The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.” ~Romans 12:1

Think very carefully about the times you have completely abandoned yourself into some act of service for others in the name of Jesus. Think about the times you’ve totally given yourself to God and to others in some act of kindness or mercy.

Recall the joy you feel as you walk a family of five through Give-Away-Day, the way you experience the mercy of God as you hand a brand new toy to a seven-year-old girl who’s never had one. Think about the new life you feel as you pray with your brothers during the 24 Hours of Prayer, the way you bond with your Lord and your Christian friends and the ones for whom you pray. Think about sacking groceries in the church pantry, visiting a sister about to go into surgery at the hospital, delivering a casserole to the family who just lost a loved one. Remember the fullness of life you discovered in that offering. Remember how it feels to put to death your own needs and fears and find a source of peaceful and joyful existence in God. It’s unexplainable.

Scripture calls us to remember those times and to be even more willing to make that total offering, that holy sacrifice, over and over again. That is our act of worship. It’s our act of service that, by the grace of God, he makes holy and pleasing.

Think about those times. Remember and repeat. And find real peace and joy in your Lord.

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A couple of entries in the Legacy “Caps for Tags” contest. Click here for the full scoop.

Keep those pictures coming in. Email them to astanglin@legacychurchofchrist.org

Peace,

Allan

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” ~John 1:14

Eugene Peterson translates this well-known verse as “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.”

What does it mean for the Holy Son of God to become flesh and live with us? What does it mean for God himself to walk our streets, to eat our food, to breathe our air, to hug our kids, so suffer and die for us — suffer and die with us?

It means everything! The Incarnation of God means everything in that it shows the lengths he goes to redeem us and provide for us what we cannot provide ourselves. It means everything in that he was not content to save us from his throne in heaven. Our Father came here, where we are, to experience everything we experience. He brought heaven down to us.

And we’re commissioned by our baptisms into the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus to do the same thing. We walk the streets with our neighbors. We share meals with the homeless. We breathe the air in the government housing apartments. We hug the kids at Fortress and Walker Creek Elementary. We suffer with those in the hospitals. And we die everyday for and with the orphan, the widow, and the stranger in the gate.

Luis Palau says the Church is like manure: Pile it up together and it stinks up the neighborhood; spread it out and it enriches the world.

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Jenny Bizaillion is doing so much better today. She’s down to just one blood pressure medicine now and her numbers are doing OK. Her breathing is better. Her color is better. In fact, they are actually going to take her off the ventilator at 8:00 tomorrow morning. They’re going to wake her up. The doctors have told David and Rick and Beverly that they really can’t explain Jenny’s improvement over the past 48 hours but whatever the family’s doing, keep it up.

The family. That’s all of us. You, too. And we’re not doing anything. Our God is doing it all. Give him praise for Jenny’s improved health. And keep praying that our merciful Father will fully restore her with strength and healing.

“Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds!
So great is your power that your enemies [flu, pneumonia, disease, fear, death] cringe before you.
All the earth bows down to you;
they sing praise to you,
they sing praise to your name.’
Come and see what God has done,
how awesome his works in [Jenny’s] behalf.”
~Psalm 66:3-5

Peace,

Allan

Jenny Bizaillion, a dear friend of ours from our days in Mesquite, is fighting for her life today at Baylor Grapevine. Please join Carrie-Anne and me in begging our great God to heal her.

Jenny is the daughter of Rick and Beverly Ross. Rick was the preacher at the Mesquite Church of Christ in those days and now proclaims the gospel in Decatur. He is a godly man beyond reproach. Dedicated. Determined. Reflective. Solid. He’s one of the reasons I went into preaching. Beverly is his amazing wife. A renowned speaker on the women’s ministry front. Positively optimistic. Outgoing. Spiritual. Inspirational. Jenny’s brother, Josh, is the preacher at the Sycamore View CofC in Memphis. Dynamic. A completely sold-out disciple of our Lord. Jenny’s other brother, Jonathan, is the worship leader at the Bammel Church in Houston. He regularly takes huge groups of people directly into the presence of God. It’s easy for him because, obviously, Jonathan lives there. In the presence of God.

Jenny and her husband, David, have a nine-year-old daughter, Malaya. She’s just a few months younger than our Carley. Jenny and David are both such sweet-spirited followers of Jesus. Sensitive. Compassionate. Selfless. Sacrificial. Open hearts and confessing spirits. We shared many meals together during our nearly four years in Mesquite. We also shared prayers. And Bible studies. Theological discussions into the night. Planning church programs. Feeding the poor.

David and I planned the very first “24 Hours of Prayer” event together there in Mesquite. We planned the men’s advance at Camp Carter in Fort Worth where we both got lit up by Jason Reeves on the paintball fields. (If you’re dividing up paintball teams, don’t put the career police officer and SWAT team member on the other side!) David and I took in several forgettable Rangers games together in those days. We were also together in my pickup truck on I-45 on September 11, 2001. We were heading to Houston to watch Barry Bonds against the Astros. We were talking during the trip, not listening to the radio. And we didn’t realize anything had happened in New York and D.C. until we saw all the flags in Houston at half-staff and made a phone call.

I’ll never forget that day with David. Taking turns calling Carrie-Anne and Jenny on the one cell phone we had between us. Watching the news reports on the TVs in the bar at Chili’s. Praying. Waiting in David’s sister’s living room until Bud Selig cancelled the baseball game. Driving back to Mesquite, listening to news radio, talking to our wives. Meeting together at the Mesquite church building for a prayer service.

We sort of fell out of contact with David and Jenny six or seven years ago after we moved to Arlington to be closer to KRLD and the Ballpark. We kept up with them through Rick and Beverly and mutual friends from Mesquite. But, until last Friday, I don’t think I’d actually seen David since 2004.

Friday.

In the ICU waiting room at Baylor hospital in Grapevine, just ten minutes northeast of our house. Jenny, a beautiful, funny, competitive, stubborn, loving 31-year-old wife and mother and daughter and sister — a wonderful child of our God — was on life support. David had taken her to the hospital Thursday after she just wasn’t able to shake the flu. By Friday her kidneys had both shut down, her lungs had quit, her liver had failed, and her blood pressure had fallen to almost nothing. It’s a Strep-A infection. It’s in her blood and organs. It’s eating her up. By late Friday night, doctors were giving Jenny a 50-50 chance of survival.

Today, Jenny is still fighting. And, today, our God is still good. Very, very, very good.

It’s been a relentless roller coaster for this precious family. Jenny is making slow progress. Very slow. But we are getting tiny bits of good news. The numbers, as bad as they are, are heading in the right direction. Her condition, as bad as it is, is getting better. And our merciful God is to be praised.

Please join us in praying for Jenny and David and Malaya and Rick and Beverly and Josh and Jonathan and all of their family and friends. You can keep up with her progres by clicking here. This CarePages site will ask you to enter your name and email address and create a personal password. When you do it, you’ll be able to monitor what’s happening with Jenny and you’ll be able to send the family encouraging notes. I know they are reading these notes constantly. They’re even reading them to Jenny in her room. And they’re regularly updating the page with very specific prayer requests.

Please, I’m begging you to stop what you’re doing right now and ask our God in the name of his Holy Son, Christ Jesus, our crucified and resurrected King, to heal Jenny. Ask God to take everything out of her body that is doing her harm. Ask God to bring her blood pressure up and to obliterate this infection from hell. My brothers and sisters here at Legacy, the family of God in Marble Falls, in Benton, out in Fresno. The community of faith at Austin Grad. My brothers in ministry in Waco and Temple and Robinson and McGregor. Everybody reading this blog, please pray today for Jenny Biz.

“Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.
Renew them in our day, in our time make them known.”
~Habakkuk 3:2

Church business is busy. Kingdom busy-ness can be overwhelming. Sermons and classes. Emails and texts and blogs. Counseling. Programs and people and prayers and planning. Reports and committees and meetings and talks in the foyer. Hospital visits.

Ministry is never-ending. I never once get home at the end of the day and feel like I accomplished every thing I had intended. It doesn’t stop.

And I have to be very, very, very careful to maintain my focus. I have to be disciplined. Deliberate. I must continually guard against being driven and motivated by people’s expectations and my own sense of worth. I have to be driven and motivated by the Holy Spirit of God who resides inside me. I must be moved by my Father’s love for me, by his plans for me. It’s bigger than me. It’s higher than me. I can’t be directed by what I want to do. I must be directed by what God wants me to do.

Romano Guardini (1885-1968), a long-time professor of philosophy and theology at the University of Munich, wrote about this focused-following in his book Power and Responsibility:

“All around us we see activity, organization, operations of every possible type; but what directs them? An inwardness no longer really at home within itself: which thinks, judges, acts from the surface, guided by mere intellect, utility, and the impulses of power, property, and pleasure.

Man’s depths must be reawakened. His life must again include times, his day moments of stillness in which he collects himself, spreads out before his heart the problems which have stirred him during the day. In a word, man must learn again to meditate and to pray.”

It’s said that John Wesley spent the first five minutes of every single waking hour deliberately reflecting on the hour just passed — what opportunity did God give me, did I respond in a Christ-like manner, what should I have done differently to better reflect his glory?

Spending the first hour of every morning in Scripture and prayer, communing with our Triune God in holy relationship, is the most important thing I do. It reawakens my depths. It compels me to spread my heart out to my Father in confession and dependence. It convicts me. It challenges me. It reminds me that I’m not in any of this for myself. Not even for my family or my church. Not even for others. Not as much as I’m in it for the God who calls me and saves me and equips me to join him in redeeming the world.

Peace,

Allan

All of the really great preachers in Churches of Christ from the really great congregations in our fellowship — the churches that are really dynamic and moving and making a difference in the world and in the Kingdom — all tell a similar story. Jeff Walling, Terry Rush, Patrick Mead, Rick Atchley, Lynn Anderson, Don McLaughlin, Mike Cope and others all say the same thing.

“The day our elders decided to let go, to stop focusing on administration and decision-making and start working on prayer and teaching and relationships, is the day our church really took off. Our church just exploded the day our elders changed the way they lead.”

They all say the same thing.

That’s when churches thrive. That’s when churches begin to breathe and grow and mature. When the elders decide to equip and release.

Let the deacons handle coke machines and paint colors and display stands in the foyer. Let the staff deal with bulletins and office supplies and rules for the gym. Let ministry leaders take care of programs and mission trips, casseroles and camps. Free the members to worship and serve and evangelize and work and fellowship.

Our elders here at Legacy are doing that. In what has been termed a “transition” year for us, our shepherds have decided that their leadership must be re-envisioned from within. Their role as shepherds is not primarily to make decisions. Their role is to spiritually guide our people. To pray. To study. To serve. To walk alongside us. To mentor. To lead from a relational standpoint, not a positional standpoint.

Our Legacy shepherds have been taking bigger steps in this direction for a while now. And the congregation’s been blessed. Our elders and ministers are up here every weekday morning from 7:00 - 8:00 praying over the needs of this church and this community, praying with people, consoling people, loving people. They’re attending and shepherding our Sunday evening Small Groups Churches, getting in the living rooms and kitchens of our brothers and sisters, holding babies and making peanut butter sandwiches and hugging the hurting. There are more Bible studies, more benevolent works, and more counseling.

And now this:

Our shepherds have been meeting twice a month for as long as anybody can remember. For the past two-and-a-half years it’s been the first and third Thursday evenings. Not anymore. Starting this month, our elders are meeting on that first Thursday to vote and make decisions and do whatever else they absolutely have to do. Yes, we’ll still pray and attend to the needs of the flock as they come up in that first meeting. But on that third Thursday, beginning tonight, we’ll gather only to get our visitation assignments. And then we’ll hit the streets.

Two-by-two. We’re going to visit those in our church who are sick. In the hospital. Brand new members. Those who’ve recently been baptized. Shut-ins. Families with brand new babies. The goal is to be inside the homes and holding the hands of 30 of our families during that night. No meeting. No decisions. No administrative matters. No motions and seconds. No votes. One of our meetings a month is going to be completely dedicated to praying with our people. Consoling them. Praising God with them. Listening to them. Helping them. Walking alongside them.

The elders here have promised this year to intentionally let go of some things and zero in with greater focus on other things. This is one of those things.

Our shepherds are not divorcing themselves from the administrative needs of the church, but they don’t see them as their primary function, either. They’re working toward a relational leadership style and model that demonstrates holy shepherding. This move communicates clearly that they view visits and prayer and study — spiritual guidance — as more important than the board meetings.

Tonight’s the first night. Pray for our shepherds and ministers as we take this step together. Encourage them as they pursue a more biblical approach to servant-leadership. Thank them for their dedication to the people of this flock. I’m so proud of them. This is huge. I’m honored to serve with them. I can’t wait.

Peace,

Allan

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” ~Ephesians 5:21

The context in Ephesians 5 is in the corporate worship assembly.

“Be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Submit to one another. Belong to one another. And, in this corporate worship context, Paul says be filled with the Spirit.

When we come together, it’s the Spirit who not only unites us with one another, he unites us to God. We worship in the Spirit. We submit to one another and speak and sing to one another in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God is who gives the Christian life its energy and enthusiasm and endurance and power!

Be filled with the Spirit.

This is an imperative. It’s a command. So we do take some of the responsibility here. This singing together and submitting to one another is either the means by which we pursue this filling of the Spirit or it’s the result of being filled with the Spirit. Or both. Either way, Paul says when we sing together, when we pray together, when we submit to one another, when we really belong to one another, we are filled with the Spirit.

And that tells me that God is not a spectator when we come together to worship. Audience of one? No! God is not an audience of worship. Our God is an active participant with us — inside us — when we worship him together. God is not just sitting on his heavenly throne and soaking up all the hallelujahs and amens. No. Through the Spirit, the Father and Son are engaged with us. Communing with us. Rejoicing with us. Transforming us. Changing us. Growing us. Shaping us more into the image of Christ.

Be filled with the Spirit.

Encountering God together — in the worship assemblies on Sunday mornings, in our Bible classes on Wednesday nights, in our living rooms on Sunday evenings — being in the presence of God together allows us to recognize our own sinfulness and shortcomings. And that always leads to an acute recognition of his marvelous grace. And the power of God’s grace is not just forgiveness. It’s also transformation. New creature. New creation. Christ formed in you. Being saved. It’s a communal sanctification event. We participate in it and we experience it together. We are filled with the Spirit. Together.

Peace,

Allan

From the cowardice that shrinks from new truths,
from the laziness that is content with half-truths,
and from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
O God of Truth, deliver us!

~ Henlee H. Barnette, “The Minister as a Moral Role-Model,” 1989

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” ~Matthew 11:25

John the Baptist is the one who knows more about the coming Messiah than anyone else in the world. He’s been ordained by God, commissioned to prepare the way for the Holy One of Israel. And in Matthew 11, with John in jail and Herod acting more arrogantly and ruling more aggressively than ever, the desert proclaimer begins to doubt. He questions. From his prison cell, through his disciples, he asks Jesus, “So are you the one, or what?”

The people who know Jesus the best, his own family and friends, are ignoring him. The very ones he worshiped with and grew up with and played with and worked with in the villages of Capernaum and Bethsaida and Korazin are not accepting Jesus as Lord. They’re not repenting. They’re not turning to God as a result of Jesus’ teachings and miracles.

The situation in Jesus’ Kingdom life is not good. His mission. His calling from God. His whole purpose for coming to earth. Everything Jesus stood for and sacrificed for and was working for. None of it was going very well. He was running into dead ends and roadblocks. Barriers and hard hearts. Misunderstanding and indifference.

And this from the people who all should have known better.

If I’m Jesus — and, yes, I know I’m not; I’m reminded every day —I’m looking at John and these neighbors of mine and I’m maybe beginning to question all of it, too. Maybe I’d better do something different. Maybe they’re right. No crowds. Nobody’s lives are changing. I need to try something else. I need to be bigger and louder and brighter. We need bigger screens. More video. Maybe I should lose the tie. Tell more jokes. Be funnier. We should maybe set up a coffee shop or a book store. I should probably stop saying words like “sin” and “salvation” and “Zion.”

If I were Jesus, I’d look at the misunderstandings and indifference and say, “Why isn’t God helping me here? Why isn’t God doing anything? What’s the deal?”

Instead, Jesus prays thanksgiving to God.

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.”

Jesus knows that God’s way is to work his gracious will, to fulfill his marvelous plans for the universe through the childlike. The simple. The humble. Those who don’t think they are themselves some kind of gods. God works through people who understand very plainly their deep need for him.

The point is this: none of this throws Jesus off. The fact that John misunderstands what’s happening with Jesus doesn’t derail him. Jesus doesn’t slam on the brakes when the villagers reject him. None of this slows our Savior down.

Not so with us. We can get caught up in junk like this. I know I can. I know whole churches that can.

There are so many conditions in God’s Church and in this country and in this world that cause us to wring our hands and gnash our teeth. Oh, the Church is in trouble! Oh, people aren’t captivated by the Bible anymore! Postmoderns won’t ever believe the absolute truth of salvation in God through Christ! And we worry and get anxious and write articles and teach classes and rail against systems and complain about programs. And we get so worked up because God’s not working anymore.

But this prayer from Jesus puts everything in perspective. It brings us back to base.

The powerful and unstoppable energies of the Kingdom of God are always moving, always growing, always surging just beneath the surface. All around us. Huge rivers of prayer and faith and hope and praise and forgiveness and salvation and rescue and holiness flow right by us every day. In every single nook and cranny, hidden in the shadows, overlooked in the crowds, drowned out by the noise, are these humble infants. These little children.

So—thanksgiving.

Not just for the day and the weather and the beauty of nature. Not just for family and friends and food and clothes and shelter. Not just for good things in good circumstances. But, thanksgiving in — yes! — less than ideal situations. Thanksgiving offered in faith that our God is very much alive and active and working in mighty ways that we don’t always see.

Peace,

Allan

We live in a world not just of disbelief and cynicism. We’re in a truly hostile environment. We’re promised all kinds of trouble as we live for Christ on earth. But we’re also guaranteed great victory by our faith in the One who conquers death. In the meantime, we need strength. We need provision. We need protection to live as Christians here. It’s dangerous. It’s spiritually dangerous to follow Jesus in Texas.

Jesus knows that. It’s why he prays for us the way he does: 

“Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name.” ~John 17:11

“I protected them and kept them safe by that name.” ~John 17:12

“My prayer is…that you protect them from the evil one.” ~John 17:15

Jesus knows that representing God in this world is a call to genuine battle. It’s a war with casualties and injuries and fear and strategies and winners and losers. It’s real. And he knows it. He acknowledges the power of the enemy.

What a blessing to know that our protection and our salvation doesn’t depend on our character or our nature or our conduct. Our protection and salvation is found in the nature and character of our God. Our holiness doesn’t come from our futile attempts to comply with a long list of do’s and don’ts. Our safety doesn’t depend on our ability to not sin. Our salvation is not tied to our good behavior. It all comes from the faithful and loving and forgiving and powerful name of God.

God, by his name, hides our life; he protects it and keeps it. And he promises us that when his Son appears again in glory, we are also going to be appear with him in that same glory.

Peace,

Allan

Have you ever read Psalm 88? I would encourage you to read it. First, a word of caution: don’t read it as the last thing you do before you go to bed tonight. Don’t read it when you’re all alone. Or on a cloudy day. Try to read it in brightly-lit room full of your closest friends. Because Psalm 88 is a downer. It’s tough.

“My soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave.
I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.”

Of the 150 Psalms, nearly half of them are labeled as lament psalms. Lamentations. Anger. Doubt. Bitterness. Confusion. Questions. Complaints against God. Even accusations against God. And Psalm 88 may be the most uncomfortable.

“You have put me in the lowest pit…”
“You have overwhelmed me with all your waves…”
“You have taken from me my closest friends…”

Psalm 88 is the only lament psalm that doesn’t, at some point, turn to praise. There’s no praise here. No thanksgiving. There’s not even any hope that God will eventually change his mind or eventually rescue. The psalmist here declares that praying to God is doing no good. God has abandoned him completely. And there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

“Why, O Lord, do you reject me?”
“Your terrors have destroyed me.”
“The darkness is my closest friend.”

Maybe you’ve never read Psalm 88. But have you ever felt Psalm 88?

This past Sunday here at Legacy we read Psalm 88 and then we prayed it. We lifted up to God our despair and depression, our confusions and doubts. We lifted up to God all those in our congregation suffering from cancer and other disease, those dealing with divorce, those struggling with unemployment, those battling family issues such as rebellious children and abusive spouses, our people who are suffering through the loss of loved ones — both recent and a long time ago. On Sunday we were honest with our God about our faith and our fears. We asked him the hard questions. Why are these things happening? How long will they continue? We told God plainly that we don’t always understand.

Those aren’t easy words to pray. It’s unusual in that we rarely pray this way at all, especially in a corporate Sunday morning setting. But the reading and the prayer and the open and honest theme of the day seemed to be especially meaningful to the many, many, many, many people of our church who are feeling Psalm 88.

It would be impossible to share with you in this space the more-than-usual number of phone calls, emails, and pop-in visits I’ve received in just the two days since Sunday’s service regarding what we did together as a church family. Being publicly and completely honest with God and with ourselves about our pains — physical, emotional, and spiritual pains — resonated with young and old, men and women, from every background and worldview imaginable. It touched people. It bonded people. Because a whole lot of us are feeling Psalm 88. At some point, most of us have felt Psalm 88.

Some still balk at using this kind of language with God, even though all of God’s people in Scripture, from the Patriarchs and Judges and Prophets to Christ himself and the Saints in heaven, have used the language of lament to voice their complaints to God in the middle of great trial. But there’s great comfort in unburdening yourself. There’s great relief in unloading and getting things off your chest. There’s solace in knowing that he’s listening.

You know that.

It’s OK. God loves you, remember?

Peace,

Allan