Tripp Martin – Auburn First Baptist Church

In 1961, on Pentecost—or Wit Sunday—Dag Hammarskjöld sat down to make an entry in his journal. He was the second Secretary General of the UN, the youngest person to ever hold that position. He was elected when he was 47 years old. And later on that same year, he died tragically in a plane crash.…

I still remember where I was standing. It was on the back riser in the choir room of the First Baptist Church of Augusta, Georgia during youth choir rehearsal. Stan was waving his arms in the air and I was trying not to sound off key, but I wasn’t succeeding. And we were singing that…

Latria Graham remembers long afternoons of collecting black walnuts as a child. That the neighbors would pay children to go out and collect the walnuts in these large five gallon buckets. Because one tree can produce 15,000 nuts in a single year. And then she remembers gathering around the kitchen table at night with those…

Thomas Fuller writes for the first page of the New York Times. But in 2021, he moved to California to immerse himself in a story about the eight-man football team at the California School for the Deaf at Riverside. That they played not only other schools for the deaf, but also hearing schools. And eight-man…

Every college football team, as you know, has its own traditions and personality. So growing up close to Columbia, South Carolina, I oftentimes heard about the “chicken curse,” where the University of South Carolina knows what it means to lose close games. And Amanda Heckert, a Gamecocks fan, writes about the first time she ever…

How many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb? At least 15. One to change the light bulb, three committees to approve it, and someone to bring the fried chicken and potato salad. That whenever we hear a good joke, we cannot keep it to ourselves. Laughter is infectious. Joy needs to be…

I still remember sitting in those metal bleachers at the Dean Road Recreation Center watching seven and eight year old girls and boys run up and down the basketball court. They’re wearing brand new basketball shoes with bright colors. Their jersey was usually one size too big. And a couple of them had headbands on…

In that beloved story about Forrest Gump, located in that fictional town of Greenbow, Alabama, we feel empathy for young Forrest because he seems to have so many odds stacked against him, like learning how to walk or run with his special braces. But throughout this story, there’s all of this contrast: even though there…

While at Hogwarts, Harry Potter wanders into the woods and he sees another student, Luna Lovegood, and she’s standing next to this very odd-looking creature. It looks kind of like a large horse with these massive wings. And Harry realizes that most of the other students cannot even see it. That he sees something that…

When the pitcher on the mound gets hit by a line drive, all the way in the stands, we might recoil in pain. Or when we hear our grandfather all the way in the next room laughing that big belly laugh that fills up the house, we might start laughing as well. Or when our…

I read a story about a newlywed couple who for their honeymoon decided to travel across the country for six months seeing all the sights. And before they left, the wedding party wrote in big bold letters on their rear window, “honk if you support our marriage.” And from New England to New Mexico, people…

Family photos are so important. We put them on our bookshelves, we hang them on our walls, and we are always thankful for those pictures after the fact. But when we are trying to coordinate everybody’s calendars so we can all get together, we might question whether it is worth it. That we spent weeks…

Back in the ’80s, sitting in Jordan–Hare Stadium, somewhere in the middle of the game, you might look down about 15 rows in front of you, perhaps just one section over where there is this one courageous, committed soul standing up, sitting down, standing up, sitting down, raising his arms and lowering them all by…

In the midst of the excitement of a graduation, whether that’s from high school or college or even graduate school, as family are gathering and pictures are being taken—in the midst of all of that wonderful excitement, there is still this quiet, lingering dread over the commencement speech. How long is it going to be?…

I read an article years ago about surfing. It’s about a group of surfers that wanted to surf bigger and bigger waves. But these waves were so enormous that even experienced surfers could not paddle fast enough to get out in front of them in order to catch them. So, they started to use jet…

I am admittedly far from an expert when it comes to music. So my opinion doesn’t matter a whole lot. But I would argue that the greatest song ever written was “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding. That when that song begins with the sounds of the ocean in the background…