Category: Stanglin Family (Page 20 of 25)

Happy Mother's Day

May 7, 2010 / Allan / 0 Comments

“God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.” ~Jewish Proverb

On a literal level, we certainly disagree with the proverb. God is most definitely everywhere. But in a symbolic sense I dearly love what the proverb proclaims. For we do see our God in our mothers.

When our mothers cook for us our favorite meals, sew the patch in the knee of our blue jeans, and slip us the cash for the movie, they are reflecting the provision of our God who always meets the needs of his children.

When our mothers hold us closely through the thunderstorm, watch us as we cross the street, and insist on meeting all our friends, they are mimicking the protection we’re promised by our Father.

Whey they wipe away the tears and apply the Band-Aids and force the cough medicine down our throats, they are shadowing our God, the Comforter and Healer.

Our mothers love us unconditionally, despite the messes we make and the trouble we cause. Even when we don’t listen and we don’t behave, mom’s love never wanes. She disciplines us when we stray from the path. She forgives us when we wreck her carpet. And she encourages us to be all we were created to be.

Our mothers teach us right from wrong. They listen inexhaustibly. They rejoice in our success. And our setbacks cause their hearts to break. They know what we’re going to say before we say it. Our mothers brag about us to their friends and defend us to our peers. They believe in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves. They lead us from in front and they push us from behind.

And there’s nothing that could ever separate us from their love.

Ever.

Yes, our God is everywhere. But so too, it seems, are our mothers.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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OK, it’s not good that after two days we’ve managed to raise only $30 for MDA. I thank the gracious person who donated the $30. He or she chose to remain anonymous on my MDA jail page. I don’t know who you are, but THANK YOU! They’re going to arrest me and take me to jail this coming Thursday. I have to raise $1,480 bail. Scroll down and see Wednesday’s post to get the full scoop. And then please click here to donate.

Don’t make me start sending out emails.

Peace,

Allan

Truly Belonging

May 3, 2010 / Allan / 1 Comment

“In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” ~Romans 12:5

We belong to each other because we belong to Christ!

This was our theme here at Legacy last night. These are the words we said together during our call to worship. We repeated the words together a couple of times during our lesson from Romans 12. And we said the words to one another as we shared the communion meal of our risen Lord.

We belong to each other because we belong to Christ!

What if we really did belong to each other? What would that look like? What if we really functioned, not as a group of individual Christians with individual ministries but together as a whole? What if we thought in terms of the whole? Not what’s best for my age group or what’s going to benefit my kids or how this is going to meet my needs. What if we thought and acted like members of something bigger than ourselves? What if our thinking was community-oriented? What if the whole really were greater than the individual? What if we took the inspired apostle Paul seriously? What if we really belonged to each other? What would that look like?

We belong to each other because we belong to Christ!

What if we were truly community? Not just community like the people in your neighborhood or the guy across the street. Not like the people you see two or three times a week and say ‘hello’ to when you run into them at Wal-Mart. What if were community, a body, belonging to one another like, maybe, an army platoon?

Now that’s a community! An army platoon! United by a shared purpose and goal. Working together to achieve something great. A community formed under pressure, shaped by great difficulty. Not just church membership, but a sacred covenant with one another in order to serve the Kingdom for which Christ died. A community of faith inseparably bonded in order to do something together that eternally matters.

We belong to each other because we belong to Christ!

What would that look like?

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Two Saturdays ago we went to the Rangers game with 20 of our Legacy brothers and sisters and wound up in the big middle of 175 Austin Jackson fans in the left field bleachers. Austin Jackson is the Detroit Tigers’ rookie centerfielder who grew up and played his High School ball at Denton Ryan. And when Jim Knox did his man-in-the-stands interview on Fox Sports Southwest in the bottom of the fourth inning, Carrie-Anne, Valerie, Carley, and Carley’s friend, Victoria all got in the pictures. They actually helped this “A.J.” fan club hold up their big banner for the interview.

We had a great time at the Third Day concert before the game, hanging with the Ashlock boys who ate for the cycle during the game, and rooting the home team to an 8-4 loss. Base-running and fielding errors are killing this team, huh? Hopefully Kinsler’s return will spark some offense and shore up that middle part of the defense. And while the Rangers are technically in first place today, I’m worried about this team.

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I’ve been convinced for ten years now that the Mavericks will never win a title as long as Dirk is their best player. I hope he’s not finished as a Mav. I can’t stand the thought of our DFW sports scene losing Mike Modano and Nowitski, two wonderful human beings and pillars of the community, two Hall of Famers (and media friendly to boot!), in the same year. Cuban just needs to find a way to pair Dirk up with a transcendent LeBron-esque superstar to cover his weaknesses on both ends of the floor. Somebody the other 12 guys on the roster will respond to in a crisis. I love Dirk. But he’s never been enough.

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The Legacy Prime-Timers held their annual Hobo Stew this past Saturday night. Valerie and Sarah and Maddie (The Three Amigas) were on hand to entertain and inspire with their beautiful voices. Kent drew the catcalls and hoots everytime he drew his own number for door prizes. Vic did Elvis. And Mack and Shirley blew us all away with their costumes. What a great night. Carrie-Anne and I were honored to be a part of it.

Peace,

Allan

White, Green, and Bright Pink

February 15, 2010 / Allan / 2 Comments

I’ve been alive for a little over 43 years. And not once, ever, never has it even occurred to me that it might be a potential possibility — ever! — that I might have to shovel snow. I’ve never even entertained it as a possibility. Never! But there I was Friday morning: an inclined driveway covered with nearly a foot of snow, one car in the garage, and one truck stuck. I just stared at the mess. What in the world am I going to do? And I looked three doors down and saw my neighbor shoveling his driveway.

The backs of my legs are still sore.

We measured anywhere from nine inches to eleven-and-a-half inches in various places around our yard Friday. So beautiful. So crazy. The biggest single snowfall in DFW history. It started at about 3:00am Thursday morning and didn’t stop until a little over 24 hours later. The girls and I built three snowmen, made six snow angels, threw 300 snowballs, and soaked through twelve total pairs of jeans.

And, true to form, most of it had completely melted by Sunday morning.

What an amazing couple of days, though, it was. So beautiful. So crazy. So unexpected. So thoroughly enjoyed by all of us. Thank God for his gracious and unforeseen blessings. Thank God for these marvelous displays of his power and love. And give him praise for the opportunities to bask in those blessings through the eyes and the energy and the joy of our children.

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School district websites were busy Thursday morning as most every parent of a school-aged child was checking to see if classes were going to be disrupted by the weather. It so happens that, at the time, the Hurst-Euless-Bedford I.S.D.’s website was featuring a front-page story about an elementary school fundraiser at an area McDonald’s a couple of weeks earlier. C-A and the girls and I had gone to that MickeyD’s that night to support (rag) Cori Brown. And I wound up in the background of the picture on the school’s website. Lots of Legacy folks emailed me that morning, commenting on the picture with their own personal brand of humor.

The funniest comment though came from Jason Wolfe who observed that the employee actually featured in the photo looks like the bizarro Aaron Green.

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Here’s a picture that’s been floating around various Facebook pages recently. (I don’t do Facebook; I’m going to be the very last person in this country to join Facebook.) See if you can pick out Carrie-Anne and Shanna (Corley) Byrnes. They’re standing right next to each other in this 20-year-old photo, wearing almost the exact same dress. They were both at Oklahoma Christian at the same time. Same club. Even dated the same guy. Now we’re co-leading a Small Group together here at Legacy. Cooking together. Praying together. Raising kids together.

Thank God for family and friends, for holy relationships that encourage and build-up, for Christian love that supports and sustains.

And for giving us all the ability to enjoy life and laugh.

Peace,

Allan

Every Family in God's Service

January 4, 2010 / Allan / 4 Comments

“…to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the Body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” ~Ephesians 4:12-13

At the beginning of December, Legacy’s shepherds and ministers got together for a weekend leadership retreat in Glen Rose. We spent a couple of hours praying, by name, for every single individual and every family in our congregation. And as we discussed God’s purposes for his church and talked about Legacy’s future, our members’ pictures continually scrolled across the screen in front of us.

If you’re a Legacy member, you were at that meeting. You were.

We know that we are called by our God to work for and enjoy the unity we have in Christ. We know that we are to increase in our knowledge of Christ. And we know that we are to grow up spiritually to become more like our Savior every day. Fortunately for us, God’s Word makes it plain as to how a church achieves these holy objectives. By his grace, yes. By the saving blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, yes. And by works of service.

Serving others. Sacrificing for others. Living our lives — giving our lives — for others in the manner of our Lord directly results in Christian unity and spiritual maturity. It’s all connected.

So Ephesians 4:12-13 is the perfect passage of Scripture to guide us as Legacy lives up to and in to the will of our Father.

Special thanks to Ronnie Bates who designed our new church logo that reflects this vision statement. Ronnie and Lance Parrish did a ton of work on this thing in a very short amount of time. Thank you, also, to Lisa Clifton, Suzanne West, and Sandy Hamilton for the beautiful lettering leading into and going out of our worship center. Seeing the three of them together on that lift Saturday night was as entertaining as it was inspiring.

2010 is going to be a year of transition for us here at Legacy. Growth. Maturity. Discipline. Accountability to one another and to our Lord. Some of the change won’t be easy. We’re going to be challenged to be more like Christ. We’re going to intentionally let go of some things and zero in with greater focus on other things. We’re going to be much more active in our community. We’re going to concentrate on completely giving ourselves to God in every imaginable context.

“Every Family in God’s Service” means every family, every member, every body. It means “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

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Thanks to everyone who made our Legacy New Year’s Eve party a smashing success. Congratulations to the Simmons/Jones Small Group for winning Family Feud. In defense of the Byrnes/Stanglin Small Group, the integrity of the whole game is in doubt when the question is “Name a movie that had at least two sequels” and the survey does not say “Indiana Jones”

I’m not quite sure how Dillon and Shanna wound up winning our eight rounds of Pit, especially since Brian Gray went corner twice when he didn’t have the necessary cards — once when he was holding the Bear. Everybody was taking advantage of the sweetness of LuRee Proctor. It was brutal. And loud. David has the video. If he were ruthless and mean, he could probably blackmail Carrie-Anne.

Sparklers at midnight for all the kids is always a great idea. Until a couple of boys start lighting them and throwing them up in the air. Nobody died. Happy New Year.

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Thanks to the supreme generosity of Glenn and Karen Branscum, my family and I were able to enjoy Saturday’s Cotton Bowl in his suite at Jerry Wayne’s new stadium. The suite was filled with tons of Oklahoma State Aggies, including the likes of our new children’s minister, Jennifer Gambill, and her family; Larry and Deanna Tolleson and their boys; Ron Frost and his whole family from Stillwater; and our great friends Billy and Shannon Whiteley and their girls. It was quite possibly the worst football game I’ve ever watched. Ever. High school, college, pro. Ever. Twelve turnovers. Dropped passes. Missed tackles. It was ugly. It was so bad I was afraid the officials were going to step out onto the field during the third quarter and just cancel the rest of the game. Up in the suite, though, we had a marvelous time. Great hospitality, wonderful friends, and memories galore.

And, did you notice the new Cotton Bowl trophy is actually a silver and gold plated replica of Jerry Wayne’s stadium? No one’s better at destroying decades of history in a single self-centered moment than the Cowboys owner.

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By the way, I must admit, the Cowboys look great. Wow. Back-to-back shutouts for the first time in the 50-year history of the franchise. NFC East champs. Three-game winning streak heading into Saturday’s playoff opener at home against a team they just demoralized. They look very, very good. Romo’s making perfect decisions. Nobody’s missing tackles. Barber and Felix are both healthy and running strong at the same time, maybe, for the first time this year. Smiles Austin is catching everything. And I think Wade Phillips has gone 15-straight quarters now without spilling ketchup or relish on his shirt.

Wade has never, ever won a playoff game in his NFL head coaching career. Andy Reid has never, ever lost a playoff opener in his NFL head coaching career. The Cowboys have lost every single time they’ve faced a team in the playoffs they had already defeated twice during the regular season.

But the Cowboys look young and athletic and confident while the Eagles look old and slow and uncertain. Saturday’s game should be extremely entertaining. I can’t wait.

Go Frogs!

Allan

Catching Up

December 29, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Spike Dykes…

Since the last post (Good gravy! Was it really two weeks ago? Sorry.) we’ve been up to Searcy for Harding’s winter graduation. My brother, Keith, led the invocation; his wife, Amanda, walked the stage to get her diploma; and we all hung together there for a couple of days and knocked out Christmas. I picked up great pastoral points for being up there for two of our Legacy kids: Jordan Bailey with a perfect 4.0 on the President’s List and Jonathan Stein with a 3.95. All the really smart kids go to Legacy. The highlight of the trip came during lunch at a Searcy restaurant Sunday afternoon when a lady from Paris, Texas recognized my dad from the 1.5 seconds they show his picture on the Tyler TV station as a weather watcher. We think he’s being stalked.

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We were extra blessed to be able to spend the night on the way to Searcy and again on the way home in Benton, Arkansas with our great friends, Jimmy & Elizabeth Mitchell. Jim & Mandy Gardner have moved back to Benton after three years or so at the Woodward Park Church of Christ in Fresno, California to preach at his hometown congregation where Jimmy is the youth minister. So it was a great reunion with the Mitchells and Gardners. Our three families grew really close during our nearly two years together in Marble Falls. And we did all of our catching up at Larry’s. Where else?

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Here at home it snowed like crazy all day and most of the night on Christmas Eve. So much so that we were forced to cancel our Christmas Eve Service. It was the first white Christmas in DFW in 80 years. The kids and I drove out here to the church building to change the sign and send out a mass email regarding the evening service. And then we did donuts in the parking lot and threw snowballs at each other until we couldn’t feel our fingers or toes. We spent the later part of the night curled up with big bowls of popcorn and glasses of egg nog and Carrie-Anne’s favorite Christmas movie, Albert Finney’s “Scrooge.” Christmas morning, Santa brought Whitney a cell phone, although she seemed just as excited about her Colt McCoy jersey. Valerie got all kinds of clothes and accessories, many with a zebra-print theme. And Carley got a stereo and a watch. None of our girls are little anymore.

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The Pope and I are finally in agreement on a very sticky theological issue. The head of the Catholic Church came out last week and praised “The Simpsons” on the show’s 20th anniversary. He cited the show’s clever writing and acknowledged the show’s important social criticism of religion. You can read about it here. I’ve long said “The Simpsons” is the only prime time television show on a major network in which all the characters regularly go to church, good is rewarded and evil is punished, sex outside marriage is portrayed as wrong, and people who drink and smoke are viewed as disgusting. You can’t find those kinds of Christian values on any other TV show. I join the Pope in congratulating “The Simpsons.”

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And the Cowboys have clinched a playoff berth. Jerry Wayne’s team is the only team in the NFL that hasn’t won a playoff game in the past twelve years. (The Texans don’t count; they haven’t been around twelve years.) In fact, there are only three teams in the NFC that haven’t played in the conference championship game in the past twelve years: Detroit, the Redskins, and Dallas. Why would anybody think this version of Jerry’s kids will break the string? Wade Phillips has never won a playoff game in his head coaching career. The Cowboys are 3-5 against teams with winning records this season. And they are zero for their last 19 in a row on 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-1 dives by Marion Barber. Plus, has anyone else noticed that they’ve got Mark Cuban playing linebacker?

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Lastly, Jim McDoniel and Jennifer Gambill are dominating our Legacy office college football bowl challenge. They are. But there are still 23 games remaining. It’s a long way from over.

Go Bruins and Canes,

Allan

More Than Enough

August 24, 2009 / Allan / 1 Comment

Faith is living in the knowledge and confidence that our God is always going to give us everything we need in order to live. But it’s also knowing that the truly important things — the eternal things, the things that really matter — he gives us in abundance. We have more of those things than we know what to do with.

In his letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul uses hyperbole to describe these great spiritual gifts. In fact, the actual greek word he uses over and over is pronounced “hyperballo.“ It’s translated into the English words “incomparably,” “immeasurable,” and “surpassing.” It’s extravagant! It’s over the top! It demands exclamation points!

Ephesians 1:19 – “his incomparably (hyperballo) great power for us who believe” Overflowing power! Overwhelming power! More than enough divine Holy Spirit power within me to annihilate sin and death and Satan and everything that works so hard to separate me from God!

Ephesians 2:7 – “the incomparable (hyperballo) riches of his grace” Through the kindness of Christ Jesus! Buckets of grace! Grace in spades! More than plenty of grace to be saved and to join God in doing good works!

Ephesians 3:19 – “love that surpasses (hyperballo) knowledge” Incomprehensible love! Love that cannot be fathomed! Heavenly love up to here! God’s love coming out my ears! A surplus of love that fills me to the measure of all the fullness of God himself!

God’s love! Christ’s grace! The Holy Spirit’s power! Lavished on us! More than we need! Why? Why does God give us so much?

“To the praise of his glory” ~Ephesians 1:14

“To do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.” ~Ephesians 2:10

“Glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” ~Ephesians 3:21

Some of us are having to pinch pennies right now. Some of us are having to pinch half-pennies. Economically, some of us are struggling right now. What a blessing to realize that the eternal things, the things that will not fade, the rich blessings of divine power and grace and love are piled so high on top of us by our God, that inspired writers don’t quite know how to say it.

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The three girls started back to school today. Whitney’s a sophomore at the all-new-and-improved Richland High School here in North Richland Hills. We attended the ribbon cutting and open house yesterday afternoon and were blown away by how nice the place is. It almost looks like Mark Cuban built the place with huge HDTV screens placed about every 20-feet throughout the campus. It’s now, by far, the high school with the nicest facilities in the district. Not sure if that’ll add up to another football win over Birdville this year. Valerie’s a 7th grader at Northridge. And Carley’s in the 4th grade now at Green Valley. Three girls at three different schools. Yeah, it takes 30-minutes taking them in the mornings and almost a full hour to pick them up in the afternoons. Carrie-Anne starts her second year at TWU next week.

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20 days now until the Cowboys begin their 50th NFL season. And we’re counting them down with the Red Ribbon Review, a look at the second-best players in Cowboys history according to jersey number. #20 on our list is running back Ron Springs. You already know the moving story of Springs’ Type 2 Diabetes and how former teammate Everson Walls donated one of his kidneys to Springs three years ago. But do you also remember that he was a pretty good football player, too?

Springs was drafted in the 5th round out of Ohio State in 1979, mainly to back up Tony Dorsett. In that rookie season he was fifth in the NFL with an average of 9.8 yards per touch. And the Cowboys were forced to think up other ways to get him the ball. So Springs lined up at fullback. He lined up as a wingback. As a tight end. In motion of the backfield and then in the flats for a pass. He was big enough to stay in and block blitzing linebackers on third-and-long and quick enough to run a draw play up the gut for 12 yards and a first down. In his six seasons in Dallas, Springs racked up 2,180 yards rushing, 2,028 yards receiving, and a total of 38 TDs. He played in 3 NFC Championship Games.

The image, though, that’s stuck in my mind is of Roger Staubach joyfully leaping in Springs’ arms after throwing a fade route for a touchdown to Tony Hill in the back-right corner of the end zone at Texas Stadium to complete a 35-34 come-from-behind win over the Redskins that simultaneously clinched the division title for Dallas and knocked Washington out of the playoffs. Dallas actually overcame two separate 17-point deficits that day in a win that turned out to be Staubach’s last ever victory. I love the picture.

Catching up from yesterday, #21 in the Red Ribbon Review is probably a backup running back you’ve never heard of. Doug Dennison was an undrafted free agent out of Kutztown State in Pennsylvania. (I couldn’t make that up.) He made the team in 1974 and only carried the ball 16 times that rookie season. But four of those runs resulted in touchdowns. He had a nose for the end zone. So he was able to hang on until his big break in ’76 when he filled in for an injured Preston Pearson. Dennison led the team with 542 yards that season. He scored a team-leading seven touchdowns the next year. But in ’77 the Cowboys drafted Tony Dorsett and that pretty much ended Dennison’s career in Dallas. Dennison only got a total of 26 carries in ’77 and ’78 and was traded to Cleveland before the ’79 season.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Stanglin Family (Page 20 of 25)

Happy Mother's Day

Truly Belonging

White, Green, and Bright Pink

Every Family in God's Service

Catching Up

More Than Enough

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