The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

(You’ve got to read Ezekiel 34 — the whole chapter — before you read this post.)

Ezekiel 34 troubles me. Just exactly like the rest of this book of prophesy, it’s strong. Bold. In-your-face. It pulls no punches. It’s convicting. Condemning, even. Powerful. You never have to wonder what God is thinking when he speaks through Ezekiel. And that’s true with chapter 34. I’m troubled because so much of this chapter seems to be speaking so directly to our churches today.

God rips into the bad shepherds because they’re ignoring the fat sheep who are oppressing the other sheep. And I see us. Sometimes. Sometimes elders don’t want to challenge the church bullies because they don’t want to stir up any conflict. They want to keep the peace. And, sometimes, the fattest sheep are the biggest givers. Sometimes preachers hold back on what God’s telling them to preach because they don’t want to offend anybody. They don’t want to answer the phone calls and emails Monday morning. They don’t want anybody to leave. They don’t want the emergency meeting with the elders.

Elders and ministers don’t always take care of the weak sheep like we should. Taking care of sheep is hard. It’s painful. Time-consuming. It’s work. And, sometimes, church leaders do crave the attention. Some of are tempted by the spotlight. Sometimes we really do just want our own way. Sometimes we do only act in an effort to save our own necks. And our selfishness and inconsistencies can drive the sheep away.

God help us.

We can also — all of us — sometimes be really sorry sheep. We can be territorial about our ministries or areas of service. Or our pews. We don’t let anybody in. We can shove brothers and sisters out the door by being dogmatic and unyielding about our own personal preferences. We can push people to the curb by insisting they believe and think and worship and sing and dress and pray just like me. We’re so good at it, so oblivious to it, that sometimes we can actually take the official position of a weak sheep and use it like an 18-pound sledgehammer to bully and head-butt and ram other sheep into my comfort zone and my lines and boundaries.

There are sheep in our flocks who’ve been in our flocks for years and who’ve never been invited to anyone’s house for dinner. They’ve never been asked to go out to eat. There are sheep in our churches who feel like they don’t matter because we have absolutely run them over on our way to the next committee meeting or service project.

God help us.

God says, “No, I’m just going to do it myself.”

“I myself will shepherd my sheep”

Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.”

Jesus knows how to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. To those who relied on their own righteousness, Jesus ripped away all their excuses and forced them to see their deep need for his grace. To those who were burdened and marginalized, Jesus drew them to God. He showed them that God did not delight in their death but was begging them to come to him so he could give them eternal life. They needed to know there was a place in God’s flock for the weak and the sinful.

The Lord Jesus Christ is our great shepherd. He’s bold and courageous and single-minded in his mission to seek and save the lost, to restore the lost sheep of Israel. And he’s so committed to it — he’s so committed to us, his sheep — that he lays down his life for us. He dies for us. He stands in the gate — he says in John 10 he IS the gate! — between us and the ravenous wolves and the muderous robbers who would kill us and eat us. He’s unwilling to sacrifice even one of us to the enemy. He’d rather die first.

And he did.

God’s people are scattered. We’re all over the map. We bicker and argue. We’re lost and injured and sick. And God through Christ keeps his promises to search and bring back and strengthen. The Good Shepherd makes us one. And he gives us peace.

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The Rangers are 2-5 right now on this ten game road trip. They’ve gone oh-fer on the season in the Twin Cities. They’ve lost four straight. Josh and Lee are both out indefinitely. Just a little speed bump, right?

Peace,

Allan

“Your child is following a mutant form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.”

That’s the first sentence in a recent on-line article from CNN that’s been emailed to me four times this week and seems to be making the rounds. The August 27 article tackles the topic of religion and teens from the viewpoint of Kenda Creasy Dean, a professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of “Almost Christian.” Her book claims that lots of parents and churches are unwittingly passing on a watered-down, self-serving, imposter strain of Christianity to our kids. Our children today see God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost our self esteem. God simply wants us to do good and feel good. Researchers for the book call it moralistic therapeutic deism. And Dean says, “If this is the God they’re seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust.”

According to the book, Dean’s research included in-depth interviews with more than 3,300 American teenagers between 13 and 17, and found that most who call themselves Christian are indifferent and inarticulate about their faith. Dean says three out of every four teenagers in this country claim to be Christian, but fewer than half practice their faith and only half deem it to be very important at all.

I wonder if those numbers wouldn’t also accurately reflect the beliefs and practices of the adults in our pews.

I haven’t read the book. I’ve only read this article. At least five times now. And the one sentence that keeps coming back to me, the one quote I can’t get out of my head, I think, sums up one of the major problems — if not the number one problem — in our churches and our church programs.

About a third of the way through this article, Dean is quoted as saying, “If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation.”

Amen.

The good news of salvation in Christ is not a “gospel of niceness” in which faith is simply doing good and not ruffling feathers. The Christian call is to take risks, to witness to the world, to sacrifice and serve others; to die to self and to live in a way that is radically — dangerously — different from the surrounding culture.

Preachers preach safe messages that will bring in more people and/or keep more people from leaving. Elders and other church leaders promise security and comfort and happiness at their congregations. We’re not challenging our people. We’re not teaching them or showing them that following Christ — living in the way of Christ and in the manner of Christ — means doing something to fix what’s broken in the world. Restore something. Cleanse something. Change everything. We don’t call our people to anything that’s bigger than ourselves. If all we’re doing is asking our people to sit in a pew, write a weekly check, and then allow the church to work hard to make them physically and spiritually and emotionally comfortable, we’re guilty of adding to the problem. We’re guilty of teaching and practicing a mutant form of Christianity.

We need to stop telling and showing our teens — and all our adults for that matter — that Christianity is all about following rules and drawing lines and adhering to boundaries. We need to immediately cease telling our members — and the world — that it’s OK to worship in that way over there but not this way in here, or it’s allright to sing that song in that room but not this song in this room, that there’s nothing wrong with worshiping God in that style on this day but not this style on that day. We can’t keep telling our kids that it’s OK for women to pray or read Scripture in our living rooms and classrooms but not in our worship assemblies. We need to stop this vain protecting of our comfort zones and comfort rules by insisting that weddings and funerals are not worship services. When you tell me that an assembly in the worship center in which the gathered men and women sing songs of praise and thanksgiving to God, prayers are offered to God in the name of Jesus, Holy Scripture is read, and a sermon is preached from the Bible is not a worship assembly, it makes no sense. Our kids are not stupid. They see right through this stuff. And I don’t blame them.

That’s not Christianity.

Biblical Christianity is bold. It’s huge. It turns whole towns upside down. It dramatically changes lives. It’s a call to rescue and save. It’s more about what’s happening in your community than what’s happening inside your church building. It’s more about what you do than what you believe. It’s more about how you live than how you sing. It’s about serving; it’s not about being served. It’s about dying in the name and the manner of our Lord. It’s all about doing things that make absolutely no earthly sense because God in Christ Jesus has broken through the barriers of time and space to deliver us from an eternity in hell. We don’t explain the faith; we courageously live the faith.

Which message is your church preaching and practicing? Is it a mutant Christianity of arbitrary rules and comfort? Or is it a Scriptural Christianity that goes out on a limb to make a massive difference in the lives of hurting and sick men and women in your community? Does your church love and serve unconditionally or does it model love and service with exceptions and fine print?

If you’re telling the teens in your church they can clap during the songs just as long as they don’t clap too loudly, they’re going to leave. And I don’t blame them.

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I need to apologize to Jerry K: you’re right, Cliff Lee is not the savior of the Rangers. I need to retract a statement I’ve made to Whitney: no, watching Lee pitch is not like it used to be watching Nolan Ryan pitch. Sorry. I know Lee says it’s his back. I know he’s getting treatment. But he’s started ten games now for Texas. And the Rangers are 3-7 in those starts. If the playoffs began today, I’d go with C. J. Wilson and maybe even Tommy Hunter in the opener over Lee. Hunter showed more of those gritty guts last night. David Murphy and Nelson Cruz made some unbelievable catches. And the Yankees are taking care of the A’s.

Peace,

Allan

I am truly blessed by the fellowship meals we share together on the Fifth Sunday evenings here at Legacy. I very much enjoy looking at the faces of my brothers and sisters instead of the backs of their heads. I believe I can see the risen Lord in those faces, don’t you?

I think around those tables in the gym is where we uniquely experience the mercy and grace of God. We share that mercy and grace and acceptance and love in getting somebody a refill on their iced tea, in helping someone clean up a spill, even in saving seats for somebody we particularly want to sit by. We experience mercy and grace and acceptance when we eat together.

This past Sunday night I asked our church family to look closely at the people around all those tables.

“Look at them.” (audible groans)

“These are your brothers and sisters.” (playful rolling of eyes)

“This is your family.” (louder groans)

Look at them. You’re responsible for them. Now take care of them. Love them. Accept them. Nurture them. Encourage them. Be careful with them. Get involved with them. Minister to them. Know them. Tolerate them. Share with them. Laugh and cry with them. Sacrifice for them.

Love them.

“God gave you these people,” I said. “Now love them.”

We don’t choose the saints. God chooses the saints. God gathers together these men and women. He chooses and blesses and predestines and makes known and lavishes and loves and gathers these people we sit with at church. I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in his latest book — I’m in the middle of it right now — Practice Resurrection:

These people embarrass us with their haphazardness, exhilarate us with their joy, offend us by their inconsistent lives, comfort us with their compassion, bully and criticize us, encourage and bring out the best in us, bore us with their blandness, stimulate us with their enthusiasm.

But we don’t choose them. God chooses them. We are a family with the people God chooses. His saints.

So, this coming Sunday, look around. These are your people. God gave them to you.

Now love them!

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A two-hit shutout last night by Ceej and Feliz. Depending on how Lee does tonight, I’m of the mind now that Wilson might ought to be the starter in Game One against the Twins or the Yankees or the Rays in October. He’s the rock. He’s the stabilizer. He’s the constant. Wow. Cruz picked up right where he left off, too. The magic number is 24…

Peace,

Allan

“I have tried the pharisaic plan, and the monastic. I was once so straight that, like the Indian’s tree, I leaned a little the other way. And however much I may be slandered now as seeking ‘popularity’ or a popular course, I have to rejoice that to my own satisfaction, as well as to others, I proved that truth, and not popularity, was my object; for I was once so strict a Separatist that I would neither pray nor sing praises with any one who was not as perfect as I supposed myself. In this most unpopular course I persisted until I discovered the mistake, and saw that on the principle embraced in my conduct, there could never be a congregation or church upon the earth.”

~Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist Volume III

Reflect and discuss…

Peace,

Allan

Four weeks ago we spent seven days with our great friends Jim & Mandy Gardner and Jimmy & Elizabeth Mitchell at the Northside Church of Christ in Benton, Arkansas (home of Cliff Lee). They always bring in a guest speaker for the adults during their Vacation Bible School. And I was honored to preach the Word from John 14-16 with a reflective and hungry group of disciples.

Side note: I was walking into our church building here at Legacy the Sunday I returned when Kent and Norma Robinson drove up and welcomed me back home. Kent asked me how it went and I told him it was great, but I was exhausted. I said, “They had me speaking twelve times in five days and I didn’t think I had that much to say.” At which Norma leaned over in the truck and responded, “I find that hard to believe!”

Of course, I had a wonderful time reconnecting with Jim and Jimmy. We were all three on staff together at the church in Marble Falls while I was getting my degree at Austin Grad. Jim always impresses me with his knowledge of God’s Word and the straightforward way he delivers it. He’s very confident and very bold in the way he preaches. And he’s so very kind and gentle with and to the people in his congregation. Always has been. After spending about 30-minutes in his study with an especially cranky brother in Marble Falls one morning, Jim finally stood up and said, “We can do this all day long and accomplish nothing for the Kingdom. I’m going to make some hospital visits. You’re welcome to come with me.”

And the man did.

Jim sees the big picture.

And then there’s Jimmy. I was reminded all over again about why I love Jimmy. He’s a nut. He’s crazy. He has no shame. He’s hilarious. He’s not afraid of anything. He’ll sing any song and do any voice and play any part. He spent all week in VBS playing a ship’s first mate with the voice and mannerisms of a cross between Conan O’Brien and Harry Caray. He’s sensitive. And loving. And every single thing he does — everything! — is motivated by his love for the kids. He loves them. He’s in their faces all the time. He’s at their schools. He’s in their homes. All he cares about is those young people. And they love him right back.

Jimmy sees the big picture.

Ernest Miller is a 33-year-old Harding graduate from New Jersey. He and his wife LaDonna and their two girls just moved to Benton six weeks ago. He’s the brand new preacher at the Johnson Street Church of Christ in Benton, the black church on the other side of the tracks. I had lunch with Ernest that week at a Chinese restaurant owned by a guy named Jerry Jones — not that Jerry Jones! And then I had the honor of Ernest showing me around the Johnson Street church building and surrounding neighborhood. I had the pleasure of meeting and shaking hands with 83-year-old W. K. Hannah, one of the founding members of that church from almost 60 years ago. He was working the food pantry last Tuesday, just like he does every Tuesday. Greeting people with a warm, “How you doin’?” Moving sacks of groceries into the trunks of cars. Praying with visitors. Telling them goodbye with a heartfelt “God bless you.” Ernest moved gracefully around the parking lot and the building, calling people by name, hugging little old ladies and jousting with the kids like he’s been there forever. He encouraged everybody. He smiled at everybody.

Ernest sees the big picture.

And they’ve all three committed to working on the biggest of pictures: reconciling their two churches, bringing together their two congregations, reuniting the brothers and sisters at the Lord’s table. They want to make the white church and the black church one. One Church. One family. One building. One set of elders. One mission. One purpose. One Body.

Northside actually planted that Johnson Street church — literally on the other side of the tracks — back in the mid 1950s. Jim’s grandfathers, both of them, were elders at the time. Jim showed me a copy of the church budget from 1962 that lists “colored congregation” as their second largest mission item. It’s not that the Northside church had evil intentions or bad motives 55 years ago. I believe that their motives were pure. They were just wholly misguided. And Jim is working with Jimmy and Ernest and Fernando, their hispanic minister, to make sure that the Kingdom of God in Benton looks like and acts like the Kingdom of God in Holy Scripture.

These two congregations are already working hard to rise above the ungodly distinctions of the artificial boundaries our culture and, sadly, our churches have built between us. They already worship together at monthly gatherings. They eat together at special occasions. They supported each other’s VBS. The ministers from both churches have lunch together once a week.

Christ Jesus came to break down all the barriers, to destroy all the lines, to obliterate our differences. The dream in Benton is that God’s Church there will be an impossible-to-miss example, a living illustration, that in Christ there are no language or ethnic or cultural divisions. We are, together, one body. And all the members belong to each other.

It’s going to take a lot of sacrifice for both churches. It’s going to take patience and understanding and gentleness and kindness. It’s going to require a Christ-like attitude of selfless giving. And it’s going to take time. But it’s a worthy endeavor. It’s what’s demanded of all of us who claim to be followers of our Savior who went out of his way and left everything and gave everything to impartially call everyone to the Father.

I’m excited that tonight Whitney and I are going to join Jim and Jimmy and the Northside youth group at the Rangers game in Arlington. I’m excited that Jimmy is going to lead our worship at Legacy this Sunday, just like the good ol’ days in Marble Falls. And I’m so inspired by what Jim and Jimmy and Ernest and the Church is doing in Benton, Arkansas.

God bless our brothers and sisters there. May they point all of us to greater unity in Christ.

Peace,

Allan

I’m afraid I’ve become a “chucker.” I keep blaming my horrible performances during our Thursday basketball games on jet lag. But we returned from Ukraine seven weeks ago. Am I a “chucker?”

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I’m still not sure how to put into words what Legacy — my church family — is doing this week in the name of Christ. Ministering to a mother in jail and taking care of her three children is a beautiful thing. The ones in our church who are opening up their homes and their hearts are showing maybe the greatest acts of loving kindness these kids have ever experienced. By helping this family the way we are, we are actually BEING church, not just DOING church. We’re proclaiming to one another and to the world that Legacy really is the Family Place. We really are brothers and sisters. It’s not just a slogan on our letterhead or mere words on the sides of our vans. It means something.

We have given this situation to our God and to his Church. We’ve admitted to our Father that we don’t have any answers or wisdom or experience in cases like this. But we do know we are called to love one another like brothers and sisters, we’re called to sacrifice and serve one another like our risen Lord. And we’re committed to doing that and trusting God to take care of us.

When people place membership at Legacy, we tell them right there in the Sunday assembly, in front of God and everybody, that we’re going to love them and take care of them. We promise to defend them and protect them. We never say, “…as long as it doesn’t open us up to liability.” We never put conditions on our Christian love like, “…as long as it doesn’t involve any risk.” We don’t tell people they’re welcome to be members at Legacy as long as they can take care of themselves.

Yes, we might get burned. We might get burned badly. Praise God! That makes us more like Christ! And we are to rejoice when we suffer for his holy Name.

Or, we might not get burned at all. God may think our faith in him to provide and protect while we step outside our boxes to do the right thing is really neat. And eternally worthwhile.

I’m so glad I belong to this church family at Legacy. And I know three kids today who are saying the exact same thing.

Peace,

Allan

“What we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us;
we will not hide it from our children;
we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
his power and the wonders he has done.
He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children,
so the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.
Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds
but would keep his commands.” ~Psalm 78:3-7

Legacy’s Vacation Bible School — Joseph! — begins one week from Sunday. It’s four jam-packed evenings of Bible classes, arts and crafts, interactive learning stations, songs, memory verses, refreshments, games, and prayers. Lots of kids. Lots of noise. Lots of enthusiasm.

VBS is a Legacy church program. It’s something Legacy does in an effort to pass on the faith, to retell the story, to our children. All of Legacy.

Together.

So, this year, we’re not holding an adult Bible class during VBS. Yes, I know, we’ve had an adult Bible class in the past. And that’s a good thing. But this year, we want the entire church family to fully participate in VBS for the kids. Instead of separating ourselves in a classroom during that hour, why not spend that time doing something for the kids?

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to walk some kids from Station A to Station B. It would be great to wipe a runny nose. To cut out some camels for a teacher. To serve some cookies. To hang out in the marketplace (gym) and give children an encouraging high-five as they walk by. To color a poster. To help keep the 3rd grade boys in line. To clean up a spill. to hold and comfort a distressed two-year-old. To run to the workroom to find green construction paper. To tell a kid you think his picture of Joseph in the well is really, really cool!

Our youngest people desperately need love and encouragement from our oldest people. It communicates to them that we love them and value them. It tells them they’re important. And our oldest people need the satisfaction and energy that come from interacting with and serving our youngest people. It reiterates to them how much they’re loved and needed. It reminds them of their great value to us; that they’re very, very important.

See how it works? VBS is not just for the kids. It’s not just for the parents of our kids. It’s for all of us, the whole church family.

Together.

Peace,

Allan

I’m in the middle of Eugene Peterson’s Practice Resurrection. It’s the fifth and final book in his series of “conversations in spiritual theology.” It just came out. I’m devouring it. It centers on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, especially the line in Ephesians 4:13 about “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” What does it mean to grow in Christ? What does spiritual maturity look like? How do we measure it? Why doesn’t spiritual growth, development of the mind of Christ, seem to be as high a priority in our churches as it does in our Scriptures?

See, it’s really easy to put down the Church. It’s easy to dismiss the Church as ineffective. Irrelevant. It’s easy to be condescending toward the Church because the Church appears to be in such a mess. It seems that the Church has had little impact, if any, in making any headway toward peace and good will on earth. Nobody’s clamoring to get inside. Nobody’s breaking down our doors to get closer to God. The world is coming out of the bloodiest and most violent century in history. And this current century appears to be determined to pass it. What good is the Church?

Well, Peterson’s point is that maybe we’ve got the purposes of the Church all wrong. Maybe the expectations we have of Church are wrong. At the very least, they’re not big enough.

Peterson points to a term coined by C. S. Lewis way back in 1952: deep church. It helps convey the ocean fathoms of all that God is doing in and with and through his Church. Things seen and unseen, things from eternity past to eternity future, things here and there, things God started long ago that are being finished today, things that are being started by God today that won’t be fulfilled in our lifetimes. Deep church.

“It takes both sustained effort and a determined imagination to understand and embrace church in its entirety. Casual and superficial experience with church often leaves us with an impression of bloody fights, acrimonious arguments, and warring factions. These are more than regrettable; they are scandalous. But they don’t define church. There are deep continuities that sustain church at all times and everywhere as primarily and fundamentally God’s work, however Christians and others may desecrate and abuse it.

Church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practice a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the biggest headlines: death of nations, death of civilization, death of marriage, death of careers, obituaries without end. Death by war, death by murder, death by accident, death by starvation. Death by electric chair, lethal injection, and hanging. The practice of resurrection is an intentional, deliberate decision to believe and participate in resurrection life, life out of death, life that trumps death, life that is the last word, Jesus life. This practice is not a vague wish upwards but comprises a number of discrete but interlocking acts that maintain a credible and faithful way of life, Real Life, in a world preoccupied with death and the devil.

These practices include the worship of God in all the operations of the Trinity; the acceptance of a resurrection, born-from-above identity in baptism; the embrace of resurrection formation by eating and drinking Christ’s resurrection body and blood at the Lord’s Table; attentive reading of and obedience to the revelation of God in the Scriptures; prayer that cultivates an intimacy with realities that are inaccessible to our senses; confession and forgiveness of sins; welcoming the stranger and outcast; working and speaking for justice, healing, and truth, sanctity and beauty; care for all the stuff of creation. The practice of resurrection encourages improvisation on the basic resurrection story as given in our Scriptures and revealed in Jesus. Thousands of derivative unanticipated resurrection details proliferate across the landscape. The company of people who practice resurrection replicates the way of Jesus on the highways and byways named and numbered on all the maps of the world.

This is the Church.”

Massive. Eternal. Rich. Huge. Deep.

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I am honored to be invited by Rick Ross to speak tonight at the Decatur Church of Christ. Rick was our preaching minister at Mesquite when Carrie-Anne and I were there from 2000-2003. And I believe Rick is the first preacher I ever seriously listened to. Really. Of course, I’ve been listening to preaching since the day I was born. But Rick is the first preacher I ever really paid attention to. Not just his sermons, which were powerful and bold, but his life.

Rick carried himself in a godly way. Patient. Gentle. Encouraging. Cheerful. Determined. Strong. His preaching came out of that life. His sermons were born out of his own walk with our God. He was Thomas Long’s Witness of Preaching before I had ever heard of Thomas Long or read his book. It moved me, the way Rick lived and preached, preached and lived. Yes, there were other things going on in my life then. I was growing in Christ, I was maturing in my faith, I was thinking differently about eternal matters and God’s purposes for me. But Rick was all over that. God was working in him and through him to teach me.

Rick and Beverly treated me with great patience and understanding even as I acted selfishly and foolishly in church settings and congregational matters. They embraced my family. They showed me grace. They taught me grace.

Watching Rick and learning from him helped motivate me to answer God’s call to preach his Word. I’m so thankful for the ways God used Rick to shape me during those short years in Mesquite. I’m grateful for the rock solid example of faithfulness and trust in God that Rick has been to me and everyone who knows him since February. And I’m honored to speak to his church tonight in Decatur.

Peace,

Allan

There’s an old story about the great evangelist D. L. Moody. I assume it’s true. Come on, I’m a preacher!

Moody was visiting a prominent Chicago citizen when the topic of church membership and involvement came up. The man told Moody, “I can be just as good a Christian outside the church as I can be inside it.”

Moody didn’t say anything. He just walked over to the big fire blazing in the fireplace, removed one of the many red-hot burning coals, and placed it on the hearth.

Both men sat in silence together and watched the single ember die.

And the host simply turned to Moody and said, “Oh. I see.”

I think you can probably get to heaven without close friends. But you cannot be all you can be for the Lord without someone right beside you pushing you, lifting you up, helping you, challenging you, serving with you. We were never ever intended to do this alone. We need each other. We need the mutual loving and studying and questioning and affirming and supporting. I think better when I’m with other Christians. I sing better when I’m with my brothers and sisters. I pray better in a group of faithful believers. I make better plans. I sin less. I think about myself less. My eyes are much more open to God’s Holy Spirit and his redemptive power when I’m with God’s Church.

We cannot separate our relationship with God from our relationships with one another. We don’t belong to ourselves, we belong to Jesus. And Romans 12 informs us in strong language that if we’re in the Body of Christ, we each belong to one another. Our connection with Christ and our connections with each other are so interwoven they absolutely cannot exist in isolation.

And our Christian lives flow from there. We care for each other. We’re committed to one another. We protect each other, confront each other, sustain each other. We rejoice together. We mourn together. Together we fuel the fire. We give and receive Holy Spirit energy and we bask together in the warmth and the light. It’s in community—together—where we reach our God-ordained potential as his children.

Don’t burn out on the hearth. Jump into the fires of the community of faith.

Peace,

Allan

I learned a lot in Kharkov, Ukraine. I learned that I can survive on Diet Coke when there’s no Diet Dr Pepper. I learned that I am the richest man most of the people I met will ever know in their lives. I learned that chicken-flavored potato chips are nasty, that the potholes out here on Cardinal Lane are nothing, and that no matter how many people are watching and cheering, soccer is still really boring. But this is perhaps the greatest lesson learned: We should never take for granted the great blessing we enjoy to be disciples of Jesus living with and among other disciples of Jesus.

Most Christians outside America know nothing first-hand about that experience. They live in isolation with family members who do not follow our Christ or in communities where the Son of God is not recognized, or worse, where followers of Jesus are persecuted for their beliefs and practices.

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of great joy and strength to a believer.

The imprisoned apostle Paul calls Timothy to come to him in the last days of his life. He remembers Timothy’s tears when they departed and longs to see his beloved son in the faith “that I may be filled with joy.” Remembering the saints in Thessalonica, Paul writes, “night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again.” John knows his joy will not be full until he can come to his own people and speak face to face with them instead of writing to them with ink “so that our joy may be complete.”

At times in their lives these great men of God did not have the fellowship with other believers that we enjoy daily, sometimes hourly. They longed for it. They relished it. They looked forward to it. And they savored it with great delight. Fellowship was everything. It’s what got them through.

We don’t value it nearly as much in this country because we can have it anytime we want. It’s always available to us. We don’t understand the importance of this fellowship with other followers. If we did, we’d have just as many people in our buildings on Wednesday evenings as we do on Sunday mornings. That’s the way it is in Kharkov. It’s unthinkable over there to miss a worship assembly. Or a birthday party in the park. Or a small group meeting. Or a prayer gathering. David and Olivia can announce a special meeting or assembly the day before it happens and every member of their core Christian community will be there. They don’t dare miss it. They need it.

I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty. I want us all to understand the value of the gifts of fellowship in our Christian communities. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this about Christian fellowship in his classic work on the community of faith, Life Together:

“What is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift everyday. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken away from us. Therefore, let him who has the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.”

We live together in and through Christ Jesus. The fellowship we share together is only in and through our Lord and Savior. Christian friendships should be treasured, never assumed. Time together should be cherished, never avoided. Opportunities to be together should be seized, never scorned.

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Olivia has updated the Nelsons’ blog with a ton of pictures from our trip and lots of very, very nice things to say about us and Legacy and the work God is doing in Kharkov. Click here to read their latest post.

Go Frogs!

Allan