Author: Allan (Page 394 of 492)

God, Heal Jenny Biz!

February 9, 2010 / Allan / 5 Comments

Jenny Bizaillion, a dear friend of ours from our days in Mesquite, is fighting for her life today at Baylor Grapevine. Please join Carrie-Anne and me in begging our great God to heal her.

Jenny is the daughter of Rick and Beverly Ross. Rick was the preacher at the Mesquite Church of Christ in those days and now proclaims the gospel in Decatur. He is a godly man beyond reproach. Dedicated. Determined. Reflective. Solid. He’s one of the reasons I went into preaching. Beverly is his amazing wife. A renowned speaker on the women’s ministry front. Positively optimistic. Outgoing. Spiritual. Inspirational. Jenny’s brother, Josh, is the preacher at the Sycamore View CofC in Memphis. Dynamic. A completely sold-out disciple of our Lord. Jenny’s other brother, Jonathan, is the worship leader at the Bammel Church in Houston. He regularly takes huge groups of people directly into the presence of God. It’s easy for him because, obviously, Jonathan lives there. In the presence of God.

Jenny and her husband, David, have a nine-year-old daughter, Malaya. She’s just a few months younger than our Carley. Jenny and David are both such sweet-spirited followers of Jesus. Sensitive. Compassionate. Selfless. Sacrificial. Open hearts and confessing spirits. We shared many meals together during our nearly four years in Mesquite. We also shared prayers. And Bible studies. Theological discussions into the night. Planning church programs. Feeding the poor.

David and I planned the very first “24 Hours of Prayer” event together there in Mesquite. We planned the men’s advance at Camp Carter in Fort Worth where we both got lit up by Jason Reeves on the paintball fields. (If you’re dividing up paintball teams, don’t put the career police officer and SWAT team member on the other side!) David and I took in several forgettable Rangers games together in those days. We were also together in my pickup truck on I-45 on September 11, 2001. We were heading to Houston to watch Barry Bonds against the Astros. We were talking during the trip, not listening to the radio. And we didn’t realize anything had happened in New York and D.C. until we saw all the flags in Houston at half-staff and made a phone call.

I’ll never forget that day with David. Taking turns calling Carrie-Anne and Jenny on the one cell phone we had between us. Watching the news reports on the TVs in the bar at Chili’s. Praying. Waiting in David’s sister’s living room until Bud Selig cancelled the baseball game. Driving back to Mesquite, listening to news radio, talking to our wives. Meeting together at the Mesquite church building for a prayer service.

We sort of fell out of contact with David and Jenny six or seven years ago after we moved to Arlington to be closer to KRLD and the Ballpark. We kept up with them through Rick and Beverly and mutual friends from Mesquite. But, until last Friday, I don’t think I’d actually seen David since 2004.

Friday.

In the ICU waiting room at Baylor hospital in Grapevine, just ten minutes northeast of our house. Jenny, a beautiful, funny, competitive, stubborn, loving 31-year-old wife and mother and daughter and sister — a wonderful child of our God — was on life support. David had taken her to the hospital Thursday after she just wasn’t able to shake the flu. By Friday her kidneys had both shut down, her lungs had quit, her liver had failed, and her blood pressure had fallen to almost nothing. It’s a Strep-A infection. It’s in her blood and organs. It’s eating her up. By late Friday night, doctors were giving Jenny a 50-50 chance of survival.

Today, Jenny is still fighting. And, today, our God is still good. Very, very, very good.

It’s been a relentless roller coaster for this precious family. Jenny is making slow progress. Very slow. But we are getting tiny bits of good news. The numbers, as bad as they are, are heading in the right direction. Her condition, as bad as it is, is getting better. And our merciful God is to be praised.

Please join us in praying for Jenny and David and Malaya and Rick and Beverly and Josh and Jonathan and all of their family and friends. You can keep up with her progres by clicking here. This CarePages site will ask you to enter your name and email address and create a personal password. When you do it, you’ll be able to monitor what’s happening with Jenny and you’ll be able to send the family encouraging notes. I know they are reading these notes constantly. They’re even reading them to Jenny in her room. And they’re regularly updating the page with very specific prayer requests.

Please, I’m begging you to stop what you’re doing right now and ask our God in the name of his Holy Son, Christ Jesus, our crucified and resurrected King, to heal Jenny. Ask God to take everything out of her body that is doing her harm. Ask God to bring her blood pressure up and to obliterate this infection from hell. My brothers and sisters here at Legacy, the family of God in Marble Falls, in Benton, out in Fresno. The community of faith at Austin Grad. My brothers in ministry in Waco and Temple and Robinson and McGregor. Everybody reading this blog, please pray today for Jenny Biz.

“Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.
Renew them in our day, in our time make them known.”
~Habakkuk 3:2

Expectation #5

February 5, 2010 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” ~Matthew 5:16

We’re called to evangelize the same way Jesus evangelized: in deep, personal, loving, and giving relationship. We watch our Lord proclaim the Gospel and we follow his lead.

Jesus eats dinner with his friends. He teaches in Capernaum and preaches at the lake. He throws a picnic for five thousand and he spends the night in the mountains praying with his disciples. He hugs mourners at funerals. He touches lepers. He weeps for the city. He embraces strangers and stays with tax collectors. Jesus protects the adulterous woman at the temple and he blesses the children. He forgives his enemies from the cross. He dies for me. And he walks out of the tomb and breathes into us his resurrection life.

The Way of Jesus is always in creating and saving and blessing. He invites and he forgives. He seeks the lost and heals the sick. He turns the other cheek. He embodies the Good News in submissive love and sacrificial service.

According to Acts 2:42-47, this is how the first church evangelized. This is how you let your light shine. This is how you share your faith and redeem the world. By delivering a casserole or mowing a yard. By inviting somebody over for ice-cream. By praying for enemies and forgiving people who do you harm.

The world sees that and can’t resist.

Peace,

Allan

Awakening the Depths

February 4, 2010 / Allan / 1 Comment

Church business is busy. Kingdom busy-ness can be overwhelming. Sermons and classes. Emails and texts and blogs. Counseling. Programs and people and prayers and planning. Reports and committees and meetings and talks in the foyer. Hospital visits.

Ministry is never-ending. I never once get home at the end of the day and feel like I accomplished every thing I had intended. It doesn’t stop.

And I have to be very, very, very careful to maintain my focus. I have to be disciplined. Deliberate. I must continually guard against being driven and motivated by people’s expectations and my own sense of worth. I have to be driven and motivated by the Holy Spirit of God who resides inside me. I must be moved by my Father’s love for me, by his plans for me. It’s bigger than me. It’s higher than me. I can’t be directed by what I want to do. I must be directed by what God wants me to do.

Romano Guardini (1885-1968), a long-time professor of philosophy and theology at the University of Munich, wrote about this focused-following in his book Power and Responsibility:

“All around us we see activity, organization, operations of every possible type; but what directs them? An inwardness no longer really at home within itself: which thinks, judges, acts from the surface, guided by mere intellect, utility, and the impulses of power, property, and pleasure.

Man’s depths must be reawakened. His life must again include times, his day moments of stillness in which he collects himself, spreads out before his heart the problems which have stirred him during the day. In a word, man must learn again to meditate and to pray.”

It’s said that John Wesley spent the first five minutes of every single waking hour deliberately reflecting on the hour just passed — what opportunity did God give me, did I respond in a Christ-like manner, what should I have done differently to better reflect his glory?

Spending the first hour of every morning in Scripture and prayer, communing with our Triune God in holy relationship, is the most important thing I do. It reawakens my depths. It compels me to spread my heart out to my Father in confession and dependence. It convicts me. It challenges me. It reminds me that I’m not in any of this for myself. Not even for my family or my church. Not even for others. Not as much as I’m in it for the God who calls me and saves me and equips me to join him in redeeming the world.

Peace,

Allan

The Aroma of Christ

February 3, 2010 / Allan / 2 Comments

“We are to God the aroma of Christ…” 2 Corinthians 2:15

I know there are people in our congregation at Legacy who regularly listen to preachers who are a thousand times better than me. Through the internet, seminars and workshops, DVDs, podcasts, and a variety of other ways, our members hear preachers better than me all the time. Actually, forget all that. There are at least a dozen preachers within our own congregation who are better than me! Smarter. Wiser. More eloquent. Better speakers. Better exegetes. I see them every Sunday. And I think, good gravy, why did they hire me? Why would anyone here listen to me?

I go to these workshops and seminars and get to enjoy some of the greatest preaching and teaching in our tradition. Important preachers. Book-writers and highly-paid speakers. These guys criss-cross the nation speaking to huge crowds who hang on their every words. And I think, wow, how do you get to be so important? How does one become a really great preacher?

I sit down in any room or at any table with any other preachers and I instantly feel wholly inadequate. Intimidated even. I don’t know anything. They know everything. I think about my failures. They don’t have any. My successes seem so small compared to theirs. My best ideas and sermons seem so trite and old compared to theirs. And I think, man, I’m not sure I even know how to do this.

I have a need to feel important. And that’s a sin.

Un-Christ-like. Un-Christ-like. Un-Christ-like.

The good news for me is that I am very, very important to God. Whether I realize it or acknowledge it or not, God says I’m important to him. I don’t need other people to validate me or the work I’m doing for the Kingdom. I am validated by my merciful Father who says I’m the very aroma of his holy and perfect Son.

And that’s good news for you, too. You don’t need to feel important. You certainly ARE important to our God. And so is the work you’re doing for the Kingdom. It’s all very important to him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In light of current events, isn’t Toyota’s current logo and ad campaign ironic?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good to see the Dallas Cowboys going into full off-season mode so early. Usually the first Cowboys player arrest happens sometime in the days and weeks following the Super Bowl. Not this year.

Peace,

Allan

Back to Waco

February 2, 2010 / Allan / 2 Comments

I spent the first Tuesday of every month in 2008 with Jim Martin, a long-time family friend and the preacher at the Crestview Church of Christ in Waco. Jim had put together a mentoring group of nine preachers and an elder, all from the Waco area. And he had asked me to join.

I came to crave those Tuesdays. I needed them.

For the most part, people I know say, “Good sermon,” and they mean, “You didn’t offend me.” They ask, “How are things going?” and they mean, “How are things going at church?” They say, “Let’s get together,” and they mean, “Let’s talk about a program or a ministry issue.”

That’s a broad generalization, I know. Please understand that I love these people. All of them. And I’m thrilled to have these beautiful, God-ordained, holy relationships. I’m blessed.

But, once a month, it was nice for my good friend Jim to look me square in the eyes and ask me, “How are YOU doing?” Not your ministry, not your church, not your sermons, not your programs. You. How are you doing? How are you and Carrie-Anne doing? Tell me something that excites you right now about God. What part of you, Allan, needs work? What can I specifically pray about for you? How are your kids?

It was also refreshing to hear my brothers call me to accountability. They were not afraid to challenge my view of a particular topic or my stand on a current situation. They were not embarrassed to ask me if maybe my pride or my ego were affecting my thinking. They didn’t mind showing me something from a different angle that maybe I hadn’t considered.

The best part for me was knowing that I could really be myself. I could be totally open and honest and 1) know that everybody in the room completely understood and 2) they weren’t going to judge me or tell on me. They know. All these preachers know. They know the heartache and the joy, they know the burden and the responsibility and the blessing of being one of God’s preachers. I trusted them. Still do.

For one day a month, it was sanctuary.

Jim puts together a new group every year. Seven or eight new faces. Only two or three holdovers. I didn’t participate last year. And I missed it. I missed the focus it gave me. I missed the camaraderie and the worship and the study and meditation. I missed hearing all the good things our God is doing in other faith communities. I missed encouraging other preachers and being encouraged by those same preachers. This year, I’m in.

Twelve Tuesdays. And it starts today.

The renegade elder, Ray Vannoy, is in. I’ve never met a shepherd quite like him. He’s so well read, so current with what’s happening in the Kingdom, so encouraging to preachers, so open with his own criticisms of church and church leadership. So over-the-top gentle and generous and humble. My good friend Charlie Johanson from the Brentwood Oaks Church of Christ in Austin is in. Charlie and I probably took 40 of our 48 hours at Austin Grad together. He was always one step ahead of me. Always pointing me to the bigger picture. A perfect picture of what hungering and thirsting for righteousness looks like. And then there’s Jim. His soft voice and mild mannerisms don’t quite cover up a fiery passion for our Lord that’s obviously boiling inside him. He’s so deliberate. So insightful. So empowering. He sees good in everything and everybody. He is a man of God beyond reproach.

And I want to be just like him. And Charlie. And Ray. I pray that being with them will cause some of their character to rub off on me.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’m disturbed today to read that Joe Perry and the rest of Aerosmith are actually auditioning lead singers to tour with the band and cut a new album while front man Steven Tyler recovers from his rehab. You can read the story here. Reportedly, Lenny Kravitz and Billy Idol are among those being considered.

All indications are that Tyler’s relapse into the drugs that derailed the group in the late 70s was his first setback since they all went cold turkey back in ’85. This doesn’t make sense. Give him a break.

I know Tyler and Perry split this band up once. Ego and drugs and pride and philosophies and all kinds of things were to blame then. But to actually use another lead singer while Tyler is recovering seems crazy. And mean. You know, David Lee Roth and Van Halen had only been together eight years when they went their separate ways. Aerosmith’s been this exact same band for four decades! It would be like The Who touring with Bryan Adams as their lead singer or The Rolling Stones cutting an album with Peter Frampton on lead vocals.

If they do this, they can’t call it Aerosmith.

Joe Perry plays a mean guitar. But he already tried the Joe Perry Project on his own. Yuk. Steven Tyler IS Aerosmith! He’s the face (and the lips!) of the whole Aerosmith franchise.

A moment of silence, please. Somebody hum “Dream On.”

Peace,

Allan

He Wants You Deader

February 1, 2010 / Allan / 0 Comments

He doesn’t want you better, he wants you deader;
you’re looking for signs and wonders, he wants you under.
Well there’s your way and there’s my way,
but the better way is just get out of the way.
He doesn’t want you better, he wants you deader.

The truth is rising from the mist, and the word is this:
that when Jesus calls a man, he calls him to come and die!
Dead people don’t mind pain,
don’t get offended so they never complain.
They’re not concerned about personal gain.
Does that sound like me or you?
He doesn’t want you better, he wants you deader.

~Rob Frazier

Author: Allan (Page 394 of 492)

God, Heal Jenny Biz!

Expectation #5

Awakening the Depths

The Aroma of Christ

Back to Waco

He Wants You Deader

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