The Way

The past couple of weeks have been busy with travel, conferences, training, and senseless bombings in Boston. Last Monday I was leading a group of youth ministers here at LifeWay and my phone started going off with text messages from all sorts of people. All of the texts had basically the same message: "Are you OK?"   For the first few minutes I had no idea why I would be getting these messages then one of them included that there had been a bomb at the Boston Marathon. A couple of things raced through my mind, but more importantly, people came to mind. People I knew who were in Boston running the marathon. I have run it four times and every time it has been an amazing experience. I thought of Charlie and Ron Kramer who is a part of the Boston Athletic Association who puts the race on. I thought of Jim and Herb also who were running. And I felt conflicted in many ways. I was concerned for the safety of the ones I knew were there and I was thankful that people who know I ...

I love college basketball. I am somewhat frustrated with the way the game is becoming more about the strength of the players rather than the skill and art of the players in the game, but I thoroughly enjoy the game. My heart is with the MIZZOU Tigers and I am a North Carolina Tar Heels fan as well. Not split allegiance, just really admire Dean Smith and what he did so long at UNC. I also respect Roy Williams very much. I wish that MIZZOU would go after coaches that had character and knew Xs and Os but right now that does not seem to be priority. All that said, I wanted to share the One Shining Moment video from CBS. It has been a tradition since the mid-to-late 80s the best I can remember. Enjoy. And congrats to Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals. Pitino has proven to be an incredible coach and seems to be overcoming some poor personal decisions in the past.

Throughout history, April 9ths has come and gone. 0715 - Constantine ended his reign as Catholic Pope. 1865 - At Appomattox Court House, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. 1866 - The Civil Rights Bill passed over U.S. President Andrew Johnson's veto. 1912 - The first exhibition baseball game was held at Fenway Park in Boston. The game was between Red Sox and Harvard. 1913 - The Brooklyn Dodgers' Ebbets Field opened.  1928 - Mae West made her debut on Broadway in the production of "Diamond Lil." 1940 - Germany invaded Norway and Denmark. 1942 - In the Battle of Bataan, American and Filipino forces were overwhelmed by the Japanese Army. 1947 - 169 people were killed and 1,300 were injured by a series of tornadoes in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. 1950 - Bob Hope made his first television appearance on "Star-Spangled Review" on NBC-TV. 1957 - The Suez Canal was cleared for all shipping...

The last few weeks have been somewhat of a whirlwind for the Turners. I somehow thought it was a good idea to cram my schedule so full of "good" stuff and forgot that at some point I was going to need to rest a little. If you have kept up at all with some of my travels you know that I overextended. I love what I get to do but even too much of a good thing is still too much. All of my weekends were involved in training youth leaders or encouraging people coupled with a week of teaching at Midwestern Seminary, a quick trip to Alaska (which was awesome and encouraging), to attending one of our World Changers Spring Break projects in Birmingham and then a weekend of training in Kentucky. It was crazy. Sondra went on a mission trip to Guatemala with our church, Hermitage Hills, and did construction (I know, right?), worked with kids, taught a women's Bible study based off of our friend's (Hayley DiMarco) book, The Fruitful Wife, and even did some sewing. To say the lea...