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How Will We Be Remembered?

Gary Furr

Since retirement, I have shifted from leading a wonderful congregation in suburban Birmingham, Alabama to working with partner organizations to provide food pantries in schools and communities, buy beds for children who slept on pallets, or shared a bed with a sibling, fund programs that deliver food, and build up people in vulnerable communities with great ideas. Our organization, the Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children, also works to find and support maternal and child health. The struggle to feed your family and pay for health care are among the most challenging in the state, but certainly not limited … Continue reading How Will We Be Remembered?

America, Citizenship, Culture, Immigration

Strangers and Orphans

Gary Furr

The American religious experience has been shaped as much from behind as from before. What do I mean? I mean that we are a product of a powerful force born of people leaving some other place to come here. While they all left something looking for something else, their reasons for leaving and the circumstances they left were as diverse as their languages, religious backgrounds, and ethnic origins. According to Sydney Ahlstrohm, who was the pre-eminent American church historian of a generation ago, this was spurred by several factors. Some of this mass exodus was forced by untenable conditions elsewhere–like … Continue reading Strangers and Orphans

America, Christian Nationalism, Christianity, Citizenship, Culture, Ethics, Hope, hope, Humor, Jesus, Justice, Leadership, Love, Politics, Politics, reconciliation1 Comment

Chaplain of the Day

Gary Furr

When I was a pastor in South Georgia, our congregation had a member by the name of Senator Jimmy Hodge Timmons. He went by “Hodge” around the church, and he was our state senator  in the legislature and I think during his time he worked hard to be a friend of the community an effective representative. One year while I was there, Hodge came to me and invited me to be the Chaplain of the day for the Georgia Senate. This was an honorary event when you would come and offer a devotional and prayer for the elected representatives. It’s … Continue reading Chaplain of the Day

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A Reading List

Gary Furr

A friend asked me for some suggestions for a book club of friends who want to gather regularly and study some substantial issues together. Without disclosing that conversation, I simply share this list for anyone who wants it. I like reading lists of books others have read. I included some descriptions for most. See if anything invites you for a closer look. I have read these and they gave me important things to think about. Not all are recent. We are too accustomed to racing out to the latest latest thing. There is vastly more I could write about much … Continue reading A Reading List

Bible, Christianity, Faith, hope, Jesus, Love, reconciliation, Selfishness, Spirituality, Teachings, Theology2 Comments

Love Your Neighbor–part 3

Gary Furr

In our previous time together, I examined the mystery of how love of God, neighbor, and even ourselves, is so askew. And this lives out so differently in men and women, the well-located and the dislocated, the rich and the poor, but there are common roots to it all. We concluded with this observation of the matter–When we love our neighbor this way, forgetting ourselves in love for another, we connect with the powerful love that is at the heart of all things.  It is life-giving.  It is also impossible unless God helps us to love.  And yet we know, … Continue reading Love Your Neighbor–part 3