Category: Legacy Church Family (Page 20 of 37)
“It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose…” ~Philippians 2:13
283 baptisms since moving to Mid-Cities Blvd. in 2001; 15 already in 2009!
$488,000 given for local and foreign missions in the past 13 months!
760 men, women, and children serving others in Small Groups Church!
22 Give Away Days meeting the physical and spiritual needs of untold thousands!
2 local elementary schools receiving tutoring, financial aid, and Christ’s love!
1 designation as the flagship church for Lifeline Chaplaincy in Tarrant County!
1 watershed partnership with Continent of Great Cities for Hispanic outreach!
On this 50th Anniversary weekend for the Legacy Church of Christ — as we look at all the old pictures, as we tell and re-tell all the old stories, as we reflect on what’s been accomplished here since 1959 — it’s best that we remember every bit of it is the result of God’s work in us. This is the truth. It’s a deeply humbling truth that should give us great pause when considering the many good things done here in the name of our Savior. It’s not you and it’s not me. It’s not us. It is God who works in us. It is God who is shaping our wills, renewing our minds, and transforming us into his image according to his good purpose.
And what is his good purpose? What is his will? All these good works? Heaven? What’s the point while we’re here on this earth? What is God’s purpose for the years I have left here?
“…so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.” ~Philippians 2:15
Happy Birthday to this family of believers at Legacy! Here’s to another 50 years of grateful response to the love and grace of our God in Christ Jesus!
Peace,
Allan
I received two emails and one phone call yesterday afternoon from great friends who know me very well, asking me if everything was OK. They were concerned about my well-being after reading yesterday’s post, “Slugging It Out With The Preacher.” I was initially surprised. It was a passage from Paul and two quotes from great theologians on the great role of the preacher within God’s Church. I was trying to convey, to other preachers maybe, as an encouragement, the great honor it is to be a preacher of God’s Holy Word. The great responsibility. The great burden. The high calling.
It was a poor post. I should have written some other comments around it, setting it up or explaining it or something. But the three quotes, I thought, stand alone as eloquent reminders of the great privilege of preaching.
To answer the question, I’m fine. In fact, the past two months in my ministry here at Legacy — all of March and April — have been more than wonderful. God has shown me not just little glimpses, but huge blaring, glaring, high-definition proofs of his working with and among and in his people here. I’m greatly encouraged by what I see. More baptisms. More families jumping in to join us. More sacrifice. More service. More giving. More love. More joy. More openness to study. More conversation between generations. More trust. More willingness to grow. More answered prayer. More understanding.
Legacy seems to be alive with the love of our God, the grace of his Son, and the power of his Spirit.
Terry Rush, the king of encouragers, the Barnabas of blogs, says there are two kinds of churches: congregations that reach in and congregations that reach out. Quoting from his blog post, Churches: Sharp or Dull, from last week:
A church is sharp when it reaches out. It is dull when it focuses inwardly. Churches possessing a mission to keep everyone in the herd corrected become top-heavy with pseudo-truth. Such a church falls into the same trap as the religious leaders of Jesus’ day when he wouldn’t do church stuff the way they saw it.
What was it he did so glaringly errant in their sight? He disregarded religious law for the benefit of healing non-religious people. He loved the injured more than he feared the threats of the church.
I see a big difference in churches when one of the other of dispositions is present: reaching in or reaching out. One is sharp. One is dull. One is alive. One is dead. One is praising. The other is complaining. One is daring. The other cowers in fear. One is saved. One is afraid it isn’t. One is grateful for grace. The other is aggravated at those grateful for grace.
Legacy is celebrating its 50th anniversary this Sunday. Seems like a great time for reflection. What kind of a church are we? I see us, by the grace of our God, moving toward him in the right direction. Being much more concerned about the lost than the saved. Considering others more important than ourselves. Less of self and more of Thee.
Am I OK? Oh, yeah!
Thanks for asking.
Peace,
Allan
His name is Silas.
He introduced himself to me before Team Dyniewski, our Legacy basketball team, tipped off against his “Dynasty” in our Monday city rec league game in North Richland Hills. Silas is 7′ 3″, 315 pounds. His arms are eight feet long. His chest ripples with muscles that bulge out in places I don’t think muscles are supposed to grow. His legs are like tree trunks. He’s got a seven foot verticle leap and runs the 40 in 3.7 seconds. He only has one eye in the middle of his forehead. And when he came out onto the floor at the start of the game, my first thought was to throw some raw meat at him. Maybe that’ll stop him.
Of course, I was not assigned to cover Silas. Josh took that responsibility upon himself. In our loose 2-3 zone, my job is to patrol the guards up top. To keep them honest. To contest 20-foot jumpers. I’ll rush the paint and crash the boards once a shot’s up. But never before.
I still don’t know what happened on this particular play about midway through the first half. I remember following my guard to a point just outside the free throw line and then getting caught up in some thick traffic. Somehow, someway, I’ll never know how, I wound up at the baseline, almost directly under the basket. I think I thought my guard had put up a shot. I think I turned to face the basket and track the rebound. Only my guard had definitely not taken a shot. He had skillfully lobbed a nice, high, arcing pass down in the low post to his man, Silas.
I guess Josh and Aaron were both screened. I suppose they both tried to sag down to help but couldn’t make it. I believe with all my heart that they did not contemplate what was about to happen and then consciously make the choice to duck and run for the sidelines. They are my brothers. They would not abandon a teammate to face this certain doom alone.
Silas has the ball. And the only thing standing between him and the basket is me.
I knew I needed to contest this dunk, but I had no earthly idea how. Since my vertical leap is around four inches and most of my muscle is in my head, my only option was to stand where I was and raise my arms as high as they could go. I figured I couldn’t go at him. He would kill me. And I’ve gotta preach Sunday. I would just stand my ground and then jump straight up as high as I could when he went up for the shot.
I should have also closed my eyes.
Silas went up. I bent my legs to prepare to propel myself upward and meet him in the sky. But when I looked and saw his knees rise up above my chest, I crumbled. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically. I crumbled.
Silas dunked the ball over me. Right on top of me. I can’t describe to you how thunderous it was. He was up to his elbows in net and just about had my neck in a scissors-lock with his legs. It was loud. It was humiliating. It was…
…funny.
The defenders in this picture and in this picture are actually contesting the dunks. They’re trying. That’s not what this was at all. I’d like to think what happened to me is what happened to Steve Nash in this picture. He’s actually in there getting mowed down in an effort to take a charge. No. I’m afraid what happened to me is what happened to Shawn Bradley in this picture. The same turning my back and ducking my head. The same pained wincing. The same fear. This is what it looked like. This is what it felt like. Not pretty. Ugly. Complete mismatch. Comical.
Aaron chased the dead ball down in the far corner of the gym and I noticed that he was laughing as he inbounded it to me. I looked at him and started laughing, too. He said, “Dude, are you OK?” I said, “Man, I just got posterized.” And he replied, “Yeah, no kidding!” And then he asked me again, “Are you allright?” And we just kept laughing.
We got killed last night. I don’t even know what the final score was. I distinctly remember Taylor Parrish screaming from the stands during the closing seconds that all we needed was a 17-point shot. So we lost by at least 17. Josh, of course, was ranting and raving all during the second half and immediately afterward. I think he actually foamed up at the mouth there at the end. In our post-game huddle, he vowed that we were not going to be doing things the same way anymore. He swore things were going to be different. He promised he was going to be making some changes. I looked up and asked him, “Are we going to get some of their players?”
He doesn’t see the humor.
Rough night. We lost Aaron with a knee late in the first half. Russ was in Philly on business. Trey’s still not recovered from his back injury. Jared refuses to quit school.
Team Dyniewski is 1-3. We’re bruised. Battered. Beaten up.
I was sitting with Aaron on the bench after the game. He was holding an icepack to his red and swollen knee, unsure if he’d be able to play again this season, hoping he wouldn’t be needing major surgery. And he looked at me and said, “I’ll never forget you getting dunked on like that. I’ve never seen anything like that. No matter what else happened tonight, that was funny.” And we laughed again.
The Silas poster hits stores this weekend. Proceeds will benefit Josh Dyniewski in helping defray some of his counseling costs.
Peace,
Allan
Our Legacy basketball team, Team Dyniewski, took to the hardwoods last night to battle “Countrywide,” the defending three-time North Richland Hills recreation league champions. This is the team that destroyed the Wildcats 96-32, the Wildcats squad that beat us last week by nine. We went into the game with much fear and trepidation. Our main goal was to not allow this team to hang a hundred on us. Josh had told us earlier in the day that if they got to 75 points, we would just pull out and run a four-corners-type offense and slow it down as much as possible to run out the clock. Hold them under a hundred. That was the plan.
Seven minutes into the game, we were leading 21-15. We were tied at the half, 29-29. We were tied 56-56 with two-minutes to play. They were frustrated. They were bickering among themselves, pointing fingers of accusation after every missed shot or turnover. Yelling at the refs. We were energized. We were playing as a team. We were actually running with these guys and had a real shot at winning this thing! Coker, nursing his torn calf in street clothes, was cheering us on from the sidelines. The crowd of seven could sense something special was happening.
We missed a bucket and committed a foul at the other end, leading to free throws and a two-point deficit with 13-seconds to play. Our missed layup on our ensuing possession forced us to foul after the rebound, putting them at the free-throw line with 4.1-seconds remaining. To our great delight, their man made only one of the shots, giving us a glimmer of hope. All we needed was a three-pointer at the buzzer to tie and send the game to overtime! We were still alive!
Alas, (Kipi, that word is for you) Jared’s try at the horn came up short and the clock expired on what would have been the greatest upset in North Richland Hills rec league basketball history.
We lost 59-56.
Now…..are you ready for this?
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
Are you ready?
OK. Here it is:
They only had four players.
Yes, they only had four players. That’s it. Four.
We brought ten. We had five on the floor and five on the bench at all times. It was ten on four.
Their point guard fouled out at the end. We played the final 14 seconds with a five-on-three power play.
And they still beat us.
At tip-off time they only had three guys in the gym. They had to call one of their teammates at home and get him to come up just so they wouldn’t have to forfeit. And they still beat us. They were full-court pressing us off made shots. They only had four players and they were forcing turnovers on the press!
It would have been a whole lot worse if Jared Jones hadn’t shown up. Jared scored about 48 of our 56 points on three-pointers. He was raining them in from all over. 25-footers. With men in his face. Over double-teams. He was deadly. I don’t think he missed one. Jared missed our first two games and will miss several more because he’s taking Monday night classes to improve his life or something. I’m going to call UTA this afternoon and tell them my name’s Jared Jones and I’m dropping my Monday night class. If they say, “But, Jared, you’ve got a 98-average in that class,” I’m going to say, “Don’t worry about it. Drop it.”
We still have to play “Countrywide” one more time. I’m scared to death they’re going to bring five.
Peace,
Allan
“So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.” ~Luke 19:13
So the King gives his servants money and says, “Use these resources until I come back.” Put this money to good use. Make something out of it. The servants were to carry on the King’s business while he was gone. Continue doing what he himself would be doing if he were there. Working on his behalf. Taking initiative. Using the knowledge and experience they had acquired in their years of being associated with him as his servants to promote his interests. Here are the resources. Now take care of my business while I’m gone.
First thing the King does when he comes back is to call his servants in and ask them how it went. The first two had obviously been hard at work. They’d turned a pretty good profit using the King’s gifts. And they were praised and rewarded. (Luke 19:15-19)
The third guy’s brought into accounting and he says, “I didn’t do anything. I sat on it. I was afraid of you. I know you have high standards. I know you hate sloppiness. So I didn’t do anything.”
And then seven verses of harsh judgment from the King. “You wicked servant!”
Jesus’ last parable before he enters Jerusalem to face his death is a sobering one: non-participation is not a casual matter. However timid or meek it is, non-participation is disobedience. It’s sin.
This story is hard. It’s unrelenting. Doing nothing is not an option in the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom of God there are no non-participants. Jesus spends more words and time and space on the judgment delivered to this play-it-safe, do-nothing, overly-cautious, non-participating, non-servant than he does the other nine. Even the ones who signed the petition and sent the delegation saying they didn’t want this King, they only get one verse.
Here’s the deal. And it’s clear: a timid refusal to obey makes us liable to the same judgment as defiant and rebellious disobedience. It’s the same thing.
The story is a call to faithfulness to the King and his business. We’re all accountable to Jesus. Those who claim to follow him are responsible for a ministry of sacrifice and service in seeking and saving the lost. Those who reject him are responsible for not recognizing who he is and not accepting his invitation. This 3rd servant represents the dangers we face as members of the Lord’s Church. He’s associated with the King. He’s a member of the community. He lives with the King, he wears the King’s name, he eats at the King’s table, but he doesn’t trust the King. He’s never walked through that door of faith that responds to grace. So he winds up on the outside with nothing.
Obediently following Jesus, being proactive and taking risks and spending ourselves and our God-given resources in this already-inaugurated Kingdom of God is serious business. The gifts we have from God are not to be guarded or protected or kept safe. They are to be used extravagantly for the King’s business until he comes back.
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In the first year of Legacy Small Groups Church we’ve experienced our mighty God at work building faith, encouraging Christian ministry and service, and fostering deeper friendships and relationships in our church family. And I believe our Father wants us to do even more. I believe he’s using Small Groups to transform our entire church family into the image of Christ Jesus.
The Apostle Paul exhorted the Christians in Philippi to practice the same attitude “as that of Christ Jesus” by looking not only to our own interests, “but also to the interests of others.” A union with Christ and fellowship with his Holy Spirit is proved when disciples “consider others better than yourselves.”
I’m convinced that the next big steps in our spiritual growth at the Family of God at Legacy will best be taken by everyone of us — young and old, singles and families, new members and long-time members — meeting weekly in our Small Groups to apply the Word, connect as a family, and evangelize our community.
Our groups start meeting again this Sunday night. For twelve months we’ll be opening up our homes and our lives to each other in the name of our King. Over 750 of us sharing meals and prayers and Christian love and service in 40 homes all over Northeast Tarrant County. Being church, not doing church. Increased unity and and ministry and worship and healing and fellowship and forgiveness. It’s going to that next level as a member of the Kingdom. And taking others with you.
This Sunday night. Jump in.
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At 7:00 tomorrow morning, the Four Horsemen will be holed up together in some little sideroom at the EastRidge Church of Christ in Rockwall to pray for an hour. My great friends, Dan Miller and Kevin Henrichson, half of the Horsemen, have organized a 24 Hours of Prayer that started at 8:00 this morning. Men at EastRidge are right now in fervent prayer, lifting up nearly a thousand different thanksgivings and requests that have been submitted by that church family.
Jason Reeves and I, the other half, will be the tag-team speakers at the prayer breakfast that wraps up 
the event tomorrow morning. I’m honored to be a part of it. Our mighty God is at work anytime men are gathered to pray for extended periods of time. And I love being right in the big middle of it. You pray with a group of three or four men for an hour and it’s like you’ve been in a fox hole with them. You’re bonded to them for eternity. You see their hearts and their spirits as they open up to their Lord. You feel their joys and their pains as they lay bare their souls before God. You learn more about a brother by praying with him than you could ever learn at a two-hour lunch or even a fishing or hunting weekend.
Praying together is huge. Jason and Dan and Kevin and I figured that out a long time ago. The men at EastRidge are learning it right now. And I’m really looking forward to sharing some of that time with them tomorrow morning.
Peace,
Allan
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