“I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”
~Pope Francis, from Evangelii Gaudium
Category: Ministry (Page 16 of 35)
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” ~Psalm 116:15
I know he didn’t tell me every week. It wasn’t even every month. Couldn’t have been. But it was frequent. It was many times over the course of my childhood and into my high school years. Jim Martin, the head elder (I know there’s no such thing) at my church in southeast Dallas, was emphatic when he told me. I remember him telling me while we were standing on the brown speckled industrial tile in the hallway down the classroom wing of the Pleasant Grove Church of Christ. He told me out in the church parking lot. He told me near the front of the auditorium right after worship services. I feel like he told me all the time. And he meant it.
“Allan, if you’ll go to preaching school, I’ll pay for your tuition.”
Of course, he was talking about the Sunset or Preston Road schools of preaching. At the time, I didn’t have much of an idea about money or how much that kind of an education might cost. I knew Sunset was in Lubbock, somewhere out in West Texas, a million miles from Big D. I had been to several graduations at Preston Road as our church financially supported students there every year. Those things, though, didn’t really matter. I didn’t want to be a preacher. I couldn’t imagine being a preacher. I wanted Brad Sham’s job doing radio play-by-play for the Cowboys.
Jim — sorry; he was always “Brother Martin” — was a giant in my home church. In my mind, he stood taller even than his six-foot-four frame. He was a Bible class teacher, a song leader, and an elder in our congregation. He was always standing in front of the church. Teaching. Leading us in worship. Leading us in prayer. Baptizing. Announcing important decisions. He was our home and auto insurance guy, a successful businessman with his own office on Buckner Boulevard. I never saw him without a coat and tie. In every setting, he carried himself in a deliberate and professional manner. For these and many other reasons I always looked up to Jim.
My sister, Rhonda, and I found some of his mannerisms… umm… humorous. He wore his pants almost a little too high; not quite “above the navel” as Matthew McConaughey’s character says in “Bernie,” but still a little too high. When he sat down on that little short pew on the stage in-between songs on Sunday mornings, his pants legs would rise up incredibly high. His cuffs would be almost at his knees. And, to our constant amazement, so did his socks! We always privately assumed his socks were somehow connected to his underwear. We could perfectly imitate the way he led singing, his right arm extended with barely any crook at all in the elbow and his middle finger on that right hand dipped slightly below the others. The way he paused a little too long between the first and second words of a lot of songs. “When….. …. …. I survey the wondrous cross.” For some reason, Jim pronounced “dollars” as “dah-lahs,” like he was from London or something. We imagined he mowed the lawn and changed the oil in his cars wearing his slacks and wing tips.
He and my dad were best friends. They sang together, taught Bible class together, and served together as shepherds at P-Grove. Jim and Polly Martin were at our house a lot when we were kids and we spent a lot of time at their place on Alhambra Street. On those rare occasions when we got to eat lunch at Wyatt’s Cafeteria after church, it seems the Martins were always there with us. Jim and my dad were equals in almost every sense of the term — including most of their quirkiest mannerisms — but Jim was older. My dad asked for and highly valued Jim’s opinions and insights. He talked about Jim a lot. He looked up to Jim. And that was huge for me. Jim always seemed very important to me. And, looking back, a big part of that is probably because I sensed my dad looking up to Jim, too.
When Brother Martin told me I could preach and that he would pay for my training, he was telling me two things: One, that preaching the Word of God was really, really important — maybe even more important than selling insurance; and, two, that he believed in me, he really believed in me.
Jim and Polly’s daughter, Becky, and her husband Glen were our youth ministers at the Pleasant Grove church when we didn’t have youth ministers. Glen hired me to work at his roofing company the summer before my sophomore year in high school. He taught me how to drive a stick shift. He taught me how not to cut ridge with a Skil saw. He taught me a lot of things. For a period of four or five years I spent more time at Glen and Becky’s house than I did my own. I bought my first car when I was sixteen: a long, white 1974 Monte Carlo with a burgundy Landau top. I paid for it with roofing money. Bought the insurance policy from Jim Martin with roofing money. When I was re-baptized over Thanksgiving break of my senior year in college, it was Jim Martin who buried me with Christ. And when I finally decided to leave sports radio to enter a full time congregational preaching ministry, I called my parents. And then I called Jim Martin. He expressed to me his great delight upon hearing that news. And he told me God was going to use me to expand his Kingdom.
Jim died Sunday evening at 85 years of age. He was surrounded by his family, forgiven by his Savior, and wrapped in the loving arms of his God.
My dad and I talked on the phone together about Jim late Sunday night. A number of us preachers in Texas and around the Southwest who have been personally blessed by Jim’s son, Jimmy Martin, have been exchanging emails and texts. Rhonda and I shared some really funny stories and a few tears together on the phone yesterday. Throughout our childhood, Jim and Polly Martin were always there helping and encouraging. During our most formative years, Glen and Becky were always there helping and encouraging. For the entire seven years of my preaching ministry, Jimmy Martin has been right by my side helping and encouraging. There has never been a time in my life — all 47 years — when Jim Martin and his children were not involved in supporting me and encouraging me.
I’ve written all this —- and I could very easily keep going — to say this: encourage the young people in your church. Tell them you believe in them. Tell them how talented they are, how blessed by God they are. Tell them all the dreams you have for them, all the great things you see for them. Help the kids in your church and encourage them. You have been ordained by God to play an important role in molding and shaping young preachers and ministers, future missionaries and teachers of the Gospel. One word of encouragement to a child can carry her or him for years. One sentence of blessing to a teenager can last maybe for a lifetime.
It’s been sixteen or seventeen years since I’ve been inside the Pleasant Grove church building. My siblings and I all left P-Grove as soon as we could. And so did most everybody else. Our parents retired and moved to East Texas in 2000. There’s not forty people left in that congregation today. But Jim and Polly stayed. Jim was still at that old church building three or four days a week, paying bills, putting the bulletin together, leading singing, and teaching class up until he fell and injured his back over Thanksgiving weekend. I thank God today for Jim Martin. And when we walk into that church building for Jim’s funeral later this week, it’ll be good. It’ll be precious.
Peace,
Allan
What a terrific start to our first official “4 Amarillo” service project Sunday at Central. I had joked with our congregation that, while this was by no means any kind of competition, I sure wanted our church to collect more school supplies than the Methodists and Presbyterians. I figured there was no way to beat First Baptist because Howie Batson just makes one phone call and the boys down in Waco write him a million dollar check. But I definitely wanted us to out-do First Presbyterian because their senior pastor, Howard Griffen, lives across the street from me. I told my church I wanted to be sitting on my front porch Monday evening when Howard went out to check his mail so I could yell to him, “If you’re looking for school supplies, they’re all at the Church of Christ!” 
I don’t know yet what the other three churches did. But our God moved us and empowered us to offer and collect more school supplies than I thought we would. I’m always the one who shoots for the stars and believes we’re always going to make the goal. But our efforts as a church family yesterday blew even me out of the water (this is where we give all the glory to God).
Our children scattered throughout the worship center during the opening moments of our assembly to gather the hundreds of sacks of school supplies that had been collected over the past couple of weeks. Composition books and pencils, Ziploc baggies and three-ring binders — the shopping carts that had been borrowed for the event overflowed and spilled onto and around the steps at the front of the room as we sang praises to our gracious God. All combined, we’ve sorted and stacked and counted 1,144 composition books, 1,020 boxes of #2 pencils, 364 binders, 290 boxes of baggies, and nearly $900 in cash!
Thank you so much for your eager participation in this cooperative effort with First Baptist, First Presbyterian, and Polk Street Methodist. Thank you for your enthusiastic response to our lessons Sunday about a visible and active unity among all Christians “that the world may believe.” And thank you for your continuing commitment to living out this unity and extending this grace to all disciples in the name of Jesus for the sake of our city.
We’re loading all the supplies into the church trailer Wednesday night, taking them to Polk Street Thursday morning, and then all four churches are combining our supplies and packing all the sacks for all four of our downtown area elementary schools at Polk Street Thursday evening. All those sacks will then be delivered to the schools next week along with catered breakfasts and lunches for the teachers. 
We believer our alliance between the four downtown churches is a serious and everlasting statement to our city of the power and love of our God and of his will to reconcile and restore all of creation to him. Thank you for your faith in that vision that was so evident yesterday.
Peace,
Allan
“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” ~John 17:1
Jesus begins his prayer in John 17 with the words, “The time has come.” And, of course, we know he’s talking about his death. The time has come for Jesus to die, and that’s going to bring glory to God. We wouldn’t think death and glory belong together. We would think death and glory are opposites. We see glory as brightness, not night. We view glory in terms of celebrity, not mockery. Glory to us is fortune and fame, health and wealth, not suffering and death.
Jesus prays that he will be glorified and that, in turn, so will God. Just a few hours later, that prayer is answered. Jesus is dead.
The scandal of our religion is that our King reigns from a cross. Jesus does not destroy all evil and save the world through the exercise of power and control; he does it with supreme humility and selfless sacrifice. He dies. The disciples in the room with his this night will die similar deaths. Those deaths all brought glory to God. Death and dying is our salvation. Death and dying is glory.
We don’t come to the cross of Christ to worship his death or to remember the grisly details of that day. We come to the cross — we’re actually drawn to the cross — to see what it looks like for us to die. People say Jesus died so we don’t have to. No, that’s not right. Jesus died to show us how to. Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ!” He tells the Corinthians, “I die every day!” He tells us in Colossians 3, “You died and your life is now hidden with Christ!”
God’s Church does not exist to serve itself. It’s not even intended to serve Christ. The Church is established to serve like Christ. To serve with Christ. To serve as Christ. We are instruments of God’s reconciliation of the world through Jesus, so we die every day in order to make the Word of God’s salvation fully known (Colossians 1:24-25). Dying with Jesus reflects our sense of unity with the Son of God. We have been buried with Christ, raised together with Christ, and been given brand new life together in Christ. As the body of Christ, we have a corporate personality. And that personality should be one of daily dying with Jesus for the sake of the world and to the glory of God!
The biggest problem with God’s Church in today’s context is our cowardly retreat from the high demands of the Christian faith. We run from it. We try to hide from it in our church buildings and Bible classes, in our carefully-orchestrated worship services and efficiently-run programs. Chesterton says — and I love this — “Christianity has not been tried and found difficult; it’s been found difficult and never really tried.”
Our setting today is no different from when Jesus was praying with those disciples after that last meal. It’s the same for us today as it was when Paul was writing his letters. The Church of God needs inspiring heroes; we need great daring and risk-taking; we need monumental sacrifice. The time has come for us to die. To die to our own dreams and desires. To die to our own grabs for money and power and control. To die to our own obsessions with recreation and politics and home improvement. To die to our addictions to entertainment and technology and consumerism. The time has come for disciples of the holy Messiah to die.
There’s a small child in your church, there’s a teenager in your neighborhood, who will come alive if you’ll only die for him. There’s an older woman on your street who will be re-born if you’ll just die for her. There’s a divorced dad in your office — you’ll see him in the morning! — who will be filled with resurrection hope if you’ll die for him. There’s a depressed immigrant, an unemployed neighbor, a suicidal senior, a confused girl, a sick soul, an abused woman, a guy on probation, a hungry child, an overworked mom — there are people you know who will live, really live, if you’ll just decide to die.
Peace,
Allan
“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” ~John 17:1
Jesus begins his very public prayer at the end of that last meal with his disciples acknowledging that the time for him to die, to glorify the Father in a selfless act of unconditional love, was at hand. The hour had come. It was here. It was time. The prayer is certainly set in and around the context of his impending death. But for a brief moment at the beginning of this prayer, Jesus allowed himself room to reflect for a moment on his brief earthly life and ministry.
“I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. I have revealed you…”
Jesus always told people if you had seen him, you had seen the Father. If you knew Jesus, you knew the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Yes, Jesus revealed God to the world. Jesus reveals God’s glory. Jesus allows us to see God. Jesus allows us to experience God. Jesus’ compassion shows us God’s compassion. Jesus’ mercy shows us God’s mercy. Jesus’ gentleness shows us God’s gentleness. Jesus’ intolerance for religious people who judge others and think they’re better than everybody else shows us God’s holy intolerance for religious arrogance and pride. Jesus’ love and forgiveness shows us God’s great love and forgiveness. Revealing God — this was a large part of the work God had given Jesus to do.
And, to borrow the powerful language from Christ’s prayer, the time has come for the Church of God to do the work God has given us to do. The time has come for us to reveal our God to the world. If we don’t, who will?
This world is full of cops and lawyers and judges and juries who accuse and prosecute and punish. The time has come for God’s people to be the ones who forgive. The world is full of writers and broadcasters and politicians who spread hate and fear in order to divide and conquer. The time has come for Christ’s followers to be the ones who spread love and hope in order to reconcile and restore. The world is full of soldiers and generals and armies and kings who take and kill in the name of country and security. The time has come for Christ’s Church to be the ones who give life, who give resources, who give of themselves, who give and give and give in the name of the One who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
The time has come for us to complete the work we’ve been given to do, to reveal the love and grace of Almighty God to a world that does not know him. If we don’t, who will?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m not playing “Taps” for the Rangers just yet. It’s not completely over. But this team is on life support. They’re barely breathing. The family’s been called in. The grandkids are gathering photos for the slide show. It’s not looking good.
The Rangers have lost four straight and nine of their past eleven games. They have been shut out — zero runs! — in three of their past four games. The Rangers haven’t scored a run in 21 straight innings. They have scored three runs or fewer in twelve of their past fifteen games and hit .177 with runners in scoring position during this same fifteen game stretch, including yesterday’s 0-3 showing in Cleveland. As of this very moment, Texas is six games back of Oakland in the AL West and fourth in the Wild Card standings. Worse than that, yesterday marked the 30th consecutive day the Rangers have not made up ground in the division. They’ve gone a full month now either staying put or losing ground to the A’s.
Yikes!
I’m still convinced that Nelson Cruz will be suspended this coming weekend, probably Friday, for the remainder of the season. So now the Rangers need at least two or three brand new bats, not just one or two. I was hopeful that the Garza signing would spark something in these guys. No, it hasn’t. And I’m afraid Ron Washington’s 45-minute closed door team meeting after yesterday’s embarrassing effort won’t do it either.
We’ll know for certain this time next Monday whether to pull the plug on this team. Texas plays the Angels in a three-game set in Arlington beginning tonight and then go head-to-head with the A’s in Oakland this coming weekend. So, come Monday, we’ll know.
It’s been three or four years since Cowboys pre-season football was more interesting than watching the Rangers.
Crud.
Allan
Our church family at Central has been so blessed to spend this month with our beloved missionaries in Brasilia, Junior and Patricia Lira. The Liras are on a working sabbatical (oxymoron, I know) here in the States and have used three weeks of it here in Amarillo with us before heading up to Tulsa this weekend. I think they’ve eaten Tex-Mex at least once a day since they arrived here. And they’ve received approximately 11,700 hugs and twice that many well wishes and kind words of encouragement.
The entire missions committee and our families gathered at Stanglin Manor on Monday for grilled fajitas and an extended time of prayer for Junior and Patricia, for the Kingdom work in Brazil, and for our relationship together in Christ. After sharing a massive meal, we listened intently as these two co-workers with God talked with us about their triumphs and their defeats, about their good times and bad in Brasilia. Church work is hard; I believe foreign missions work is exponentially harder. And our hearts became one with theirs as they discussed some of those struggles.
I found myself reminding them that, for ministers, at the end of every single day there’s always several more things you could have done. Congregational ministry never stops. When 5:00 rolls around, you’ve never done enough. No matter how efficient or productive your day has been, there’s always one more phone call you could have made, one more card you could have written, one more thing you could have read, another meeting you could have attended, one more something somewhere that would have strengthened or encouraged or otherwise blessed somebody. There’s always something else. Always. So, I told Junior, just go home! Patricia said, “Yes! Early!”
They both work so hard. And they inspire us. They are both so energetic, so enthusiastic, so visibly full of God’s Holy Spirit, and want nothing more than to be used by God for his eternal purposes. They challenge us with their lives of service to our Father’s Kingdom.
The highlight of the evening was getting Junior and Patricia in the middle of our living room and then surrounding them, on our knees before our holy God, laying hands on them and thanking the Lord and asking him to pour out his richest blessings on them. To listen and participate with these great men and women as they opened up their hearts to God and to one another was really the highlight of my week.
Until we got together for a dinner with the praise team last night at Michael and Connie’s and sang for more than an hour with Junior and Patricia. I’m not sure how Carrie-Anne and I got invited, but we’re so grateful. Singing songs of praise to our God in English and in Portuguese was an undeniable testimony to the power of his Spirit and the vitality of his Church. We laughed together as Dick and Lisa traded friendly barbs, we worked hard together to harmonize with Prentis, we sniffed tears of joy away as we sang It Is Well, and we stood together to sing The Lord Bless You and Keep You. After all seven “amens” we hugged and began all over again expressing our great admiration for and best wishes to Junior and Patricia.
It’s been a marvelous three weeks with these two great servants of our Lord. May our God bless them with strength and endurance, with energy and confidence, as they serve his Kingdom in South America. And may our God bless his people at Central to sacrifice and serve here in Amarillo in the selfless and joyful manner of Junior and Patricia.
Peace,
Allan
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