Sermon Blog

After twenty years of shaving himself every morning, a man in a small Southern town decided he had enough. He told his wife that he intended to let the local barber shave him each day. He put on his hat and coat and went to the barber shop which was owned by the pastor of the town Baptist church. The barber's wife, Grace, was working, so she performed the task.   Grace shaved him and sprayed him with lilac water and said, "That will be $20." The man thought the price was a bit high, but he paid the bill and went to work. The next morning the man looked in the mirror, and his face was as smooth as it had been when he left the barber shop the day before. Not bad, he thought. At least I don't need to get a shave every day. The next morning, the man's face was still smooth.   Two weeks later, the man was still unable to find any trace of stubble on his face. It was more than he could take, so he returned to the barber shop.   "I thought $20 ...

  I really couldn’t figure out what was going on.   Was it lingering anesthesia?   I keep being reminded that it can stay in your system for six months and mess with your mind and body that whole time.   Was it the pain meds I was on?   They had had to give me some pretty potent meds to deal with pain due to my high tolerance.   I just didn’t know what the cause was.   Every time I would get up and start my physical therapy after my shoulder surgery, I kept feeling lightheaded, like I was going to pass out, about halfway through the exercises.   I talked to my physical therapist about it, and he had no idea.   It was not until about two weeks of near collapse mid-exercise that I realized what was going on. I don’t know how many of you remember when Veronica led the aerobics class here years ago.   We would be in the midst of all of those exercises and she would keep telling us, “don’t forget to breathe.”   I thought that w...

How many of you like going out to eat?   I know that we do.   It is nice sometimes to let someone else do the cooking.   However, I have to ask you, how many of you pay attention to the grade the restaurant has before you order or eat?   Not its popularity or affordability grade, but its sanitation grade.   I know that most of the time we pay close attention.   Thinking about this I checked out some of the favorite dining spots of folks here at St. Paul’s.   Here’s what I learned. [i]   They were all “A” grade restaurants. Anna Maria’s of Graham: 99.5 Biscuitville of Alamance Road: 99 Village Grill: 99 Blue Ribbon: 98.5 Barrister’s: 98 Chick-fil-A on Garden Road: 98 Delancey’s Restaurant:   98 Chili’s: 98 The Cutting Board: 98 Harbor Inn: 97.5 40 West Grille & Bar: 94 If your favorite is among this list, you may be thinking to yourself, “whew, I can still eat at my favorite…they   have an “A”...