Category: Marble Falls (Page 4 of 4)

Living in Answered Prayer

July 23, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

When the brook at Kerith dried up, Elijah found himself in the middle of the desert, in the middle of a 3-1/2 year drought, in the middle of a 3-1/2 year famine, #1 on the state’s most wanted list, hiding from a queen who was killing men just like him all over the region, and without anything to drink.

As scared as he might have been, Elijah was living right in the middle of his own answered prayer.

Elijah had prayed that it would not rain. He had agonized over the sin of God’s people for so long that he prayed for God to punish his people, to bring them to repentance. James says Elijah prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And as a result of his own prayers, here was Elijah, about to die in the desert.

Has that ever happened to you?

“Lord, make me a godly man. Please make me a woman after your own heart.” But in your mind, you’re thinking, “Don’t let it hurt.”

“God, make me stable and longsuffering and gracious and patient. But don’t take away any of my luxuries.”

“Lord, please make me strong. Increase my faith. But don’t let me suffer.”

Maturity in faith requires sacrifice and suffering. Growing in God is all about suffering. Physical pain. Emotional pain. How else would we ever learn to live by faith?

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What a fantastic kick-off to VBS last night with the opening presentation of “Elijah: On Fire for the Lord” and the big dinner. Of course, the entire 45-minute production began with Elijah’s dramatic announcement that there would be no rain or dew at the word of the Lord and centered on the subsequent drought and famine. And at the exact point Mason Scott (Elisha, the narrator) was detailing to the audience the impact of the drought, how there would be “no rain, not one single deop of moisture anywhere in the entire land,” there came a huge cloudburst right on top of the Legacy church building. The rain came in torrents, pounding the metal roof above our heads just as Mason was saying “no rain anywhere.”

It was a beautiful moment, one that was appreciated by the entire cast and every member of the audience. It reminds us that as much as we plan and prepare and go over and over again every little tiny detail of OUR plans, they’re all at the mercy of GOD’s plans.

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There are 38 days left until football season. And our football player today is one of the best college running backs ever. He didn’t pan out so well in the NFL. But George Rogers was amazing at South Carolina from 1977-80. He was a two-time All-America back who rushed for over a hundred yards in 27 of his 46 career games, including the last 22 in a row. With a deadly combination of power and speed, he won the Heisman Trophy in 1980 by leading the nation in rushing in with 1,894 yards.

Rogers was the overall number one pick of the New Orleans Saints in 1980. But he only lasted four years there and another three with the Redskins before he was done. He did win a ring with the ‘Skins in Super Bowl XXII. But George Rogers makes the list because of what he did as a Gamecock. Next to Herschel Walker, in my lifetime, I can’t think of a better running back in the SEC.

Catching up from yesterday, #39 in my countdown to football season is Dolphins fullback Larry Csonka. He was Miami’s top pick out of Syracuse in 1968 and he’s actually still the Dolphins’ all-time leading rusher with 6,737 yards. He averaged 4.5 bruising yards per carry in Miami, ballooning that average to 6.7 yards per carry in three Super Bowls. Csonka won the MVP award in Super Bowl VIII with 145 yards and two touchdowns.

Csonka wound up his career with the Memphis Southmen of the old World Football League and the New York Giants.

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Jesse Villareal and Karrie Graves and several other of our singles at Legacy are heading down to Marble Falls on August 2 to help clean out houses and clean up debris left over from the flooding of last month. What a wonderful gesture! I don’t know if they’re going to have four or five total make the trip or 40 or 50. They’re just putting it together. But what a wonderful way to show our love and concern for our brothers and sisters in Christ there in that terrific congregation in that beautiful city. I’m so grateful for Jesse and Karrie and for their hearts of love and service to God’s people in the Kingdom. Greg Neill and the folks at the Marble Falls Church will house and feed our singles (and anyone else who wants to take the trip) while they work in the community there for those three days. And then they’ll worship with the Marble Falls congregation Sunday morning.

Thank you. May we all be encouraged by the love of Christ and by the power of our God and his grace as it’s displayed in the lives of our people here.

Peace,

Allan

Elijah's Ministry of Deed

July 18, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

While I’m counting down the days to football season (43, by the way) most everyone else in the church is counting down the days until our Vacation Bible School (4). And I’m getting excited about it, too. The two-story stage is now finished and the nearly 30 cast members of the musical have been up here rehearsing every night for weeks. Everything’s almost completely decorated. And the energy in the air is unmistakable. We’re expecting over 900 here for the Family Kickoff and dinner Sunday evening. And then three evenings of study and performance centered on the life of Elijah for children of every age and adults! I’m even preaching Sunday morning on the very first mention we have of Elijah in Scripture: his pronouncement of divine judgment on Ahab and Jezebel in 1 Kings 17. I toyed with the idea of wearing camel skin and a leather belt. For about two seconds.

It’s odd to me that, as great as Elijah is, he didn’t say a whole lot. We don’t have too many of his words recorded in Scripture. He’s mentioned more times by New Testament writers than any other prophet. His influence and importance as a man of God and a critical player in God’s salvation plans is unquestioned. But I’m not sure he did a whole lot of preaching. If he did, we don’t have it. What we have are a few short sentences from just five or six episodes of his ministry.

Consider that initial mention of Elijah. He comes out of nowhere, lands on the front steps of Ahab’s palace, announces a drought and a famine, and then disappears for three-and-a-half years. He’s gone just as quickly as he came. After just one sentence. When he reappears, it’s just for a day. Three more times he reappears in history, but each time it is just for a day. And doesn’t do a whole lot of talking.

He lets his actions speak for him and his God. He declares himself in 1 Kings 17:1 as a servant of God, standing before the God of Israel as his slave, and that’s enough.

It reminds me of Joe Malone. As our preacher at Pleasant Grove when I was a kid he used to recite a poem ocassionally that spoke to a minister’s life outside the pulpit. The poem ended with the line “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one anyday.”

It’s been said that, in preaching, the thing of least importance is the sermon.

The truth is that a lot of people have learned to tune our sermons out. They know full well that words are cheap and that emotion can be simulated. They wonder how much of our discourse we really believe and practice ourselves. And they look to our lives outside the pulpit for the answer.

Unfortunately, we’ve all known preachers who “slash the throats of their sermons by their lives.”

“Nothing influences others so much as character. Few people are capable of reasoning, and fewer still like the trouble of it; and besides, men have hearts as well as heads. Hence, consistency, reality, ever-present principle, shining through the person in whom they dwell, and making themselves perceptible, have more weight than many arguments, than much preaching.” ~ Heygate, from “Ember Hours”

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Quick update on postdiluvian Marble Falls: I spoke to Greg Neill yesterday and he tells me that 15 of the 17 families in the church who were impacted by the floods of three weeks ago are, for the most part, back in their homes. Please keep the Jamars and the Montgomerys in your thoughts and prayers, as they are still displaced and facing some very tough decisions in the coming days. As with most everyone there who didn’t have flood insurance, their homes were nowhere near the 100-year flood plain. I’m happy to report that the Marble Falls Church has received almost ten thousand dollars from other congregations to help those brothers and sisters, one thousand of that from us at Legacy. They’re not finished with it yet. But the focus has now turned more to cleaning and repairing the town.

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There are only 43 more days until football season begins August 30 with eleven college games and the SEC tilt between LSU and Mississippi State that night on ESPN. And today’s #43 is Dallas Cowboys great Don Perkins. As a three-time all conference running back at New Mexico, Tex Schramm and Tom Landry signed him to a personal services contract before the Cowboys franchise even existed. But it didn’t start out that well.

Perkins almost got cut on the first day of that very first ever Cowboys training camp, in July 1960 in Forest Grove, Oregon. Perkins had reported to camp 20 pounds overweight thanks to an offseason program of, as he says today, biscuits and gravy. And Landry opened up his camp with that now famous Landry Mile. It was actually a mile and a quarter and Landry had every single player run it on the first day of camp for 29 years. And Perkins couldn’t even finish it. He fell down several times and then quit. The Landry Mile was designed to weed out those with no pride or determination. But because they had so few good players on that first roster they gave Perkins another chance. And he broke his foot. Perkins had to sit out that awful inaugural season of 1960 and wasn’t able to play until ’61. But he was definitely worth the wait.

Perkins was the NFL Rookie of the Year that season and finished in the top ten in the league in rushing every single one of his eight years with the Cowboys. He’s still the #3 all time leading rusher in Cowboys history behind Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett and #6 in all-purpose yards. Perkins literally carried the Cowboys from a winless expansion team to two straight NFL Championship Games. And when the Cowboys unveiled the famed Ring of Honor, Perkins was the second honoree to be inducted behind Hall of Famer Bob Lilly.

Cliff “Captain Crash” Harris gets a sentimental honorable mention. But Don Perkins is the best to ever wear #43.

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Is it weird to be sad about a weatherman retiring? After 31 years at Channel 8 in Dallas, Troy Dungan and his goofy bow ties are calling it quits. He had just arrived when my 4th grade class at Dallas Christian took a field trip to WFAA downtown to visit Troy. And we all decorated bow ties in recognition of his signature accessory as our nametags. Troy judged our nametags and declared mine third best behind Kristi Warmann and somebody else I can’t recall. Anway, my dad went with us as a sponsor and took his weather records to show Troy. (There’s not enough time in the day or space on our server to tell you about my dad and weather.) And Troy was kind enough and gracious enough to listen to my dad talk about his charts and records that he became our family favorite. Troy even recruited my dad and my aunt as his first weather-watchers — my dad in Pleasant Grove and my aunt in North Dallas. And dad stayed with him until they moved to Liberty City in 2000. It was not unusual for dad to have one of us call Troy at Channel 8 to report our rainfall amounts at the house or for Troy to call us if something really big was happening in the Grove. And we always thought that was cool. I remember C-A and I running into Troy and his family at the El Chico in Waco one Sunday afternoon and he recalled each one of us by name and asked about everybody. He’s always just as nice and friendly in person as he seems to be on air. Delkus and Fields and everybody else on Channel 8 seem so fake and cheesy compared to Troy. And I hate it that he’s leaving.

I know it makes me old. But does it make me weird?

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Finally got the Texas flag up on the house. Finally feels, and looks, like home.

Peace,

Allan

Another Picture of the Four Horsemen

June 28, 2007 / Allan / 1 Comment

I’ve seen many more pictures of the flooding in and around Marble Falls and talked to many more of our dear friends down there since yesterday’s post. Thank God they didn’t receive hardly any additional rain last night. But the devastation from Tuesday night’s flood appears today to be worse than anybody originally thought. At least 150 homes and businesses have been damaged. They are able to produce a little bit of water for residents, but they first have to boil every drop they use. Because of that, most every business and restaurant in Marble Falls is still closed today. Mayor Raymond Whitman, a member of the church in Marble Falls, is estimating millions of dollars in damages to the city’s infrastructure, mainly in washed out bridges and roads. Here’s a short story from the Statesman on Marble Falls’ situation. They’re expecting up to six more inches of rain today and tonight. Here’s an interesting series of charts and tables from the LCRA on all five of the Highland Lakes. Scroll down and check out the spikes on the lake levels at Lake Marble Falls and Lake Travis. They’re still in a “major flood event” this morning on Travis. Here are some pictures and commentary from my good friend Jimmy Mitchell, the youth minister in Marble Falls. And here’s a whole bunch of great pictures from KXAN-TV in Austin. And, I can’t help it. Here are the ones that have impacted me the most. I’m not very good (any good at all, actually) at positioning these pictures where I’d like. Help me, John!!! Pardon the weird style of all this.

This is the creek behind the Methodist church and Margarita’s, between 1431 and Mission Hills Drive, where we lived for the past two years. This is a portion of Avenue J near downtown that’s been washed out. This is Commerce Street where Dan Burdett lost four or five of his storage units. A couple of boat shops and BFI’s Burnet County headquarters are there and received lots of damage from the flooding of Whitman Branch. Here’s a picture of one of many cars that were washed out on Highway-1431 just east of town. Johnson Park is still under water. This is the view from the skate park looking towards Johnson Park and Backbone Creek. Here’s another of Johnson Park. This is Lakeside Park where all the picnic pavilions were under water. And this is the section of Broadway, right there by the Boys & Girls club, leading up to the old Marble Falls Elementary. Here’s some more of the damage that was done to the businesses along 281 next to Whitman Branch. Cars and boats and debris thrown around and into other cars and boats and windows and buildings. Next to the shots of Johnson Park, this is the picture that overwhelms me most. This is the arm of the Llano River that shoots out onto the Kingsland Slab. That bridge that’s covered there is only for cars. If you want to get out into all that, you generally just step across on the rocks. I’ve never seen that more than knee deep. Never. That’s where you take the little kids to play in the water and picnic. I can’t believe how deep and wide it is today! Finally, arial shots of Wirtz Dam between Lakes LBJ and Marble Falls and of Starcke Dam between Lakes Marble Falls and Travis. To all our dear friends in the Hill Country and along the beautiful Highland Lakes, we love y’all and we’re thinking of y’all and praying for y’all.

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63 more days until football season. And the all-time #63 is Gene Upshaw. Out of Texas A&I Kingsville (Javelinas?), he was the Oakland Rai-duhs #1 pick in 1967 and played on the offensive line with Art Shell and John Madden for most of his 15 NFL seasons. Upshaw played in ten AFL/AFC title games and three Super Bowls. He played in 307 career games and became the first ever exclusive offensive guard to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. He’s making big-time news now as the long-time head of the NFL Players Association and catching all kinds of heat for taking care of current players but ignoring and neglecting all the old-timers who can’t get out of bed in the mornings because of their chronic injuries and illnesses directly related to their football careers.

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“Therefore, this is what the Lord says, ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,’ declares the Lord Almighty. Proclaim further: This is what the Lord Almighty says, ‘My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.'” ~Zechariah 1:16-17

Peace,

Allan

Flooding in Marvelous Falls

June 27, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

19-1/2 inches of rain in less than ten hours on top of already saturated ground and swollen rivers and creeks produced some major flooding overnight and early this morning in our home away from home, Marble Falls. Our old house on Hackberry, in the Pecan Valley Subdivision two streets off the lake where we called home for almost seven years, is under water. Johnson Park, where I’ve MCed beauty pageants and battles of bands, pushed my girls on the merry ground, prayed with youth groups, swung on the monkey bars, and eaten HowdyFest chili is underwater. Lakeside Park is flooded. A house across the street from Kyle & Marti Futrell was struck by lightning and burned to the ground because 1) fire crews were too busy rescuing people from their flooded-out homes and 2) they couldn’t get up there to fight it anyway. Highways 281, 29, and 1431 into and out of Marble Falls were flooded. Meadowlakes residents are trapped. There are 30 families trying to dry out at the Marble Falls Middle School, about two blocks up from the Futrell rent house we called home for the past two years. Great friends Jerry & Cindy Jamar had their house flooded. Clint & Tiffany Young are flooded. Dan Burdett, one of my closest friends, lost four of his commercial buildings on Commerce Street. There have been over 40 water rescues made since 4:00 this morning. There’s no water coming out of the city pipes. None. No drinking water. No bathing water. Everything’s shut down. A state of disaster has been declared. The National Guard has moved in. The Red Cross has set up shop at Cattleman’s Bank next to the HEB where they’re passing out bottled water. Apache helicopters and rescue units have arrived from Fort Hood in Killeen and have set up at Home Depot. All the floodgates on all five dams on the Highland Lakes are open, and the water levels are still rising. Lake Travis, not a small lake between Marble Falls and Austin, has risen over five feet since last night. The boundaries of the 100 year flood plain have been breached. Big time.

And they’re anticipating 8-9 additional inches of rain tonight.

Praise God there have been no injuries or deaths reported. Everyone was warned ahead of time. The LCRA did its job in getting the weather reports and communicating their forecasts for what the lakes and rivers would do. I know from long discussions with Guy Nelson and Don Graves how stressful that is. The system worked. But if they get more rain tonight, tomorrow will look worse than today.

Please pray today for all our great friends in Marble Falls. The people and the church there are a permanent part of our lives. Our hearts are with them today. And I wish you’d lift them up to God right now. May our Lord bless them and deliver them from the waters. May he grant them peace and comfort in the midst of the turmoil and uncertainties. And may he use that church, that body of believers who meet in Marble Falls, to reach out to the hurting community with the compassion and love of Christ. May our God use this awful circumstance to impact the area with his grace. And may the church there have the vision and the passion to see the opportunities for Christian service that are literally washing up all around them.

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I delivered the Discipleship lessons I used at the Legacy Youth Retreat a couple of months ago to the teenaged children of the deaf people who are here for the annual National Deaf Christian Workshop. They were very responsive and enthusiastic about the pictures we have in our Scriptures regarding our God and his Son and what it means to truly follow him. Thanks to Collin Swofford for helping out and to Jason Brown for setting up my projector.

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64 days until football season. And #64 on my all-time jersey list is Packers offensive lineman Jerry Kramer. Some would list Kramer ahead of John Hannah and Rayfield Wright as the best pulling-guard to ever lead a sweep. I’m thinking you and I could pull pretty well if we were leading for Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung. But Kramer certainly belongs in the top five. He played for the Packers for 11 years, won five NFL titles, including the first two Super Bowls. But what he’s most remembered for is the clinching block he put on Jethro Pugh in the Ice Bowl NFL Championship game of 1966 in Green Bay to spring Bart Starr for the game-winning TD.

13-seconds left. Cowboys up 21-17. 3rd down and no timeouts. And they quarterback sneak it over Kramer for the winning score. A surprise call. A great block. And it made Kramer famous. End zone TV cameras captured the block so well, and they showed it over and over again for weeks. Kramer became the very first ever offensive lineman recognized nationally for his blocking. And it was all because of TV and instant replay. In fact, the name of Kramer’s excellent autobiography is Instant Replay.

I hate it. Had the Cowboys won the Ice Bowl, the Super Bowl trophy would be named after Landry instead of Lombardi.

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“During the night I had a vision—and there before me was a man riding a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown, and white horses. I asked, ‘What are these, my lord?’ Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, ‘They are the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth.'”

~Zechariah 1:8-10

Peace,

Allan

A Banner Beginning

June 4, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

What an amazing day of worship and praise and communion and fellowship with the body of Christ that meets at Legacy! I know it’s a nightmare logistically, but I love the energy and enthusiasm that comes with having the entire church family together for one worship service at the same time. The singing to our Lord was inspired. The words and prayers from our shepherds were challenging and convicting. The example of our Savior to live our lives as huge billboards proclaiming the glory of our God is motivating and encouraging. I certainly felt like God was present in every handshake, every hug, every pat on the back. What a marvelous day and a great beginning to our ministry together.

What a surprise to see LeeAnn Clark and Letitia Daniel in the crowd yesterday morning! The Clarks and the Daniels and their sweet kids are a big part of what made it so hard to leave Marble Falls to begin this work in North Richland Hills. We’ve left so many dear friends—we’ve laughed and cried and prayed and worshiped and had babies and buried loved ones and installed air conditioners and roofed houses and tiled floors and studied the Word and raised our kids and played tennis and froze at football games and lived all the other parts of our lives together in Marble Falls for parts of nine years together. And we love that church and we love that community.

But the work here is great and the challenge is real. I don’t feel as led or guided by our God to be in this place as I do pushed by God to be at Legacy. And that does fill me with a tremendous sense of confidence and courage that he is bigger than me and he’s bigger than us. God has huge plans for us. He is working in mighty ways to impact our mid-cities communities for his Kingdom.

I want to thank you — our family, our old friends in Marble Falls, our new friends here in NRH, all the wonderful professors and staff at Austin Grad, everyone who has played and is playing a role in shaping me and encouraging me and pushing me to be God’s servant and a servant of his Kingdom.

As for blogging, have patience with me here at the start. I have great plans and ideas for this website, but it’s going to take a while. I intend to use this site to encourage and teach and exhort our church family at Legacy and the Kingdom of God abroad. It’ll also be a way for me to update you with our family news and the goings-on of Carrie-Anne and the girls as we get settled back in the city. And — I can’t help it — this will be my outlet for the sports thoughts and opinions that are backing up in my head. This site will undergo lots of changes over the next few weeks. I’ll add pictures and links and all kinds of things that will keep us all informed and uplifted and challenged. And if it turns into a forum for discussion, I think that’ll make it even better.

Keep checking back.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Marble Falls (Page 4 of 4)

Living in Answered Prayer

Elijah's Ministry of Deed

Another Picture of the Four Horsemen

Flooding in Marvelous Falls

A Banner Beginning

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