The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Evangelism (Page 1 of 20)

Reality Mission

May 5, 2025 / / 0 Comments

“The Word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart; that is, the Word of faith we are proclaiming. That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved… How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?… Faith comes from hearing the message.” ~Romans 10:8-17

Over the past few decades, we have gotten away from speaking the Good News. Of course, we still believe that God grants us salvation by his grace through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We haven’t stopped believing. But we’ve stopped talking. We don’t proclaim with our mouths the way we used to, the way we need to.

What do I say? I don’t know what to say!

It might help if we saw our calling to proclaim not so much as engaging a rescue mission, but participating in a reality mission. Ours is a reality mission. The undeniable reality is that someday every knee will bow. Someday every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus is Lord! And the day is certainly coming when all of creation will bow before him and recognize it. So we declare to our neighbors and friends, “You need to change jerseys! There is only one Lord and he is Jesus! You need to be on his side!”

It’s like declaring that dinner’s going to be ready at 6:00. You tell your teenaged kids or you tell your husband, “Hey, we’re eating at 6:00!” They may not show up. They may choose to ignore your declaration or reject your announcement. But you’re still throwing it out there: The food will be on the table at 6:00. You are a messenger with a message.

Have you spoken the Good News lately to somebody who really needs to hear it? Can you picture yourself saying to someone, “Christ Jesus has become for you your righteousness, holiness, and redemption.” Can’t you tell somebody, “Salvation comes by no other name than that of Jesus.” Can’t you say those kinds of things to the people God is placing right in front of you every day?

The Word is near you. It is in your mouth. It is in your heart.

Peace,

Allan

Trusting the Good News

April 24, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Every single time the New Testament says somebody is filled with the Holy Spirit, without exception, their mouths open and they start talking about Jesus. Most of those instances are in Acts and Luke, but they are all remarkably consistent. And intentional. The Bible is telling us that the indwelling Spirit gives us the power, he gives us the boldness and courage, to share the Good News with others. You can do and say things for our Lord Jesus with God living inside you that you could never do by yourself.

This is God’s plan. This is how he works. It’s part of the Good News. The problem is, we don’t trust it. We don’t always trust the way God works to spread the Good News and expand his Kingdom to save people.

We don’t trust the Gospel to connect and transform people. Or we don’t trust God’s way or God’s Spirit to communicate his Good News through us. We forget that there’s not one single person I could talk to about Jesus that God’s Spirit hasn’t already been working on. When God puts somebody in my path and an opportunity right in front of me, the fact is that he has been convincing them and drawing them and preparing them for a while now. God’s already started something with this person a long time ago and he’d be thrilled if I just jumped in and shared the fun.

Pew Research released their state of the church report two weeks ago. According to their surveys and research, in 2007,  63% of all Texans went to church at least once a month. In 2024, just 17 years later, the percentage of Texas residents who go to church at least once a month is down to 38%. The odds are right now today higher than they’ve ever been in your life that your next-door-neighbor doesn’t go to church. The odds are higher right now than they’ve ever been since you were born that your co-worker is not a Christian.

And I’m guessing you don’t know how to talk to them about it. The very thought of talking to your friend or neighbor about Jesus or about the Good News makes your stomach fall into your socks. You say you don’t know how to have a spiritual conversation.

Yes, you do. You just don’t trust it. You don’t trust the Good News. Or you don’t trust God’s plan or God’s Spirit.

Talking to people about Jesus is a Holy Spirit activity. You don’t have to start anything with your neighbor or classmate; God’s already started it! Our Lord tells us that God’s Spirit is at work around the clock convincing men and women, exposing what’s wrong in the world, and drawing all people to himself. The Holy Spirit is convicting people of their sin and compelling men and women to seek righteousness and avoid judgment. God’s Spirit is working hard on people all around you. And this same Spirit lives inside you, empowering you like you can’t believe.

Pray that God will open a door, pray that you proclaim Christ clearly, and make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:3-5). The Holy Spirit will put the person directly in front of you, the Holy Spirit will tell you what to say, and the Holy Spirit will do with your conversation what’s going to be best, what he’s already planned and been working on. If you’ll only trust the Good News.

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The Dallas Stars have played three games against Colorado in this first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, they have led the Avalanche for a total of just 62-seconds, and yet they are leading the series two games to one. Two come-from-behind overtime thrillers. Last night, the Stars had to kill off a four-minute double-minor power play at the end of regulation and at the start of overtime just to get to Tyler Seguin’s sudden death winner. For drama, athleticism, pressure, grit, adrenaline, anticipation, and edge-of-your seat tension, there is nothing better than overtime playoff hockey. It’s like having a heart attack on a roller coaster in an electrical storm. Can’t wait til Saturday.

Go Stars

Allan

Re-Thinking: Part 2

April 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments

My good friend Blu Malone sent me this picture yesterday. A good friend knows you well enough to understand what really irritates you and how to use it to make you laugh. Well done. I love this. I would like it on a sticker. Like six of them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Here at GCR, we’re trying to tackle the reluctance we have to speak to our friends and neighbors about Jesus. We haven’t stopped believing in Jesus Christ as our risen and coming Lord and the source off all truth and light and the only way to salvation. But we have mostly stopped talking. We’re not sharing the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the way we used to. It seems to me that as we address the problem, we should acknowledge a few things we need to stop believing. There are some things we accept as real, that just simply aren’t. And those things can keep us from sharing the Gospel with the people God puts right in front of us every day.

I mentioned two of these things in this space yesterday. We need to stop believing that the Church is in decline and that the Church is irrelevant. Here are three more things we need to stop believing so that we’ll feel more able to talk about Jesus with others.

Don’t believe that people in our culture are not seeking God. It’s not true. Yes, we live in a pluralistic, post-modern, post-Christian society now and there’s no going back. Yes, Christianity is no longer viewed as the only way to God and truth is no longer a fixed, eternal reality. Truth is now something each person decides for himself or herself. And, yes, there are more agnostics, skeptics, and atheists in this country than there’s ever been. But that doesn’t mean they’re not searching. They’re all searching! They’re all seeking! And there’s tremendous potential here for God’s Church.

The research is showing that we’re on the front edge of a backlash against all the pluralism and individualism in the U.S. We’re discovering that living in a world without universal truth is a lousy way to live. We’re learning that addiction to our screens and earbuds isn’t healthy, that it’s doing real damage to our relationships and what it means to be human. And people are looking for something else. They’re searching for a meaning outside of themselves. They’re seeking a purpose higher than their own tweets and posts, something more important than their careers and entertainment. People today are starting to recognize all the noise and clutter for what it is and they’re looking for something genuine and authentic. Something they can trust. People are open to it. People are seeking. And that gives the Church an exciting opportunity.

And what about the idea that everybody’s a Christian? No, we’ve got to stop believing that everybody in Midland or everybody in your town already goes to church. Because they don’t. And we also need to stop believing that people who don’t follow Christ have all heard the Good News about Jesus and thought it through and made the choice to reject it. That’s not true. Census data in Midland County and a couple of more recent surveys show that almost 50% of the people in our city don’t have a church home. Almost half! Barna research that was released last week shows that only 38% of the people in Texas go to church at least once a month. The chances are higher right now than they’ve ever been in your lifetime that your next-door-neighbor doesn’t go to church.

And there’s an increasing number of people who just don’t know much at all about Jesus. Over the last couple of decades, kids in this country are being raised differently than the ways you and I were probably raised. And there are lots of men and women in their 20s and 30s who’ve never heard the Good News. They’ve never heard it. We need to stop believing everybody has.

And we must stop believing that the Gospel is too complicated to share. The Good News of salvation from God in Christ is not hard. It’s simple. But for several generations now–for sure in Churches of Christ, I think–we’ve put too much emphasis on knowing all the details of our rules and regulations and being able to explain and proof-text our inconsistencies and loopholes, that we’ve made sharing the Gospel kind of scary. We’ve turned into a people who’d rather not say anything to our friends about Jesus than risk saying something “wrong” or not being able to answer a tricky question. For a variety of reasons, we’ve come to believe it’s a sin to admit to somebody, “I don’t know.”

The Good News is not complicated. It’s the very simple and beautiful truth that God’s eternal salvation through his crucified and risen Son Jesus is a gift. It’s a loving gift. And his limitless grace continually washes us and covers the stuff we don’t know.

If God is for us, who can be against us? Who’s going to oppose us? What’s going to stop us? What are we afraid of? Trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or sword? The culture, the media, the government, or the atheists? No! In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us!

It looked bad when the world carried out the crucifixion of Jesus. But God used it to save all humanity. It felt bad when the world executed Stephen and scattered the Church. But God used it to expand the borders of his eternal Kingdom. Today, we can be certain that our God is using the circumstances and conditions in Midland right now, and in your community, to do more through his Church than we can possibly dare to ask or imagine.

The question is: What do you believe?

Peace,

Allan

Net Fishing

March 18, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Carrie-Anne and I were blessed by God over Spring Break to travel with Travis and Donna McGraw and Bryan and Becky Gibbs to visit some of our GCR missions partners in Brazil. We took off and landed eight different times over the nine days, from DFW to Rio and Sao Paulo and from there to Foz do Iguacu and back, mixing in some incredible sight-seeing while meeting and getting to know some of God’s greatest servants.

Our first stop was in Niteroi, where we were privileged to worship and I was honored to preach with our brothers and sisters at Nathan and Sarah Zinck’s church. Carrie-Anne and I have known the Zincks since our days at Legacy when they were in the beginning stages of raising support for the mission in Niteroi. Nathan translated–paraphrased (?)–while I preached the groaning and glory from the middle of Romans 8. And we sang in Portuguese some of our favorite songs like Love Lifted Me, Because He Lives, Oceans, and You Are Holy. GCR provides financial support for the seasonal interns who work with the Zincks, and it was good to meet them and see where they live.

 

 

 

 

While we were in Niteroi / Rio, we took a train to the top of Mount Corcovado to see the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks the city.  Nathan gave Carrie-Anne and me a personal tour of Sugarloaf Mountain, the 1,300-foot peak that rises straight out of Guanabara Bay and is accessed only by a series of cable cars. I also accidentally ate a grilled chicken heart. And we enjoyed a lot of really good Brazilian pizza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there it was off to Campo Grande and the Ser Cris Bible School that GCR has supported financially and spiritually since its establishment in 2001. I had met Zanatta, the school’s director, last fall when he visited us in Midland. But what a joy to hang out with his wonderful wife, Leila! And what a thrill to meet the talented professors and staff at this important school. I so enjoyed talking American football with Breno and Gabriela and listening to his deep thoughts on the damage digital media is doing to the Church’s witness and our Christian discipleship–kindred spirits! David was so generous and kind. Jose Luiz was so hospitable in hosting us. It was obvious to see the love these teachers have for one another and the great team they are together. And they merged us right into the jokes and the prayers, the planning and the ministry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ser Cris is an ecumenical training school for preachers, missionaries, and church planters and anyone wanting a good, solid theological education. A dozen different churches have been started by graduates of Ser Cris in eight different Brazilian states. And the numbers of students is finally on an upswing again after some COVID and post-COVID dips.

And I was diagnosed with pneumonia on Tuesday. I spent six-hours in a Campo Grande emergency room with Carrie-Anne, Becky, and Leila. Blood tests, a CT scan, two breathing treatments, and three prescriptions. Total cost for all of it: $330. Socialized medicine? Why not!

We added two days of sight-seeing to the end of our trip so we could visit Parque Nacional do Iguacu where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay all come together at the incredible Iguassu Falls. It took all of both days to see the glorious canyons and hundreds of falls, from the tops of the cliffs on the Argentina side to the roaring and foaming pools on the Brazilian side. I have no words to adequately describe the beauty and the power of these waterfalls. And the hundreds of pictures and video I took don’t come near doing any of it justice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got home Saturday afternoon, thankfully, the day after one of the worst wind and dust storms Midland has seen in decades. And, yes, of course, I have already been to Whataburger and Abuelo’s.

There are tons of things to write regarding this extraordinary trip. There is so much I am still processing; our time in Brazil was significant on several levels. But let me attempt to share with you today a main takeaway. This is important.

When our Lord Jesus says we are fishers of people, I typically picture one guy–me–holding a rod and reel. Back when I used to fish around the Highland Lakes in Central Texas, I used a rod and reel from a friend’s boat or from the top of Wirtz or Starcke Dams. Fishing, to me, has always been experienced as a solo venture, just me and my line and hook.

But that is not how God sends us out. We’re not sent into the mission with a rod and reel, but with one giant net. Followers of Jesus are net-fishers. God is redeeming the world and restoring all of creation with one huge net and every single one of us has our hands on it. It takes all of us, in our own time and context, with our own gifts and abilities, to drag this soul-winning net all over the globe.

It’s not the size of a volleyball net, it spans the continents and centuries of human time and space. It takes disciples of all ages to hang onto it. And we all play a part in the net’s sweeps and dips. A song written by Charles Wesley here. A plane assembled by Boeing there. A pie baked by a widow in 1843. A sermon preached in the 6th century. An invitation to church. An encouraging word. A check sent. A GCR mission trip to Brazil in the 1980s. A baby adopted. A door knocked. A burden shared. A hospital visit. A Gospel meeting. A Vacation Bible School. A thank you note. An article in that biblical journal. The weaving together of all our individual and meager threads becomes God’s great net.

Do you see it?

The net sweeps across the whole world and back. It turns and dips to snag one more soul, to start one more chain reaction you and I never could have planned or seen coming. While you and I were sleeping last night, the net was moving by the power of God’s salvation Spirit. Maybe there is a soldier in Ukraine or a single mom in Vermont or a taxi driver in Tokyo or a school teacher in Kenya who’s been swept up into the net by the love of Christ since you went to bed last night.

I’m holding the same net that’s being held by Zanatta and Breno, which is the same net still being held by the apostles Peter and Paul. You are working the same holy net that’s being held by Nathan and Sarah Zinck and Eugene Goudeau and Jack McGraw. You think you cover an insignificant amount of square footage in God’s Kingdom. But you really cover the whole earth with our God’s glorious net.

Peace,

Allan

See the Light. Be the Light.

December 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

John the Baptist is sitting in a jail cell. He’s sitting in darkness. He sends word to Jesus. “How do we know you’re the one? Are you really the answer to all our prayers, or do we need to keep looking?”

Jesus says, “Keep looking for what? It’s right in front of you!”

“Go back and report to John what you hear and see. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor!” ~Matthew 11:4-5

You and I can see the Kingdom of God being ushered in by Jesus. The Christ is born in the city of David and hurting people are comforted. Distressed people are encouraged. Everywhere Jesus goes, hopeless people are filled with hope. Prisoners are released and captives are given their freedom. Jesus walks in and sick people are made well, sinful people are forgiven. Jesus shows up and the devil’s grip on God’s people is broken forever. You can see Jesus bringing in the promised Kingdom of God!

And we walk in his light. By his life, death, and resurrection, by his obedience and faithfulness, his perfection is our perfection. His holiness, righteousness, and redemption is ours. His eternal life is your eternal life. His love is lavished on you. His peace embraces you. Christ’s Spirit lives in you, his power works for you, and his victory belongs to you! We walk in that light! Your church lives and worships and serves together in that light!

“The truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” ~1 John 2:8

We’re like Stonehenge. All of us, all our churches, we catch this light of Christ. We catch these beams of light from the Lord of Life and we reflect that light, we proclaim it, we project it, and we share it with everybody. We preach it, we embody it, we live it. So everybody in town knows that your church is the place and the people where your yoke can be shattered and the rod of your oppression can be broken forever by the brightest of lights that gives life to all people!

You can see the Kingdom of God. It’s visible right now in and among all us who claim to follow Jesus as Lord. When we decide to also be the Kingdom of God, well, now we’re on to something.

Peace,

Allan

Gospel Adventure Expanded

July 19, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Weather disasters and wildfires. Economic uncertainties. Divorce. Gay rights and abortion. Immigration and race. Division and war. Rumors of wars. These are not settled times in this country. Not at all. But they are — they should be — exciting and adventurous times.

Women’s roles. Leadership structures. Instrumental music. Shrinking attendance and nominal commitment. Ecumenical movements  and interdenominational partnerships. “Accepting” versus “Affirming.” These are not settled times in the Churches of Christ. Not at all. But they are — they should be — exciting and adventurous times.

I’ve decided I’m going to use that Hauerwas quote I posted yesterday in this Sunday’s sermon.

“God has not promised us safety, but participation in an adventure called the Kingdom. That seems to me to be great news in a world that is literally dying of boredom.”

And I’m thinking about saying something like this:

It’s all out there in front of us. Adventure. Thrills. Daring missions. Risky change. Challenging discussions. Exciting encounters. What are we waiting for? To get all our ducks in a row? To find and settle on all the answers first? To make sure everybody in our boat is on board with the exact same theology and uniform practices? No! What’s exciting about that?!?

What’s going to save more people? What’s going to redeem my part of the world for Christ? What’s going to make you and me more like Jesus?

Not worrying or complaining about national politics or this world’s culture. No, ma’am. And not arguing or debating church structures or faith culture.

Getting out there in the middle of it, with other Christians, sacrificing and serving, saving and learning, throwing our entire selves into the mission of God with full knowledge and trust that he is going to do something incredibly wonderful with it if we’ll just submit to him and his calling. That’s going to save people! That’s going to reconcile God’s world! That’s going to make us more like our Risen Lord!

But what about this post-modern, post-Christian society? Nobody wants to listen to anything about Jesus. No, stop it. Everybody you know at work and in your neighborhood and at the grocery store is desperately looking to belong to something that’s hugely significant and bigger than themselves.

But what about our Church of Christ identity? How is the world going to know we’re different from other churches? No, stop it. Jesus died on the cross so we would all be one in him, so I’m sure he’d be thrilled if we worked according to his plan for a change.

These are exciting and adventurous times in the Kingdom of God. Of course, as long as your faith is in yourself and your particular church brand or congregation instead of in the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, you won’t see them as anything but unsettling and dangerous. The Gospel tells us we’re surrounded by divine potential. Holy mystery. Heavenly adventure. Eternal excitement. It’s high time we abandon ourselves and jump in with everything we’ve got.

Peace,

Allan

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