The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Make Me Moveable

January 9, 2024 / / 0 Comments

At GCR this Sunday we’re starting a sermon series about moving into God’s new everything. It’s intended to work well with this being January and the beginning of a new year and all that implies. But we don’t want to just move into new diets and exercise routines, new reading plans and bedtimes, new spending habits and screen-time management. We want to move into the Lord’s new everything!

Things may not be great for you right now. Or for your family. Or your workplace. Or a relationship. Or the country in which you live. Things might be bad. Are you leaning into your trust of the Lord or are you utilizing your own wisdom and moving away from him? God is at work right now to move you into a place of his blessing. But are you moveable?

We’re going to use a prayer to center us as a congregation during these five weeks. We’re planning to pray this prayer together every Sunday as part of submitting to our God and to his plans for us. I invite you to make this prayer your own as we transition into 2024.

Lord, please make me moveable.
Move me to the place where I am able to receive your blessings.
Draw me closer to you; push me closer to your people.
Bring me to your Word; bring me to your worship.
I want to be with you in the place where you are.
Father, give me the strength and the resolve to move to you and to the place of your blessings.
In Christ.
Amen.

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After Michigan’s runaway win in last night’s college football championship game, the results are final in our annual GCR staff bowl challenge. First place receives a free meal, a free dessert, and gets to pick the restaurant at our monthly staff lunch next week. Second place and last place get a free meal, too.

Tim Neale finished in first place, Kim O’Connor jumped over seven of us last night to finish in second, and Ryan Rampton finished dead last. I am vowing today to never again pick Texas to win anything important, unless it’s a volleyball match. Jadyn is today explaining to J.E. how football playoffs work. Jim is cursing SMU because those 40 points would have kept him in second place. Brenda is thankful that she can now devote her full attention to Red Raiders basketball. And Ryan is trying to claim he finished in last place on purpose.

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I know the Cowboys have gone 12-5 three years in a row. This is being celebrated as some kind of all-time franchise mark and the reason for Cowboys fans to be really excited about Mike McCarthy and this team. Okay. Fine. Whatever.

Let me back us out to 30,000 feet and remind you of the big picture and how far the Cowboys have fallen as a franchise and how low the bar is now for its fans.

McCarthy’s twelve wins are because of the expanded schedule. Jimmy Johnson’s last three teams went 11-5, 13-3, and 12-4. That 1991 team finished the regular season on a five game winning streak; give them one more game and they probably hit 12-5. Most importantly, they won two Super Bowls in that run.

As for Tom Landry’s teams, we need to remember that he coached more than half his 29-years with just a 14-game schedule. If you judge his record by winning percentage, the Cowboys were better than 12-5 in six straight seasons from 1968-73 when they went 12-2, 11-2-1, 11-3, and 10-4 three times. They managed another seven year stretch from 1975-81 in which their worst season was  10-4 in 1975 and their second worst mark was 11-5 in 1979. The other five seasons were 11-3 and 12-4 four times.

Most importantly, the Cowboys won a Super Bowl during each of those runs and played in five of them. They went to nine NFC Championship games in those 13 years.

Those are the things Cowboys fans used to celebrate.

This Sunday, when Dallas hosts the Packers in a first-round playoff contest, it’ll be the 28th anniversary of the Cowboys’ most recent NFC title game. I guess if you’re still a Cowboys fan, 12-5 three years in a row is a pretty big deal.

Peace,

Allan

Rockin’ the Show

December 14, 2023 / / 0 Comments

You want to guarantee energy and enthusiasm for the grand finale of your children’s Christmas program? You want to provide the best picture opportunities for the parents? Then give the kids inflatable electric guitars and cut ’em loose!

Our GCR Children’s Ministry put on their annual Christmas program for our church last night and it was a smashing success. The theme was “The Best Christmas Song Ever.” Turns out, it’s not Blue Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, or Winter Wonderland. It’s not Hark, the Herald Angels Sing or Joy to the World. It’s some song written by some corporate children’s ministry writer named Yancy. Who knew?

 

 

 

 

Carrie-Anne and I were completely delighted by the whole production. We just laughed our way through the whole thing, watching these kids try to make it through the 30-minute show. The squirming kids who don’t really want to be up there at all. The superstar extroverts who hog the microphones and crowd out their co-performers with their oversized hand and arm motions. The kid who kept waving at his dad. The one who tried to exit the stage at two different times, only to be corralled and hauled back up to his position by a helpful volunteer. The squirrelly ones who were only trying to get a laugh. The ones who beamed as they delivered their well-rehearsed lines so precisely. The ones who stumbled through theirs, only to let out a huge sigh of relief when it was over. Each one of these kids brought C-A and me so much joy last night.

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations to Kristin and Ashlee and their whole team of incredible volunteers for a spectacular show! If they’ll ask me to sing Blue Christmas at next year’s show, I think I could convince a few to put it in the Top Ten.

Peace,

Allan

Payment Due

November 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

There are many, many more Astros fans than Rangers fans in Midland, Texas. And it feels like most of them are members of our church. Some of the louder and more obnoxious among them belong to the Travis McGraw clan. All of them.

So when Travis and his two boys wanted to bet a lunch at Cancun Grill on the results of the American League Championship Series, they found three eager takers in Stephen Lowery, Alan McGraw (Travis’ nephew), and me.

Yesterday was payday and it was delicious on every level. We wore our Rangers World Series gear and crowed for two solid hours over enchiladas and tacos and those awesome jalapenos grilled in soy sauce. The losers proved to be good sports about the whole thing — Travis even wore an old Rangers pullover he had saved from a Missions Resource Network fundraiser from nearly a decade ago. At one point, though, Travis did complain, “It’s like you guys have never won a World Series before.”

Today, I figured it was time to replace my Texas Rangers license plate frame. I don’t know exactly how old this one is, but it’s so sun-faded and worn out, it’s completely un-readable.

I’ve wanted to replace it for several years now, but, you know, I never think about it at the right time and it’s never been a huge priority. Now, the Rangers license plate holders are bright and glittery and they proclaim that Texas won the World Series. So, yeah. Done.

I  think it increases the Blue Book value on my truck.

Peace,

Allan

Striving to Obtain It

November 10, 2023 / / 0 Comments

“What? Shall we pray for a thing and not strive to obtain it?”
~ from Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, September 1809

Nearly 60 of us ministers and elders from First Baptist, First Methodist, First Presbyterian, and our GCR Church of Christ gathered at First Presbyterian last night for a dinner and prayer meeting to formally enter a unity alliance. It’s a partnership we’re calling “4 Midland,” a commitment to worship and serve together as the collective Body of Christ in our city.

And it was a joy. It was a delight. It was a deep and rich grace from God to be together in that setting and for that purpose.

There were seven tables in that room last night with eight ministers and elders from the four churches at each one. I sat at a table with Carolyn, an elder at First Pres; with Dillon, a First Pres minister; with Valerie, from First Methodist; with Travis, one of my shepherds at GCR; and with Steve Brooks and Darin Wood, the pastors at First Methodist and First Baptist. We read Scripture together and we prayed. We discussed together what the Lord is already doing in our churches (a ton, as it turns out; praise God!), and dreamed out loud about what God might do through us in the future. As we prayed around our table, I couldn’t help but hear Clay praying for unity from the table next to us. I heard Jadyn praying for God’s grace and presence from a table at the front of the room. During our discussions, I could hear Eric laughing from a couple of tables to my right. I watched as Byron and Brandon made the rounds, introducing themselves to about thirty different people. I watched Kristin pray with the church leaders at her table. I was so proud of our people last night, so proud of their eager participation and leadership in this great cause.

Steve Brooks opened things up by telling the story of how he and I first met a couple of years ago. The confession. The apology. The Spirit-led exchange of mutual appreciation and love between us. He led us in a time of meditation and prayer from Ephesians 4, reminding us that there  is just one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, and, while we use different amounts of water, just one baptism. We recognized together in prayer that we are called to be a unified people of God. We acknowledged that God is the Father of us all. And we pledged to commit to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

After those inspiring prayers, it was time for me to outline for the assembled group our plans for worship and service together over the next couple of years. I began by giving everyone a brief primer on the origins of the American Restoration Movement and the Churches of Christ. I talked about Thomas Campbell and Barton Stone, two Presbyterian preachers who got in trouble with their churches and their districts for preaching and practicing a radical Christian unity. I read “Proposition 9” from Campbell’s Declaration and Address, the founding document of the Stone-Campbell Movement, the charter for what came to be known as Churches of Christ:

“That all that are enabled, through grace, to make the Christian confession and to manifest the reality of it in their tempers and conduct, should consider each other as the precious saints of God, should love each other as brethren, children of the same family and Father, temples of the same Spirit, members of the same Body, subjects of the same grace, objects of the same divine love, bought with the same price, and joint heirs of the same inheritance. Whom God hath thus joined together, no one should dare to put asunder!”

Towards the end of the great document, Campbell issues the call, “What? Shall we pray for a thing and not strive to obtain it?”

The Churches of Christ are a Christian unity movement started by a couple of Presbyterian preachers. As a group, I confess, we have strayed far from our roots. It is so beautiful — poetic, even — that we were together last night in a Presbyterian church building. It was meaningful for me and for us from GCR. It was symbolic to embrace our roots in that significant way. We’re hugging Presbyterians!

“What?  Shall we pray for a thing and not strive to obtain it?”

I outlined our plans together. We’re going to worship together in combined settings with all four of our churches at least three times per year: Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday/Good Friday, and the Sunday night before Thanksgiving. We’re going to rotate hosts churches, combine our worship teams and choirs, and praise our God as one Body of Christ. We’re going to bring the very best of what our four churches and our four faith traditions have to offer together to bless all of us and to honor our Lord Jesus. And all four of us preachers are going to swap pulpits once a year, beginning on that Sunday morning before Thanksgiving, November 24, 2024.

I then led us through a time of brainstorming together at each of our tables for a combined service project we can do late Spring or early Summer to work side-by-side to bless the city of Midland. We received a couple of dozen excellent suggestions that we’ll be discussing together in the coming weeks.

After that, Steve Schorr reminded us of Psalm 105:4, “Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.” He recalled a few past ecumenical efforts in Midland that started strong, but lost their focus. These unity initiatives began to emphasize big names and big crowds and large platforms and lost their sense of the presence of God and his leadership of his people. Steve encouraged us to move forward together, seeking only the face of our God and his leading. It was heart-felt and honest. Moving. Inspiring.

After one more time of prayer around our tables, pledging to give our unity and our efforts to God for his purposes, Darin brought it home with an encouraging charge and benediction. He thanked everyone for our willingness, our eagerness, to put aside our differences, to tear down our walls, to come together in Christ for the sake of our city.

“What? Shall we pray for a thing and not strive to obtain it?”

I am so thankful to for the growing friendships I’m blessed by God to share with Darin, Steve, and Steve. I am so grateful for the ecumenical spirit of our four churches and the commitment we share to worship and serve together in the name and manner of our Lord Jesus. This partnership will shape us and make us more like Christ. All of us. Everybody in our churches. And it will proclaim in undeniable ways the love and grace of God, his healing and his joy, to a divided world that needs to see and experience what being one together in Christ looks like.

Peace,

Allan

4 Midland

November 9, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Four guys walk into a bar: a Baptist, a Methodist, a Church of Christ, and a Presbyterian… that’s a joke.

Four sets of ministers and elders walk into a church building to pray: Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, and Presbyterian… that’s not a joke. It’s the holy will of our God and a magnificent witness to our city of the power of Jesus! And it’s happening this evening!

“I pray also for those who will believe in me through [the apostles’] message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, 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 17:20-23

We believe it is God’s will that all his children, all disciples of his Son, be reconciled. We think God’s great desire is for all Christians to be brought together as a powerful witness to the world of his love and peace. You know, this is in our Church of Christ DNA. It was established in the opening lines of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, the charter document for our Restoration Movement, written in August 1809:

“That it is the grand design and native tendency of our holy religion to reconcile and unite men to God and to each other in truth and love to the glory of God; and their own present and eternal good will will not, we presume, be denied by any of the genuine subjects of Christianity.”

The whole document is about reconciliation, the kind of reconciliation that drives God’s eternal plans. The very ministry of reconciliation he’s given those of us who profess our faith in him. The words in this document are bold and aggressive and they ring with undeniable beauty and truth. They call for a swift end to all divisions among those who follow Jesus:

“Has the Captain of Salvation sounded a desist from pursuing this deadly enemy that is sheathing its sword in the very bowels of Christ’s Church, rending and mangling his mystical Body to pieces? Has he said to his servants, ‘Let it alone?’ If not, where is the warrant for a cessation of endeavors to have it removed?”

Campbell claims that tearing down the walls and uniting with all our brothers and sisters in Christ is a matter of universal right, a duty belonging to every citizen of the Kingdom of God. And while the work will be difficult and the opposition will come mainly from within the church establishment, Campbell says it is God’s will. It is the Church’s will. It is the will of those who’ve gone before us:

“Both the mighty and the many are with us. The Lord himself, and all that are truly his people, are declaredly on our side. The prayers of all the churches, nay, the prayers of Christ himself, and of all that have ascended to his heavenly Kingdom, are with us.”

I thank God for the Campbells and the Stones and the other giants of the faith who latched on to God’s holy will as revealed to us in Scripture and would not let go. I thank God for the ecumenical spirit of the GCR Church toward our brothers and sisters in other Christian churches in our city. I’m grateful for the willingness here — the eagerness! — to unite with other Christ-followers.

This evening, the GCR elders and ministers are meeting at First Presbyterian Church with their elders and ministers and the elders and ministers from First Baptist and First Methodist to spend two hours together in dinner and prayer. We are forming an alliance, a partnership. We’re calling it “4 Midland.” It’s a hopefully obvious play on words. Four churches breaking down our walls, putting aside our differences, to unite together for the sake of our city.

We’re not 100% sure what this looks like yet. We know it’s going to be a worship and service partnership that brings our people together side-by-side in order to bless Midland. We want to worship together at least three times a year, beginning this next Spring: Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday/Good Friday, and the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving. We’re still figuring out which churches are going to host each worship service. We also want our four preachers swapping pulpits with each other once a year, probably on that Sunday morning before Thanksgiving, November 24, 2024. As for an annual service project in our city, we’re still taking suggestions. That’s one of the things we’re going to pray about together tonight.

We do believe this partnership between denominations will be a powerful witness to our city that Jesus really is the Prince of Peace, that he really does possess the power to reconcile and unite. Jesus says in the middle of Matthew 18 that if two or three of his people will come together and agree on anything, he’ll show up just to see it! And we believe he will.

Whatever good comes from this alliance, we know it must begin in prayer. So that’s what we’re doing tonight at First Presbyterian. We’re going to pray. We’re going to commit to one another — all four churches — as brothers and sisters in Christ. We’re going to pledge in prayer that we will not be competitive, that we will not be territorial, that we will see our area of Midland as the part of the Kingdom of God we’ve been given to serve together. And we’re going to submit the whole thing to him. In prayer, we’re going to give our partnership, our efforts, our projects, all of it to our merciful Father for his purposes and to his eternal glory and praise.

It starts tonight. I have only hopes and dreams for where it might be going. But it starts tonight.

Peace,

Allan

Broken Through

October 30, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Today is the one year anniversary of the launch of our Breakthrough campaign at the GCR Church, officially the halfway point of our two-year plan to jump start our congregation’s vision of “Being Changed by God to Love Like Jesus.” On October 30 last year, we asked our church to give $4-million dollars to fund our commitment to transformation and mission.

Since that day, we have begun local missions partnerships with five organizations in Midland that are doing life-changing Gospel work. As a result, we are paying the salary of the first-ever full-time counselor at Family Promise. We are funding the salary of a 2nd staff person at Young Lives. We have purchased a box truck for food deliveries for Mission Agape and a new vehicle for Opportunity Tribe to transport students. In addition, we have completely renovated two courtyard spaces at Emerson Elementary, we eat lunch and read with students there several times a week, and we fist bump those kids the first Monday morning of every month. In total, we have poured well over one thousand volunteer hours into these five partners.

It was appropriate that last night we moved our annual Harvest Party to Family Promise, an organization in Midland that provides housing and resources to families transitioning out of homelessness. The weather forced us inside where we were a little more crowded than we had hoped. But we painted faces and played games and ate hotdogs and passed out tons of candy to 15 deserving families and had a blast doing it.

 

 

 

 

 

This is part of the vision. Intentional, incarnational, relational ministry. Instead of spending nine seconds with two thousand people in our church parking lot, what would happen if we spent two hours with about 70 people where they live? We’re finding out. It’s very different. It’s a little messy. It’s slightly unpredictable. But the stories are gloriously funny and the experience is wonderfully life-giving. I spent 45-minutes at a table last night talking with a foster parent while holding her four-week-old baby boy, learning about Five Nights at Freddy’s from two little guys who were way too into all of it, and joking about how I stepped in it when I asked a boy who taught him how to ride a bike and it turned out to be his dad’s ex-girlfriend. In front of his current wife. I wasn’t the only one having these conversations. I  wasn’t the only one learning about and leaning into the realities of our community with these friendly and gracious neighbors. It was transformational. And missional. And beautiful. Praise our Lord.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These local missions partnerships are a critical part of our vision. But Breakthrough is also about foreign missions and spiritual disciplines and re-organizing our Bible classes and small groups.

In the past year, we have sent 34 of our members on mission trips, hosted 72 of our members at Christian Practices retreats, and placed 165 of our members into twelve new small groups organized around the formation zones of our church vision. We have remodeled our worship center, improved the seating and lighting and sound, and constructed a brand new baptistry and stage that accommodate most of the church family participating in baptisms up close on Sundays.

On top of all that, the Lord has blessed us with a total of 80 new members of the GCR Church since October 30 last year: 53 adults and 27 kids! And in the four Sundays since we’ve been back in our worship center, we have witnessed and participated in six baptisms together!

And we’re not done yet. On October 30 last year, by God’s amazing grace, our church contributed almost $6.2-million dollars in cash and pledges! That’s $2.2-million over our goal! Nearly $4.4-million of that has already come in, and we’re only at the halfway mark! So we have established a team of 15 women and men to discern what the Lord wants to do with all that extra money.

We praise God for what he is doing in us and through us at GCR. It’s an exciting time around here right now. By God’s grace this church is changing. There’s been a fairly significant turnover and it’s not done yet. New faces, new families, new energy, new hope for what our Lord is doing. We are still very much in transition as a congregation. And we are beside ourselves with anticipation over what he’s going to do next.

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My policy is that if you can’t say something bad about the Cowboys, don’t say anything at all.

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The incredible fact is that the Rangers and Diamondbacks are tied at one game each in the World Series. The hard truth is that Texas has led in every inning in this series but three. That’s right. Of the 20 innings played thus far, if you count Garcia’s 11th inning game-winning homer in Game One, Texas has led in only three innings. They have not led since the second inning of Game One. Not only that, over the past ten weeks, the Rangers haven’t just lost one game and then won the next. When they lose, they lose three or four in a row. Texas hasn’t sandwiched a single loss between wins since late August. It feels like the Rangers have to score seven or eight runs to win tonight. And they can’t do it all on Seager and Adolis home runs.

What’s going to spark this team to get it turned around? Semien and Lowe need to heat up their bats and Mad Max needs to go six innings tonight. But there also needs to be a rally point. Some big play. Some massive unforgettable catch or double steal or hustle play or three-run homer to light a fire under this group and radically shift the momentum.

Semien might be too tired. Evan Carter is too young. Seager and Garcia are too expected. It’s going to be Leody or Garver or Josh Jung. I’m thinking out loud at this point, but I’m going with Jung to do something really important in Game Three to get this thing headed in the Rangers’ direction. I’m calling out the rookie. He’s got to shine tonight.

Let’s Go Rangers!
Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!

Allan

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