Welcome to Life on the Side Streets! I’m glad you stopped by! I’ll be posting my thoughts once or twice a month, more as I feel inspired. But why “Life on the Side Streets”?

Where I grew up, there were three ways to get from one side of town to the other. There was the turnpike, which in those days wasn’t the parking lot you might find today; there was the “main drag,” which featured the majority of the town’s business life; and there were the side streets, which wound their way through neighborhoods, passing small stores, parks, and schools.

I don’t want to take anything away from the highway. Exits 33 to 40 – you could get from one end of town to the other in under 10 minutes easily (and honestly, there were nights with my friends when it was closer to 5 minutes, but that’s a story for another edition). The highway is fine, but unless you were equipped with a CB radio – yes, I’m THAT old – the highway was nothing more than a means to an end.  Get from Point A to Point B, and that’s that.  The other two routes, though? That was where life happened! That was where you spent hours with your friends and family, met interesting people, and celebrated life’s milestones.

In my 46 years of serving Christ, I’ve found the same thing to be true. There was an old song – I don’t know who wrote it but I remember Jessy Dixon singing it – called Highway to Heaven: “It’s a Highway to Heaven. None can walk up there but the pure in heart. It’s a Highway to Heaven…walking up the King’s Highway!”  I thought about that song a lot over the years and realized that by my understanding of what a highway is, I’m definitely not on the “Highway to Heaven.” Oh, I’m going there all right, but for me it’s been 46 years of twists and turns, detours and some dead ends – in short, I’m taking the Side Streets. I’ve met some incredibly interesting people on these side streets; and I’ve had some positively unbelievable experiences. Let’s be clear – if your road has been more like a highway with smooth sailing and steady speeds, more power to you! That’s just not the road – or roads – God has had me on.

About once or twice a month, I’ll post my thoughts about life on these side streets. I’ll share some  of the experiences I’ve had, some of the detours I’ve taken for better or sometimes for worse, and lessons I’ve learned along the way. I hope you’ll join me on the journey.