Category: Four Horsemen (Page 1 of 6)

“In a good friendship each member often feels humility towards the rest. He sees that they are splendid and counts himself lucky to be among them.” ~C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I spent three days this week in DFW spending some significant time with some of the very most important people in my life. I had lunch with Rick Atchley at a Fuzzy’s Taco a few blocks from The Hills. I spent a few hours with our youngest daughter Carley at their brand new house in Flower Mound. I had dinner with David and Shanna Byrnes, Dawson and his wife Mallory, Dakota, David’s mom Paula, and their three (four?) dogs.

But the absolute highlight of my trip was dining with Dan-O and the other Horsemen.

Dan Miller is one of my dearest and oldest friends and one of the fabled Four Horsemen. If you’re relatively new to me and/or to this blog, you might not know about the Four Horsemen. These three men and their families form a mutual alliance of love, support, and encouragement for me and my family that’s impossible to describe (you can read about our origins together by clicking here or you can search “Four Horsemen” on this site to get a glimpse of what these guys mean to me).

We four made vows to each other around my kitchen table in 2001, before two of us were preachers, before any of us had married kids, before any of us got cancer or lost jobs or moved across the state. Since then, for the past 22 years, we’ve taken an annual three-day camping trip together at Tyler State Park. We pray together via Zoom once a month. We’ve traveled to Tulsa and Abilene together for church conferences and workshops. We’ve helped each other move (they’ve helped me more than I’ve helped them). We’ve attended every one of our kids’ weddings. And we keep in very close contact.

A little over two years ago, Dan was diagnosed with Parkinson’s — it was just after we had moved to Midland. We had noticed his shaking for about a year before that, but he can be really stubborn. I think he’s so optimistic and hopeful by nature, he refused to believe anything was wrong. A few months after his diagnosis, they added another huge uppercut to the gut punch: Lewy Body Dementia.

Not good.

I’ve seen Dan in person only twice since then. So it was a gracious gift from the Lord to be able to round up the Four Horsemen this week for some quality time together at a couple of Dan’s favorite spots.

First, it was the El Fenix in Casa Linda, a neighborhood in East Dallas that was always just a little more upscale than my Pleasant Grove community to the south — we had a Pancho’s in Pleasant Grove. When we were kids, we only drove north on Buckner Boulevard to Casa Linda if our church was doing something with the White Rock Church of Christ. I remember eating at this El Fenix with my friend Todd Adkins and his family when I would spend the night at his house on Telegraph near White Rock Lake. When I was 14, Glen and Becky Burroughs took my sister and me to see Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Casa Linda Theater across the street from the El Fenix. That theater is now a Natural Grocers, which is really weird; the movie poster boards out front now contain grocery store ads.

When I moved to Arlington and, later, to North Richland Hills, the Horsemen made it a point to eat a long lunch together on the last Friday of every month. The almost-halfway point was the El Fenix in North Dallas at LBJ and Forest Lane. We did that together for years until I moved to Amarillo and the monthly lunch became a monthly prayer via conference call. So, it was nostalgic on several fronts to eat together at the Casa Linda El Fenix on Tuesday. It’s not as cool as eating at the original El Fenix at McKinney and Pearl Streets in downtown Dallas, the one that opened in 1918. But this El Fenix in Casa Linda opened in 1956 and, at the time, boasted the first and only completely stainless steel kitchen in the restaurant industry. Clean!

Beef fajitas. Tortillas. Chips and salsa and queso. Sopapillas AND churos and ice cream. And a lot of laughing.

Then yesterday we got together for breakfast at the Goldmine in the historic Ridgewood area of Garland. It’s just a generic diner, a little rundown cafe. I had never been to the Goldmine before, but it’s super close to Dan’s house, so it made sense. Little did I know that all three of these guys have stomped through the Goldmine over the past five decades: Kevin as a freshman at Eastfield College, Jason as a Garland police officer, and Dan over the past few years living near Centerville and Duck Creek Drive.

Eggs and sausage. Hashbrowns and country potatoes. Biscuits and gravy. Diet Dr Pepper! And a lot of laughing.

The Parkinson’s / Lewy Body Dementia combo is brutal. My great friend Dan-O Miller is suffering. He shakes. He hurts. He can’t straighten out his fingers. He can’t stop the leg cramps. Hallucinations. Bone pain. Overall weakness and fatigue. Side effects. Doctors visits. New medications. No more driving. Forgetfulness. Delayed reactions and slower response times. Dizziness. Loss of balance.

Yet, Dan continues to think of others more than himself. He still considers the needs of others more important than his own. He still jokes and laughs with an abounding and limitless joy. And he still sees the very best in every person and in every situation.

Dan Miller speaks with such confidence about our Lord and his plans for each one of us. He encourages me. He lifts me up. He sees things in me that I never have — good things, holy things. He speaks over me things I have never thought — eternal things, Gospel things. He sees beyond the urgent to the bigger picture truths of love and unity and charity. He is secure in his saving relationship with God through Christ Jesus. He talks about it and he lives it. He always has. He still does. He has less time now for skirting around difficult issues and less patience for Christians who know better. But he is still able to see our God very clearly in every person and in every place.

I am a better person because I know Dan. I’m a better Christian, a better husband and dad, a better preacher. I’m paying close attention to Dan now, watching him, listening to him, learning from him as he navigates this incredibly difficult journey. I want to be more like him. I want to love and forgive and serve others the way he does. I want to be faithful like Dan, faithful to friends and family, faithful to our God even in the middle of hardship.

Dan reflects the glory of our God in his compassion for others, his love for all people of all kinds, and his capacity to encourage. Even now. Especially now.

I thank God for Dan Miller.

Peace,

Allan

Dan’s three children are all married off and living in California, South Carolina, and Austin. And now it begins for another of us Four Horsemen — it’s Jason’s turn.

The Four Horsemen and our families got together this past weekend in Dallas/Garland/Forney/Anna for the glorious occasion of the wedding of Jason and Tiersa’s first-born son, Mason. Yes, Mason went to Harding, met a beautiful Lady Bisons scholarship softball player, fell fast in love, and gave his whole life to her Saturday on the shores of a little country lake in Anna. And we were blessed by God to share it with all the Reeves and each other.

It was great to see Dan and Debbie’s new house in the White Rock Lake area of the Dallas-Garland border. It was fun walking (and driving) around Kevin and Anita’s expanding mansion and Henrichson compound in Sunnyvale. We had a blast with Jason and Tiersa and their rapidly growing children. And we also got to spend some really quality time with Chris and Liz Moore and Ray and Gail Vannoy.

We shared meals together. We prayed together. We got caught up on everybody’s kids and jobs and churches. I think we were able to calm Tiersa down a little bit on Friday night when the 300 wooden spoons for the Blue Bell homemade vanilla (instead of a groom’s cake; thank you, Mason!) didn’t come in. We all pitched in together to locate the spoons and Kevin went out and grabbed them Saturday morning, insuring that we didn’t have to eat our ice cream with wooden forks. Dan and I shared a wonderful early morning conversation about our pasts and our futures, drinking coffee and Diet Dr Pepper together, watching the rain before the girls were awake. We all calmed down when the rain finally stopped at about 2:00 Saturday afternoon. And, yes, Jason’s ceremony from start to finish only lasted a promised 14-minutes!

I don’t know how he did it. How do you perform the wedding ceremony for your own child? I was barely able to officiate my niece Maryn’s wedding a year-and-a-half ago. Jason has a personal bias against preachers who cry in the pulpit and a personal policy governing it: bite through your lip until the blood is running down your shirt before you shed a tear up there.

They tied the knot, we ate burgers and dogs and cake and ice cream, took a lot of pictures, hugged everybody ‘good-bye,’ and then Carrie-Anne drove the six-hours home while I alternately slept and reviewed my Sunday sermon.

Dan’s done, Jason’s taking his cuts now, and Kevin’s on-deck. His oldest son, Clayton, is getting married to the lovely and sweet Taylor in less than a year. Yeah, I’m taking notes through these shared wedding experiences. I know/hope my time’s coming. Blue Bell ice cream instead of a groom’s cake was a really important takeaway for me.

May God bless Mason and Mack. As they give their lives to each other and give their relationship together to our Lord, may he flood them with his mercies of love and joy and peace. And may their marriage bring eternal glory and praise to the One who brought our four families together eighteen years ago.

Peace,

Allan

The oldest daughter of the Four Horsemen’s combined 15 children is getting married this afternoon in Dallas and we’re all assembling to take part in this wonderful and sacred moment together. Little Katie Miller is pledging her life to some boy named Justin today. And they are, in turn, pledging their lives to one another and to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s a blessed day. It’s a sacred day. And we wouldn’t miss it for the world.

These three great friends of mine and their families are the single most influential force in my life. It was almost twelve years ago around my dining room table in Mesquite when Jason and Dan and Kevin and I pledged to give our lives more fully to God and to his Kingdom work in this world. We vowed to stick together as brothers, to support and encourage one another, to protect and defend one another, to live and love and serve together in the name of Jesus until he returns. Together, our families have been through the death of parents, the birth of twins, a divorce and remarriage, cancer, the adoption of another child (hopefully official in less than two months!) and three dramatic career changes. The cop and the jewelry salesman and the architect and the sports radio guy are all four now proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus in various ways, ways that twelve years ago would have seemed unlikely, if not completely impossible. I praise God for the ways these men and their families have impacted me and my family.

We wouldn’t miss today’s wedding for the world. Yeah, we’re going to wind up spending more than 13 hours in the car during a 30-hour period. We left straight from Carley’s school yesterday and won’t get home until after midnight tonight. But there’s no way we couldn’t do it. I believe this weekend is a reminder to us eight adults of the commitments we’ve made to one another and, by God’s grace, have maintained to this point. And, way beyond that, I believe we are passing on to our children a legacy of what it looks like to live and love in committed Christian community. This is what it looks like to be faithful brothers and sisters, this is what it looks like to keep promises, this is what it’s like to bless and serve one another as God in Christ blesses and serves us.

Friendships like this are rare. Extremely rare. My family and I feel so specially blessed to have the Reeves and Henrichsons and Millers in our lives. We are better people, we are better disciples of our Lord because of our relationships with one another. And we intend to continue to show our children just how important these kinds of relationships and commitments are as we walk together in the ways of Christ.

We’re all going to eat at El Fenix this afternoon and then we’re going to sit together while Katie walks down the aisle on her wedding day. The first of maybe 14 more of these weddings. What a wonderful day. What a sacred and blessed day.

May our merciful Father bless Katie and Justin with his richest gifts of love and strength. May their marriage reflect his eternal glory. And may their lives together result in praise to the one who’s brought us together in the name and manner of his great Son.

Peace,

Allan

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The picture’s blurry, but this is what it looks like when four families commit to one another in Christ. We try to live out Romans 12 with one another so that we are all members of the same group and each member belongs to all the others. Katie is ours and now Justin is, too. And they both need to know that we will be praying for them, keeping up with them, and always there for them for the rest of our lives. We enjoyed our time with y’all so much. God bless Justin & Kate!

“In a good friendship each member often feels humility towards the rest. He sees that they are splendid and counts himself lucky to be among them.” ~C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

The first weekend in March is sacred. It is holy time, set apart for divine purposes. The first weekend in March is when my three greatest friends and I get together for our annual campout. Jason, Dan, and Kevin and I — The Four Horsemen — will not be kept from our yearly gathering. Neither freezing rain nor sleet nor snow nor record lows nor historic drought nor wild animals nor major surgeries will deter us. Not even one of us moving away to Amarillo will keep us from coming together for 36 hours of food, fellowship, encouragement, funny pranks, wild boasts, daring feats, prayer, spiritual conversation, and belly-splitting laughter.

It’s been a little over ten years since we committed to one another around my dining room table that morning in Mesquite. Weekly bible studies gave way to monthly lunches once we all moved away. And now that I’m in Amarillo, it looks like these campouts are the only regular thing we can count on together. We began this sacred tradition in 2006 in Cleburne, froze our backsides off around the lake in Waco the following year, and have spent the past four campouts in a row at Tyler State Park. For this, our seventh annual Four Horsemen Advance (we never retreat!), we moved things back down to Waco where an elder at Jason’s church, the stately Ray Vannoy (“Papa Ray;” roll your ‘r’) has a tract of land just west of town in Speegle.

Dan always sets our itinerary which revolves completely around the food. Jason always determines in what order we pray. But Dan always picks the restaurants and the menu. As soon as my plane landed at Love Field, the Horseman Advance began with a gigantic breakfast at Lucky’s, apparantly one of Kevin’s favorite spots. Jason had a mild restroom encounter there that amused our table. But my encounter with our waiter near the end of our meal (“You can thank me later”) proved to be equally upsetting and hilarious. A drive to Waco isn’t complete without a quick detour to the Czech Stop in West for some kolaches and cookies. We impulsed bought $118 worth of groceries for dinner at the Waco Wal-Mart. Brisket and jalapeno sausage and “gut-packs” for lunch at Vitek’s BBQ. And a wonderful steak dinner cooked over the open fire at the campsite.

Like all our campouts, this one provided a few adrenaline rush moments of daring and adventure. We felt downright apostolic Friday night when not once, but twice, snakes crawled out of the firewood and began writhing at our feet. Jason felt the only biblical thing to do was to crush them with our heels. Since we all have four different opinions about the controversial ending of the Gospel of Mark, we followed Jason’s lead and stomped the snakes instead of picking them up. We fought a little field mouse to a draw: the tiny creature was in need of an eye patch after we got through with him; but we slept restlessly in the fear and knowledge that he was still around. There was also the constant threat of skunk, although an actual sighting was never confirmed. Dan almost threw out his shoulder tossing the football fifty yards against the wind. And Kevin almost undid his back surgery halfway up the brush pile.

In and around and during all that, we talked. And listened. We reflected and reacted. A lot has happened since last year’s Horseman Advance. A lot. Kevin got married and had major back surgery. Dan’s father-in-law, a great friend of his actually, who had lived with Dan and Debbie for more than a dozen years, passed away. Jason moved to Tyler where he’s now preaching at the West Erwin Church of Christ. My family and I moved here to Amarillo. And our Father has been faithful and good and loving and kind through it all. He has carried us. He has blessed us. He has provided and protected, forgiven and restored, over and over and over again.

The greatest blessing through our ups and downs, in our victories and defeats, with our blessings and our trials, is in our friendships with one another. There is mutual encouragement, honest accountability, thoughtful guidance, and unconditional loyalty and love. Kevin blesses me so much with the way he thinks. He forces me to look at things in ways I would never consider if left on my own. Dan blesses me so much with his vision and his heart for people. He makes me think higher and bigger, he makes me dig deeper and wider, he calls me the way my Lord calls me, always attaining to the ideal. Jason blesses me with his faithfulness. He is faithful. Faithful. Faithful. To me. To his wife and kids. To his friends. To his Lord. I can’t imagine ever knowing a more faithful man. He inspires me.

We prayed for one another’s families. We lifted up one another’s churches and elders. We prayed about one another’s ministries and relationships with God. We hugged. We cried. We affirmed our love and loyalty to one another in Christ Jesus, our risen King. And then we quickly changed the subject to baseball. Afterall, we are men; and we were out in the woods. We hit Chuy’s for fajitas on the way out of town Saturday afternoon and that was it. We just waved at the Czeck Stop on the way back to Dallas. Although it was on Dan’s itinerary, there just wasn’t room.

These are the three greatest friends any person could ever hope for. And they are mine. I praise God for these men. And I count myself lucky — no, blessed; blessed by God —  just to be among them.

Peace,

Allan