The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Gifted and Still Going

July 16, 2013 / / 2 Comments

One of the things we missed while hiking and climbing and walking all over the Painted Desert and Grand Canyon was the community cookout Central hosted at Ellwood Park. As part of our “Gifted to Go” summer series, Scott Flow grilled up the burgers and dogs while the rest of our congregation manned different booths around the park designed to serve our Plemons area neighbors. Todd and his crew repaired kids’ bicycles and skateboards; Brent and Duane sharpened lawnmower blades and changed oil in edgers; Leon built dozens of birdhouses with the neighborhood youngsters; Becky flew kites with the kids and untangled lots of string; Matthew organized water balloon volleyball matches, which were a huge hit; Tom and his volunteers took requests from our neighbors for small home repairs they’ll make over the coming weeks; and Adam led a powerful hour of prayer for our community in our historic chapel.

What a night!

According to all accounts, our neighbors were blessed and our God was praised. Those who live in the houses around our church building experienced God’s love and grace, they participated in his great blessings of joy, through the food and fun and gestures of kindness shared by our church family. Almost four hundred people showed up for the event, including Eboni Graham, the faith reporter for the Amarillo Globe-News. (You can read her front page story about the cookout and see a short video featuring Greg Dowell by clicking here.) And the message was fully received that the Central Church of Christ is compelled by the matchless grace of Jesus to love our neighbors. We are concerned about our community. We love the people around us. And we want to serve.

At the same time, our people experienced the true freedom that comes in using our own particular talents and abilities and passions to serve others in the name of Christ. What a joy to realize that we all have spiritual gifts! How liberating to recognize that all our gifts are different, yet, all equal in the eyes of God and in the holy results for his Kingdom. If we’ll just open our hearts to the great potential of doing what we’re good at and what we enjoy for the sake of others, we won’t need summer programs and organized activities. We’ll just naturally keep doing these things, planting seeds, doing good for others, spreading the Gospel of Peace, and our God will turn Amarillo upside down.

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A sad day for Dallas rock-and-roll radio. Jon Dillon, the long-time disc-jockey and personality at KZPS and original on-air member of the great 98 FM KZEW “The Zoo,” was let go by Clear Channel over the weekend. Another great loss for local radio as the giant communications companies continue to discard regional flavor for a homogenized formula sound. Jon Dillon’s a victim, yeah. But so is anything that any of us remember as local radio.

I was seven years old in the summer of 1973 when “The Zoo” hit the Dallas airways with its brand new album rock format. It was all rock-and-roll. And not just the hits. The Zoo played B-sides and deep cuts. And for an entire generation of people who grew up in Dallas, people who are today in their 40s and 50s, it was THE radio station.

As a pre-teen and teenager, I don’t remember ever NOT listening to The Zoo. I was introduced to Van Halen and Aerosmith on The Zoo. When I got my huge AM-FM stereo and turntable for Christmas right after my 11th birthday, one of the first things I did was slap a Zoo sticker right in the center of the smokey gray dust cover. The Zoo was cool. I listened to LaBella and Rody’s “Morning Zoo” from the moment I woke up every day until we walked out the door for school. And I would beg my dad to tune the car radio from KRLD to The Zoo, which he would do just as soon as Brad Sham’s daily “Cowboys Report” concluded. I fell asleep every night during those years listening to The Zoo. I was what they called back then a “Zoo Freak.”

LaBella and Rody were the funny, over-the-top, irreverent morning guys. My friend Todd Adkins and I cut school twice to attend the “Morning Zoo’s Breakfast Club” at Monopoly’s in North Dallas. We were too young to get into the club legally, so we’d wake up extra early and sneak in at about 5:30 while the roadies were setting up. I still have a couple of the “Breakfast Club” buttons here in my office. Somewhere in a box in my attic is a Mike Rhyner (he was the “Morning Zoo’s” sports guy) autographed picture that says “Nice Huey Lewis t-shirt!” in reference to my wardrobe that first day I met him. My old Zoo pin is prominently displayed in a shadow box in my home along with lots of other treasured items from my childhood.

Jon Dillon was the midday personality on The Zoo, part of the original on-air lineup in 1973, working at KZEW until it went off the air in 1989. His was the voice that went in and out of the Fleetwood Mac and Eagles songs I listened to while doing my homework. He was the one who told me how hot it was and that it was “a skosh” past 4:00 as I drove home from school. He gave me Two-fer Tuesdays with the Scorpions and the Rolling Stones and Elton John. In a day when radio wasn’t nearly as researched and formatted, when DJs themselves — not a corporate play list generated in New York or California — decided what records they would play, Jon Dillon would sometimes talk for several minutes between songs. He gave me the background stories to the lyrics and the bands. He knew the guitar players, he was hanging out with the lead singers. He knew Tom Petty and Randy Bachman and Don Henley and Ted Nugent. Listening to JD introduce a Z Z Top song (“that little ol’ band from Texas”) was a tremendous joy.

The Zoo was the soundtrack for my formative years. From the time I was seven until I graduated college, The Zoo dominated the Dallas airwaves and I never listened to anything else.

Once it disappeared in ’89 — Belo had sold the station and things got weird pretty fast — Jon Dillon hooked on at KZPS and spun classic rock there until this past Friday. For almost 24 more years, he played my Led Zeppelin and Bad Company and The Who on 92.5. When we’ve lived in DFW, I’ve listened to JD. When we’ve not lived in DFW, I’ve listened to him every single time we’ve visited. My kids have listened to Jon Dillon. Yes, it’s mostly nostalgic, I’m sure. But I’m saddened that he’s been let go. I’m not sure why they fired him. Clear Channel’s not saying and nobody’s heard from Jon Dillon yet. He’s 62 or 63 years old, I think. He probably talked too much between songs. He might have refused to do anything overly corporate and cheesy.

I’ve never met the guy; our radio paths never crossed. But I wish to salute him and thank him today. He is radio greatness, one of the very best and last of a dying breed and a fading era. I occasionally say “skosh” when I’m talking about time or distance. When I hear a Z Z Top song, it’s Jon Dillon’s baritone “how, how, how!” that resonates in my head. I’ve been listening to Jon Dillon my whole life. My deep love for local radio is directly tied to this cool cat. My deep lament for local radio also connects sadly. Thanks, JD.

Peace,

Allan

Eight Days, One Post

July 15, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Eight days, seven nights, six souvenir T-shirts, five suitcases, four corners, three cliff dwellings, two canyons, one blog post. Yes, these are vacation pictures. A ton of vacation pictures. My family and I have returned from a nearly two-thousand-mile drive together to the Grand Canyon and back. Our trip included the tram ride to the top of Sandia Peak, an all-day visit to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, climbing all over the lava flows at Sunset Crater, a hike down to the bottom of Walnut Canyon, the ruins at Mesa Verde, and rafting the Lower Animas River in Durango. We even took some pictures on a Sunday afternoon standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. But, settle down. It’s not like I’ve invited you over for dinner and then set up a big screen in the living room with a projector and forced you to look at all 450 of my slides and listen to at least 400 stories about them. These are just pictures and brief captions. You can click on each pic to get the bigger size. Or you can ignore this all together. I’ll never know.

Gifted and Going

July 7, 2013 / / 1 Comment

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” ~1 Peter 4:10

Once again, we’ve kicked off our summer Wednesday nights at Central by cancelling all our Bible classes. No, not to stay home and do nothing. Not as some reluctant surrender to the culture. And not because, hey, it’s summer and everybody’s schedules are nuts anyway. This summer, we’re cancelling our Bible classes on Wednesday nights so we can better practice as a church what we preach: that every single person who confesses Jesus as Lord is gifted by God’s Holy Spirit in different ways; that all the gifts are intended to serve other people with God’s love and grace; and that the exercise of those gifts will grow us more into the image of the Christ.

Throughout the month of July, our church family is participating in 27 different service projects throughout our city, mainly concentrating on the Plemons neighborhood around our church building. Most of the projects are just going to take about two hours each, most of them are fairly simple, and most of them require skills and abilities we don’t normally classify as spiritual gifts. We’re calling it “Gifted 2 Go.”

We’re painting benches and rails at Bivins Elementary, sharpening lawnmower blades and changing oil in cars, flying kites and building birdhouses, singing at hospitals and nursing homes, stuffing pillows, and doing small home repairs. Our aim is that we realize our very different and various talents come from God and that when we use them to bless others in his name, those are indeed spiritual gifts. We want to redefine the term “spiritual gift” so that the things we’re good at, the things we really enjoy doing, those are “spiritual gifts” when we give them to God to be used for his purposes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past Wednesday I led a group of about twenty-five — young and old, men and women, dressed in grubbies and armed with paint brushes and rags — to Bivins Elementary, just down the street from our church building. There we met the principal, Tim White, and we painted the benches and picnic tables around the school, the rails around all the ramps and stairs, some playground equipment, and a big wooden shed behind the gym. Kevin took a group of about forty-five — again, young and old alike — and they sang their hearts out at the Continental Assisted Living Center and Westgate Mall. Todd and Mary’s group put together a huge playscape thing at the Southlawn Assembly of God where we partner together on a weekly pantry ministry. Around sixty others sewed and stuffed 500 pillows for hospital and hospice patients. Twenty others cleared a vacant lot for Another Chance House. And another twenty or so knocked nearly 600 doors in the Plemons area, getting to know our neighbors and inviting them to the events and services to come in the following weeks.

My prayer is that the people of Amarillo will experience the love and grace of Christ Jesus in our efforts. I also pray that we will all realize that these very things we enjoy so much, the things we’re so good at individually, serve a much greater purpose than what we’ve always figured. And we don’t have to wait for our ministers or church staff to come up with programs to exercise those gifts. It should be a lifestyle. My small group should be figuring out ways to serve Amarillo in the name of Jesus on a regular basis, not just during the summer. My family should be blessing my neighborhood monthly, weekly, daily. My Bible class can be doing similar projects all the time. If our church finishes this summer series, celebrates with a slide show, and then sits around waiting for next summer’s special program, we haven’t apprehended the true meaning and purpose of “Gifted 2 Go!”

I believe “Gifted 2 Go!” is going to bless Amarillo in ways that we can’t yet begin to imagine. Our neighbors are going to experience God’s love and mercy through us. And I think we’re all going to be challenged to growth, spiritual growth in our righteous relationships with one another and with our Christ.

Peace,

Allan

God’s Always in Front of Us

June 24, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Just another couple of posts to recap our trip to South America and reflect on the things we experienced together. This one on the super quick twenty-four hours we spent with the brand new Great Cities Missions team in La Paz, Bolivia.

Luis and Damira, Brad and Katie, Rick and Julie and their kids have only been in La Paz for five months. They are a brand new missionary team with lofty dreams, tremendous courage, and a thrilling anticipation of what our God is going to do with them and through them in this capitol city. At the same time, this is a brand new missionary team that hasn’t yet mastered the native language, is still really learning how to work with one another in this foreign setting, and is understandably anxious about this thing God’s put in front of them. They’re still learning the culture, still trying to figure out the customs, still going through the ups and downs of adjusting to this brand new life. And, like every missionary team, they’re in need of some real hard-core encouragement and support at about the five and six months mark.

We knew this going in. We knew the main part of our job during this leg of our trip was to encourage these three young couples to stay the course, to strengthen their faith in the One who called them there and promises to always provide, to bless them with our words and our prayers, to lift them up in loyal support. We knew all this going in. We were prepared to hear some tough stories, to share some tears, and to pray for a more visible sign of God’s presence in their lives and in their work. We were ready.

What a surprise to realize once we got there that God was way ahead of us.

When we met them late that first night for some sandwiches and coffee, they were all still giddy from the three baptisms they had participated in the week before. Three people had submitted to the lordship of our Christ. Three people had given their lives to Jesus. God’s power was evident in these conversions and acted to lift the spirits and renew the enthusiasm of the missionaries. Not only that, but six days earlier they had signed a lease agreement on what will be their new church building on a main street there in La Paz. It’s a beautifully refurbished space with wood floors, lots of windows, and tons of potential. They couldn’t wait to show it to us the next morning, and we couldn’t wait to see it. God had provided the building. God had opened the hearts of the three new converts. God was encouraging these missionaries with his richest blessings of hope and peace when they absolutely needed it most.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought we had been sent to do it. But God was way out in front of us on this. Like always.

Of course, we did our best to encourage this young team. Kelley assured them that we were Aaron and Hur to their Moses, holding their arms up in prayer and support when they grew weary. We sang together in the Brooks’ apartment, in English and in Spanish, praising God and declaring our complete submission to his will. We spread out all over that new church building and prayed in biblical terms, trying to call things that are not as though they were, praying for the people of La Paz, thanking God for the praises that would soon be flowing out of that building and for the men and women and children who would come to know our King in that place.

But it seemed to me they didn’t need nearly as much encouragement as I had been led to believe. God was strengthening them. God was already showing them the vision. He was already revealing himself to them in powerful ways. He was already assuring them that, just as he had faithfully provided for them in the past, he was providing for them now.

God’s always way ahead of us on stuff like this.

Praise his name!

Allan

 

I Did Not Jinx the Rangers!

June 20, 2013 / / 1 Comment

I’m being accused of jinxing the Rangers. I’m using this space today to set the record straight. I did not jinx the Rangers.

Last Thursday, in the middle of our Great Cities Missions tour of churches in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, our group of seven took a boat trip across Lake Titicaca. Not only is it fun to say, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable body of water in the world at an altitude of 12,507 feet. The lake sits on the Peru-Bolivia border and contains the Island of the Sun, typically known as the birthplace of the Incan civilization.

It wasn’t a good day for sailing. We began the day by walking across the Bolivian border from Peru in the snow and the sleet. Uphill. I’m still not sure why the van couldn’t come across. But the driver parked about half a mile from the border and we walked the rest. It’s winter now south of the equator. And the weather conditions made for an interesting experience. Walking into Bolivia. In the snow. Wow. (As always, click on the picture for a larger view.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we received our travel visas at the immigration office — they meticulously checked our American dollars but never even looked in our bags and purses — we boarded the boat and headed to the island. Apparently, the worship of the sun by the Incan people began on this Island of the Sun. There are more than 180 Incan ruins on the island that date back to the middle of the 15th century, several little museums and shrines, zero roads or motor vehicles, and at least 800 families who still call the place home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At one point of the tour, we were introduced to an island priest who proceeded to demonstrate to us the ceremonial prayers and sacrifices and rituals of his ancient religion. We weren’t quite sure how to handle this. Kelley later confessed to thinking about Romans during the ceremony and I admit I was wondering about a few passages in 1 Corinthians. But we all sat there quietly while this guy sacrificed a toy llama and some grains on a fiery altar and raised his hands to his god. The last part of the ceremony included this shaman sprinkling some kind of holy water in a sacred vase from the end of a ritual flower to the tops of our heads. I don’t have a picture of this, but Craig’s video clearly shows us nervously accepting the drops of water, and then Kelley and I immediately turning toward one another to make, what appear to be, wisecracks.

Not wisecracks. Hopeful curiosity.

I was wearing my Texas Rangers cap. The mystical shaman had blessed my cap with the holy water from the Island of the Sun. I told Kelley, “I think this means the Rangers are going to win the World Series.” And then I glanced at Kelley’s Texas A&M hat and remarked, “But I doubt the Aggies will win the SEC.”

We laughed together and thought nothing more of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toward the end of the tour, we stepped into a little museum which housed several different kinds of ceremonial masks. These ancient religious masks were all displayed on a large wall and we all had a little fun taking our pictures with them. There was one particular mask that stood out to me as especially creepy and, on a lark, when the tour guide wasn’t looking, I put my Rangers cap on top of it and took a picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Craig accused me of breaking the rules. I answered by saying he just wished he had thought of it first. I was going to use the picture as a screen-saver on my laptop. And as we were joking about it, the lights went out in the museum. It was pitch dark. A couple of the ladies screamed and we hustled out of there as fast as we could. The tour guide said it was the snow and sleet that had probably knocked out the power. Yeah, of course.

That was Thursday. That night the Rangers lost to Toronto 3-1. Over the following three nights they lost 8-0, 6-1, and 7-2. They suffered a four game losing streak and fell three games back of the A’s in the AL West. They were outscored 24-4 during that stretch, went 1-for-20-something with runners in scoring position, and haven’t recovered since. Whatever had knocked the power out of the museum had also knocked the power out of the Rangers. It all seemed like a horrible coincidence until the news broke that A&M’s Heisman winning quarterback, Johnny Manziel, had tweeted that he couldn’t wait to leave College Station.

What had I done?

There were various explanations given by the other members of our group that included references to a Brady Bunch movie and various episodes of Scooby Doo. A couple of days later, I was tempted to dunk my cap in the holy water at the 15th century Spanish Catholic cathedral in Santiago in an attempt to reverse the curse.

But, having been back in the States now for a couple of days and having watched the Rangers play, I’m convinced their sorry streak of offensive ineptness has nothing to do with the Island of the Sun. It wasn’t me or the mysterious shaman or the religious masks. It’s injuries to key hitters and a bunch of young guys pressing too hard. Seriously, that losing skid didn’t start last Thursday. They had lost the two previous nights to Cleveland. The string of bad play was part of a nine losses in eleven games free fall that began long before I had ever laid eyes on Lake Titicaca. Plus, they’re pitching Grimm and Tepesch and Lindblom. Of course, they’re going to lose those games.

It wasn’t me.

Just in case, I wore my cap backwards on the 13-hour flight from Chile to Amarillo Monday night. The Rangers won that night 8-7. They scored nine runs last night. And if they win this afternoon, they will have taken three of four from Oakland and pulled back to within one game of the A’s for the division lead.

I didn’t jinx the Rangers.

But, just in case, I’m wearing a Yankees cap the next time I visit any Incan temples.

Peace,

Allan

Climbing Huayna Picchu

June 19, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise.
God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne.
The kings of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted.”
~Psalm 47

A little more than 24 hours after returning to Amarillo, I’m completely recovered from the overnight flight from Santiago and totally back in the groove. It’s amazing what a couple of Sunset Enchiladas at Ruby Tequila’s and some Diet Dr Pepper will do for a guy. As always, you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.

 As for physical thrill and sheer amazement, the highlight of our eleven day tour of Great Cities Missions church plants in South America, for me, was the sightseeing and mountain climbing at Machu Picchu. The 15th century royal palace and housing for the Incan Emperor Pachacuti and his government and religious officials is the most familiar of all the historical and archaeological sites of Incan civilization. It’s called the City of the Incas, about 50 miles northwest of Cusco, Peru. And every square inch of the nearly 600-year-old ruins and the surrounding landscape and geography is breathtaking. Figuratively and literally. Breathtaking.

We began the day early, crawling up the steep and winding Bingham Highway in a tour bus at 7:00 am. Our group of seven spent a couple of hours just climbing in and around all the ruins, taking tons of pictures and marveling at the architecture. How did they terrace these vertical slopes for farming? How did they cut and chisel all these stones to such magnificent perfection? How did this massive complex and sacred site go undiscovered until 1911? Are we really going to climb that straight-up-and-down sheer black mountain in front of us?

Yeah, we climbed it. It’s called Huayna Picchu (it means “new peak”; Machu Picchu means “old peak”) and it rises sharply in front of and towers dramatically over the ancient ruins. It dominates the landscape. It’s imposing. Intimidating. And we climbed it.

 The steps to the top are actually cut into the mountain, all the way up. And they really shouldn’t be called “steps” at all. It’s more like creative places to put your feet. Very narrow. Very steep. At some points the trail is too narrow to pass someone in front of you. At most points, the view of the ruins, the highway, and the landscape is simply spectacular. At every point, it’s downright thrilling. The very thought of climbing around where the original Incans lived and worshiped is humbling. The idea that a slip and fall might possibly be fatal for you and anyone walking next to you is nerve-wracking. The burning in my calves, the diminished capacity of my lungs, the nervous laughter at the absurdity of it all was overwhelming. So beautiful. So cool. So “am I really doing this?” over-the-top exciting.

We climbed it together. And by “together” I mean we and everyone we saw while we were on the mountain. We met young people from Granbury and San Antonio and talked about the Rangers and Spurs and took each others’ group pictures. Once they passed us, we overheard them explain to their friends from Oklahoma that all Texans are family and we always ask each other our home towns. We were encouraged by the young people who were coming down from the top and telling us it was worth it. Keep going, they said, it’s worth it. We laughed when the group of five young men passed us, one of them declaring to the other four, “We can talk when we get to the top! Let’s go!” We realized very quickly that we were just about the oldest people making the climb. And that at once worried us and made us feel so very good.

As we got closer to the top, John Todd and Kami took some pictures on the “Stairs of Death.” Then we climbed a little makeshift ladder secured to the side of the cliff, squeezed through a very narrow tunnel cut through the rock, and arrived at the summit. It took about ninety minutes. And any pictures you’ve ever seen, including these in front of you now, don’t do it justice. Not even close. It’s completely indescribable. I highly recommend it.

Naturally, such an experience leads one to reflect and to thoughtfully consider one’s place in the universe and in our God’s great plans. This city, these temples and palaces, this Incan civilization of great thinkers and builders in this Cusco region of Peru were completely wiped out by the Spaniards less than a hundred years after it was all built. They completely dropped off the map. They disappeared. One mighty nation taken apart and destroyed by another. Incan temples torn down and Spanish churches erected on top of the rubble. Incan palaces reduced to ashes by another people’s rulers and armies. Incan homes and families obliterated by an invading nation. It was so thorough. And it happened so fast.

The Spanish actually destroyed all the Incan buildings and built their own palaces and churches and homes on the foundations. They used the Incan foundation stones for their own construction projects. They built on top of what had been laid before. You see clear evidence of this all over Peru. Similarly, I’ve seen the same thing in Israel. Columns from first and second century homes used as thresholds for doorways in Roman homes built on the same spot. Those Roman stones then used in subsequent buildings constructed by the Byzantines and Crusaders centuries later.

It really has a way of working on you.

I don’t know when or how the American Empire is going to be destroyed. Neither do you. What we do know is that it will be destroyed. At some point, another people is going to crush and wipe out what you and I know today as the United States. The question about that is not “if;” it’s “when” and “how.”

Christians should not be too disturbed over that. One, our God is the God who raises up and destroys nations for his purposes. He is in charge of the coming and going of peoples and powers. Our God reins. He alone is sovereign over the affairs of this world. Regardless of when and how it happens, we will forever serve and belong to the ultimate ruler who loves his people and promises to provide for them in all circumstances. Two, we do not belong to the nations of this world. We are citizens of an eternal Kingdom that is not of this world. We are subjects in a political Kingdom that can never be abolished or destroyed, we are residents of everlasting dwelling places that will never fade, we are children of the Father who controls all of it in limitless love and perfect righteousness.

Peace,

Allan

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