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Category: Legacy Church Family (Page 32 of 37)

Wednesday Night & A Bunch Of Pictures

January 10, 2008 / / 2 Comments

We’re calling it “Oasis.” Our new Wednesday night assemblies in the worship center here at Legacy got off to a wonderful start last night.

The idea is one I grew up with. Wednesdays are, to borrow a term Don Graves has used for years down in Marble Falls, our spiritual pitstop. It’s a time to recharge our spiritual batteries. Right in the middle of the week is a perfect time for Christians to come together, share a common meal and fellowship with one another, worship, sing, pray, and meditate on God’s Word together. It’s an ideal time for revival and rejuvenation. It’s so easy to be beaten down and worn out by work or school or whatever you’re called to do during your week. And, for some of us, Wednesday evenings together are the only thing that gets us to the next Sunday.

Wednesday is our “Oasis.”

The word oasis is defined in the dictionary as any place or thing offering welcome relief from difficulty or dryness, a fertile place in the desert due to the presence of water. And it’s an idea rich in biblical imagery. Moses and God’s people in the desert and the Lord’s provision for them. Water from a rock. Manna every morning. Jesus’ time in the desert battling Satan and the angels sent from heaven to take care of him. Christ talked about living water. Isaiah preached about streams in the desert. You have all that same imagery in Psalm 78, which we read last night. We want all these images to guide us as we come together as a church family on Wednesdays. We want to spend that time with each other and our Lord reading and reflecting on his Word, singing praise and encouragement, and praying together. Hopefully our Oasis time together will revive us and remind us for the rest of the week of our purpose and commitments and faith in our Christian community.

Darryn gave us a moving rendition last night of Psalm 18. Brad and Jerry took us straight to the throne room of God with their beautifully worded prayers. Aaron led us in songs that spoke wonderfully to the message of the night which was God’s continued protection and provision for his people. And afterward most everybody hung out and visited for what seemed like longer than normal.

Our Wednesday night attendance at Legacy has averaged 331 for the past three months. We had 410 last night. Over 700 participated in Small Groups Church Sunday evening. I pray that the increased attendance is leading us to an increased sense of fellowship and common spirit and purpose and to a continual transformation of our lives into the image of our Savior.

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(As always, click on the pictures to get the full size)

CarleyWallThe stone is all up on the outside of the new Legacy Youth and Benevolence Center and most of the work on that building between now and its completion in March will be on the inside. And last night Jason and Lance took all of the youth group and their families inside the new complex to make their marks before the interior walls begin going up. Students and their families were encouraged to write their names and their favorite passages of Scripture on the studs and beams to signify that our building and everything it stands for is based on our God and his Word.

Brooklyn CornerSpace Gals

There was a lot of energy in that place last night. It was neat with all the kids and their parents “dedicating,” if you will, the new youth center with the Words of God. All the young people also signed a huge sheetrock “thank you” card to all the construction workers.

       ThankYouCard       Samantha

And as I’m heading down the stairs at the end of the event, just as things were winding down, I see this.

MyNameBesmirched

I immediately blamed Mel Williams, who’d already gone home with his family. I remembered walking up the stairs 30 minutes earlier and Mel had been writing on the wall there and didn’t turn to speak to me when I greeted him. I thought that was odd at the time. And I assumed it was because he was publicly besmirching my name.

I’m telling Lance the story this morning. And he starts laughing. And then he confesses. It was Lance. Lance wrote it. I’m walking over to ask the construction workers to sheetrock that area of the youth center first. Sorry, Mel. It wasn’t you. But only because you didn’t think of it first.

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Thanks to Russ Garrison and his generously offered tickets, the family and I went to the Dallas Stars game Monday and helped them end their four game losing streak with a 3-1 victory over Minnesota. The girls were excited to walk through the middle of Victory Plaza and experience all the noise and sensory overload that takes place there. And, once the game began, Whitney and Valerie were into it. Whitney, of course. Valerie just marveled at the skating, specifically how the defensemen are able to skate so gracefully backwards. And she loved the fights and skirmishes. Carley was not so interested. In any of it.

GirlsAtStars ValAtStars CarleyAtStars

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I think Steve Dennis is the one who asked Tony Romo yesterday if he had become Bill Parcells’ biggest nightmare: The Celebrity Quarterback. Romo looked right at Dennis and said, “You’re talking about a celebrity coach.”

Zing! Perfect!

I’ve grown weary of Parcells getting all the credit for discovering Romo and grooming him into the star he appears to be. I’m tired of Parcells’ oft-repeated and reported Ten Commandments for a Quarterback. And yesterday I saw a sign that maybe Romo is sick of it, too.

Peace,

Allan

Can Small Groups Change our Whole Church?

January 4, 2008 / / 0 Comments

“Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” ~1 John 4:11 

This Sunday the Legacy Church of Christ becomes a Small Groups Church, not just a church that does small groups. The elders and ministers are committed to our church family applying the Word, connecting as a family, and evangelizing our community by meeting in each others’ homes every Sunday evening. And judging by the response—467 adults to date are signed up to participate in 34 different groups—the congregation is also committed to this new and exciting direction.

So many of us already know about all the wonderful things that happen when disciples of Jesus regularly get together to share with each other in their homes. Mutual love and service and hospitality. Mutual sharing of joys and burdens. Strong bonds that develop that can never be broken. The small group becomes a family. A caring and compassionate and Christ-centered family.

Can that atmosphere and that dynamic and that view of life together bleed over to impact the entire congregation? Will our small groups eventually, with time and consistency, transform all of us—those involved in small groups and those who aren’t—into the vibrant congregation as a whole that we all envision?

I think it will.

The power of changed lives is huge. The testimony from changed people draws people. It inspires people. Changed people have a profound impact on people who need to be changed. The people in the Gospel stories, all the crowds, were amazed by those Jesus had touched and healed. They were blown away by the change. The apostle Paul always preached and wrote about how Jesus had so drastically changed his life. And the testimony to changed lives within our small groups will have a similar effect on the body as a whole.

The power of weakness is huge. God is strong when we’re weak. God is glorified in our weakness. He is our rock. He’s our strength and our shield. And the sharing of our struggles and weaknesses in our small groups will open our eyes to see more clearly what our God is doing with us. That open and honest sharing of our problems, together, in our homes on Sunday nights will eventually bleed over into our assemblies on Sunday mornings. It will become a regular thing, not a rare thing, that somebody will go down to the front to confess a sin, to repent from a wrong, to ask for prayers, to share their struggles, and 20 or 30 of their loving brothers and sisters arrive down there at the same time to hug him and pray with him and confess with him. And this becomes a safe place, not the last place, to share our struggles.

More importantly, and most convincingly, the power of our God is huge. It’s not us. It’s God. We can’t forget that. It’s always God. And we turn all of this completely over to him through prayer. God, please change the lives of the people in our group. Lord, please heal this person, forgive that person, open my heart, open my eyes. Bring us one more lost soul, God. Show us, Father, your power and your love and your salvation in our groups.

In Mark 4, Jesus says the Kingdom of God is a farmer who plants a seed. Period. God does everything else. The farmer has no idea how it works. But it does. God makes it grow. God changes it and causes it to produce in wonderful and mysterious ways. It’s all on God.

Let’s all be together in fervent prayer as we jump into Small Groups Church. Let’s be willing to turn every bit of it over to God. And let’s be enthusiastic in our anticipation of all the amazing things our Father is going to do with us through our efforts to be church, not just do church.

Peace,

Allan

Life Together

January 2, 2008 / / 9 Comments

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” ~Psalm 133:1

AtTheCrossWe should never take for granted the great blessing we enjoy to be disciples of Jesus living with and among other disciples of Jesus. Most Christians know nothing first hand about that experience. They live in isolation with family members who do not follow our Christ or in communities where the Son of God is not recognized, or worse, where followers of Jesus are persecuted for their beliefs and practices.

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of great joy and strength to the believer. The imprisoned apostle Paul calls Timothy to come to him in the last days of his life. He remembers Timothy’s tears when they departed and longs to see his beloved son in the faith “that I may be filled with joy.” Remembering the saints in Thessalonica, Paul writes, “night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again.” John knows his joy will not be full until he can come to his own people and speak face to face with them instead of writing to them with ink “so that our joy may be complete.”

At times in their lives these great men of God did not have the fellowship with other believers that we enjoy daily, sometimes hourly. They longed for it. They relished it. They looked forward to it. And they savored it with great delight. Fellowship was everything. It’s what got them through.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this about Christian fellowship in 1934 in his classic work on the community of faith, Life Together:

“What is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us. Therefore, let him who has the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.”

We live together in and through Christ Jesus. The fellowship we share together is only in and through our Lord and Savior. Christian friendships should be treasured, never assumed. Time together should be cherished, never avoided. Opportunities to be together should be seized, never scorned.

“About brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God  to love each other. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.” ~1 Thessalonians 4:9-10

Peace,

Allan

More Than We Ask or Imagine

December 10, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Forgive me while I borrow liberally from Seinfeld:

“I don’t know if you’re ready for this. I don’t know if you should be sitting down for this or standing up. On the one hand, sitting is good if you’re going to faint. But standing is good for jumping up and down.”

I’ve counted the numbers three times. Are you ready for this?

I’ve thought for several months now that if we somehow were able to get 500 people to sign up and participate in our Legacy Small Groups Church it would be a wild success. In fact, there’s no way I thought we’d hit 500 in this first go-round. It was the way-out-there, impossible goal. We always, as a planning committee, threw 500 out there as the high ceiling mark of possibility.

We have 386 adults signed up for Small Groups. 386! And that doesn’t count one single baby, not one child, not one teenager. These are all adults. 386 of them! And they know what they’re signing up for. They and their families are committing to meeting in each others’ homes every Sunday night to worship and study and love and serve. 386! And if we add in all the kids (and there’s no way I’ve had time today to do that. Who is going to do that, by the way?) we easily have well over 600. Maybe even closer to 700. Some here at the building today have insisted that a safe and fair estimate would be to calculate one child per adult. They say that’s a pretty good average to work with. If that’s the case, IF that’s accurate, we’re looking at 772 people signed up to participate in Small Groups Church! And that’s after just one day of sign-ups. Now, I don’t ever want to be accused of throwing out a trumped-up number or a “preacher’s count.” So, to stay on the conservative side, it’s more than safe to say that we have way over 600 dedicated to Small Groups.

Praise God!

And I’m not sure yet what all this really means. Not yet. Our church family is indeed ready for weekly Small Groups. We’re starving for deeper, more meaningful relationships with each other. We’re hungry to get deeper into the Word and apply it to our daily lives. We’re excited about new opportunities for evangelism. We’re tired of meeting at the building on Sunday nights. We’re ready to try something new. We see the vision of growing closer to each other and closer to God through Small Groups. We believe in the dream of turning our community upside down for Jesus with Small Groups. We view the mission and the goals of Small Groups Church as Scripture-based and as a return to the Bible. We think the new logos are cool. I don’t know what we can read into these numbers just yet. Except for this: our God is blessing what we’re doing. The response has been more than we could ever ask or imagine. Our Father has overcome every hurdle, he’s obliterated every obstacle, he’s risen above every miscommunication and misunderstanding, he’s triumphed over all the ways I’ve messed everything up to show us that this is the way to go. And I’m more convinced than ever that he’s not leading us or guiding us as much as he’s pushing us in this direction. I’m committed more than ever to turn all of this completely over to him, to sacrifice it all to him and tell him to do with it what he wants.

Give our God all the glory and honor and praise. He is so very, very good.

We still have 15 different groups of every variety and demographic that have not filled up. We still have slots for 68 more adults which translates to probably another 120 people. There’s still room in the inn. And we’d love to have you! Signups will continue through the end of the month.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  ~Ephesians 3:20-21.

Peace,

Allan

Ask Not What Small Groups Can Do For You…

December 7, 2007 / / 5 Comments

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” ~John 15:12

 Jesus left everything. Jesus considered the glory he had with the Father in heaven nothing. Jesus came to earth to suffer; to be deserted by family and friends; to be ultimately, for a while, even forsaken by God; to be tortured; to be killed like a criminal for you. As lousy as you are. And for me. As lousy as I am.

That’s how the Christ loves us.

And his command—not his suggestion, not his recommendation, not something he said that only makes sense in his culture at his place in time—is that we love each other in the exact same way. John 15:12 and all the other commands to love just like Jesus in that last part of John are not a gray area of debate.

So the question is: are you loving like Jesus? Can you, will you, die for each other?

And we say we’re not called to die. Not in this country. Not in this age. If we were in a different country or living in a different time, maybe I could. But, thankfully, I don’t have to worry about it. Living in America in the 21st century, that’s a concept I don’t even have to consider.

Wrong answer.

“If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus.”  ~Philippians 2:1-5

Paul goes on to quote from the ancient church hymn that Jesus took on the role, the very nature, of a servant and humbled himself by dying on the cross.

And this is exactly how we die for our brothers and sisters. This is precisely how we die for each other. We die to ourselves. We kill off selfish ambition. We put to death vain conceit. We crucify our own interests. We suffocate those parts of us for each other. Like Jesus in the upper room the night he was betrayed, we have to continually find ways of making ourselves the least important person in the group.

Sign-ups begin this Sunday morning at Legacy as we continue our move from a church that does small groups to a Small Groups Church. And I would ask that we each consider our parts in small groups as our ministries of service to God’s people in the Kingdom. Let’s not choose our groups based on our own needs. Let’s not sign-up according to comfort zones and best friends. Let’s sign-up with hearts of service and ministry for others. How can I serve people? How can I love people? How can I reach lonely and struggling and hurting people with the mercy and grace of Christ? What can I do to put the needs of others over my own? As Peter would say, “To this we were called…”

Jesus did it. And he had more to give up than all of us combined.

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The Legacy teens are playing the Legacy family guys in a flag-football extravaganza tomorrow morning at 10:00 on the soccer field north of the building. I’ve always felt like I was a little too old to be in that Sunday morning Young Families Class. But Vic’s presence in there has always comforted me. However, it may be proven tomorrow morning that I really don’t belong with these guys who are ten years younger. By agreeing to play in the game, I’m afraid my brain has written a check my broken down body can’t cash. Like Jon Kitna maybe.

When we moved here this past summer I promised myself I was going to see lots of DFW high school football. And I’ve not seen a single game since the DC debacle at FWC in September. But I’m taking care of that tomorrow by taking in a playoff double-header at Texas Stadium. Hebron’s Hawks are tangling with Abilene, the team that knocked Southlake Carrol out last weekend. My great friend, Billy Whiteley, is the head athletics trainer for Hebron, and I’m anxious to see if they can recapture that state championship magic from two years ago. The second game features Trinity’s Trojans against Arlington Bowie. Lots of our Legacy kids here go to Trinity and so I’ll have a rooting interest in both games. But I refuse to do the Haka. Hocca? Hawka?

Peace,

Allan

Stan's Memorial Service

November 24, 2007 / / 0 Comments

A memorial service for our dear brother Stan Stafford is being held tomorrow afternoon, Sunday, November 25, at 3:00 at the Legacy Church of Christ. Stan passed from this life to the next overnight Monday, at the age of 100, to be with our Father forever. Stan came to the Legacy church early this past summer seeking assistance from our benevolence center. And when Kenny Smith invited him to our assembly the following Sunday, Stan told us it was the first time in his entire life anyone had ever invited him to church. Stan was baptized Sunday morning, October 7,  in a moving ceremony just 16 days before his 100th birthday. What a wonderful testimony to God’s grace and mercy and love. And what a beautiful lesson to all of us about that same mercy and love of our God that knows no limits.

 To the Legacy church family: let’s all do our very best to attend Sunday’s memorial. It gives us a terrific opportunity to honor Stan, to thank God for his life and his inspiring last couple of months with us, and also to encourage his family. I know for certain that at least one of Stan’s sons and one of his daughters will be at the service Sunday. Let’s do all we can to be there for them as an overwhelming witness to the love of Christ as experienced in his Church.

Jesus tells us in John 13 that our love for each other and exposing others to the love we have for each other is our best evangelistic tool. They’ll know we are disciples of the Lord when they see the love we had for Stan.

Peace,

Allan

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