“If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.”

–Jan Carlzon, (former) SAS airline CEO

I was telling a friend about my recent writers conference at Billy Graham’s The Cove. Remarking on the attention to detail and the courtesy of the staff there, I said, “They were top drawer–you know, Chick-fil-A level of service.” My buddy immediately understood.

Folks who frequent Chick-fil-A appreciate the service they get. And, lest we forget, just contrast theirs with the service […]

“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
–Esther 4:14 (NIV)

I want to borrow from and expand on an illustration I heard recently in a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Jerry Cannon. He was preaching from the Book of Esther, where Mordecai challenged Queen […]

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

–President Calvin Coolidge*

I love Charles Martin’s writing. He’s a novelist and a Christian non-fiction author who lives in the south, writes of the south, and whose words reek of the south. I’m partial to […]

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
–the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7 (NIV)

It was 1976–my first chance to vote in a presidential election. Ford vs. Carter. President Ford faced two large obstacles: First, he’d chosen to pardon former President Nixon, a move that infuriated much of the public (in hindsight, it was the correct thing to do); Second, his opponent was an Annapolis grad with the appealing backstory of a […]