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Happy Birthday, Valerie

January 24, 2012 / / 3 Comments

Our Little Middle turns fifteen years old today.

Fifteen?!?

No. I’m in serious denial here. Fifteen sounds so big. It sounds *gulp* kinda grown up. And she’s not. No way. She’s little Valerie.

She’s my little newborn baby with those huge beautiful eyes, taking everything in, surveying her surroundings, sizing up the other infants in that nursery at South Austin Medical Center. She’s my tiny toddler with the saggy diaper, waddling around the house with that pink sippy cup, constantly calling out in that deep, funny baritone drawl, “I want mo’ milk.” Valerie is my little middle, the blondie who sits sideways in the car with her face almost stuck to the glass so she doesn’t miss a single thing as it goes by. “What’s that?” Or more like, “Whaaaat’s thaa-yat?” She’s my little dress up girl with the Barbies and doll houses. She’s my picky eater who never met a vegetable she didn’t hate. She’s my little elementary school cutie with the snaggle-toothed grin who wants me to tuck her in every night, “papoose style.”

Yeah, she’s all those things. She always will be all those things to me. I can’t help but see all those things — still — in her.

But she’s also turning fifteen today. She is.

She likes drinking coffee now. She had a big cup of it on the way out the door this morning. Stinks up our whole house. She’s into Justin Bieber (Lord, where did I mess that up?) and listens to him and Taylor Swift and some guy named Bruno Mars or something in her room, in the bathroom, in the car, everywhere. She’s got that iTouch on and those ear plugs in all the time. She’s very, very fashion conscious: belts and fingernails, socks and hair bands, name brand jeans with the bling on the booty, and some kind of shoe called Sperry’s that look almost exactly like the topsiders we wore in the ’80s. She’s really in to zebra stripes right now; black and white and pink zebra stripes on everything. She can be kinda sarcastic. She sings in the high school choir. She’s acting at Amarillo Little Theater. She babysits. She’s slightly sarcastic. She laughs at things that make adults laugh. She takes off for hours at a time with friends who already have their drivers licenses. She’s learning how to drive now herself. She spends as much effort and energy talking to boys as she does girls. She’s a little sarcastic. And she eats those two or three bites of broccoli now with just a slight sulk instead of a full-on-knock-down-drag-out fight-to-the-death.

And she’s just absolutely beautiful. Stunning.

She’s about grown up. She’s almost there.

And she loves her Lord — our Lord — and his people. She’s given her life to him and he’s making full use of it. Our God uses our Val-Pal all the time to show his love and grace and acceptance and mercy to other people. Nothing makes her happier than to spend time with somebody who doesn’t always feel love, somebody who doesn’t always experience acceptance. She cares a great deal about the needs of others. Our Father has put that in her. His Spirit lives in her and moves her to do sacrificial things that benefit other people. It’s quite spectacular, really, when your prayers for your children are answered almost every day right in front of your eyes. She reflects God’s glory. And I love it.

Happy Birthday, Valerie. “Her’s a big girl!”

I love you. And I’m so proud of you.

Dad

Community of Saints

January 23, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Tony “The Thrill” Hill…

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I was prepared for all that wind yesterday. I had been told about the wind here in Amarillo. I was ready for it. I’ve already experienced it many times over the past four months, so it didn’t surprise me when it hit yesterday just as church was letting out. But not one person had ever told me about raining mud! What was that, the 11th plague?!?

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Speaking of things I’m still learning about Amarillo: I knew it was flat up here. But I didn’t realize you can actually see New Mexico ski slopes from Soncy. I was having lunch with a Rotary Club a couple of weeks ago at the top of the Chase Tower downtown and I swear I looked toward the southeast and saw Cowboys Stadium. It is flat out here. And, yes, there are tumbleweeds. Real tumbleweeds. Blowing across the highway. I’ve never experienced anything like that. Tumbleweeds!

I was complaining to Matt Richardson yesterday about the five-and-a-half-hour drive between here and Fort Worth. He and Sara have family there; they know about that awful drive. But then Matt surprised me by declaring that the two hour drive between Amarillo and Lubbock is even worse. We both acknowledged that there’s nothing to look at, nothing to see on I-27, but he says it’s the moonscape! “You pass the Sea of Tranquility like four times!”

And, yeah, Matt writes his own material.

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I love Aerosmith. You know I do. But Steven Tyler should not sing America’s National Anthem.

Ever.

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I was very sad to see the Dr Pepper corporation in Plano put an end to the production of Dublin Dr Pepper out of that little bottling plant southeast of Stephenville. 

I understand that Dublin Dr Pepper was stretching way past their six-county distribution agreement. I knew something wasn’t right when we began seeing six packs of the glass bottles in our North Richland Hills Wal-Mart. You know, that actually took away from some of the mystique. It was much more cool when you could only get Dublin Dr Pepper — the only soft drink in America made with Pure Cane Sugar instead of corn syrup — in Dublin. Carrie-Anne and I always took the girls to Dublin every couple of years to check out their Dr Pepper museum (which contains much more memorabilia and artifacts than the official Dr Pepper Museum in Waco), to get a real hard-core Dr Pepper float from the old soda fountain there, and to stock up on a case or two of the special stuff and bring it home. Come on, I’ve got an “Official Dublin Dr Pepper Bootlegger” T-shirt! That doesn’t mean anything when anybody can buy it just about anywhere.

I also get that Dublin DP was infringing on some copyrights. There are Dublin Dr Pepper shirts and Dublin Dr Pepper caps and Dublin Dr Pepper quilts and bumper stickers and poodle sweaters and dominoes. It had become its own brand. They were in complete violation.

But, still, it saddens me. Dublin Dr Pepper was another one of those quirkie little peculiarities that made Dr Pepper unique. It made it a little weird and special. Now it’s gone. Dr Pepper will still bottle the sugared soda in special classic cans and bottles with the nostalgic logos and designs from the 1920s and ’30s. But it won’t say Dublin anywhere on them. And that’s a shame.

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Speaking of Dr Pepper: the people who run the world’s oldest soft drink have never been terrific marketers. Changing your logo every ten or twelve years and your advertising slogans every two or three years isn’t good. It doesn’t work. Dr Pepper’s TV commercials over the past decade or so have been embarrassing. Either really boring or really corny or over the top strange. They nailed it in the ’70s with the “I’m a Pepper” campaign. And I’m excited to see that they’re bringing it back. Have you seen the newest commercial? I saw it for the first time during the BCS Championship Game and I saw it a few times yesterday during the NFL Conference title games. I like it.

My shirt would say “I’m a preacher.”

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Life Together has become, over the years, my favorite Dietrich Bonhoeffer book. Being a part of a brand new church family has given me many reasons to re-read some of my favorite passages. One of those passages calls us to celebrate every moment within our faith community. Every person, every event, every interaction, every sub-group, every meeting, every worship assembly: it’s all a gift from God. Good or bad, life-giving or joy-stealing, fair or unfair, the spiritual giants of the faith and the immature babes in Christ: it’s all given to us by our Father in order to sanctify us.

“If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty… then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. …the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, to more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.”

Peace,

Allan

Madison’s Lesson

January 19, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Someone named Donny Hunt was at Madison’s funeral here at Central Monday. He had never met Madison or anyone in the Knebusch family. But one of his children goes to school with Londen, so Donny’s been getting regular facebook and email and dinner time updates on Madison’s condition for almost two years. So he was compelled by a mix, I think, of compassion and curiosity to attend Monday’s memorial service.

And it moved him. It taught him. And he wrote about it in a little article that’s making swift rounds throughout our church family.

The love that was shown during that Monday afternoon service, the faith that was expressed, the gratitude that was voiced, it all moved him. All these Christians — Mr. Hunt estimates a little over 500 people in our worship center; it was more like 1,200 — worshiping together during this very difficult time inspired him. He admits he rarely, if ever, attends any church services anywhere. But being here at Central Monday didn’t intimidate him at all. It moved him. Donny admits that, when facing death, we only really have what we believe. And if “believing in God makes your life more fulfilled, if it inspires you to be a better person, to give of yourself and leave the world a little better than you found it, how can it be bad?”

Donny writes that because of the love he witnessed and experienced here at Central on Monday, he realizes that faith in God is good.

Because of “the love in that church,” he says.  

Donny also writes beautifully about Madison’s sweet spirit, her great courage, and the eternal impact she’s had on everyone who knew her. You can read the entire article by clicking here.

Donny experienced our God with us here at Central Monday. His experience moved him to seek our Lord, to consider his own relationship with this God he doesn’t totally understand.  He’s searching now in a way that he wasn’t before Madison’s funeral. And Donny wasn’t moved closer to God by our particular doctrines or theological positions. He wasn’t inspired by our stance on baptism by immersion or our policies on church organizational structure. Donny’s heart wasn’t touched by our big worship center or the slick audio/video presentations. And he doesn’t care about our Restoration roots or our interpretations of 1 Corinthians 11.

It was “the love in that church” that grabbed him.

While she lived here with us, Madison taught us all many lessons. The day of her funeral reminded me of one of the more important ones.

“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples; if you love one another.” ~John 13:35

Peace,

Allan

Each Member Belongs

January 17, 2012 / / 0 Comments

You know, a person can preach and teach over and over again for many years about what church is supposed to be like, how we’re supposed to act, how we’re supposed to think and behave with one another. One of my absolute favorite descriptions of “church” is in Romans 12: “In Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

I brought that verse out during our orientation class Sunday morning. I spent a good amount of time telling our brand new members and several visitors how we expect to act as a church family: that we should belong. I belong to other people here, and they belong to me. I don’t live to myself or for myself; I’m part of something much bigger than that here. We live to and for and with one another here.

And I preach that and teach that all the time. We bear one another’s burdens. We rejoice and we mourn with one another. When one member hurts, we all hurt. Nobody in need. Defending one another. Loving each other. Considering the needs of one another more important than our own. Caring for one another as we care for ourselves. We work hard to attain to that ideal. It’s a lofty expectation. It’s difficult. But we try, right?

Now, what do you do when it actually happens?

It happened here yesterday. All day long. From the opening moments of the morning memorial service for 95-year-old Gerald Noyes to the last hugs and expressions of love shared in Sneed Hall following the afternoon service for 16-year-old Madison Knebusch.

I’m so grateful to be a part of this church family.

I’m so blessed to be working in the Kingdom with a shepherd like John Noyes who comes from such a long line of faithful men and who strives so hard to be true to our Lord. An open book of a man who wears his compassion for others on his sleeve and acts on it. Constantly.

I’m so glad to be working with Adam Gray who hit an absolute grand slam at Madison’s service. I’m so happy that my girls are in his youth group; that my daughters are being taught by this deep, reflective, deadly serious disciple of our Christ; that my girls are being shaped by his huge laugh and his even bigger heart.

I don’t have a big stake in her — not yet, there hasn’t been time; but I’m so proud of Morgan Donaway. So proud of her. The way she used her God-given voice, her divinely-ordained abilities, to bless others. The way she gave all of that to our Father yesterday and the way he used it to bless so many people. The great friend that she is. Wow.

I can’t believe the food and the gift cards, the phone calls and texts, the baby sitting and errands run, the flowers and hugs, the money and love that’s been showered by this church family on its own hurting members. I can’t believe the numbers of people who were here in the middle of a week day to sacrifice and serve others. I’ve been to Levi and Shannon’s house at least seven or eight times over the past week; and each time I’ve had to park farther away because of all the other cars. It’s indescribable.

I could have saved myself a lot of breath and the people in our orientation class a lot of time if I hadn’t tried to explain and describe what it means to belong to each other. I should have just encouraged these people to hang out in our building all day yesterday to see it in action. It really happens here. We really do belong to one another.

Yesterday was beautiful in so many ways. Inspirational. Moving. Wonderful. Gospel. It was perfect.

Now, I don’t want to do it again anytime soon. Maybe never. But it was perfect.

I’m so glad to be at Central.

Peace,

Allan

Struggling Together

January 13, 2012 / / 3 Comments

I believe that open and honest struggling and wrestling with God is a sign of faith. I believe that even questioning God and arguing with God reflects a strong inner conviction in his power and goodness.

Think about it. To demand that God ought to act justly is based solely on our firm belief that God is just. If we don’t believe God is just, we won’t go to him when we see injustice; we’ll go somewhere else. What we believe about God — if we really believe it — is what leads to this kind of honest wrestling.

We believe in God’s omnipotence. There is only one God. He does not share his power with any other god. He made the whole world and everything in it. He is the sovereign ruler over all creation. So, every single thing that happens, good and bad, fair and unfair, happens because God either causes it or allows it. And that leads directly to the really hard questions: Why? Why, God do you allow these things to happen? Why, God, don’t you intervene?

We believe in God’s righteousness. God loves the world he created, he is concerned with what happens to his creatures in the world, and he’s certainly not wicked in the ways he deals with the world. But we’re faced with the reality of terrible cruelty and awful suffering in our world. And if God is omnipotent and righteous, that leads directly to these agonizing prayers: How long is this going to last? God, where are you?

The prophet Habakkuk doesn’t like God’s answers. He can’t stand what he and his people are having to endure. None of it makes sense to him. So he keeps arguing with God. He keeps coming back to God. He struggles and accuses and complains.

“O Lord from everlasting. My God. My Holy One.” ~Habakkuk 1:12

When God’s people in Scripture complain about their troubles, when they lament the injustices of life, when they seek answers to their questions about the evil in the world, they don’t write letters to the editor, they don’t hold court in the coffee shop, they don’t call the talk shows, and they don’t join a campaign. God’s people bring their doubts and their fears, their uncertainties and questions, their complaints and arguments straight to God.

And in the case of the Psalms and Habakkuk, they do so as part of their worship, in the presence of God, in the middle of the congregation.

We’re struggling together here at Central. We’re struggling with the Knebusches, the Newtons, the Pucketts; with Norma, Jack and Barbara, Christi, the Noyes family; and the list goes on and on. We’re struggling. Together. We’re questioning and complaining, trying to make sense out of things that just don’t add up with what we know and believe about our merciful Father. But we’re struggling in faith.

God bless us. God, please honor our faithful lament.

Allan

Madison Lives With The Lord

January 12, 2012 / / 2 Comments

“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?
Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

Madison Knebusch passed away this morning in her bedroom, surrounded by her family, while being sung to by her friends, listening to words of comfort from the Scriptures, wrapped in the loving arms of her God, forgiven and made whole by the blood of her Savior.

Madison’s two-year battle with cancer is sad in many ways. It’s heart-breaking. But in countless other ways it is so marvelously beautiful. Breath-taking, inspiring, in the truly Gospel way it’s played out. The way the Body of Christ has come together to minister to the Knebusch family. The loving community that was experienced in hospital rooms and living rooms in the name and manner of our Christ. The burdens that were being shared. The great faith that has been shown by Levi and Shannon, not to mention Madison’s Holy Spirit strength that refused time and again to give in to the disease that was robbing from her everything we think it means to be really alive.

Realizing that Madison was more alive while she was battling cancer than I am right now. Or ever have been.

Madison never stopped thinking about others. Right up until Tuesday when her condition took that awful and irreversible turn, she was concerned about others, worried about others, ministering to others. Sending notes of encouragement to friends of her family who are dealing with their own illnesses. Asking questions about those at church she knew were hurting. Wondering aloud if her circumstances were taking away from the joy of others. Using her blog and her facebook page to record her innermost thoughts about God and his presence and his great promises and her unwavering belief and faith in his Word. Madison was truly alive, really living, that whole time. Thinking more about others, regarding the needs of others ahead of her own. At her sickest points, Madison was more alive than most of us ever have been because she was doing what she was made by her Creator to do. Serve. Sacrifice. Look like and think like and act like the Christ.

Realizing Madison is eternally alive right now. Forever. In the intense face-to-face presence of our God.

Madison’s eyes are open now. She’s made the trip. She’s on that other side. She sees everything so clearly now. She understands it all fully. Everything makes perfect sense to Madison right now. She’s there! She’s right where all of us so long to be. And she is so happy! Lord, come quickly! He has! Praise God, Madison today is an overcomer. She’s a conqueror. She’s an eternal daughter of our God and wearing the beautiful crown of a righteous princess. She’s there! Fully alive! Eternally alive!

Bonhoeffer wrote that “those who have died are in reality those who live and those living on earth are the dying. The cemetery is the place of life’s victory. Here lie those who live with the Lord.”

Hug your kids today. Kiss your spouse tonight. Call your parents. Express your love. Show your appreciation. And then get down on your knees and face and thank God for the wonderful people he’s put in your life.

Like Madison. And Levi and Shannon. And that whole Knebusch family.

While you’re down there, pray for the Knebusches. Pray for our merciful Father to bless them each with his grace and comfort and peace.

“On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine —
the best of meats and the finest of wines.
On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces;
he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken.
In that day they will say,
‘Surely this is our God;
we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the Lord, we trusted in him;
let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation!'”

Lord, come quickly.

Allan

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