Category: Church (Page 52 of 61)

His Glorious Riches

March 30, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

“My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” ~Philippians 4:19

I suppose in every single church family in America — maybe the world, but definitely America — there are naysayers. There are people who say it can’t be done. There are others who say it shouldn’t be done. They rarely smile or compliment. They see a negative behind every action. They detect a problem behind every word. They perceive a wrong motive or a false agenda behind every move that’s made.

And I sometimes take that personally. I sometimes try too hard and spend too much time and energy trying to soothe the feelings of this one-percent who are never happy and don’t act like they want to be happy. Sometimes those negative things bog me down. Sometimes they weigh on me. They burden me. Too much, I’m afraid, most of the time.

I suppose, unfortunately, that will always be the case.

And then yesterdays happen.

Yesterday. Wow.

You know, you pray and pray that prayer that Terry Rush teaches: “God, please just do that thing you do.” And God answers in amazing ways that prove he’s already doing that thing he does, he’s been doing it every day since the beginning of time, and he’s going to keep doing it until time ceases to tick.

$251,318 generously given to fund our local and foreign missions budget for 2009, far surpassing our set goal of $200,000. Unprecedented at this place. Two years in a row, now, we’ve blown our goal out of the water.

1,067 men, women, and children came together to praise God and encourage one another. Largest crowd since August. So much energy. So much excitement.

Robert and Angela Brooks gave their lives to our Lord by being baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection. Two hearts convicted by the love of God. Two lives changed — re-created — right before our eyes. An answer to so many prayers.

Six more families placed their membership with Legacy: 15 total newcomers to bless our church family, to impact our dynamic, to serve and sacrifice with us, together, as we work in the Kingdom.

A cross-cultural communion service at our Master’s table. Christ as our gracious host. Two peoples. Two cultures. Two languages. United in salvation through the blood of Jesus.

Nearly 600 shared dinner together Sunday night, worshiped together, and encouraged our LTC participants together. Loud. Chaotic. Tons of smiles. Lots of laughter. Tables and tables of food. Fellowship. Sharing. Koinonia.

Another $383.50 given for the Academy at Carrie F. Thomas, reaching our stated goal of $6,000 to purchase much-needed document cameras for this under-funded elementary school in our community.

All of this within a nine-hour time frame yesterday at Legacy. Undeniable proof that our God is alive and working with his people. Indisputable testimony to our God’s faithfulness to his children. Crystal clear evidence that his Holy Spirit is transforming his Church.

As blessings pile on top of blessings we are increasingly convinced that our Father is keeping his covenant promises to Legacy and to all of his creation. It’s increasingly obvious that our God is blessing Legacy and planning to bless all of North East Tarrant County and every corner of this globe through this body of believers.

The ministers and staff and every last one of our shepherds and everybody who stopped by the church building today are still riding the wave of energy and enthusiasm and blessing generated by our God’s clear actions with his people here yesterday.

And we intend to ride it for quite some time.

I certainly do.

I intend to smile at the naysayers and love them and hug them and do my Christ-like best to develop relationships with them. But I will not be deterred. We won’t be slowed down. I can point to yesterday and I can point to a dozen things that happen in the life of this congregation every single day. Every day! Stuff like yesterday is happening all around this place. In our Small Groups. In our Morning Prayers. In our Bible studies. In our lunches together. In our conversations in the parking lot. In hospital rooms and high school gyms. In your kitchen and in my office.

God is doing that thing he does at Legacy!

“To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” ~Philippians 4:20

Peace,

Allan

Tulsa Time

March 25, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

Jim McDoniel is leaving the building here at Legacy and heading north for the annual Tulsa International Soul Winning Workshop. And I’m envious. I’m jealous.

For the first time in seven years, Carrie-Anne and I won’t be there.

The Tulsa Workshop is a sacred time and place for my wife and me. It’s in Tulsa where, probably for the first time in our adult lives, we experienced corporate worship of God and mutual encouragement of one another with a couple thousand people who all wanted to be there. You know what I mean? A person has to sacrifice to be in Tulsa. Work and school schedules have to be rearranged. Hotels must be booked. Gas and meals must be funded. Nobody goes to Tulsa for four days because they have to. Everybody there is there because they are overflowing with gratitude and praise for the mercy and grace of our Father. They love to be with and around God’s children. They love to worship. They love to sing and pray. They love to be challenged by powerful speakers. They love to learn new things, to gain new insights, to expand their vision of God’s eternal Kingdom.

And that makes for powerful worship.

100% of the people are singing, not just 60%. 100% of the people are smiling, not just 50%. 100% of the brothers and sisters there are actively participating in the prayers and the sermons and the songs and the readings from Scripture. Fully participatory. Completely interactive.

Not one person attends a worship assembly in Tulsa to fulfill some kind of spiritual checklist, to make an appearance and then leave, to put in his or her time. That’s what makes it so different from the worship assemblies in most of our churches. That’s why worship in a place like Tulsa is so encouraging, so uplifting, so meaningful. Everybody’s in! Nobody judges the person next to him because she may worship a little differently. Nobody complains that a prayer went too long. Nobody criticizes the speaker. Nobody sings just the songs he grew up with and folds his arms and shuts his lips during the others. Not one person there expects to be catered to. Nobody’s there expecting everything to be exactly to their tastes. Everybody gathers in Tulsa expecting God to be glorified, themselves to be edified, and for it all to be diverse and different, chaotic and full of surprises, times of both quiet reflection and meditation and joyful shouting to the Lord. That’s why we come back from Tulsa so energized for our Lord and his Kingdom, so on fire for the gospel of salvation in Christ, so excited about God’s people and the partnership we share with the Creator of heaven and earth.

And we’re missing it this year.

With Carrie-Anne back in school full-time, with our three daughters at three different campuses here, with Missions Sunday coming up this week and our second cycle of Small Groups Church beginning in eleven days, we just can’t make it.

I’m going to miss the kick-off dinner at Memorial Drive tonight when we get to share a meal and get caught up with dozens of great friends from Mesquite and Oklahoma Christian. I’m going to miss the hour-and-a-half I normally spend with about 10 other preachers in Terry Rush’s study on Thursday morning. What an encourager! What a great man of God! What an inspiration to a still-new, still-insecure, still-overwhelmed preacher like me. I’m going to miss the singing. Man, the singing! The glimpse of heaven it is to praise our God in song with brothers and sisters from all over the world! I’m going to miss the great speakers. I’m going to miss it all.

But not next year. Next year we’re going to Tulsa. Next year we’re going to plan a huge caravan from Legacy. We’ll all go together. I’ll book the rooms. Go ahead and put it on your calendar. In bright red, non-eraseable, permanent ink!

I’m envious of Jim and everybody else who’s heading to Tulsa today. And I pray God’s richest blessings on this wonderful gathering of his people.

Peace,

Allan

A New Sign

March 17, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

Is it unethical — is it wrong — to organize a college basketball pool among the ministers and staff? Wouldn’t that be a lot of fun? Would anybody in the church freak out?

We’re all filling out our brackets as a family tonight at Stanglin Manor. Not for money. Nobody plays for cash. It’s all about pride. This is the fifth or sixth year now the whole family has followed the tournament with picks on the line. And I’ve won every single year. Except last year. Whitney won the contest last year. And she’s been talking smack now ever since Sunday. Revenge is mine, I will repay.

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Do you think the Church still views its God-given mission as presenting and proclaiming an alternative lifestyle? Something better. Something higher. Something radically different. Something you can’t find anywhere else on this planet. Something you can only find inside a community of faith. Something that only belongs to children of God and followers of the Christ. Something real. Ultimately real. Eternal. Otherworldly. Belonging to another reality. The real reality.

Shouldn’t we be proclaiming and living something that can’t be purchased at Wal-Mart or consumed at Chuck-E-Cheese or experienced at a Multiplex Movie Theater? And, if so, doesn’t that mean our means — our methods of this proclamation and living — should also be otherworldly and radically different? Christ-like, not earth-like. The Jesus Way, not the American Way.

From Resident Aliens, by Hauerwas and Willimon:

The most interesting, creative, political solutions we Christians have to offer our troubled society are not new laws, advice to Congress, or increased funding for social programs — although we may find ourselves supporting such national efforts. The most creative social strategy we have to offer is the Church. Here we show the world a manner of life the world can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.

The Christian faith recognizes that we are violent, fearful, frightened creatures who cannot reason or will our way out of our mortality. So the gospel begins, not with the assertion that we are violent, fearful, frightened creatures, but with the pledge that, if we offer ourselves to a truthful story and the community formed by listening to and enacting that story in the Church, we will be transformed into people more significant than we could ever have been on our own.

As Barth says, “The Church exists to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to the world’s own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise.”

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I’ve added a new link to the blogrole on the right hand side of this page. It’s Made In The Streets, the great work of Charles and Darlene Coulston in Nairobi, Kenya. They’ve been working with abandoned and orphaned and run-away children there for 15 years, reaching out to them with the love and mercy of God in Christ, showing them and living with them this citizen-of-heaven reality that is so radically different from the other, seen and temporary, “reality” all around them. You’ll be blessed by visiting their site.

Peace,

Allan

Called To Die

March 13, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

My great friend Jim Gardner posted this on his blog a few days ago. Its very Bonhoefferesque. It reminds of the call of our Savior to follow him when he’s purposefully walking the path to Jerusalem and his horrible death. Deny yourself. Pick up your cross. Get in line behind me and follow me. It’s from a lecture given by Timothy Dolan, the recently appointed archbishop of New York.

“Maybe the greatest threat to the Church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails not battle against sin, but only soothes and affirms.” (“Church News,” Times-Dispatch, Richmond, VA, 2-25-09, A-10)

I wonder sometimes about the call of our Christ and whether or not that call is reflected by the practice in and of our churches. I worry sometimes that we’re not really calling our people to much more than showing up regularly for a spiritually-uplifting worship service, guaranteed to contain all the elements they enjoy in just the right order they expect.

Are we, like Christ and the Apostles, calling our people to grow? To change? To be continually converted? Are we calling our people to sacrifice? To give everything up for the sake of others? For the cross? Are we calling our people to faithfully eradicate sin? In our own lives? In our neighborhoods? To wipe out the sin in our churches?

Are we guilty of allowing a culture to develop in our churches in which, if things don’t go our way, we complain to the proper persons until we’re promised “I’ll look into that” or “Let me take care of that.”? Have we created, or at least fostered, a church culture that insists on our “rights,” within the congregational family and the broader community?

Our Lord calls us to die. To give away our lives for his sake. To be last.

Jesus bends over backward to make very clear he’s calling us OUT of our comfort zones, not to them.

I’m re-reading a great little work on the Lord’s Supper by Markus Barth, Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper. And right in the middle of this book he tackles this difficult call. Barth claims — my paraphrase — the Church of Christ ought to reflect the Christ of the Church.

“…Christ became weak, poor, despised, a scandal, and a foolishness to human reason, experience, and social standards, in order to come to those who are weak, poor, despised, who are considered scandalous or foolish, and who are treated as social outcasts. He came to them to be with them and to redeem them….As foolish, scandalous, and outcast as Christ is in relation to the world, so should Christ’s congregation be within the city.”

What changed? When and how did fitting in and looking good and being seen as successful in the eyes of the community become so important?

Wait. I’m on a new topic. Sorry.

The call to die. That’s the thought. Now, how do we do that as a church? Within our congregations and in our communities, how do we follow our Savior and die?

Peace,

Allan

That We May Be One

February 24, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

“…that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” ~John 17:22-23

Jesus prays many things for us. He prayed for the apostles as they battled the wind on the sea. Hebrews says Christ lives to intercede for us. We can imagine that Jesus prays continually for our salvation, our sanctification, our bodies, and our souls. In John 17 he prays that his Father will give us eternal life, that his joy will be made complete in us, that God will protect us from the evil one and keep us safe, and that he will sanctify us in truth.

And he prays that we will be one.

“…so that they may be one as we are one.” (John 17:11)

“…that all of them may be one.” (John 17:21)

“…that they may be one as we are one.” (John 17:22)

“May they be brought to complete unity.” (John 17:23)

We read these prayers of our Lord and it’s difficult, most of the time, to take it to heart. It doesn’t seem like Jesus’ prayers make that much difference or carry much weight as far as the unity of his disciples. Christ’s Church is famous around the world for being contentious and mean-spirited. Instead of looking at our love for one another and seeing the Savior, people look at our contempt for one another and see the world. Or worse, the devil.

Where’s the unity?

I’m almost finished with Eugene Peterson’s latest book on theological conversations, Tell It Slant. The following is from his chapter Jesus Prays For Us.

Many Christians, impatient with what they perceive as the inefficiency of Jesus’ prayer, attempt to solve the problem by the imposition of unity, unity by coercion — that is, authority depersonalized into an institution. The style is hierarchical. The methods are bureaucratic. Any person or congregation who refuses to conform is excluded: anathematized, excommunicated, or shunned. Unity is preserved by enforcing an institutional definition.

Other Christians, also impatient with Jesus’ prayer, solve the problem by schism. They reduce the scale of unity to what can be managed by gathering men and women of like mind and temperament. Often there is a strong and charismatic leader who shows up to define the reduced parameters of the so-called unity. If persons or groups find that they no longer fit into the theological or worship or behavioral style that defines the unity, another schism is always an option — simply split off with others of like mind and spirit. Unity is preserved by personal preference.

The repetitive urgency with which Jesus prays that we be one, just as he is one with the Father, throws deliberate acts of schism into sharp relief as acts of insurrection, an eruption of violent willfulness in the very presence of the one who is interceding for our relational unity with one another according to the unity of the Trinity. The frequency of this violence done to the body of Christ, a violence justified by rationalizations without end, is nothing less than astonishing. Defying Jesus in the cause of Jesus. A huge scandal.

The scandal is often boastfully vaunted as necessary to preserve the church. But whatever the language used, whatever slogans are placed on the banners, it is pretty clear that the schismatics at some point walked out on John 17.

If we’ll just stay in the room with Jesus as he prays for us, we will acquire a readiness to embrace all the baptized as brothers and sisters. It may be slow in coming, but Jesus’ prayer will have its way with us. We will no longer define other Christians as competitors or rivals. Jesus does not evaluate or grade his followers as he prays. He does not lay out plans to settle the controversies that he knows will arise. He is praying us into an easy camaraderie. The longer we stay in Jesus’ praying presence the more we will understand that our impulses toward schism and sectarianism, our rivalries and denunciations, have no place in the room while Jesus is praying for us “to be one.”

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Collin and Marisa McCormick have just found out they’re having a boy! Congratulations! You can get the latest news from our displaced Texas brother and sister while they’re in Germany by clicking over to their blog here.

Peace,

Allan

The Gospel According To Potluck

February 23, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

I’ve been accused of many things. Most of those things are untrue. This latest allegation that surfaced last night in more than a couple of places from more than a couple of people must be addressed in an open forum.

I DID NOT IMPLY IN MY COMMENTS FROM THE PULPIT YESTERDAY THAT IF ONE DID NOT BRING BANANA PUDDING TO THE CHURCH POTLUCK ONE COULD NOT BE SAVED!!!

I merely commented that a church potluck isn’t really a church potluck without banana pudding. That’s all. The fact that we had about three dozen banana puddings at the dinner last night only proves I really didn’t need to say anything about it at all. Of course, I exaggerate. However, I’m taking bids now to secure my services for March 29. For the highest bidder, I’ll mention your favorite dessert from the pulpit while making an announcement about that night’s supper. Right now, I’m up to $35 for Key Lime Pie.

What a fantastic night last night. Well over 500 of us brought our favorite dishes and shared a common meal together a la Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 10 & 11. The quantity of food was mind-boggling. The variety was spellbinding. Only at a church potluck can you get chicken enchiladas, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the same plate. And love it. It was loud. It was chaotic. It was fun. And it was theologically beautiful.

Yes, a church potluck is a re-enactment of the gospel. A common meal. A common table. Every nation, tribe, language, and people. Everyone bringing something to the body. A gift of creamed corn. A talent of chocolate pie. A blessing of homemade egg rolls from our brand new sister in Christ who’s still wet behind the ears from her baptism that morning. All these abilities, all these contributions, all these gifts brought to the table to form one amazingly wonderful meal that serves to nourish the entire body.

Last night’s dinner was even more special as we witnessed our junior high boys and girls make vows of purity to their parents, to their friends, to their church family, and to their God. Over the din of crying babies and clanging forks, their parents made similar vows of love and availability and support. And then the whole church body stood and made vows to those families, vows to hold them accountable, to encourage them, to celebrate with them in their victories and mourn with them in their defeats. In the presence of our heavenly Father and each other, in the name of Christ, and by the power of his Holy Spirit. Running the race together. Passing the baton of faith. Through laughter and tears, promising to act like a real family.

And as great as all that was, the real capper of the evening was the sharing of the communion meal together as a church family. Around the table(s). Real tables and real chairs. In the context of a shared meal. A real meal with real food and real drink. A public acknowledgment that we are enjoying this meal together because of what God has done for us in Christ. A recognition that we are brothers and sisters together because of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. Again, over the noise of restless toddlers. Through the “distractions” of extra activity. Looking people in the eyes instead of staring at the backs of their heads. Giggling with each other when someone dropped a tray in the back. An encouraging wink during and after the prayers. A pat on the hand. Personal, but not private. Putting the “community” back in communion. “Recognizing the body of the Lord.” Making communion truly communal again.

Legacy is one great potluckin’ church! And I’m so grateful to belong to this body of believers that sees and understands the gospel value of a shared common meal.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Church (Page 52 of 61)

His Glorious Riches

Tulsa Time

A New Sign

Called To Die

That We May Be One

The Gospel According To Potluck

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