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Category: Church (Page 26 of 59)

Life Together: How?

January 9, 2013 / / 2 Comments

“Now, about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.” ~1 Thessalonians 4:9

Paul claims that God has taught us how to love one another. We don’t need to talk about living together in Christian community, we don’t need to write about loving and serving one another within our church family, because every single thing we need to know, God’s already taught us. Everything we need to know about service and love we’ve been taught by God through his self-sacrificing Son. Everything. We just follow his lead. We bear one another’s burdens. Like Jesus who took up our infirmities and carried our diseases, we too support the sick, lift up the weak, and encourage the fainthearted. We defend the helpless and protect the hurting. We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, and give that cup of cold water in Jesus’ name.

If anything, God has taught us through Jesus that living together in Christian family is all about people. Genuine Christian love and service is shown to people, it’s not lavished on some high principle. We love people, not ideas. We serve each other, not our doctrines and traditions.

You know, we talk a lot about our Christian community, our church. It’s a continuous topic of serious conversation. Is the church growing or not? Is the church strong or not? Are we becoming too liberal or too conservative? Is that church doctrinally sound (whatever that means)? How’s their attendance? What’s our contribution? Do they have a praise team? Are we going to do small groups?

Listen to me: Lost people don’t care! People with burdens and illnesses don’t care! People dying in sin, people without hope, people in our communities who are looking for the ultimate and eternal answers don’t care!

We talk a lot about change in our churches. Some of us are really for it; some of us are really against it. We’ll get more people if we change. We’ll get more people if we never change. We’ll get more people if we go back to the way things used to be. We’ll get more people if we move ahead to where everybody else is going. We talk about change, and it usually means we’re talking about what we do 75-minutes in the worship center on Sunday mornings. And it means nothing to the lost!

We can rip down our screens and burn all the computers and hum Gregorian chants that were written a thousand years ago. Or we can bring in a 50-piece orchestra and pass out a hundred microphones and sing only contemporary praise songs that were written last month. Either way, the lost are not saved. The burdened are not relieved. The downtrodden are not lifted.

Oh, yeah, we need to change. We definitely need to change. We need to change the way we look at things. We need to raise our vision. People need love and comfort and healing and acceptance and peace. They need fellowship. They need life together with the Body of Christ.

How do we do it? Again, we follow the lead of Christ. We love each other the way he loves us. We serve one another the way he serves us. We sacrifice for each other and bear each other’s burdens. Just like our Christ. It’s not about programs and numbers, it’s not about money and image. Life together in Christ is always about people.

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It took Jerry Wayne two years to discover what most NFL observers have known for a long, long time: Rob Ryan is not a good defensive coordinator. The brash brother of Rex and son of Buddy was fired by the Cowboys last night, ending an experiment that was doomed from the start.

Never mind Ryan’s outrageous demeanor on the sidelines, in the press, and out on the town that so completely opposed the head coach’s button-down, strait-laced personality. Never mind the outsized ego that made him the focus of intense attention and coverage that undermined what the team was trying to do at every turn. Never mind the continuous stream of profanity that Ryan unleashed on reporters, opponents, fans, Cowboys personnel, game officials, and office staff. Some of it was muttered under his breath, some of it was shouted from a full throat and a red face, but it was constant and enough to make even Norv Turner blush. Never mind the Jerry Garcia hairdo and the weight, which only added to Ryan’s entirely unprofessional bag of nothing. All of those things and more contributed to Ryan’s image which was an embarrassment to the whole organization.

If you just looked at his career on the field, that would be enough. The Cowboys were 19th in total defense in the NFL this year, the best ranking for a Rob Ryan defense in his nine-year career as a defensive coordinator. During those nine years, Ryan has never coached a defense to a winning record, much less a playoff berth. This season, Ryan’s defense forced a franchise-record-low sixteen total turnover, including a league-low seven interceptions. Cowboys’ opponents converted 40.1% of their third downs this year, good for the bottom third of the league. Again.

It’s significant that Garrett is the one who fired Ryan over the phone last night, not Jerry Wayne. Apparently, Jerry is letting Jason make this call and will bring in the defensive coordinator the head coach wants. That’s a switch. It might signal that this next year is a do-or-die for season for Garrett and Jerry wanted to judge him when Garrett had his own hand-picked coaches and system. Garrett mentioned a “change in defensive philosophy” last night. Might that mean a return to the 4-3  and an occasional blitz? Maybe. Hopefully.

Firing Ryan last night was something. It’ll help some; it couldn’t make things worse. Of course, if Jerry really wanted to do something that would appease the angry fans, drive ticket sales up, and please his coach and his team, he would fire the General Manager.

Peace,

Allan

Life Together: Why?

January 8, 2013 / / 0 Comments

We’re going to keep at it for a couple of days here on Christian commmunity. You know, we say the word “fellowship” today and we immediately think about a big bucket of fried chicken and a green bean casserole. And hopefully somebody brought banana pudding. But in the Bible “fellowship” is much more than just a meal. “Fellowship” is everything! Koininea means sharing. It’s not something you do every fifth Sunday with a crockpot. It’s something you do every single day. Sharing each other’s blessings and each other’s burdens as we grow together and glorify the Lord. This fellowship of the saints is not some ideal that we’re trying to realize; it’s a reality created by God in Christ in which we’re called to participate.

Why? Why love each other? Why serve one another? What’s our motivation? Why would we be so concerned about this?

Well, it’s nothing we have to guess at. It’s spelled out very clearly in all the Christian letters. Our life together reflects God’s work through Christ. It imitates God in Christ. It lives into and embodies what our God is all about.

Paul begins his community directives portion of Romans 12 with “in view of God’s mercy.” Or, in other words, because God has been so merciful to us, we should love and honor and serve one another. In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave us. In Ephesians 5, he directs us to submit to one another out of reverance for Christ. Colossians 3 tells us to bear with each other and forgive one another just as the Lord forgave us. On and on it goes. 1 Thessalonians 5. Hebrews 10. 1 Peter 1. What God in Christ has done for us and with us, we in turn do for and with others in Christian community.

God’s perfect love and sacrifice is fulfilled, it’s made complete, Scripture says, when we love each other with that same love. I forgive you because God forgives me. I serve you because God serves me. I give you what I have because God gives everything he has to me. I’m patient with you, I’m generous to you, I’m kind and gentle and compassionate with you because my heavenly Father is all those things to me. I submit to you because Jesus submitted to the whole world on a cross. I love and forgive my enemies because while I was God’s enemy, he put his only Son on a tree to save me.

That’s why we die to each other. We put to death our own selfish ambitions and vain conceits, we bury our own interests because of all the ways our God in Christ does that for us.

We know what it’s like to be stuck in sin. We know the misery. As C. S. Lewis describes in Screwtape, we know what it’s like to be trapped by the devil, to be drowning in sin, to have “an ever increasing desire for an ever diminishing pleasure.” We know what it’s like. I know what it’s like. And God through Christ saved me. He loves me and rescues me. I know what it’s like.

Why love and serve one another in Christian community?

Because I once was lost, but now I’m found; I was blind, but now I see.

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Vickie dominated our second annual Central Staff Bowl Challenge, leading it almost from start to finish with an uncanny knack for picking all the right games and avoiding all the upsets. Down the stretch Vickie correctly picked eleven of the last fourteen college bowl games, maintaining the impressive lead she built before Christmas by picking the first six games in a row. On the far extreme other end of things, Connie finished dead last. And it wasn’t even close. For those of you who are really interested (sickos!), Hannah finished in second place (blame it on Baylor), Mary and Matthew and I competed for the top spot right into the final week, but our point values were a bit misplaced. Greg and Elaine and George all suffered very disappointing finishes in the middle of the pack. Gail was frustrated to be really bad, but not bad enough to compete for the last place prize. Adam made all his picks while driving his family from Houston to Amarillo at 3:00 in the morning; and it showed. Mark thought picking all the games A-B, A-B, A-B right down the column would be interesting; it wasn’t. Tanner and Kevin were the closest to Connie at the bottom of the pile but, in reality, she was never seriously challenged. Vickie has bragging rights for the next year and she and Connie both get a free lunch when our church staff celebrates the end of the football season and the beginning of the NHL season (what?) at the end of the month.

No sooner had the BCS Championship Game been decided last night (that was like about four minutes into the first quarter; what happened, I was watching the championship and an OU game broke out?!?) when the church staff moved on to the next big contest. With our own sister Mary about to drop anchor with the fourth little McNeil, we’ve all placed our bets on the day Mary dominos, the exact time she gives birth, and the gender of the little tot. This is such a competitive group; I love it! Guesses range from this Saturday (does Hannah have some inside, sister-in-law scoop?) all the way to January 23. I’m pulling for a girl at 10:15 Sunday morning January 20.

Peace,

Allan

Life Together

January 7, 2013 / / 1 Comment

For most of us, if not every single one of us, we live in a “Christian-friendly” place. In most of our towns and cities, there is some kind of a Christian gathering or activity happening somewhere every day and night of the week. There is some kind of Christian work or service being done in the name of Jesus somewhere in our cities every day. There are Christian churches on every corner. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a dozen Christians. The people you work with, your neighbors, your waiter, the lady in front of you at the post office — they’re all Christians. Or, at least, most of them would claim to be Christian. Now, without getting into the specifics of their connections to Christ or their discipleship to Jesus, the truth is that most of us can go for days at a time and never see anybody or talk to anybody who wouldn’t say they’re a Christian.

And I wonder if we take that for granted.

Because, I promise you, the apostle Paul and John and Peter and Luke and the other early disciples of Jesus could never have imagined in their wildest dreams a world in which most people claim to be Christian. That concept of open and public worship and devotion to Jesus and open fellowship with a huge community of believers would have been unthinkable. Our group of 750 that meets together at Central on Sunday mornings and all the things we do together and all the ways we come together would have blown those first century Christians out of the water! Our meetings together and our fellowship with one another is so… matter-of-fact. So ordinary. So expected.

The very first Christians could never relate to what we enjoy on a regular basis. To those great men and women of the faith, the physical presence of other Christians — being in the same room with a bunch of other disciples! — was not normal. It was, instead, an uncommon source of great joy and strength.

Paul’s in prison and he calls Timothy to come to him in the last days of his life. He remembers Timothy’s tears when they departed and he longs to see his beloved son in the faith “that I may be filled with joy” (2 Timothy 1:4). He writes to his brothers and sisters in Thessalonica: “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again” (1 Thessalonians 3:10). The great apostle John, in his second letter writes to his brothers and sisters in Asia: “I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete” (2 John 12).

There were times in their lives when these great men of God did not have the physical, visible fellowship with other believers that we enjoy on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. And they longed for it. They treasured it. They cherished it. They looked forward to it and savored it with great delight.

Good or bad, I don’t think we can relate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about Christian fellowship in his wonderful little book, Life Together. When he wrote this in 1938, he was running an illegal underground seminary in Nazi Germany. This was five years before he was arrested by Hitler’s Gestapo police, seven years before he was executed by special order of Heinrich Himmler:

“What is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. 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 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.”

Our Christian friendships should be treasured, never assumed. Our time together should be cherished, never avoided. Opportunities to be together should be seized, never scorned.

May we rededicate ourselves from this day forward to living more closely together in Christian community. May we place the proper perspective and value on the time we get to spend together in the holy presence of our loving and saving Father. And may we better understand how our life together not only serves to transform all of us more into the image of Christ, but serves to redeem this broken world in the name and manner of Jesus.

Peace,

Allan

Win Them By Our Life

December 17, 2012 / / 0 Comments

“Let us astound them by our way of life. For this is the main battle, the unanswerable argument, the argument from actions. For though we give ten thousand precepts of philosophy in words, if we do not exhibit a better life than theirs, the gain is nothing. For it is not what is said that draws their attention, but their inquiry is always what we do. Let us win them therefore by our life.”

~John Chrysostom, Homily on 1 Corinthians, 4th century AD

Why do we still mostly understand Church not as an every day, every hour Kingdom of Priests to the world, but in terms of what we do together inside our church buildings on Sunday mornings? We judge the faithfulness or worth of a congregation in terms of its structures. What’s the organization of the church? What’s the name of the church? How do they worship? The structures are almost always our starting point. So when we attempt to reform or revive or rejuvenate a church, what we normally do is go to the Bible to try to get the structures right.

I don’t know if getting the structures right is what God has in mind for his treasured possession. Is that God’s mission in the world?

I mean, what happens when all the structures are perfectly right but there’s no serious engagement with one another or with the world? If doing worship correctly or organizing the leadership chain properly takes the place of living justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, are we honoring our Father who calls us his priests to the world?

When the church becomes more a set of structures and less a way of life in the world, our focus can become obsessively inward. We think of church life as an end in itself rather than something to be lived and given for the sake of others. We like our church, we’re comfortable in our church, we don’t want anybody to mess up our church or change it in any way. We can be very easily distracted by our own church life.

“Now a church came up to Jesus and asked, ‘Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?’
‘Why do you ask me about what is good?’ Jesus replied. ‘There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
‘Which ones?’ the man inquired.
Jesus replied, ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.’
‘All these I have kept,’ the church said. ‘What do I still lack?’
Jesus answered, ‘If you want to be complete, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor. Then come, follow me.’
When the church heard this, it went away sad, because it had great wealth.”

Is it possible for a church to do all the right things and still lack the one thing it needs? Is it possible for the church to be so consumed with its own life that it fails to care for the world around it? Is it possible for a church to retreat so deeply into its own righteousness that it can’t hear the cries of a lost world?

The call to follow our King requires a giving up of our own lives. Jesus did not die for his Church so we could preserve our lives and cater to our own needs. Never! God forbid! In the name and manner of Jesus we are to spend our lives for the sake of the world. The Church, just exactly like its Lord, is being sent into the world not to be served, but to serve and to give its life for the sake of others.

Peace,

Allan

It’s a Wonderful Church!

December 12, 2012 / / 5 Comments

I’m a sucker for Frank Capra’s 1946 movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life!” Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, Bert and Ernie — what’s not to love? My family and I find ourselves quoting from the movie often. “You call this a happy family? Why’d we have to have all these kids?” “Another red letter day for the Baileys!” “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” When one of the girls feels sick, I put my palm all the way across her face to check for fever the way Stewart does with Zu Zu. When the issue of money comes up in family discussions, one of us will inevitably borrow George Bailey’s response when his guardian angel, Clarence, says they don’t need money where he comes from: “Yeah, well it sure comes in handy down here, bub!”

The question in that movie is: What if George Bailey had never lived?

Stewart’s character is about to go to prison because of something his incompetent uncle messed up. And he’s standing there on the bridge, in the snow, in the dark, contemplating suicide. Most of you know the story. He winds up face to face with Clarence (“you look like the kind of angel I’d get!”) and eventually admits that things would not be better if he were dead. Instead, he declares, “I suppose everybody would be better off if I’d never lived!” And the angel grants his wish. George Bailey gets to see Bedford Falls as if he’d never been born. And it’s awful.

There’s death and violence, depression and drunkenness, disputes and greed and lust — all kinds of evil has taken over the whole town. George Bailey had never been born to make the beautiful difference in that town, to have the fabulous impact on the people that had resulted in so much harmony and peace and good will.

Allow me to put a little twist on this excellent story. Instead of asking “What if George Bailey had never lived,” what if we asked “What if George Bailey had lived but had just made different choices?”

What if George had hesitated and thought of the great risk to himself as his brother slipped through the ice that morning? What if George had decided Mr. Gower’s problems were none of his business? What if George had taken off for Tahiti to chase his own lifelong dreams of fortune and glory instead of sacrificing those dreams to stay in that “crummy little town” to help others realize their own dreams? The answer is, the results would have been the same as if George had never been born.

Now, if God’s Church makes decisions and acts in ways that are only concerned with us, it’s as if the church were never born. It’s as if the Church doesn’t even exist. The results for the world are the same.

God has established his Church to be a Kingdom of priests, a holy priesthood, to live like Christ in a way that completely contrasts with the way the world lives. We are to show the world an alternative way to think and to act, an entirely different way to live. In the movie, the world deems war heroes and business tycoons as wonderful successes. But in God’s eyes, living life for the sake of others is what’s truly wonderful. Staying behind and giving up one’s own pleasures for the sake of others — a way of life ridiculed by the world — is what’s really wonderful. And it’s the same way for the Church. The world judges churches on attendance and money and buildings and membership demographics. God judges a church based on his heavenly directive to live holy and sacrificially important lives in a world that desperately needs his salvation.

You see, it really is a wonderful church. When we remember that it’s about serving, about being last, about sacrifice; when we remember that it’s not about us, it’s about everybody else; when we remember the way of our Lord and then live like him more every day, it really is a wonderful church.

Peace,

Allan

Behind the Pine Curtain

October 15, 2012 / / 2 Comments

I’m writing this morning from the library at the Chandler Street Church of Christ in Kilgore, Texas where I’m in the middle of preaching seven times in four days at the church’s annual Gospel Meeting. I was so happy to accept the invitation almost five years ago and I’m thrilled to finally be here this week. I won’t post another article here until Friday. That 1,000th post will contain the names of the winners in our drawing for all the books. In the meantime, I’ll be checking all the comments and engaging in those on-going conversations and you’ll have these three or four days to become eligible for the prizes.

In 2005, when Carrie-Anne and I finally got up the guts or the faith (both!) to leave sports radio and enter full-time congregational ministry, the Chandler Street church way out here in East Texas said, “Yeah, we want in on that!” Chandler Street jumped in early with a commitment to help in financially supporting my family and me while we moved to Austin for a Master’s Degree in Theology. I hope it wasn’t just that my dad and my uncle are elders at this congregation. I know it helped; but I pray that wasn’t the only thing. Even if it was, our God blessed us tremendously through the people at this place. They put a trust in me, they showed some real faith in me, and they barely knew me at all. I’ve always held that trust sacred. I’ve always been grateful to this church for their belief in me. And I’ve looked forward to this week ever since to tell them “thank you” from the pulpit in their church, to let them know how much they mean to me, and to assure them that I’ll never forget.

It’s been so good.

In yesterday’s opening prayer, Archie asked God to give me a “ready recollection.” Seriously. John Kyles promised he’d do his best to stay awake. My dad led singing. Uncle Gerald gave me an introduction that was way too kind. And we dove into the words of our Lord in John 14-16. We have already laughed together and cried. We’ve sung to our God and lifted our hearts in prayer. We’ve eaten a lot of food already at two different congregational meals with at least two more to come. My uncle told me I’d gain five pounds this week and I’m well on my way. I’ve watched this church family gather around a young woman who’d just received some devastating news and was feeling so.very.alone. I’ll watch them later today bring in dozens of children from the nearby middle school to mentor and to help with homework. I was blessed last night to sing with the young people around a fire and underneath some massive oaks trees. Today, I’ll eat lunch with my good friend, Chris Vidacovich, the preaching minister here. Tonight, I’m driving to Tyler to spend the night with Jason Reeves and his family. I’m having lunch with Uncle Gerald tomorrow. My closest family and some of my dearest friends live out here. And I’m meeting so many good, good, good people. In some ways this feels almost familiar.

But it’s different.

East Texas is not a foreign country. Yes, it’s different; very different. I flew out of the flat, brown plains of Amarillo Saturday morning, above the skyscrapers and highways of Big D, and landed a couple of hours later among the hills and lakes and towering pine trees of Gregg County. Very different. The dialect is different; the accents are more pronounced. The food tastes here lean a little more toward Louisiana and Arkansas than make me comfortable. The culture is different; even the church culture is different. I know it’s not a foreign country, but it can feel like one.

It’s so good to be reminded that people in Kilgore worship God exactly like the people in Amarillo. It’s comforting. Different types of songs, yes. Different orders, different styles, different practices, even a few different beliefs and, perhaps, different theological views. But they worship God in Kilgore just like we do in Amarillo. They praise the name of Jesus in Gregg County just like they do in Dallas and Sao Paulo, Brazil. They honor our Father here just like they do in Fort Worth and Kharkov, Ukraine. You know why?

Because Jesus is Lord.

So, it’s not just good. It’s not just comforting. It’s powerful. It’s empowering. It’s everything!

It means everything to be reminded that the Kingdom of God to which we all belong is so much bigger and better than my particular congregation or my specific city or my own country. We all belong to a Kingdom, to a holy and righteous and eternal movement, that transcends all of our individual styles and traditions, cultures and viewpoints. God’s name is praised in Kilgore and it’s praised in Beijing. Our Father is worshiped all over the world, because he alone is God. It’s big. It’s bigger than we usually think. What a blessing to belong!

Peace,

Allan

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