Sterling Griggs

"I'm bored." "There's nothing to do." "Can we go somewhere and do something?" Growing up, I am certain that I uttered those same phrases at least a million times, especially during the summer months. It didn't seem to matter that I had two older brothers close to my age, a huge backyard to play in, neighborhood pool that never seemed to close, and was surrounded by woods and creeks that never ceased to invite me for an adventure. Yet even then, I often struggled to find things to do. Since this was the era before computers and cell phone technology, sitting in front of the television was about as lazy as I could get away with until my mom made me go back outside. Most days I was out the door after breakfast and had to be called home (via my mom's vocal chords, not a phone!) for dinner. Boredom wasn't much of an option or a privilege for me and most of the friends I knew. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not claiming to have lived so...

Beaver Bottom Church had a problem. Actually, they had lots of problems but this one stood out more than any of the others. It seems that the new pastor, Rev. Donald Doorite, was wanting to nix the canine evangelism program that had been run out of their fellowship hall for the past 17 years. The distinguished Mr. Harold Winston Higgenbotham, lifelong member and self-proclaimed top tither at Beaver Bottom Church, started and initially funded the canine evangelism program after his daughter came home from a Disney movie convinced that dogs could - and should - go to heaven. Because Mr. Higgenbotham was such a faithful giver and dominant voice in the church, no one really opposed the idea. Besides, maybe dogs do go to heaven, they reasoned. Now almost two decades later, Mr. Higgenbotham and his immediate family was long gone, having left Beaver Bottom Church in a huff after a disagreement over the color of the new carpet in the sanctuary. Yet the canine evangelism program was still ...

Growing up in a Christian home, church on Sundays was not just something that we did. It was something that served to define who we were. I have fond memories of attending Sunday school classes where I learned about Moses crossing the Red Sea, Daniel and the lion's den, and Jesus healing sick people all from the magic of the flannel graph board. The pain of sitting beside my grandfather on those impossibly hard wooden pews was dulled by hearing his rich baritone voice singing those beautiful old hymns. Those were simple, good times, but they served to give me a spiritual foundation that I have never forgotten. As I grew older and eventually left home, going to church shifted from something I had to do as a child under my parents' authority to something I could choose to do. As a young man who was entering the ministry, continuing to attend church was a no-brainer for me - why would I NOT want to go? Yet at the same time, I began to notice traits within me bubbling to the sur...

Do you remember a time when life seemed a little bit simpler and sweeter?  For me, those days were especially vivid during the summers when I was a kid. I recall spending summer days at my neighborhood swimming pool literally from sun up to sun down. Those were some of the best and most vivid memories of my childhood. All my friends were there, I could hang out with the high school kids and think that I was cooler than I was, and the snack bar had all my favorite candy (Boston Baked Beans and Lemon Heads!). Families would come together for evening swim - we would bring leftovers from supper to the lifeguards and our parents would sit pool side and talk for hours while our fingers and toes pruned like raisins as we played sharks and minnows and dove for quarters in the dark. Over the years things changed for me and that pool. The pool had to be shut down because of shifting ground underneath it, so my family joined another neighborhood pool. But at this new pool, the same familie...