The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Foreign Missions (Page 8 of 9)

Central to Sao Paulo

July 6, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Our congregation’s partnership with God and the redeeming work he’s doing in Brazil is something we at Central truly treasure as a legacy that’s been handed down to us and is worthy of our honor and respect. We’re grateful for the ones who took the Gospel to Brazil ahead of us; we’re so thankful for the formation of Great Cities Missions; we’re honored to join forces with the great Christian missionaries who have sacrificed and served in Brazil in the name and manner of our King. What a tremendous blessing!

And now we’re personally rolling up our sleeves to join that venture in the flesh.

A whole bunch of our Central teenagers and just enough adults to make it work took off this afternoon for Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil. Our two oldest daughters, Whitney and Valerie, are right in the middle of it, excited for the chance to meet our missionaries down there and to work with them in showing the more than eleven-million people in that city the love and grace of God. They’ll be painting rooms at a church, playing with kids at an orphanage, and putting on a VBS for the community. There will be worship time and service time, prayer time and door-knocking (clapping) time. They’re going to Brazil to help change things for Christ.

Carrie-Anne and I send them to Brazil hoping our Christ uses this time to change them, to shape them, to further transform them into the image of our Lord. We pray that our King uses them to his eternal glory and praise, but that he also uses this opportunity to show them what a huge eternal Kingdom we belong to. I want my girls to experience personally what God is doing in other countries, in other cultures, in other ways. I want them to know first-hand that we Christians in America are not the only ones that matter. I want them to see that God works in ways that are wholly unfamiliar to us. I want them to be convinced that God loves all mankind as much as he loves them (us). I want them to be certain that Christians in the United States don’t have the market cornered on God, that none of us has him or the way he operates figured out and neatly packaged in a convenient and comfortable pattern we can all identify and feel good about. I want them to see — to really see! — that our God is wild and he’s on the move; he’s unpredictable and unstoppable; he’s bigger and better and more wonderful than we’ve ever imagined; and he is saving his children of every tongue and nation and tribe and land without discrimination and without end.

God, please show them your glory.

Carrie-Anne and Carley and I are leaving Amarillo Wednesday to hook up with this group in Sao Paulo and, after four days, take Whitney and Valerie with us to catch the first four days of another Central group’s trip to Brasilia. And we can’t wait. What a joy, to be able to share this life-changing, spirit-transforming trip with our entire family! Thank you, Central! Thank you, Lord!

Yes, we really did just put our two oldest daughters on a plane to Brazil with Adam Gray.

And we’re so full of gratitude and peace. May our God’s will be done in Sao Paulo and in Amarillo and in the lives of his children in both places just as it is in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

Benevolence and Evangelism

May 29, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Benevolence and evangelism are not the same thing. They are very closely related; but they are not the same thing. To equate benevolence and evangelism, in word or deed, is to distort the Gospel of Christ and to do harm to the uniqueness of God’s salvation.

Look, I know church people who poo-poo (is that how you spell it?) medical mission trips and humanitarian relief efforts. “That’s not evangelism!” they shout. They say the church shouldn’t be paying for it. And I know church people who take these trips and make these efforts who counter with, “Of course, it is evangelism!” They point to the prophets and to Jesus, the greatest prophet, to validate the money they’re spending on food and surgeries for the poor.

Benevolence is not evangelism, but the two definitely go hand-in-hand. You can have benevolence without evangelism; it happens all the time. But you rarely, if ever, get evangelism without benevolence. When we equate the two, though, we wind up losing what is the single most unique thing disciples of Jesus have to offer to a lost and dying world.

Anybody can do benevolence. There are many motivations for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. You don’t have to be a Christian to do good deeds. Non-disciples do it every day. But Christians have the Gospel of Jesus Christ by which the world can be reconciled to God in a righteous relationship for eternal life. Nobody else can make that kind of offer. No one else can give that kind of invitation. Without confusing the two, Christians need to become good at both.

In his little book Generous Justice, Timothy Keller writes about the importance of benevolence and its undeniable relationship to evangelism:

“Imagine an eloquent Christian preacher who every Sunday delivers compelling sermons. But one of his female parishioners comes to learn that the minister verbally abuses and browbeats his wife daily. After she discovers this, she unsurprisingly finds his sermons completely unpersuasive. Why? His deeds contradict his words, and so his words have no power. Imagine instead a new minister whose public oratory is quite mediocre. However, as time goes on, the parishioners come to see that he is a man of sterling character, wisdom, humility, and love. Soon, because of the quality of his life, his members will find they are hanging on every word of his preaching.

When a city perceives a church as existing strictly and only for itself and its own members, the preaching of that church will not resonate with outsiders. But if neighbors see church members loving their city through astonishing, sacrificial deeds of compassion, they will be much more open to the church’s message. Deeds of mercy and justice should be done out of love, not simply as a means to the end of evangelism. And yet there is no better way for Christians to lay a foundation for evangelism than by doing justice.”

In other words, they won’t care what you know until they know that you care.

For the past two thousand years it’s been proven over and over again: Benevolence and evangelism go hand-in-hand. The Roman emperor Julian hated the Christian faith, but he had to admit that they were gaining new converts because of their tremendous generosity:

“Nothing has contributed to the progress of the superstition of the Christians as their charity to strangers… the impious Galileans provide not only for their own poor, but for ours as well.”

For disciples of Jesus, evangelism certainly starts with benevolence. But benevolence alone does not constitute evangelism. To be Christian, it must be both. Follow the cup of cold water with a drink of living water. Extend the meal with a taste of the bread of life. Tell them about the King who motivates your good deeds and invite them to join us in his eternal Kingdom. Not just benevolence. Not just evangelism. To be Christian, it must be both.

Peace,

Allan

Abandon Our Claim To Exclusive Truth

May 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Thanks so much to Jim Sundberg for the fabulous work he did for us at the Great Cities Missions dinner and fundraiser Friday night at the Ballpark in Arlington. The Rangers great showed up with a whole bunch of autographed baseballs and then auctioned them off with great energy and flair. Baseballs signed by perennial All-Stars like Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, and Nelson Cruz each went for between $500 – $750. But the big money item was a ball autographed by both Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux that brought a whopping $1,600! A night at a Rangers game beats a boring old fundraising banquet any time. But throw in Jim Sundberg auctioning off autographed baseballs and it becomes a spectacular event to never forget. As a kid in Dallas, Sunny was always my all-time favorite Texas Ranger. That spot has now been solidified forever. Thanks, Jim.

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I hesitated to review Leroy Garrett’s book “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” chapter by chapter in this space for several reasons. Chief among them is the fact that Garrett is a bit of a lightning rod in our faith heritage. His books and articles challenging us, pushing us, chastising us, have traditionally had polarizing effects. And he can come across to some as overly critical, overly cynical, and too harsh. But, ultimately, I believe the issues he raises in this compilation of essays and the conversations they provoke are way too important. It’s critical. We need to have these conversations.

Garrett’s next suggestion for saving the Churches of Christ for vital Kingdom work in the future is another angle on what is by now a familiar refrain:

We can believe we are right without having to believe everyone else is wrong.

Again, this idea that we in the Churches of Christ believe we are the only ones going to heaven dies hard. I understand not everybody was brought up to believe this. I know not every Church of Christ preacher and elder has always made this claim. But it is the way I was raised. In fact, recent conversations in my own extended family have confirmed that this position is still held quite firmly in many of our churches. I’m regularly asked by sincere and well-meaning Church of Christ brothers and sisters, “If we’re no better than the other churches, then why should we even exist?”

The thinking goes that if we surrender our claim to exclusive truth we forfeit our right to exist. If we are right — and we do believe we are — then everyone else must be wrong. If we are true and faithful Christians, then those who are different from us are not.

It is one thing for us to believe in absolute truth, which we all do since we believe in God, but it is something much different for us to presume that we have an absolute understanding of that truth. Truth is absolute; our grasp of truth is relative. One sobering truth speaks to that: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known (1 Corinthians 13:12). So, we can surrender our claim to exclusive truth (only we have all the truth) and still believe in absolute truth (which is a reality that is beyond our perfect understanding).

On the face of it, we are forced to conclude that we must abandon our claim to exclusive truth in order to be an authentic people. We have no right to exist believing that we and we only have the truth. We must admit that we are both fallible and finite, that we, like everyone else, are wrong about some things and ignorant about other things.

And yet we can believe, in common with all Christians, that we have found many precious truths that we live for and would die for.

I’m reminded of those powerful passages in 1 Corinthians 8-10 that speak to our so-called knowledge. These passages outline very clearly the mindset and attitude we are to have as we consider our own understandings of the Gospel as they relate to beliefs and practices:

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” (8:1-2)

“We put up with anything rather than hinder the Gospel of Christ.” (9:12)

“I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible.” (9:19)

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” (9:22)

“Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” (10:24)

A claim that we alone know everything there is to know about the will of God and that we alone have everything figured out and that we alone are doing everything right, or at least better and more faithfully than everyone else, goes completely counter to the above passages in 1 Corinthians and, honestly, against the whole of Scripture and the Spirit of Christ.

And, again, I’ll go back to our misunderstanding and misapplication of grace. If we ever actually comprehend that our righteous relationship with God is not a matter of our “rightness” or our worship practices or our baptism or communion theology, but a matter of surrendering to God’s merciful love and grace, we will quickly abandon our exclusive claim to salvation truth. Instead, we will praise God for his boundless mercy. We will then claim only to be a people who are continually seeking the truth as it’s revealed in Jesus. And we’ll eagerly join all those disciples of other traditions and different heritage as equals in seeking and understanding that truth together.

Peace,

Allan

Just Go

November 4, 2011 / / 0 Comments

There are approximately 6,785,000,000 people living together on this planet. The most liberal estimates claim that one-third of these people are Christian, including all those who identify themselves as Christians religiously, socially, or politically. That leaves 4.5-billion people who, if the Gospel is true, at this very moment are separated from God in their sins and, assuming nothing changes, will spend an eternity in hell.

4.5-billion people. And most of them live outside the United States.

That’s why we’re told to go. And that’s why we obey that command. Go tell the Good News of salvation from God in Christ. Go share the Gospel. Go teach people what God has done in Jesus. Go show people what it looks like to receive the gift of a righteous relationship with the holy Creator of heaven and earth. Go.

And we do. We’re very, very good at going.

The Legacy Church just finished hosting the Global Missions Conference. Dozens and dozens of missionaries from all over the planet shared their stories, showed their slides, and gave glory to God for the great work he has started and is bringing to completion in their ministries. Church leaders from all over this country gathered to be encouraged and challenged to keep going and keep sending until our Christ returns.

I was so encouraged to open up my Christian Chronicle this morning and see this huge picture of the Legacy worship center during the Global Missions Conference. They could have picked a more attractive person than Mark Hooper to feature in their picture — any other person, actually! But I was so pleased. So grateful.

When we were in discussions about hosting the GMC at Legacy we prayed and planned, strategized and hoped, that the conference would benefit Legacy in giving us a big picture view of what God is doing in his world. We prayed that it would broaden our understanding of God’s eternal Kingdom, that it would cause us to see Christ’s Church as so much bigger than just what’s happening in Tarrant County or the United States. It would mature us. It would stretch us. And it would motivate us to just go.

Just go take a Let’s Start Talking trip to China. Just go help a church plant in Kharkov, Ukraine for a couple of weeks. Just go lead a Bible discussion in Australia. Just go knock doors in Africa.

Just go invite your neighbor to church. Just go volunteer at a shelter for abused women or neglected children. Just go ask your co-worker if they have a relationship with God in Christ. Just go spreading the Good News wherever you can. Just go.

Legacy has a heart for missions. And I love that. My heart for missions was strengthened at Legacy. Foreign missions is one of the very best things God does through Legacy. And our experiences together there taught me a lot about God’s purposes in the world. All indications are that the Global Missions Conference last week was a tremendous success. Of course. We knew it would be. Congratulations to the Legacy shepherds and ministers and staff and tireless volunteers who pulled it off. I keep hearing how much our Lord did to bless each of you last week. I praise God. And I’m so glad.

Central, too, has a great heart for missions. As the founding church of Continent of Great Cities, there’s a heritage here of placing great value and importance on what God is doing everywhere else. And supporting those efforts with prayer and money and trips and hard work. And I love that.

May we be reminded that we are all missionaries. When our God decided to bring his salvation to you and me, he did not send gold or silver. He didn’t write a check or click in the numbers to a debit card. He sent himself. He came to this earth and took on our skin, our sufferings, our sin. He made himself vulnerable to death. And he endured it for us, for our eternal glory.

You, too, must go and do likewise. You don’t have to cross the ocean. God may be calling you to cross the street. He may need you to cross the break room at work or the sidelines at your kid’s soccer game this weekend.

Yes, please write your check to that foreign missionary. They need it. But then, go. Just go. Go somewhere and tell somebody that they can be saved by a loving God who created them and who wants nothing more than to spend eternity with them in his holy presence.

Peace,

Allan

Killing Time in Kiev

June 16, 2010 / / 1 Comment

It’s 1:30 Wednesday afternoon at the airport in Kiev (5:30 Wednesday morning Texas time). Carrie-Anne and I are a little over halfway through our seven hour layover and it looks like we’re going to make it. It was touch and go there for a couple of hours. But we have lunch behind us — we’re hoping it stays well behind us — and we’re only two hours away now from boarding our flight to London.

The techno-disco blaring from the giant screens in both terminals, the smells coming from the downstairs water closets, and the smoke — OH, THE SMOKE!!! — is about to get to us. It’s a little overwhelming. Factor in that C-A is on Day 11 without Dr Pepper and, wow, is she tired. Very, very tired.

We’re keeping a journal of our layover. It’s pretty funny. You wouldn’t believe most of it. But that’s OK, I wouldn’t publish most of it.

Needless to say, the atmosphere here is not conducive to the kind of contemplative, reflective, theological blogging you’ve become accustomed to in this space. Sorry. All of that will pick back up on Monday.

Until then, our plans are to spend a day and a half in London, fly back home to DFW late Friday afternoon, head straight to Posado’s or Abuelo’s, order one of everything on the menu, eat Mexican food and drink Dr Pepper until they ask us to leave, and then go home and sleep for about 14-hours.

David and Olivia say ‘hi’ to everybody at Legacy. I can’t wait to write more about them and God’s Church in Kharkov. Thank you for your prayers and your encouraging emails. We miss everybody. See y’all soon.

Peace,

Allan

Leaving Kharkov

June 15, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Yes, yes, I know how awful I am. I wanted so badly to post something here every day of our trip. I know. You can’t believe how busy we’ve been and how little time I’ve had. I’m sorry. I have tons of pictures and dozens and dozens of amazing stories about the great people here in Ukraine. And I can’t wait to share them all.

Carrie-Anne and I are waking up at 5:15 in the morning (it’s 2:45am right now; yes, that’s how crazy everything’s been!) to head out to the airport for the first leg of our return home to Texas. We take about a 65-minute plane ride to Kiev where we have about a seven hour layover before our ten hour flight to London. Yuk. Words can’t describe the misery of the Kiev airport. Maybe during the seven hours I’ll post a longer blog with a bunch of pics. No promises.

Pray for God’s blessings as we hit the skies.

Our Father is so powerfully great and so wonderfully good. Oh, yes, he is.

Peace,

Allan

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