chrisaltrock.com

Chris Altrock – February 28, 2010

Recently, the New Orleans Saints won the National Football Leagues’ Super Bowl.  It is the most important professional football game in the United States.  And the Saint’s win is all the more remarkable given where their road to victory began.  After being founded in 1967, the Saints went more than a decade before they finished a season with a .500 record.  Ten years of games passed before the team managed a season in which they won half their games.  In addition, it was two decades before the Saints celebrated a winning season.  They played twenty years before they had one season in which they won more than they lost.  In fact, in 1980, the Saints lost their first 14 games.  A local sportscaster urged Saints fans to wear paper bags over their heads.  Many of the bags had written on them the word “Aints” rather than the team’s name, “Saints.”  And even after their first winning season, it would be another two decades before the Saints made it to this year’s Super Bowl.  The end of their story is all the more amazing given its humble beginnings.

(more…)

Chris Altrock – February 14, 2010

A few of summers ago I was driving one my kids to a devotional which was being held at the home of the Frizzells, long-time Highland members.  Jordan and I got into my car at our Bartlett home, drove to Interstate 40 west, took the Perkins exit, drove south on Perkins to Park, turned west on Park, then south on Cherry Road.  I pulled into the Frizzell’s neighborhood off Cherry Road and parked right next to their house.  Suddenly it hit me.  This was not the Frizzell’s house!  It used to be.  But they had recently moved to Cordova.  I had driven to their old address.  When I had entered my car in Bartlett, I had gone into a kind of “auto pilot” mode and without thinking I did what I had done dozens of times before: drove to the east Memphis address of the Frizzells.  And because I did what I did without engaging my mind, I missed the goal.  I didn’t make it to the Frizzell’s actual house.

(more…)

Chris Altrock – February 21, 2010

A recent book includes two studies on why people choose a church.[i]  When people who don’t normally attend a church start attending and then are asked why they started attending, they give these four answers: they like the preaching, they agree with the church’s doctrines, the church members are friendly, or a church member witnessed to them.  When people who do normally attend church services are asked why they attend, they give these four answers: they agree with the church’s doctrines, they see how church members care for each other, they like the preaching, or the church members are friendly to them.

(more…)