Oh Those Muslim Teenagers! CNN had a story this week about the increase in the number of Muslim punk bands in the U.S. I don’t know about you, but nothing to me says “Muslim” more than punk music. Am I right?

A typical voice of the Muslim-Punk Rock movement is Michael Muhammad Knight. His mother was Catholic, his father, a white supremacist.

This may explain why Knight converted to Islam at 16. Knight says, "Muslims haven't been fully accepted as Americans but the American experience hasn't been accepted as something that can contribute to the Muslim world."

If more teenagers growing up in traditional Muslim homes begin to listen to punk rockers like Knight, the next twenty years promise to be culturally interesting.

A Good Potter is Hard to Find

Do you know how hard it is to find a good potter? On Sunday morning, July 26, I had the privilege of preaching a sermon from Jeremiah 18, with a real-life potter actually practicing his craft--right there in front of our church--while I preached. This was a sermon I preached on Sunday morning, July 26, 2009 about Jeremiah and the potter. I am posting it to honor John Hill our potter that day.

I had anticipated using a potter several months ago as I was planning my series on Jeremiah. I spent several months looking for one, all to no avail. Finally, Charles Smith ran across John at an art expo in Longview and he gave Charles his card.

When I called John and invited him to practice his craft during my sermon, I had to confess to him that “silver and I gold have I none.” But I could promise him I would let people know about him, his business, and about the way he ministered to us. John came all the way from Greenville, Texas, with his equipment, to serve us.

His mailing address is 9425 CR 4214, Greenville, Texas 75401, or you can contact him by e-mail at jnshill@wildblue.net or www.treeonthehillpottery.com. His phone number is (903) 355-0341. I pray that God blesses John as richly as he blessed us.

Incidentally, I’ve got to say that evidently, my part of the sermon made little impact. After church, I was leading John and his family to our Fellowship Hall for lunch, and people continued to by-pass me and approach John telling him how much they enjoyed the sermon.

One of our media guys, Mark Hutchins, helped edit the sermon so we could put it on YouTube. Mark confessed to me that he does not remember a thing I said, but that John’s work made a deep impact on him and made Jeremiah 18 come alive.

I am ambivalent as to whether or not this is good news. It reminds me of a visit I had a couple of weeks ago with a member in the hospital. He told me that when we had someone speak to us on a Wednesday night, he told the speaker, “Don’t worry if I fall asleep. I’m getting a pacemaker soon, and, until then, my heart will pump blood so slowly that whenever I get still, I will fall asleep.”

I immediately responded, “So that explains what I have been seeing during my sermons! We have a bunch of people who are about to receive pacemakers.”

You can find “The Potter and the Clay” at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQlGjc_jlvk&feature=channel

Five things I think I think (a tip of the hat to Peter King for this idea)

1. OUTLIERS—THE STORY OF SUCCESS, by Malcolm Gladwell, has been a best seller all year. I’ve been reading in it that successful people have consistently been found to have practiced their craft at least 10,000 hours before achieving triumph. I have now preached approximately 1500 hours in my lifetime. This explains a lot. I anticipate becoming an accomplished preacher in 85 years.

2. I saw where the new Chevy Volt promises to get 230 Miles Per Gallon. The car runs on electricity and contains a small, combustible engine that generates the power.

In other automotive news, I can certifiably deny that the U. S. government has been considering canceling the “Cash for Clunkers” program after seeing my 1991 Suburban.

3. Finished listening to THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES by Lawrence Ritter this week. Our Tyler library has a copy, but I first listened to it from an audio book that I checked out from the Abilene Public Library a few years ago.

As I mentioned last week, I own and have read the book. The book is based upon interviews in the 1960s that Ritter conducted with various surviving baseball players of the early twentieth century.

The audio book contains portions of the actual interviews themselves. The quality is pristine. Really, this is a marvelous achievement—taking us back forty years to hear these men, many born in the 1870s and 80s, reflect upon their careers and their lives. My favorite was Smokey Joe Wood, the Boston Red Sox pitcher and the greatest pitcher of 1912.

The best story was told by Rube Marquard describing how, as a young teenager, he ran away from home in 1906 hopping on trains and sleeping in fields for five days and nights—until he arrived at Waterloo, Iowa for tryout. He didn’t make the team.

Returning home, he hopped off the train in Chicago and fell into an exhausted sleep in a Chicago Fire Station. Fireman found the young man, took pity on him, and took up a collection to buy him a ticket home. He promised them he would come back one day when he made it.

Marquard did make it—he became a star pitcher for John McGraw’s New York Giants. For years on Chicago road trips he would return to the fire station to visit with the men, their children, and their friends.

4. I spent a delightful Wednesday night with the Westhill church in Cleburne this week. Thanks to Jerry Nelson and to all of the good folks at Westhill for their marvelous reception.

5. Did the Cowboys play this week? I could care less about preseason. Wake me up when the regular season starts. Even then, don’t get my hopes up. Let’s see how long they play into January.

Have a great weekend!