The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Church (Page 45 of 59)

One Man's Vision

October 6, 2009 / / 0 Comments

For us in the Churches of Christ, I think some of the fear of publicly and openly recognizing other groups of Christians as brothers and sisters is that our people will leave and join those other churches. We’re going to lose members. If we admit that the members of all these churches are just like us in that we’re all calling on the name of the Lord, we’re all baptized into Christ, we’re all following the Word to our best abilities, and we’re all saved by the matchless mercy and grace of God, there’s nothing to keep our members or our children from embracing those other churches. We’ll lose members. As I’ve heard more than a couple of people put it, “If we’re not better, if we’re just like everybody else, then what are we calling our people to? What’s the point?”

OK. Hear me out.

I think that openly embracing other groups as Christian brothers and sisters will actually cause our specific Church of Christ stream to grow, not shrink. We can still hold and uphold certain practices and preach and teach certain doctrines. Those practices and doctrines are critical. They’re important. Saved by faith. Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Weekly celebrations of that salvation around Christ’s table. Acappella singing. Yes! We stand strong for them. But just because we take ownership of certain doctrines and practices doesn’t mean we have a monopoly on God. We don’t. And if we’ll just recognize that, if we’ll just accept that we’re all doing the best we can with sincerity and faith, that we’re all saved by grace, it will change us for the better.

Here’s how: I think it would actually force us into where Christ inarguably calls us to be.

Instead of saying, “Be a member at Legacy” or “Be a member of the Churches of Christ” because our worship is correct, we’d be forced to say, “Be a member at Legacy” or “Be a member of the Churches of Christ” because our people are being shaped by Jesus. Be a member here because our people are so good. Be a member here because our people will love you and support you no matter what. Be a member here because we’re so involved in our community. Because Christ really does dominate our thoughts and deeds. Because we’re serious about being transformed into his image. Because we really have sold out to Christ Jesus as our Lord. Because we act like a family. Because we take care of each other. Because we really believe we are saved through no merit of our own. Come be a member of this church because God is using us in huge ways to impact his eternal Kingdom.

When we receive one another as Christ received us, when we forgive one another as God forgives us, when we love one another as God through Christ loves us, that will attract many more people to Jesus than a “correct” worship service on Sunday morning. Our focus will no longer be inward, on the “correctness” of our Sunday morning hour, but outward, toward loving one another and sharing God’s mercy and grace to a lost and dying world.

Just a dream? Maybe.

But I hope to pass it on to my children as the holy will of our God and something that needs to be pursued by his people with everything we’ve got.

Peace,

Allan

One Man's Vision

October 6, 2009 / / 0 Comments

For us in the Churches of Christ, I think some of the fear of publicly and openly recognizing other groups of Christians as brothers and sisters is that our people will leave and join those other churches. We’re going to lose members. If we admit that the members of all these churches are just like us in that we’re all calling on the name of the Lord, we’re all baptized into Christ, we’re all following the Word to our best abilities, and we’re all saved by the matchless mercy and grace of God, there’s nothing to keep our members or our children from embracing those other churches. We’ll lose members. As I’ve heard more than a couple of people put it, “If we’re not better, if we’re just like everybody else, then what are we calling our people to? What’s the point?”

OK. Hear me out.

I think that openly embracing other groups as Christian brothers and sisters will actually cause our specific Church of Christ stream to grow, not shrink. We can still hold and uphold certain practices and preach and teach certain doctrines. Those practices and doctrines are critical. They’re important. Saved by faith. Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Weekly celebrations of that salvation around Christ’s table. Acappella singing. Yes! We stand strong for them. But just because we take ownership of certain doctrines and practices doesn’t mean we have a monopoly on God. We don’t. And if we’ll just recognize that, if we’ll just accept that we’re all doing the best we can with sincerity and faith, that we’re all saved by grace, it will change us for the better.

Here’s how: I think it would actually force us into where Christ inarguably calls us to be.

Instead of saying, “Be a member at Legacy” or “Be a member of the Churches of Christ” because our worship is correct, we’d be forced to say, “Be a member at Legacy” or “Be a member of the Churches of Christ” because our people are being shaped by Jesus. Be a member here because our people are so good. Be a member here because our people will love you and support you no matter what. Be a member here because we’re so involved in our community. Because Christ really does dominate our thoughts and deeds. Because we’re serious about being transformed into his image. Because we really have sold out to Christ Jesus as our Lord. Because we act like a family. Because we take care of each other. Because we really believe we are saved through no merit of our own. Come be a member of this church because God is using us in huge ways to impact his eternal Kingdom.

When we receive one another as Christ received us, when we forgive one another as God forgives us, when we love one another as God through Christ loves us, that will attract many more people to Jesus than a “correct” worship service on Sunday morning. Our focus will no longer be inward, on the “correctness” of our Sunday morning hour, but outward, toward loving one another and sharing God’s mercy and grace to a lost and dying world.

Just a dream? Maybe.

But I hope to pass it on to my children as the holy will of our God and something that needs to be pursued by his people with everything we’ve got.

Peace,

Allan

Bold Vision, Bold Men

October 1, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Thomas CampbellIn 1809, Thomas Campbell’s fiery sermons about Christian unity and his very public convictions that all Christians should return to a pure and simple form of New Testament Christianity got him censured by his presbytery and then fired by the Synod in Western Pennsylvania. A couple of years earlier, Barton Stone, a Presbyterian minister in Kentucky, dissolved his presbytery to unite with everyone who would simply be known as Christians and base their beliefs solely on the inspired Word of God.Barton Stone

Both Stone and Campbell had a bold vision. It was a mind-blowing, earth-altering vision. Christians only. Unity in Christ. For the sake of the world. Putting aside party zeal and tearing down denominational walls, these men dreamed and prayed about the one Church we read about in our Bible. The one Church Jesus prayed for the night he was betrayed. The physical and tangible unity of Christ’s Church that proves to the world that he really is the Messiah.

Bold vision.

It was risky. It was dangerous. It was career-ending. It cost them their jobs. It cost them many relationships with family and friends and professional colleagues. But they valued the Scriptural doctrine of unity more than they valued the denominational things that divided.

Bold men.Declaration and Address, September 7, 1809

They went into this thing knowing how difficult the road would be. But they believed they were acting in concert with the bold moves of Jesus’ disciples who’d gone before. They were only doing what they thought needed to be done in order to be pleasing to God. In Campbell’s Declaration and Address, long regarded as the founding document for Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement churches, he writes that they would never be dissuaded by men from their attempts at restoring the unity of the body of Christ:

“Indeed, should christians cease to contend earnestly for the sacred articles of faith and duty once delivered to the saints, on account of the opposition, and scanty success, which, in many instances, attend their faithful and honest endeavours; the divine cause of truth and righteousness might have long ago been relinquished.”

Knowing the road to Christian unity would be paved with potholes of preference and prejudice, knowing that they would face the intimidating forces of sectarianism and the walls of tradition, knowing they would be basically starting over from scratch with nothing but Holy Scripture and the grace of God, Campbell sums up their charge for unity in God’s Church by saying,

“What, shall we pray for a thing and not strive to obtain it! Sincerely and humbly adopting this model, with an entire reliance upon promised grace, we cannot, we shall not, be disappointed.”

Bold vision. Bold men.

Bold VisionDoes their story—no, our story!—have any implications for God’s children today? Does it mean anything? This is our heritage. It’s our history. These are our 200-year-old roots. This is our legacy: unity with God in Christ and unity with all those who call on the name of the Lord; profess Christ Jesus as Savior and King; are baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection; and celebrate that salvation around his table on his day.

“Not that we judge ourselves competent to effect such a thing; we utterly disclaim the thought. But we judge it our bounden duty to make the attempt, by using all due means in our power to promote it; and also, that we have sufficient reason to rest assured that our humble and well-meant endeavors, shall not be in vain in the Lord.”

Amen.

Allan

Intentionally One

September 30, 2009 / / 8 Comments

Great CommunionThe American Restoration Movement began 200 years ago with Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, a call for unity and peace among all Christian denominations based on the pictures of God’s Church we see in the New Testament scriptures and on Christ’s prayer for unity on the night he was betrayed. The founding document of our particular stream of the faith declares that the Church is “essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one.” He called on all Christians everywhere to drop their denominational tags and creeds and party affiliations and come together as one body in our Lord Jesus. The plea was for disciples of Jesus to recognize that they are “Christians only, but not the only Christians.” Campbell exhorted all believers to speak only where the Bible speaks and to exercise grace and mercy where it didn’t.

Thousands and thousands of people gave their lives to Christ. And hundreds of churches dropped their denominational names and practices in order to embrace this call to Christian unity.

These are our roots. This is our foundation. It’s so simple. And powerful. This document spells out clearly the intentions of our founding fathers.

“…to manifest the realities of Christian unity in their tempers and conduct, to consider each other as the precious saints of God, to love each other as brethren, children of the same family and father, temples of the same spirit, members of the same body, subjects of the same grace, objects of the same divine love, bought with the same price, and joint heirs of the same inheritance. Whom God hath thus joined together no man should dare to put asunder.” Great Communion

One hundred years ago, in Pittsburgh, over 25,000 members of the Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and Christian Churches came together at Forbes Field to celebrate a joint communion service in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Campbell’s Declaration and Address. This year, this Sunday October 4, bicentennial communion services are being held all over the world. Stone-Campbell Restoration churches are gathering together in Canada, Australia, China, Europe, and in dozens of places here in the United States to celebrate what Campbell called “that great ordinance of unity and love.”

Breaking BreadThe Great Communion D/FW is being held at the Compass Christian Church in Colleyville this Sunday afternoon. I have no idea how many people will be there. I don’t know if we’ll be sharing communion with a couple hundred brothers and sisters or a couple thousand. I don’t know. I don’t know how many people really know or care about our history and heritage in Churches of Christ and the strong ideals of unity and love that founded our faith movement. I’m not sure how many, if any, of us have ever read the Declaration and Address with its unyielding call to unity. I do know that this joint communion service Sunday at Compass will serve as a sort of family reunion. It’ll allow us to come together on the many, many things on which we agree, including the importance of a weekly communion celebrated on the day our Lord was raised from the dead. It helps us break down barriers and tear down walls. It allows us to live out, if even for a moment, the unity we preach and pray for. It provides a time for us to remember the great contribution of the ones who’ve gone before and to reflect on the call for Christian unity that birthed our movement. And it gives us another way to celebrate together our common salvation in our one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I hope to see you there.

 Peace,

Allan

Blessings For All!

September 28, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Blessings For All!There are people around the world every single day who receive great blessings from God without ever asking for them. These people don’t pray. And they don’t give God thanks when they receive these great blessings. The fact is, they enjoy the benefits of these wonderful gifts and never acknowledge the Giver.

“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” ~Matthew 5:45

We joke sometimes about getting more rain than our friend who lives somewhere else because we must be “livin’ right.” Obviously, that’s not the way God works. He pours his merciful blessings on the good and the bad.

And he tells us to do the same.

“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” ~Matthew 5:46-48

Be perfect in your indiscrimination. Be perfect in your unbiased grace toward others. Be perfect in the equality with which you share your love and good deeds. Like our God, be perfect in showing kindness and mercy to people who like you AND to people who don’t.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What a wonderful five days in Fresno with my great friends, Jim Gardner and Jimmy Mitchell, at the 12th annual Spiritual Growth Workshop at the Woodward Park Church of Christ. What a time of encouragement and edification. What a time of renewal and re-energizing.

I strained several muscles from all the laughing. I gained several pounds from the late night Cookies-and-Cream milkshakes at Chick-Fil-A and the animal fries at In-and-Out Burgers. I threw grapes at friends sitting four tables away under a big tent at a lunch on the grounds. I was inspired by Evertt Huffard’s presentation on the honor of our God. I was moved by two women who gave their lives to Christ in baptism. I was the butt of Paul Methvin’s jokes. I was hugged by a hundred different people who really don’t know me at all. I met missionaries and homeless people (sorta the same thing). I talked with Brian and learned several new “words” in sign language. I slept in Tori’s room on her Cheetah Girls sheets. I was amazed to watch the Laotians keep coming and keep coming to pack the place to worship our God. Joann’s generosity. Dan’s parsing. Andy’s sarcasm. Jimmy’s tenor. John’s unique songleading. Mandy’s personality. John Ed’s wisdom. L. Jeeves’ nametag. Steve’s great attitude. Praying with Jim and Jimmy Sunday morning, just like old times.

What a blessing to see the Kingdom of God expressed in such clear ways among his people there in the California valley. Different colors. Different cultures. Different ethnic groups. Different languages. Different ages. Different socio-economic classes. Praising God with one voice. Communing around the same table and celebrating our one salvation through our one Lord and Savior.

Participating together in baptisms. Praying together for families who’ve lost jobs. Learning new songs together. Sharing meals together. It’s wonderful. It’s heaven.

The kingdoms of the world come with power. They come with violence and noise and fanfare and bloodshed. The kingdoms of the earth come with great force. God’s Kingdom comes with casseroles and rides to the doctor. The Kingdom of God comes with kind acts and loving mercy. Hugs and pats on the back. Sharing and bearing.

May God continue to bless our brothers and sisters in Fresno as they bring the Kingdom to the California valley. May his perfect will be done there as it is in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

Blessings For All!

September 28, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Blessings For All!There are people around the world every single day who receive great blessings from God without ever asking for them. These people don’t pray. And they don’t give God thanks when they receive these great blessings. The fact is, they enjoy the benefits of these wonderful gifts and never acknowledge the Giver.

“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” ~Matthew 5:45

We joke sometimes about getting more rain than our friend who lives somewhere else because we must be “livin’ right.” Obviously, that’s not the way God works. He pours his merciful blessings on the good and the bad.

And he tells us to do the same.

“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” ~Matthew 5:46-48

Be perfect in your indiscrimination. Be perfect in your unbiased grace toward others. Be perfect in the equality with which you share your love and good deeds. Like our God, be perfect in showing kindness and mercy to people who like you AND to people who don’t.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What a wonderful five days in Fresno with my great friends, Jim Gardner and Jimmy Mitchell, at the 12th annual Spiritual Growth Workshop at the Woodward Park Church of Christ. What a time of encouragement and edification. What a time of renewal and re-energizing.

I strained several muscles from all the laughing. I gained several pounds from the late night Cookies-and-Cream milkshakes at Chick-Fil-A and the animal fries at In-and-Out Burgers. I threw grapes at friends sitting four tables away under a big tent at a lunch on the grounds. I was inspired by Evertt Huffard’s presentation on the honor of our God. I was moved by two women who gave their lives to Christ in baptism. I was the butt of Paul Methvin’s jokes. I was hugged by a hundred different people who really don’t know me at all. I met missionaries and homeless people (sorta the same thing). I talked with Brian and learned several new “words” in sign language. I slept in Tori’s room on her Cheetah Girls sheets. I was amazed to watch the Laotians keep coming and keep coming to pack the place to worship our God. Joann’s generosity. Dan’s parsing. Andy’s sarcasm. Jimmy’s tenor. John’s unique songleading. Mandy’s personality. John Ed’s wisdom. L. Jeeves’ nametag. Steve’s great attitude. Praying with Jim and Jimmy Sunday morning, just like old times.

What a blessing to see the Kingdom of God expressed in such clear ways among his people there in the California valley. Different colors. Different cultures. Different ethnic groups. Different languages. Different ages. Different socio-economic classes. Praising God with one voice. Communing around the same table and celebrating our one salvation through our one Lord and Savior.

Participating together in baptisms. Praying together for families who’ve lost jobs. Learning new songs together. Sharing meals together. It’s wonderful. It’s heaven.

The kingdoms of the world come with power. They come with violence and noise and fanfare and bloodshed. The kingdoms of the earth come with great force. God’s Kingdom comes with casseroles and rides to the doctor. The Kingdom of God comes with kind acts and loving mercy. Hugs and pats on the back. Sharing and bearing.

May God continue to bless our brothers and sisters in Fresno as they bring the Kingdom to the California valley. May his perfect will be done there as it is in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

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