The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

AllanStanglin.com

Connected

June 8, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Right now, our nation feels so fractured. Politics. Economics. Social issues. Just turn on the news for about four seconds. Any channel. Any network.

In our own community here in Midland, we’ll choose sides and draw lines and fight about anything. Everything. City and county government. The school district. Construction. Budgets. Just glance at your Facebook and your feeds.

Our own families and neighbors seem awkwardly distant.

The whole world is focused on the distinctions and differences between us and it’s using our digital devices to highlight those differences to divide us.

Right now it feels like that if you don’t live where I do for as long as I have, we can’t be on the same team. If you don’t look like I do or speak the same language as I do or vote like I do or worship like I do or if you and I are different races or different nationalities, then we can’t be on the same side. We can’t be for each other. If we don’t have those things in common, then we must not have anything in common. We can’t.

That is decidedly NOT what Christians believe.

We believe that all of us are inseparably bound together. We belong to each other. We are connected to one another deeply. Thoroughly. We are connected by much bigger things, much more important things, eternal things–the things that truly matter. We believe all Christians are connected by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. We all need and receive and rely on the grace of God. We are all saved by and continuously cleansed by the blood of Christ. We are all given gifts by and daily nourished by the Spirit. And we’re all called and sent by God on the same mission of the Church, to partner with God as he redeems and restores and reconciles all people and all things together in his Son Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We don’t all vote the same. We don’t all have the same income levels or education levels. We weren’t all born in Midland; we come from everywhere. We are different ages and different generations. We weren’t all raised the same way. We don’t all have the same experiences and backgrounds that have shaped how we think and talk and act. We don’t all see eye-to-eye on some church issues like women’s roles and musical instruments. We don’t all have the same interpretations of Revelation or Genesis 1-11.

God’s grace is bigger than all those things. The blood of Jesus is more important than all those things. The power of the Holy Spirit is deeper than all those things. And all of us share those eternal things in common.

Yesterday at GCR, we talked about our connections to one another in Christ. And we did our own version of the old youth group thing in which our connections are made visible by yarn. Yeah, we threw yarn at each other across our Worship Center in the middle of the sermon!

We used 20 spools of yarn in ten different colors to represent all the things that connect us together. The yellow yarn was the grace of God. The red yarn was the blood of Jesus. The blue yarn was the power of the Holy Spirit. We had different colors representing God’s love, God’s promises, the forgiveness of sin, and the mission of the Church. Some of the yarn stood for the truth of the Gospel, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Ten non-negotiables. Ten eternal truths to which we all hold and share in common.

Once we overcame our apprehension, once enough of us got hit in the head with a spool of yarn, once we all relaxed a bit and gave ourselves to the exercise, it was glorious! By the end of the game, each of us in that Worship Center were holding onto at least three or four strands of yarn that represented the Gospel truths that save us and connect us from one end of our church to the other.

I told GCR, “The things in our lives that matter most, the biggest things, the most important things, the eternal things, the things that truly matter–the things I know YOU hold most dear–are the very things that connect all of us in this church together. We all have these things in common.”

But this is the line I really hope everyone remembers: “There’s nothing outside of these eternal bonds and beliefs that should ever distract us or divide us from the Gospel truth of our connections.”

The everlasting truth of God’s amazing grace is that he so loved the world that he came here to us. He redeems us by his blood and restores us by his love and he connects all of us together in himself. All of us. One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all.

We are all eternally connected. Let those who hear, understand. Let those who understand, commit to living in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Jesus.

Peace,
Allan

Nine Spots Remain

June 3, 2026 / / 0 Comments

My sight-seeing tour of the Holy Lands is moving forward as scheduled, November 3-14, and there is still room for you to go. I have nine slots available for this once-in-a-lifetime trip to the ancient biblical and historical sites of Israel.

I have been in contact this week with the folks at Imagine Tours and with our tour guide, Anton Farah, in Nazareth, and they are reporting good news. Over the past couple of weeks, all school children have returned to their classes–the traditional thinking is that if the locals believe it’s safe for their kids, then it’s safe for tourists. Also, all the national parks in Israel are open now. Andrew, my guy at Imagine, tells me there was a 15-member tour from Canada that toured Israel two weeks ago from Dan to Beersheba, including all the sites in Galilee and Jerusalem, with no issues.

All that to say, we are moving forward as if we are taking the trip as scheduled in November. There’s no way to predict what things are going to look like in five weeks, much less five months, so we are forging ahead. Your safety is my top priority on a deal like this, and I have no hesitation moving forward at this point, knowing that we can pull out at any time citing the “war clause” in our contract, reschedule for a later date, and nobody loses anything but a few months.

Austrian Airlines has now resumed their flights to Israel, while Lufthansa and Swiss are picking theirs back up in three weeks. Now that the European Authority has approved flights to Israel, everyone believes the other European Airlines will resume their schedules–Air France, British Airways, Iberia, KLM, etc., Imagine is sending American tour groups beginning in July and they have many more besides mine that are planning to go to Israel this fall.

You can find all the details about our trip–it will be my sixth–in the official brochure, which you can find here.

If you would like to register for the trip, here’s the link.

If you have friends or family members who might be interested, forward the link to them, or let me know and I can send them a brochure in the mail. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to holler at me. I’m still very excited about this trip of a lifetime and I would love to take it with you.

Shalom!
Allan

Walk Up Song

June 1, 2026 / / 0 Comments

We showed this video to our church yesterday to promote our annual GCR Night at the Ballpark. Every June we hold a Wednesday picnic night at the RockHounds game, our Double-A team here in Midland, complete with all-you-can eat burgers and dogs, popcorn and chips, and soft drinks. Cory Legg and our GCR Worship Team sing the national anthem, one of our kids screams “Play Ball!” over the P.A., and one of our members throws out the ceremonial first pitch. Our RockHounds game this year is on June 10. And the below video is a creative take on the “walk up song,” the music that batters choose to be played as they walk from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box.

The Dougie reference is poking fun at me about something that happened the Sunday before. I was introducing our youth interns and mispronounced Dougie as “Doogie,” and I’ve been hearing about it ever since. I joked with our church yesterday that if I really did have walk up music as I approached the pulpit on Sundays, it would be either “Walkin’ on a Thin Line” by Huey Lewis and the News or Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Tightrope.”

If I were a major league baseball player, it would definitely be Van Halen’s “I’m the One.” No question. Hands down.

Peace,
Allan

Dirty Dr Pepper

May 28, 2026 / / 2 Comments

Texas Monthly has published an article describing and judging all the different flavored Dr Peppers that are out there now. In addition to regular and diet Dr Pepper and Dr Pepper Zero, there are five tricked-up “dirty” Dr Peppers available almost everywhere in the state: cherry, cream soda, strawberries and cream, blackberry, and, my personal favorite, coconut.

You’ll recall from previous posts here that our family went bonkers for the Creamy Coconut Dr Pepper when it was first released two summers ago, in 2024, as a “limited edition” flavor. We loved it! One of the criticisms I have of the flavored DPs is that the flavors are not strong enough; it’s just a faint hint. Not so with the coconut Dr Pepper. The coconut smell and taste is powerful and smooth and delicious. So good! But the demand was too high and the flavor was too “limited” and it was gone before we knew it. Like in three weeks!

When it appeared again–finally!–a couple of months ago, we stocked up. Carrie-Anne and Whitney started buying Coconut Dr Pepper like it was COVID. And they still come home from every trip to the store with a twelve-pack or two. At one point a couple of weeks ago, I counted over 160 cans of Coconut DP in our refrigerator and pantry. We’re down a few now as you can tell in this picture from our pantry and the above photo of our refrigerator. But we didn’t buy groceries last week because of our trip to Tulsa.

Anyway, the article, by Dan Soloman, describes each of the flavors, summarizes the results of an in-house Texas Monthly taste test, and provides interesting tidbits about each of the flavors from the research and development folks at Dr Pepper. For your information, I rank the five dirty DPs in this order:

Creamy Coconut – the very best by a mile!
Blackberry – it does NOT taste like Robitussin!
Cream Soda – this almost tastes like a Dr Pepper float.
Strawberries and Cream – this would be better if the flavor were stronger.
Cherry – this one DOES remind me of cough medicine.

I’m interested in your thoughts. Hit the “comments” and tell me about your experiences with “dirty” sodas.

Peace,
Allan

 

Against Boring Church

May 26, 2026 / / 0 Comments

The Rangers were no-hit last night by a trio of Astros pitchers you’ve never heard of in a disheartening 9-0 shutout loss that extends their losing streak to four games and has Texas one loss away from falling into fourth place in the AL West. The Rangers are just impossible to watch right now; they’re not even competitive. Multiple fielding and base-running errors, strikeouts with runners in scoring position, weak pop ups, double-digit runners left on base–it’s putrid. And tons of injuries. Seager, Josh Smith, and Wyatt are still out; none of the Rangers who started last night’s game were starters on Opening Day. It’s hard to argue that this is not a bad team. Like really bad. I think it’s going to be a long summer.

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It’s time for you to take a principled stand against boring church! There’s no excuse for boring church! We shouldn’t allow it and you shouldn’t put up with it!

Why is church boring? It’s our fault. We did it. Somehow, over the decades, we allowed church to become a spectator event. We turned church into a show. So, the members of the church walk away from the church service judging it. Talking about whether they were “fed” or whether the songs were “moving” or whether the preacher was “relevant” or whether they “felt” anything.

Hey! You’re not a spectator in church! You are a Holy Spirit-filled participant! You should take that God-ordained role back!

The Bible tells us that every single member of God’s Church is blessed with Holy Spirit gifts intended to build up the Body of Christ. When we come together in Lord’s Day assembly, God means for us to bless one another with the gifts he’s given us. God intends for us to love somebody. He wants us to encourage somebody. He wants us to build somebody up.

So, this Sunday, go to church with that expectation. You know what your gift is. Your know what your gifts are. You know what you’re good at. And you know God gave that to you in order to bless somebody else. So, use it this Sunday. Go to church with your gift to build somebody up. Say something unexpected and super nice to somebody who’s not going to see it coming. Compliment somebody on their clothes or their smile. Tell somebody how much they inspire you. Tell somebody “Thank you” for something they did for you a long time ago. Offer to hold a fidgety baby. Hold the door open for like twelve people in a row. Go to church with a commitment to be a blessing and an encouragement to people. Every Sunday. Forget about what you might or might not be “getting” and embrace the role God intends for you during church and start “giving” and “blessing” and “building up.”

What might happen?

I’m not sure.

But it won’t be boring.

Peace,
Allan

Tulsa Time with the Twins

May 25, 2026 / / 0 Comments

The highlight of my month, every month, is walking into Valerie and David’s house, sitting down on the floor in the living room, and watching our grandsons Elliott and Samuel crawl across the floor, faces beaming with massive smiles, to attack me. They crawl and climb all over me, Sammy grinning and Elliott grunting with glee, and it’s the greatest thing in the world. They can’t walk yet or even stand up on their own for more than three or four seconds, but they know how to get a fistful of my t-shirt and climb up to my shoulders in a blink. I love these little guys.

We got the ten-monthday pics a couple of weeks late because Val and Dave were in Phoenix for a family wedding on Dave’s side. But here they are, ten months old, eating real people food in tiny bites, figuring out their more complicated toys, attempting to jump out of their high chairs, and playing chase with me on our hands and knees. They know how to open doors and cabinets, they love popsicles and bath time, and they’re both just incredibly cute and smart. Elliott is looking more and more like Valerie, while Sammy continues to be his daddy’s identical mini-me. And it’s all super fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’re moving into a new house in a couple of weeks; still in Jenks, a little bigger, a lot nicer. And a working fireplace!

Carrie-Anne has her annual checkup at M.D. Anderson in Houston in two weeks, I’m leading a GCR mission trip to Brazil June 10-18 and C-A and I are going on a long vacation the last week of June, so I may not see the boys again until their birthday party the second week of July. Maybe.

The Rangers just completed a nine-game stretch against the three teams with the three worst records in the major leagues: the Astros, Rockies, and Angels. I was hoping Texas would go 6-3 during this span and get back into first place in the AL West. More realistically, I was expecting the team to go 5-4. Instead, the Rangers lost all three series and went 3-6, getting swept by the Halos while their fans were chanting for the sale of the team. Yeah, Seager and Wyatt are still out with injuries, but this offense is putrid. I’ve never seen a team leave double-digit men on base the way these Rangers do night after night. Texas is four games under .500 and two-and-a-half games back of the A’s. Kumar Rocker is on the hill tonight as The Silver Boot Series resumes  in Houston.

Go Rangers.
Allan

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