would be:

Alabama versus Michigan State with the winner playing the winner of Ohio State versus Baylor

Oregon versus Mississippi State with the winner playing the winner of Florida State versus TCU

If there were 16 teams in the playoff the first round matchups would be:

Alabama against Missouri with the winner playing the winner of Michigan State against Ole Miss

Oregon against Arizona State with the winner playing the winner of Mississippi State against Arizona

FSU against UCLA with the winner playing the winner of TCU against Kansas State

Ohio State against Georgia with the winner playing the winner of Baylor against Georgia Tech

Obviously the committee would have ranked them differently to prevent a repeat of conference championship games but it some cases this year’s conference championships would have mimicked first round games under a different system. But what would have happened if Missouri, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech and Arizona had won the conference title games? Chaos would have ruled the day!

In the end, it’s better than the BCS but I would still like to expand it. Then a team could play a tougher schedule and risk a loss or two and still be in the hunt for the title. It would keep teams from scheduling an FCS team for the final home game every other year and make the regular season all the more interesting knowing that even with two losses, you had a shot for the national title if you can win four in a row!

Why would you say that Charlie Crist? "At least not in an ad"

Most of the time I try to steer clear of purely political issues mainly because I have friends on both sides of many of those issues. Well most of the issues really. But this morning I saw something on TV that just made me shake my head. My family calls it the “Eddie head shake”.

Former Governor Charlie Crist who was once a Republican when he won, then an independent, now running for Governor again as a Democrat ran an ad about  equal pay for women. Now I am all for equal pay for equal work with equal experience, so that’s not the issue. Nor is the issue really that Crist has allegedly received almost a million dollars for his campaign from Strip Club owners at least one of whom has been investigated for prostitution. That doesn't seem like a business model that is for women’s rights but he can justify that however he wants to do so.

No my issue is with the end of the ad where Charlie says, “on my first day as Governor I will sign an executive order requiring equal pay for women.” When did the state of Florida become a haven for dictators? At least ones that hold public office?

Charlie has been hanging with President Obama too much. When did it become ok to publicly announce that you are going to circumvent the constitution by doing an end run on the Senate and House of Representatives for the state of Florida? Can you imagine this kind of campaign strategy 20 or 30 or 50 years ago? Elect me and I will essentially pass a law with my mighty pen that state senators and representatives are tasked to do in our constitution but haven't on behalf of all women! And if you think that’s the only time he would use that pen, you might as well move to the Mojave and take along your jet ski for the oasis that is a part of the hundred acres I have to sell you!

Folks it is time to take back our government and there is no better place to start than with this election. This ad ought to be attacked by the Scott camp immediately. But even if they don’t the grass roots folks of the state of Florida ought to rise up and vote against Crist even if you like his views. Why, because if this is the kind of leadership we will get on day one, imagine what kinds of things King Charles would do in the waning days of his rule!

Our nation was founded by battling against this kind of one person tyranny. Our forefathers set forth a new nation with a new governing strategy as a way to balance our government so this kind of total rule would never take place in our land. I am not a political science major and I am sure there is a time and place for correct use of the executive order but this doesn't seem like the right time or right place for it to me.

If I had some tea and lived near a harbor I just might have a party. But I don’t and I am not a tea party member. I am just a guy who thinks that this type of leadership has no place in Tallahassee or Washington. One of his early ads attacked Scott for not being “government for the people, by the people.” Maybe Charlie flipped PR firms since then because it seems Charlie’s motto should be “government by me, regardless of the laws set up by the people.”

But maybe that’s just my opinion and I’d say the same thing if Scott made an ad promoting his desire to set policy with an executive order for all my Democratic friends. 

I didn't want to be at a football game!

At some point in the game on Saturday night, I had a sobering realization. I didn’t really want to be in the Swamp. For the first time in my almost 53 years, I didn’t want to be at a football game. I think some of that had to do with the fact that I hadn’t seen my grandson all week and knew that I wouldn’t get to on Sunday either due to other commitments I had made. But the primary reason was the fact that I can’t stand the way this staff coaches.

I know that some will say I am a poor loser and that is true. I hate losing more than I like winning. 30 years later and I can still name you the losses that kept our High School baseball team from competing in our state tournaments during my Junior and Senior years. I have few memories of the wins for sure, maybe because there were so many more of them than losses. But the angst goes much deeper than that. For the first time in the 28 years that I have been a fan of the Gators as my adopted team when the Lord led us to Gainesville, I just don’t believe that this team can win a game against an equally or more talented opponent. I didn’t expect them to win and even when we were ahead, I never really thought they could hold on and defeat maybe the worst LSU team since Nick Saban became their head coach. Yeah I know Les Miles is the coach now so you go back and find when Saban took over at LSU and you will know I mean for a long time!

I will not criticize players who are only kids doing the best they can to compete. I know they should catch the ball. I know they should block better. I know they should be able to throw it better. I know they should be able to cover better. I know, I know, I know. But I also know that they are still learning. They have to get to class, maintain a gpa that keeps them on the team, try to have a social life, and just be a nearly normal college student too. Not a single one of them who played for the Gators wanted to lose that game. Their effort was good for the most part even if the outcome on every play wasn’t. I have worked with enough athletes to know the pressure they place on themselves is greater than any pressure applied by fans and a crowd. They are human. They make mistakes.

I have come to the point where I do not believe this coaching staff can get them ready to play each week. We had a two week period to get ready for the Vols and we looked like we hadn’t practiced at all during that period. We won that game because the Vols are in worse shape than we are but that still doesn’t fix the fact that we didn’t look prepared to play. We had no emotion, no juice as they like to say now. This was a game that the Gators had to win and they looked flatter than a pancake pantry flapjack!

Saturday night in the Swamp, the place was rocking like the old days. In spite of the fact that there were still empty seats to be found in almost every section, it was a great atmosphere. The LSU faithful didn’t travel like they usually do either so some of those seats belonged to the Tigers I am sure, but most of them should have been filled with Gator fans for the best home game on the schedule this year. And even with the first appearance of a tandem Ms. Two Bits by former Gator pitchers Stacy Nelson and Hannah Rogers, I just couldn’t shake the fact that I would watch a team play scared, not be prepared, and lack leadership, as has been the case for much of the last two years.

After the game I couldn’t understand why our QB ran the ball 21 times. Then today I came across this quote from an article online at Gatorsports.com. This is from our head coach.  

“They were doing some things as far as outnumbering us in the box,” Muschamp said. “We needed to establish the run. We used the quarterback, which really creates an extra gap for you in the run game.”

This is why I have no faith in our coaching staff! Your solution to getting LSU to stop loading the box is to run the ball more and use your QB who is a good but not great runner to do so? How many times did you think to go back to that post pattern from the slot receiver that would have been open every time you wanted to throw it when they had a zero safety coverage? Instead of only throwing go routes on the outside, utilizing the deeper routes over the middle to force the safeties to drop out of the box might be a way to get them out of loading the box. There are lots of ways to get a defense to stop loading the box but I don’t think I have ever heard a coach say the way to do it is by running the QB off tackle. We didn’t do that with Tebow. We just said they could load the box and still not stop Tim.

But the really revealing events that confirmed my feelings happened late in the game. After the interception, I didn’t care that we were about to lose the game. I was so floored by the events that happened after Pittman was injured that I could barely contain myself. Our head coach took forever to even go check on his condition. Even Les Miles, who I have no positive regard for as a coach, came all the way across the field to check on his player who also went down. Our coach was too busy trying to coach up the defense to get a miracle stop to win the game while one of the young men he’s responsible for lay on the field being held in place by trainers and being strapped to a backboard. This from the staff that usually doesn’t coach our players during time outs. They seem to prefer to let the players dance to the hype music. And when he did go over, he was there less than 10 seconds. I am sure a scared and hurting Pittman appreciated the support. Again from the Gatorsports report these where his comments post game:

“Our reports are Latroy is going to be fine,” Muschamp said. “He had movement in everything. It's always scary in a situation where a young man is put in that situation.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with him right now. I think everything is going to be fine.”

Maybe he said he was going to go check on him and that didn’t get reported by Robbie Andreu. Maybe he just didn’t get asked the right question. But given the fact that he barely came over to check on the kid, I suspect that he spent more time working on his coaches show post game than he did at the hospital. You have a Defensive Coordinator who could have been working on what you wanted to do next on the field while you take care of your players. Most folks would have given a pass if Will had said that he didn’t have a lot to add to the coaches show since he was with Latroy and his family and maybe he was.

But the most telling point of that whole scary scenario was the fact that the LSU players were seen on a knee with some praying while too many of our guys were huddled around the coaches working out what we needed to do next on defense. Our guys didn’t even rally around Pittman until after a number of the LSU players came to speak to him before he was carted off the field after being placed on the backboard. This is a team that does not appear to be together. They don’t look or act like they are close at all. And that is a direct result of the way they are coached.

And that is why I don’t have a lot of faith that this team can rally to make this season more than another mediocre one. Perhaps homecoming will renew in me a passion for this team. I want to believe in them, I really do, but this staff just makes it so dang hard to do so!

The Most Authentic Music You Will Hear This Year, Maybe Ever!

I read a brief review of Colony House’s debut album, When I Was Younger, on Facebook and I was intrigued enough to buy it on ITunes. Part of the draw was that I knew the band was made up of Steven Curtis Chapman’s sons Will and Caleb and Scott Mills. A couple of years ago we had the chance to have Caleb and Will be a part of our Florida Collegiate Conference and heard them play some of their original music. I also had the chance to visit with them and hear Caleb’s heart for his music and mission in life.

Now after listening to it for a number of times, I agree with that original review. It gets better every time I listen to it. It is not a traditional Christian album by any means but it may be the most authentic Christian album in quite some time. You are not going to hear many tracks that you will hear on the main Christian radio stations because they just don’t fit the formula. But if you want to hear a journey of authentic pain and healing then this record will speak to you on behalf of Christ’s compassion and love.

The most authentic song on the record for me is Won’t Give Up. If you know the Chapmans’ story then you will recognize the family pain in losing their sister to the tragic accident. The song opens with the lines: “I wear the guilt upon my chest cause I feel like I’ve earned it. And keep the blood stains on my hands to show that I’ve done this. Oh how I wish I could escape that day. Take back time and make everything ok but I can’t.” It is a picture set to a haunting melody that chronicles the battle that takes place inside of even a believer when a tragedy like that happens. If this song doesn’t get stuck in your head and heart then you have no compassion and you have never experienced any tragedy in your own life. It ends with the image of Jesus reaching back for the lonely.

The band has done a great job of putting the songs in a specific play list. The song that follows Won’t Give Up is Moving Forward. It begins with “I found life and I found laughter in forgiveness I found rest. On the shoulders of redemption I found hope when hope was dead.” Isn’t that happens when Jesus brings us through terrible times of painful struggles. We can find a life that gives us reason to live. It isn’t a journey that is easy but it is a journey that makes life full again despite the loss that we think will crush us in the moment. That is what God means when He promises in Romans that He will work all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. Those redeeming moments only happen after the darkest hours of pain and suffering.

The rest of the songs are a mix of struggle and hope. Some deal with growing up and learning how to love. Some deal with the fact that we often wait for things to change in our lives to discover that the thing that really changes is us. The sound is heavily mastered and layered and will attract some to the project and may make others shy away from it. For me, I love the different mix of sounds and effects. I found it a fresh breath in the midst of so much of the same kind of music these days.

This is a project that we can play in our BCM center and non-Christians will have no problem falling in love with the songs. They don’t all require a faith statement to enjoy or agree with. They chronicle the common struggles of mankind but in the end they point to Jesus to those with discerning ears to hear the message of hope in the songs and the occasional glimpses of direct references to Jesus’ love. If you have friends that are dealing with difficult situations, I would highly recommend that you give them a copy of When I Was Younger. You will find a great springboard to that conversation you have been hoping to have with them about the love and grace of God bringing hope and healing to even the darkest situations.

Thank you Colony House for giving us such a raw and honest glance into the process of redemption. May the Lord use this project to bring many to that glorious place where they lose control and find hope and healing in Jesus.

Yes Mr. President We Should Be Ashamed

Short post today! 

In light of another school shooting our president said America should be ashamed because of the repeated, to quote him weekly occurrences. Now I am not privy to the intel that the president has but that seems a little excessive to me. But for once I agree with the President. America should be ashamed, but not in the way that he wants us to be ashamed. Before this is over it will be spun to be another reason why we need stricter gun control laws.

I don’t believe the problem lies with the guns! We should be ashamed because we have allowed or created a culture that doesn’t value life anymore. I am 52 and I don’t ever remember a school shooting when I was growing up. We had guns all around us; some of us even had them in our trucks or cars at schools. But we would never think to shoot someone with them unless they were the communists attacking all the way from Russia. We knew the damage guns could do because we were taught how to shoot and properly handle firearms by our dads and granddads. We also knew both of them would wear our backsides out if we even thought of brandishing a gun in anger at someone.

We valued life and we were disciplined by spankings not by telling us to go think about our bad choices. We have taught our children not to hit so they don’t fight it out anymore on the schoolyard. I am not advocating violence but I can tell you that I had my small share of scraps with other guys including my best friend once because we didn’t see eye to eye on something. But most often the fight ended there. A bruised eye or ego. Now they build up the anger until it comes spewing out in excessive violence. We need to get back to teaching that life is sacred and should never be taken without just cause. We need to help our young men learn to be men who handle their differences without shooting someone. And we don’t need to turn them into girls to make them fit into our systems either. As our old friend, Daddy Byrd, once said, “oh let him be, he’s just being a boy. Rowdy boys are happy boys!”

So yes Mr. President we should be ashamed because we have lost our moral compass as a nation. Instead of trying to pass gun laws which won’t help curb the problem, maybe you should use the “bully pulpit” to help our nation regain the moral fortitude we need to address the real problems that lead to these senseless acts of violence.