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With Friends Like These…

May 11, 2010 / / 2 Comments

Please help bail me out of jail!Most of you know I’m being arrested this Thursday and hauled off to a prison cell (I think it’s a Spring Creek barbecue) in Bedford this Thursday to raise money for MDA. I need to raise $1,480 in “bail” money in order to be released. All the details of the fundraiser can be found here in a post from last week. After writing about it on this blog, I/We had raised a grand total of $30 in six days. So I was forced to send out emails.

They went out late yesterday afternoon. I’m asking for donations for bail money to get me out of jail. These are my friends. And these are some of the responses that came back.

“How much do we pay to keep you in there for a month or so?” ~Rusty Thompson
“How much do we pay to get them to take you away sooner?” ~John West
“You’re going to be stuck there all day!” ~Jason Brown
“Have a good looooong weekend. They do serve bread and water, right?” ~Bill Podsednik

Those were the mild ones. J.Q. Manos came back with this gem: “Sorry, Allan, my check is going to Royal Family Kids Camp. But I will start a jail ministry, come with a pack of cigs and a gallon of water to help you pass the drug test.”

Some of my dear brothers — elders in the Lord’s Church! — acted like the Pharisees crying “Corban!” in using Scripture to avoid the call to duty:

“Paul wrote some of his best stuff from prison.” ~David Watson
“I understand Paul did some of his best and most introspective writing in prison.” ~Jerry Plemons
“No doubt, Paul got much inspiration from his time in prison.” ~Dennis Tom

Yes, that’s true. And when he preached, it seems Paul routinely went past midnight! See you Sunday!

I received this from another of our elders: “Looks like you’ll be there for a while. I’ll look into skyping you in from your jail cell. Better get those sermons memorized. They may not allow crib notes in the cooler” ~Russ Garrison

The best line thus far has come from an old college roommate, Todd Adkins, “Don’t you have an OCC lawyer on permanent retainer?

As of this morning, Tuesday, I/We have raised $150. Thank you. We’ll get there. If you’d like to donate, please click here.

Peace,

Allan

Happy Mother's Day

May 7, 2010 / / 0 Comments

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

“A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” ~Proverbs 31:30On 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. Happy Mother’s Day!

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.

Happy Mother’s Day!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. Happy Mother’s Day!

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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Please, bail me out!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

To The Hoosegow!

May 5, 2010 / / 3 Comments

Help me raise $1,480 for MDAI’m going to jail. The pen. The big house. The clink. The cooler. The crossbars motel.

I’ve been informed that officials are coming here to the Legacy church offices at noon on Thursday May 13 and hauling me away to a cell in Bedford. And they will hold me there until I raise $1,480 in bail.

Actually this is all part of an MDA fundraiser. The bail money I (we) raise will fund Muscular Please donate today!Dystrophy research, repair medical equipment, fund clinics and therapy and treatment, and send local DFW kids to a summer camp.

Don’t just laugh at my predicament. Don’t just forward emails and blog comments full of lame puns and weak jokes about my plight. I need help! I’m asking you to please bail me out, knowing that your donation doesn’t just get me out of jail. The money goes to all kinds of wonderful causes.

a $300 donation is enough to provide a diagnostic workup at an MDA clinic
$150 pays for a therapy consultation
$74 funds one minute of vital research
$30 pays for a flu/H1N1 shot
The full $1,480 funds 20-minutes of Muscular Dystrophy research

MDA funds six clinics in DFW, including the one at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth.

Go to my MDA Lock-Up page, watch the cheesy video, and please pledge some money to get me out of jail.Please click here to get to my MDA donation page. Or you can click the link on my blog role there to the right. Next to the funny little video is a “donate” button that allows you to donate any amount toward my bail. Plug in $25. Donate $50. You can choose to have your name and the amount you donate displayed on my MDA page or you can remain anonymous. You can use any credit or debit card or you can choose the “bill me later” option. You can also write me a check or give me cash in My MDA Lock-Up is Thursday May 13.person. They’ve provided me with receipts to make sure you get full tax credit.

It would be great to hit the $1,480 goal before they actually show up to arrest me next Thursday. I’ll keep you posted on the progress we’re making between now and then. Please do this for me. I don’t need to stay there all day. I’ve got sermons to write!

If you can’t donate money, maybe you can bake us a helpful cake. Prison Break Cake

Thanks so much,

Allan

What Am I Called To Say?

May 4, 2010 / / 2 Comments

God is not finished with me yet. Praise the Lord, he’s not done! He’s still working on me. And, by the power of his Holy Spirit, he uses people and circumstances and books and friends and strangers and situations to shape me more into the image of his great Son.

Right now our Father is using Kipi’s class on conflict resolution and a little book recommended by my great friend Jim Martin to show me how to better manage myself as a preacher. I especially want to share one wonderful insight and recent conclusion that has greatly reduced my burden and given me great comfort and peace. And freedom.

What Am I Called To Say?I’m afraid my private conversations with friends and church shepherds — those inside and outside our congregation at Legacy — involve some form of the question, “How can I get these people to….?” I’m afraid that’s my mindset. When seeking advice from others or when wrestling with our God in prayer, I often ask, “How can I get these people to listen? How can I get these elders to understand? How can I get these volunteers to act? How can I get these church members to think? How can I get these brothers and sisters to see?”

That kind of thinking and acting, that sort of mindset, would easily lead to frustration, don’t you suppose?

In her book Leaders Who Last, Margaret Marcuson says preachers should stop asking those kinds of questions and, instead, ask, “What am I called to say to them this week?”

I am responsible to do my best to preach God’s Word as I understand it to my congregation every week. I am responsible for challenging our church family and calling them to repent and live their lives worthy of our calling. I’m ordained to provoke them by God’s Word to do more and to be more. And that’s about it. These people are responsible before God for what they do with that Word each week. I can’t make anybody do anything.

It’s not, “How can I get them to…?” It’s, “What am I called to say?”

That takes the pressure off. That brings me great relief and peace of mind. It helps me trust more completely in God. Less of self and more of thee. Because if my faith really is in my Lord, if I really do believe he’s working through me in this church to transform all of us, I can relax. I don’t have to worry about taking care of everybody because I know the results of my preaching don’t depend on me. They depend wholly on God.

Marcuson says a church needs to be led, not driven.

“The concept is clear: people are not acquitted of the responsibility for their own souls. Personal decisions are still decisions, personal judgments are still judgments, free will is still free will. Being in a family does not relieve a child of the responsibility to grow up. The function of twenty-one-year-olds is not to do life’s tasks as their parents told them to when they were six-years-old. The function of twenty-one-year-olds is simply to do the same tasks well and to take accountability themselves for having done them… The role of leadership is not to make lackeys or foot soldiers or broken children out of adult Christians.”

Probably the best thing I can do as a preacher is to teach the Word of God, to communicate my understanding as clearly as I can, challenge my hearers, and then give them room — and time! — to respond.

Look at Jesus. He preaches and teaches out of this amazing position of relaxed trust. Trust in God and trust in people. He simply says, “Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more.” If Jesus can give that kind of room and time to others, without chasing after them and hounding them for their own good, maybe I should give more effort to doing the same thing.

Peace,

Allan

Truly Belonging

May 3, 2010 / / 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!

Truly BelongingThis 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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The Stanglin girls make their debut on the small screen! Carley and Valerie still have no idea who Austin Jackson is.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.

Whitney did a one-on-one with Jim Knox in-between innings.   The Third Day concert was sponsored by I Am Second. I don’t know any of their songs. I’m lost on contemporary Christian music now that Audio Adrenaline’s done. Josh Hamilton spoke during the show. It was cool.   Carley & Tori at the pre-game Third Day concert, just a couple of hours prior to their television debut.

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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DirkI’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.

Mack & Shirley - they were at the party for 20 minutes before anybody realized who they were!  Don White won best male hobo with this getup  Three Amigas - they all have such wonderfully amazing parents!

Peace,

Allan

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