Author: Allan (Page 158 of 492)
Central Church of Christ, First Baptist, First Presbyterian, and Polk Street United Methodist are all coming together this Sunday night at First Baptist to worship our Lord together. And it’s old hat!
The “4Amarillo” churches in downtown Amarillo have been worshiping and serving together for so long now, and so regularly, that it’s become kinda ordinary. Uneventful. Almost hum-drum.
I think that’s remarkable in and of itself. Over the past seven years, by the grace of God, we’ve made churches crossing denominational barriers to sing and pray together, share the Lord’s Meal, and serve our city as one group a commonplace occurrence in Amarillo. It doesn’t feel historic anymore when the Methodist guy preaches in the Church of Christ worship center. It doesn’t feel extraordinary when we pray for each other’s churches during our own worship assemblies. It feels very normal. Very natural. And I praise God for that.
But just when we begin to think the “4Amarillo” movement is not that big a deal, we’re reminded that it truly is.
Christianity Today, the national magazine for church leaders that reaches five-million readers a month, is highlighting “4Amarillo” in its current issue. I don’t know how they found out about it, I don’t know who tipped them off. Murray Gossett, the associate pastor at First Pres, is the one quoted in the story, and I haven’t spoken to him yet about how it all came about.
The article is about what CT calls the “inspirational, interdenominational, multi-congregational ministry movement.” There are other organizations in other cities featured along with “4Amarillo,” but we’ve got top billing. You can read the full story by clicking here.
This Sunday night is our seventh annual 4Amarillo Thanksgiving Service. There will be over a thousand of us from our four churches in attendance. The combined chorus will be more than a hundred men and women strong, made up of our individual praise teams and choirs. I’m in charge of the welcome and the call to worship. Our worship minister at Central, Kevin Schaffer, is singing a solo. Mark Welshimire, the lead pastor at Polk Street, is preaching the sermon. Our mayor, Ginger Nelson, is giving the benediction. We are gathering together in the presence of God, in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit to continue tearing down the walls that divide God’s people and testify in word and deed to the healing, saving, reconciling, and uniting work of the risen and coming Prince of Peace.
As familiar as it is to us now, it’s not old hat. No, it’s the eternal will of our Father and the earnest prayer of our King. And it still seems like a pretty big deal.
Peace,
Allan
I was privileged to spend almost three days in Memphis this week with Jim and Charlotte Martin. Jim is a fellow Grove Rat — we’re both from the same southeast Dallas neighborhood — and a long-time family friend and a trusted partner/mentor to me. We ate pulled-pork barbecue, southern fried catfish, blackberry cobbler, and banana pudding together. We talked about ministry and kids and churches and the political climate and preaching. We played touch football with his two grandsons and prayed together. I spent a day on campus at Harding School of Theology where Jim is the vice president. I attended chapel, met a ton of people who know my brother Keith, and sat in on one of Dave Bland’s preaching classes (what an unfortunate name for a preacher).
One of the unexpected highlights of my trip was visiting the National Civil Rights museum in the historic Lorraine Motel, the site of the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I thought I might spend a couple of hours in there on Monday, but it wound up being closer to five. They’ve done such an outstanding job of transforming that motel into an excellent and inspirational journey through the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. So many exhibits, so many stories, so many pictures and videos, so many lives are represented here.
The worst and the best of humanity are both represented here, the heroic and the horrible, the tragedy and the victory. It breaks my heart and compels me to tears of sorrow for the way sinful people treat God and one another and, at the same time, inspires me to want to be a better person.
After three or four hours of reading and watching and reflecting and walking the maze that is the museum, you forget you’re in a motel. Suddenly, without much warning, you actually find yourself standing in MLK’s room 306. You’re in his room. You’re looking through his window, just two or three feet away from the spot on the balcony where the assassin’s bullet took him down from across Mulberry Street. Such an historic site. Such a turning point. Such a watershed moment for this nation.
And, personally, I’m not sure we’re much better as a people today than we were forty-one-and-a-half years ago.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967
God have mercy on us.
Peace,
Allan
If you or someone you know is fond of swiping the table tents from Whataburger, or if you, like me, really want one of those table tents but are averse to breaking our Lord’s commands, you need to read this article from Texas Monthly. Apparently, Whataburger is fine with the thievery.
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“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” ~Micah 6:8
Seeing a puddle of oil under your car in the driveway shouldn’t cause you to change out the air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. If your son is failing all his classes at college, you don’t argue with him about not knowing the words to the school fight song. There’s an old saying about the futility of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic — the silliness of it. Jesus calls it straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel. And our God shuts it down.
The Lord, through Micah, says “No! You don’t get it! It’s simple! Look, we’ve been over this for centuries!”
Act Justly – If you’re a covenant partner with God, you have to take care of everybody in the community. Justice. Helping the poor, protecting the foreigner, taking in orphans, feeding the widows — taking care of the people in society who can’t take care of themselves. Just like God takes care of me when I am wholly unable to take care of myself.
Love Mercy – I remember a family lunch at Furr’s Cafeteria when I was a teenager. We’re going through the line and we’ve got our trays and we’re looking at all the food and the lady asks my dad, “What can I get for you?” He replies, “I want everything I’ve got coming!” And the lady in the hairnet with the big spoon looks right at him and says, “No, you don’t.”
We don’t want what we’ve got coming; we want mercy. Mercy is not getting what you really deserve, it’s not giving someone what they truly deserve. And we love mercy when it’s shown to us. But God says love mercy for everybody.
Don’t just act merciful from time to time, love mercy consistently. Love mercy as a strategy, as a way of living, as a way of being and doing. Love mercy not just when it’s shown to you, but as you show it to others. Love mercy as your second-nature response, as your Holy Spirit instinct. Love mercy as a quality of God’s character forming in you.
Walk Humbly with Your God – Don’t carelessly or presumptuously do things your own way. Pay attention to God’s will. Put your will in a secondary position to his. Know your place next to God and walk with him — not against him, not in front of him. Walk with God’s vision, with God’s character, with God’s priorities. God has brought you life-changing justice and he’s shown you amazing mercy because that’s how he treats everybody. Now, you walk with him and join him in doing those same things with everybody where you live.
This isn’t new information. This has always been at the heart of God’s covenant with his people. Treat everybody the way I’ve treated you.
When it comes to your sin and your failures and your transgressions against God and neighbor — when it comes to your sin — our Lord Jesus looked at the Father and said, “Put that on my account.” While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. When we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son. God has brought you life-changing justice and shown you amazing mercy, not because you’re so good but because that’s the way he treats everybody. And his number one priority is that you and I would act the same way, that bringing justice and showing mercy would be your top priority and my top priority, because people would see him in us. People would experience God in us if our priorities and God’s priorities were the same.
Peace,
Allan
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