Category: Cowboys (Page 33 of 54)

Every Family in God's Service

“…to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the Body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” ~Ephesians 4:12-13

 Every Family in God’s Service

At the beginning of December, Legacy’s shepherds and ministers got together for a weekend leadership retreat in Glen Rose. We spent a couple of hours praying, by name, for every single individual and every family in our congregation. And as we discussed God’s purposes for his church and talked about Legacy’s future, our members’ pictures continually scrolled across the screen in front of us.

If you’re a Legacy member, you were at that meeting. You were.

We know that we are called by our God to work for and enjoy the unity we have in Christ. We know that we are to increase in our knowledge of Christ. And we know that we are to grow up spiritually to become more like our Savior every day. Fortunately for us, God’s Word makes it plain as to how a church achieves these holy objectives. By his grace, yes. By the saving blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, yes. And by works of service.

Serving others. Sacrificing for others. Living our lives — giving our lives — for others in the manner of our Lord directly results in Christian unity and spiritual maturity. It’s all connected.

So Ephesians 4:12-13 is the perfect passage of Scripture to guide us as Legacy lives up to and in to the will of our Father.

Special thanks to Ronnie Bates who designed our new church logo that reflects this vision statement. Ronnie and Lance Parrish did a ton of work on this thing in a very short amount of time. Thank you, also, to Lisa Clifton, Suzanne West, and Sandy Hamilton for the beautiful lettering leading into and going out of our worship center. Seeing the three of them together on that lift Saturday night was as entertaining as it was inspiring.

Legacy Vision  Legacy Going In  Legacy Going Out

2010 is going to be a year of transition for us here at Legacy. Growth. Maturity. Discipline. Accountability to one another and to our Lord. Some of the change won’t be easy. We’re going to be challenged to be more like Christ. We’re going to intentionally let go of some things and zero in with greater focus on other things. We’re going to be much more active in our community. We’re going to concentrate on completely giving ourselves to God in every imaginable context.

“Every Family in God’s Service” means every family, every member, every body. It means “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

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Whitney & Bonny and the prelude to the Connect Four Death MatchThanks to everyone who made our Legacy New Year’s Eve party a smashing success. Congratulations to the Simmons/Jones Small Group for winning Family Feud. In defense of the Byrnes/Stanglin Small Group, the integrity of the whole game is in doubt when the question is “Name a movie that had at least two sequels” and the survey does not say “Indiana Jones”

I’m not quite sure how Dillon and Shanna wound up winning our eight rounds of Pit, especially since Brian Gray went Pit!corner twice when he didn’t have the necessary cards — once when he was holding the Bear. Everybody was taking advantage of the sweetness of LuRee Proctor. It was brutal. And loud. David has the video. If he were ruthless and mean, he could probably blackmail Carrie-Anne.

Sparklers at midnight for all the kids is always a great idea. Until a couple of boys start lighting them and throwing them up in the air. Nobody died. Happy New Year.

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Cotton BowlThanks to the supreme generosity of Glenn and Karen Branscum, my family and I were able to enjoy Saturday’s Cotton Bowl in his suite at Jerry Wayne’s new stadium. The suite was filled with tons of Oklahoma State Aggies, including the likes of our new children’s minister, Jennifer Gambill, and her Emma, Carley, & Valeriefamily; Larry and Deanna Tolleson and their boys; Ron Frost and his whole family from Stillwater; and our great friends Billy and Shannon Whiteley and their girls. It was quite possibly the worst football game I’ve ever watched. Ever. High school, college, pro. Ever. Twelve turnovers. Dropped passes. Missed tackles. It was ugly. It was so bad I was afraid the officials were going to step out onto the field during the third quarter and just cancel the rest of the game. Up in the suite, though, we had a marvelous time. Great hospitality, wonderful friends, and memories galore.

Jordan, Valerie, Carley, and ReaganAnd, did you notice the new Cotton Bowl trophy is actually a silver and gold plated replica of Jerry Wayne’s stadium? No one’s better at destroying decades of history in a single self-centered moment than the Cowboys owner.

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Wade PhillipsBy the way, I must admit, the Cowboys look great. Wow. Back-to-back shutouts for the first time in the 50-year history of the franchise. NFC East champs. Three-game winning streak heading into Saturday’s playoff opener at home against a team they just demoralized. They look very, very good. Romo’s making perfect decisions. Nobody’s missing tackles. Barber and Felix are both healthy and running strong at the same time, maybe, for the first time this year. Smiles Austin is catching everything. And I think Wade Phillips Miles Austinhas gone 15-straight quarters now without spilling ketchup or relish on his shirt.

Wade has never, ever won a playoff game in his NFL head coaching career. Andy Reid has never, ever lost a playoff opener in his NFL head coaching career. The Cowboys have lost every single time they’ve faced a team in the playoffs they had already defeated twice during the regular season.

But the Cowboys look young and athletic and confident while the Eagles look old and slow and uncertain. Saturday’s game should be extremely entertaining. I can’t wait. TCU

Go Frogs!

Allan

Catching Up

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Spike Dykes…

Amanda&RachelSince the last post (Good gravy! Was it really two weeks ago? Sorry.) we’ve been up to Searcy for Harding’s winter graduation. My brother, Keith, led the invocation; his wife, Amanda, walked the stage to get her diploma; and we all hung together there for a couple of days and knocked out Christmas. I picked up great pastoral points for being up there for two of our Legacy kids: Jordan Bailey with a perfect 4.0 on the President’s List and Jonathan Stein with a 3.95. All the really smart kids go to Legacy. The highlight of the trip came during lunch at a Searcy restaurant Sunday afternoon when a lady from Paris, Texas recognized my dad from the 1.5 seconds they show his picture on the Tyler TV station as a weather watcher. We think he’s being stalked. Larry’sPizza

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We were extra blessed to be able to spend the night on the way to Searcy and again on the way home in Benton, Arkansas with our great friends, Jimmy & Elizabeth Mitchell. Jim & Mandy Gardner have moved back to Benton after three years or so at the Woodward Park Church of Christ in Fresno, California to preach at his hometown congregation where Jimmy is the youth minister. So it was a great reunion with the Mitchells and Gardners. Our three families grew really close during our nearly two years together in Marble Falls. And we did all of our catching up at Larry’s. Where else?

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Let it snow!Here at home it snowed like crazy all day and most of the night on Christmas Eve. So much so that we were forced to cancel our Christmas Eve Service. It was the first white Christmas in DFW in 80 years. The kids and I drove out here to the church building to change the sign and send out a mass email regarding the evening service. And then we did donuts in the parking lot and threw snowballs at each other until we couldn’t feel our fingers or toes. We spent the later part of the night curled up with big bowls of popcorn and glasses of egg nog and Carrie-Anne’s favorite Christmas movie, Albert Finney’s “Scrooge.” Christmas morning, Santa brought Whitney a cell phone, although she seemed just as excited about her Colt McCoy jersey. Valerie got all kinds of clothes and accessories, many with a zebra-print theme. And Carley got a stereo and a watch. None of our girls are little anymore.

Whitney   Valerie   Carley 

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The SimpsonsThe Pope and I are finally in agreement on a very sticky theological issue. The head of the Catholic Church came out last week and praised “The Simpsons” on the show’s 20th anniversary. He cited the show’s clever writing and acknowledged the show’s important social criticism of religion. You can read about it here. I’ve long said “The Simpsons” is the only prime time television show on a major network in which all the characters regularly go to church, good is rewarded and evil is punished, sex outside marriage is portrayed as wrong, and people who drink and smoke are viewed as disgusting. You can’t find those kinds of Christian values on any other TV show. I join the Pope in congratulating “The Simpsons.”

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CowboysAnd the Cowboys have clinched a playoff berth. Jerry Wayne’s team is the only team in the NFL that hasn’t won a playoff game in the past twelve years. (The Texans don’t count; they haven’t been around twelve years.) In fact, there are only three teams in the NFC that haven’t played in the conference championship game in the past twelve years: Detroit, the Redskins, and Dallas. Why would anybody think this version of Jerry’s kids will break the string? Wade Phillips has never won a Keith Brooking & Mark Cuban. Have anyone seen them in the same place at the same time?playoff game in his head coaching career. The Cowboys are 3-5 against teams with winning records this season. And they are zero for their last 19 in a row on 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-1 dives by Marion Barber. Plus, has anyone else noticed that they’ve got Mark Cuban playing linebacker?

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Lastly, Jim McDoniel and Jennifer Gambill are dominating our Legacy office college football bowl challenge. They are. But there are still 23 games remaining. It’s a long way from over.

Go Bruins and Canes,

Allan

Common to Man

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.” ~1 Corinthians 10:13

Common to ManWe live in an age of unparalleled developments in technology. We are subject now to an unprecedented and seemingly endless stream of information. We face new physical and emotional and mental diseases that were unheard of a century ago. Natural disasters and human warfare are on the rise, not the decline. And all of these things are adding to the amount of suffering in this world. It might be that human suffering is, today, occurring on a scale unmatched in the history of mankind.

Isn’t it reassuring to know that the temptations we face are nothing new?

External circumstances are different. Very different. But the spiritual dynamics of what we face as God’s children living in these circumstances remain unchanged. The natural inclination to say “my problems” or “our issues” or “this country” is/are different or worse than what anyone else has ever experienced is simply not accurate. The contemporary practice of blaming the way I am on God or my parents or our society or the devil is just not right, unless it also includes an honest acknowledgement of my own sinful nature.

Nothing has changed. Everything’s the same. We have always been tempted to depend on ourselves instead of God. We’ve always been tempted to trust ourselves and our own strength while putting our God and Savior on the backburner. Yes, we need our Father in heaven. But we don’t need him for everything. Yes, our God is important. But he’s not that important.

“God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” ~1 Corinthians 10:13

I think sometimes we want to re-write the above verse to read, “…so that you don’t have to stand up under it any longer.” We’ll complain sometimes that God didn’t provide the “way out” because he didn’t deliver me from the troubling situation. That, of course, is just the opposite of what Paul wrote. It’s the opposite of what he intends. It’s the opposite of what God inspired. The “way out” isn’t the removal of the temptation. It’s not the removal of the situation or the circumstance in which you find yourself being tempted. The “way out” is the strength provided by the Spirit of God, the endurance and perseverence provided to stand strong and faithful under the pressure.

Look back at the times you’ve yielded to temptation. Last year. In the last hour. Who knows what would have happened if you had just hung on for 30-more seconds. If you had just stood strong and said ‘no’ to the temptation for just half-a-minute more, who knows if the temptation itself wouldn’t have just vanished. You don’t know how close you really were to that victory over Satan, to that tremendous boost of confidence that comes with defeating the devil and his schemes.

Be strong. Walk with your God always, faithful to the end. You’re not going through anything right now that’s not common to man. He knows. He endured the same things. And he will give you the power you need to stand up under it.

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Allright, I need your help. I’ve asked once, with no reply. I’ll try one more time:

CowboysCan anybody find an explanation or a reason the Dallas Cowboys are not sporting a 50th season patch on their uniforms this year? Have you read anything or heard anything about it? The team wore “Silver Season” patches in 1984 to celebrate their 25th year. In 1999 they donned 40th season emblems. They’ve honored Tom Landry with a fedora patch. They broke out a one-time stadium patch to inaugurate Jerry Wayne’s new monster in Arlington for that initial home game this year. They wear sponsor patches on their practice jerseys like some kind of little league rec team. Where’s the 50th season patch?

Eight other NFL franchises are recognizing their 50th seasons this year with a commemorative patch on their game uniforms: Bills, Broncos, Chiefs, Jets, Raiders, Chargers, and Oilers/Titans. I understand those are all old original AFL teams. And their patches all feature the old AFL logo. I just don’t understand a guy like Jerry Wayne who will do anything and everything to market his brand (see 3D disaster last Sunday) not designing a patch for the 50th.

Unless it has something to do with Cowboys history. Pre-Jerry Wayne history. And his reluctance to honor it. Or his desire to break from it. See, that can’t be right, either. I know it can’t. Surely the owner/GM understands it’s that very history of Murchison, Schramm, and Landry that makes his franchise as valuable as it is. Without Lilly and Meredith and Staubach and Dorsett, Jerry doesn’t even bother buying the Cowboys. He’s acknowledged that before.

But he builds this new stadium and he puts the 14 Ring of Honor names from the Schramm/Landry years on one side of the stadium and the three names from the current Jerry Wayne era on the other. Separate and apart. No Super Bowl banners have been hung in that new place yet. Where’s Emmitt’s all-time rushing champion banner?

Whoa. Sorry. I’m sidetracking, big time. I need to stop or I’ll be writing all day about the video board, the play clocks, the score board, the 3D, the roof, the kicker, the GM, and everything else that’s wrong. Back to the original question. Please, somebody help me out on this. What do we know about the 50th season patch?

Peace,

Allan

Attention All "Moderate" Churches

I’ve added Jay Guin’s blog, One in Jesus, to my list of links there on the right hand side of this page. Jay is a long-time elder at the Alberta Church of Christ in Alabama. And I find his writings provocative and inspirational. It’s addicting. I’ll get on his site once a week and easily spend a couple of hours reading his articles regarding our walk with Christ in our American Restoration churches. His scholarship is obvious. His research is more than thorough. And he comes at delicate issues and explosive topics with a humility and grace that reveal Christ in him.

I’ve thought about adding him to my blogrole for several months now. Here’s what put me over the top: an article he wrote in March 2007 about leading a moderate church. The article was just pointed out to me late last week. It’s excellent.

Overseeing the Moderate ChurchIf you’re a preacher or an elder or a ministry leader of a congregation that positions itself as “moderate” or, God forbid, “middle-of-the-road,” you absolutely must read this article. It’s called Overseeing the Moderate Church. After reading this article, you may feel that Jay has been a member of your congregation for 20 years and spends his evenings under the table where your elders meet. Or that he’s tapped your phones.

A moderate church has leaders and members at every conceivable point on that dreadful A-B Line. (Please see my previous posts Jumping Off the Line and Jumping Off the Line: Part Two.) When they come together on Sunday mornings they’re all over the map. And, instead of addressing the inevitable disagreements from Scripture, we ignore them. Or we try to manage them. Or we make political compromises. The inarguable truth of what Guin presents here will frighten you. It may also — possibly — give you great comfort to know that your church isn’t the only one facing the perils that come with a theologically-divided church led by theologically-divided elders and ministers and staff.

The inspiration comes in Jay’s instructions to leaders and members of these churches: “The solution is for the leadership to lead.”

In this case, leading means teaching a version of the Gospel that encourages people to accept one another despite their differences. This means the centerpiece of the church’s teaching has to be love and unity and grace. Now, this shouldn’t be a problem, as this happens to be the centerpiece of the New Testament’s ethical instructions for Christians (read, for example, Romans 12-15).

You simply cannot be Christ-like and care more about your preferences than those of your brothers and sisters. There is no other Gospel. Guin says the key is for elders and staff to insist on this attitude of love and unity and grace, on the Philippians 2 principles of considering others better than ourselves.

This means asking those who refuse to comply to leave. Selfishness is simply intolerable in church. Jesus died to cure it, and if we insist in wallowing in our self-love, we’ll damn ourselves.

Just read the article. It’s called Overseeing the Moderate Church. Get to it by clicking Overseeing the Moderate Church. His website, One in Jesus, is here and in my links list to the right.

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Making up division ground by not playing!If the Cowboys can schedule three more bye-weeks, they’ll take over the lead in the NFC East and make the playoffs and Wade Phillips can keep his job.

Peace,

Allan

I Still Got It

Giants 33, Cowboys 31I suppose you regular readers have already taken note that I absolutely nailed the outcome of last night’s Cowboys-Giants game, including a lot of the details, well over a week ago in my game-by-game predictions of the 2009 season. I said Eli Manning would throw two touchdown passes. He did. I said he’d go 7-8 in the last 2:00 and the Giants would win it in heart-breaking fashion on the last play of the game. In actuality, Manning went 7-10 on that last drive, setting up the game-winning field goal at the gun. I also predicted that Roy Williams would only have one catch in the loss. He did. I missed the final score. But you get the idea. You can go back to those pre-season predictions to see what’s going to happen Monday night against the Panthers by clicking here.

Opening KickoffMy friend Glenn Branscum came through for me again. By his grace I was able to attend last night’s regular season home opener with Doug, Todd, and Scott up in his luxury suite. Forty-seven of us total up in that huge suite, including Russ and his family and Cody M. What a blast! To be there for that historic kickoff, the unveiling of the names around the new Ring of Honor, and all the dignitaries and pageantry of that opening night was a true blessing. My deepest thanks to Glenn. And to Scott for driving. And for knowing how to make U-turns.

I’m taller than Walt Garrison when he’s not wearing his hat. Yes, he still looks like he could run over anybody. And, yes, he was enjoying “just a pinch between his cheek and gum.”The highlight of the night, as far as I was concerned, was looking up about an hour before kickoff to see Walt Garrison walk into our suite. He and Preston Pearson were making the rounds and they both stayed in our room for almost 45-minutes. I was thrilled to be able to talk to Walt about the legendary stories of those early ’70s Cowboys, attempting to separate fact from myth. I’ve read the stories about Walt sneaking out after team meetings on Saturday nights to bull ride down at the Mansfield rodeo. He’s told me in a telephone interview about being busted by Tom Landry after a rodeo official called the coach to thank him for letting Walt rope and ride bulls the nights before football games. But to stand there right beside him and interact with him as he re-told the tales was priceless.Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dumb

As for the game itself, Cowboys fans may want to blame Doug. He was visiting with Wade Phillips before the game and suggested to the Cowboys coach they let Romo call his own plays. On his way off the field, Doug also whispered to Flozell Adams that if he kicked Justin Tuck in the thigh in the middle of a play, nobody would notice.

I’ll wait a while before making too many comments about the new stadium. There are some disappointments with several aspects of the venue and the game presentation I’ll write about later. And I can’t tell you how upset I am about the commemorative patch the team is sporting on its jerseys. Suffice it to say, for now, this whole thing, all of it, is solely about Jerry Wayne. It’s all about Jerry.

Jerry ought to be more than a little concerned about his quarterback. And his secondary. And his pass rush.

No more blogging until next Monday, September 28. I’m flying out to Fresno, California this Wednesday for the annual Spiritual Growth Workshop at the Woodward Park Church of Christ where my great friend Jim Gardner is the preacher. I’m speaking three times on Christ’s fulfillment of the Law: God’s Eternal Intentions, Christ’s Eternal Fulfillment, Our Eternal Righteousness. Gardner’s also got me delivering the Saturday night keynote on salt and light and teaching a combined adult class at his congregation Sunday morning. What an honor. I love that Woodward Park church. A thousand people. And only 600 of them speak English. A true Kingdom experience to worship with that multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-languaged, economically-diverse body of believers.

Pray for us to have a great week in Fresno and for our God to overcome my shortcomings and prove his power in my weakness to bless everybody who attends.

Peace,

Allan

I Still Got It

Giants 33, Cowboys 31I suppose you regular readers have already taken note that I absolutely nailed the outcome of last night’s Cowboys-Giants game, including a lot of the details, well over a week ago in my game-by-game predictions of the 2009 season. I said Eli Manning would throw two touchdown passes. He did. I said he’d go 7-8 in the last 2:00 and the Giants would win it in heart-breaking fashion on the last play of the game. In actuality, Manning went 7-10 on that last drive, setting up the game-winning field goal at the gun. I also predicted that Roy Williams would only have one catch in the loss. He did. I missed the final score. But you get the idea. You can go back to those pre-season predictions to see what’s going to happen Monday night against the Panthers by clicking here.

Opening KickoffMy friend Glenn Branscum came through for me again. By his grace I was able to attend last night’s regular season home opener with Doug, Todd, and Scott up in his luxury suite. Forty-seven of us total up in that huge suite, including Russ and his family and Cody M. What a blast! To be there for that historic kickoff, the unveiling of the names around the new Ring of Honor, and all the dignitaries and pageantry of that opening night was a true blessing. My deepest thanks to Glenn. And to Scott for driving. And for knowing how to make U-turns.

I’m taller than Walt Garrison when he’s not wearing his hat. Yes, he still looks like he could run over anybody. And, yes, he was enjoying “just a pinch between his cheek and gum.”The highlight of the night, as far as I was concerned, was looking up about an hour before kickoff to see Walt Garrison walk into our suite. He and Preston Pearson were making the rounds and they both stayed in our room for almost 45-minutes. I was thrilled to be able to talk to Walt about the legendary stories of those early ’70s Cowboys, attempting to separate fact from myth. I’ve read the stories about Walt sneaking out after team meetings on Saturday nights to bull ride down at the Mansfield rodeo. He’s told me in a telephone interview about being busted by Tom Landry after a rodeo official called the coach to thank him for letting Walt rope and ride bulls the nights before football games. But to stand there right beside him and interact with him as he re-told the tales was priceless.Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dumb

As for the game itself, Cowboys fans may want to blame Doug. He was visiting with Wade Phillips before the game and suggested to the Cowboys coach they let Romo call his own plays. On his way off the field, Doug also whispered to Flozell Adams that if he kicked Justin Tuck in the thigh in the middle of a play, nobody would notice.

I’ll wait a while before making too many comments about the new stadium. There are some disappointments with several aspects of the venue and the game presentation I’ll write about later. And I can’t tell you how upset I am about the commemorative patch the team is sporting on its jerseys. Suffice it to say, for now, this whole thing, all of it, is solely about Jerry Wayne. It’s all about Jerry.

Jerry ought to be more than a little concerned about his quarterback. And his secondary. And his pass rush.

No more blogging until next Monday, September 28. I’m flying out to Fresno, California this Wednesday for the annual Spiritual Growth Workshop at the Woodward Park Church of Christ where my great friend Jim Gardner is the preacher. I’m speaking three times on Christ’s fulfillment of the Law: God’s Eternal Intentions, Christ’s Eternal Fulfillment, Our Eternal Righteousness. Gardner’s also got me delivering the Saturday night keynote on salt and light and teaching a combined adult class at his congregation Sunday morning. What an honor. I love that Woodward Park church. A thousand people. And only 600 of them speak English. A true Kingdom experience to worship with that multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-languaged, economically-diverse body of believers.

Pray for us to have a great week in Fresno and for our God to overcome my shortcomings and prove his power in my weakness to bless everybody who attends.

Peace,

Allan

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