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The Gospel According To Potluck

February 23, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been accused of many things. Most of those things are untrue. This latest allegation that surfaced last night in more than a couple of places from more than a couple of people must be addressed in an open forum.

 I DID NOT IMPLY IN MY COMMENTS FROM THE PULPIT YESTERDAY THAT IF ONE DID NOT BRING BANANA PUDDING TO THE CHURCH POTLUCK ONE COULD NOT BE SAVED!!!

I merely commented that a church potluck isn’t really a church potluck without banana pudding. That’s all. The fact that we had about three dozen banana puddings at the dinner last night only proves I really didn’t need to say anything about it at all. Of course, I exaggerate. However, I’m taking bids now to secure my services for March 29. For the highest bidder, I’ll mention your favorite dessert from the pulpit while making an announcement about that night’s supper. Right now, I’m up to $35 for Key Lime Pie.

What a fantastic night last night. Well over 500 of us brought our favorite dishes and shared a common meal together a la Potluck GospelActs 2 and 1 Corinthians 10 & 11. The quantity of food was mind-boggling. The variety was spellbinding. Only at a church potluck can you get chicken enchiladas, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the same plate. And love it. It was loud. It was chaotic. It was fun. And it was theologically beautiful.

Yes, a church potluck is a re-enactment of the gospel. A common meal. A common table. Every nation, tribe, language, and people. Everyone bringing something to the body. A gift of creamed corn. A talent of chocolate pie. A blessing of homemade egg rolls from our brand new sister in Christ who’s still wet behind the ears from her baptism that morning. All these abilities, all these contributions, all these gifts brought to the table to form one amazingly wonderful meal that serves to nourish the entire body.

Purity PledgeLast night’s dinner was even more special as we witnessed our junior high boys and girls make vows of purity to their parents, to their friends, to their church family, and to their God. Over the din of crying babies and clanging forks, their parents made similar vows of love and availability and support. And then the whole church body stood and made vows to those families, vows to hold them accountable, to encourage them, to celebrate with them in their victories and mourn with them in their defeats. In the presence of our heavenly Father and each other, in the name of Christ, and by the power of his Holy Spirit. Running the race together. Passing the baton of faith. Through laughter and tears, promising to act like a real family.

And as great as all that was, the real capper of the evening was the sharing of the communion meal together as a church True Love Waitsfamily. Around the table(s). Real tables and real chairs. In the context of a shared meal. A real meal with real food and real drink. A public acknowledgment that we are enjoying this meal together because of what God has done for us in Christ. A recognition that we are brothers and sisters together because of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. Again, over the noise of restless toddlers. Through the “distractions” of extra activity. Looking people in the eyes instead of staring at the backs of their heads. Giggling with each other when someone dropped a tray in the back. An encouraging wink during and after the prayers. A pat on the hand. Personal, but not private. Putting the “community” back in communion. “Recognizing the body of the Lord.” Making communion truly communal again.

Legacy is one great potluckin’ church! And I’m so grateful to belong to this body of believers that sees and understands the gospel value of a shared common meal.

Peace,

Allan

Pouring Out Your Heart

February 20, 2009 / / 0 Comments

In 1912, Oswald Chambers wrote, “Prayer does not equip us for greater works — prayer is the greater work.”

Why do we pray? As a Christian community, as a church family, why do we pray?

Pouring Out Your HeartWe pray because our God invites us to pray. He desires that we speak with him, that we bring him our praise and thanksgiving, our confession of sin and our hurts, our petitions for others and ourselves — everything that concerns us. And the more we pray, the closer we become to God. In prayer, in real prayer, we begin to talk like God and think like God. We desire the things he desires, we love the things he loves, we want the things he wants. We begin to see things from his point of view when we earnestly pray.

And it’s critical that the church prays. It’s paramount to our faith that we pray together. Praying together binds us together. Praying for one another connects us. Praying promotes spiritual unity and brotherly love.

Charles Finney wrote in 1835, “Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other’s hearts in prayer.”

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” ~Hebrews 4:16

Peace,

Allan

Prayer and Praise

February 19, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Prayer & PraiseBiblical prayers are saturated with praise, the recognition of who God is and what he does. It’s giving God the glory. It’s never that we add to his glory—that’s impossible. But we’re willingly and openly recognizing God as God. All prayer has to begin with praise, recognizing who God is and what he does.

Psalm 146 is a perfect example of this kind of prayer. It recognizes God as the creator, the sustainer of life, and the Sovereign King. And it calls on the one reading the prayer and those praying the prayer with the reader to live their lives for the sole purpose of praising God.

“Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord, O my soul.
I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed is he whose help in the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea and everything in them—
the Lord, who remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The Lord reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord.”

Sweet Little Sixteen

February 17, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Whit&DPWednesday, February 17, 1993. South Austin Medical Center. 10:15 pm. Whitney Leigh-Anne came into the world and into our lives kicking and screaming and needing some extra oxygen. I was able to calm her down in those first couple of minutes by singing “Love Me Do” and “Eight Days a Week” softly to her in the delivery room. And I’ll never forget looking for the very first time into those bluer than blue eyes. So blue. And so beautiful. She had a huge ragged mop of dark black hair. And those little crooked toes. And it all BlueEyesknocked my socks off.

How amazing to have this innocent, vulnerable, newborn infant. How terrifying that she depends on me for her very survival. How humbling to realize I’m responsible to her and to our God for bringing her up in Christ Jesus.

Whitney is my sports nut. Big time. She was hitting plastic baseballs off a plastic tee with a plastic bat when she was two. She was eating popcorn and chips and hot sauce and watching football games with me by about the same age. She throws like a boy (Yes!). She loves basketball. She watches ESPN News for 15 minutes every morning. She wants nothing but sports jersies and posters for birthdays and Christmas. We can’t play enough air hockey and backgammon together. And she argues with me about the Cowboys almost daily.

HookEm  Whit’sGuns  SheShootsSheScores

And I love that about Whitney. It really connects me to her.

But what I really admire about Whitney, and the thing I’m most grateful for with her, is her sweet spirit and positive attitude. Whitney is an angel. She’s had to overcome, and is still working to overcome, so many difficulties in her young life. WhitGoesDeepMultiple surgeries. Subsequent therapies. Physical limitations. Hearing aids. Glasses. Fine motor skills. Her list goes on and on. But through it all, somehow, Whitney maintains an incredibly upbeat attitude. She’s never down. The doctors’ appointments and medical reports never drag her down. She keeps that same smile on her face and that same positive attitude day after day after day. She’s such a blessing. She’s endured so much pain in her life, especially with her legs and her feet, and yet she’s generally much more concerned with her sisters’ feelings than with her own.

Whit’sSpecsWe tell her all the time that God is going to use the trials she’s enduring now to produce through her amazing things for his Kingdom. We tell her all the time that she’ll be able to minister to other people in ways that I never will because she can personally relate to so many things that other people are going through. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1, she’ll be able to comfort others with the same comfort she’s received from God. She’ll be better equipped to encourage others because of the ordeals she’s facing every day.

I see our loving Father in Whitney. I see him in her trusting spirit and her faithful dependence on him. I see him already using her to teach others around her—namely her dad—about keeping our eyes on the things that are unseen, the eternal things, not the seen things that are temporary.

I can’t wait to see what other huge, wonderful things our God is going to do through the Whitster.

Happy Birthday, girl. I love you.

Dad

A Delivered People

February 16, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Freedom!“But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” ~1 Corinthians 6:11

We are Christians, yes. We are God’s children. We are his Church. Yes, we are sheep. We are saints. We are co-laborers with the Lord. We’re disciples. We’re a family. Yes.

But who we are only has meaning, it only brings us great joy, it only really matters, in relation to who we were.

Immoral. Idolaters. We are sinners. We are enemies of God. We’re dead. Dead in our transgressions. Dead in our sins. We are disobedient. Rebellious. Following the ways of the world. Following our own evil desires and thoughts. We are prisoners of Satan. Slaves to iniquity. We’re held captive by the devil. We’re in jail. We’re not going anywhere. Condemned by a holy and righteous God. Destined to be forever separated from the One who created us. We are hell-bound. Facing an eternity in a lake of fire and powerless to do anything about it. Powerless. We can do nothing. This is who we are. Not tired, not asleep, not sick, not even in a coma. Dead! It’s over. We’re finished. No hope. No luck. No chance. Only a promise. The promise of eternal damnation.

But…

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions.” ~Ephesians 2:4-5

The noose was around your neck. The chair had been kicked out and your legs were dangling when God rode in and rescued you. Through no merit of your own — nothing! not a single thing you did or could ever do — you were saved.

You were dead, but now you’re alive. You were lost, but now you’re found. You were headed to hell, but now you’ve been re-routed to heaven. And you’ve never done anything to deserve it. Christ Jesus took the punishment for you. Jesus took your place. Jesus stepped in and did for you what you could never do for yourself.

His love, his mercy, his grace, it makes no sense. It’s incredible. It’s amazing.

We are saved!

And this is what identifies us. This is who we are. This is what shapes the way we think and informs the way we behave. This is at the very heart of how we view our God and ourselves and one another. This is what gives us our great joy.

Who we are in relation to who we were.

Praise God for his amazing grace!

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

“The one unifying constant that defines whether or not such a congregation is included…is the practice of a cappella worship services.” ~Carl Royster, from his introduction to Churches of Christ in the United States

Wow. I had no idea we had just added a quarter-billion Eastern Orthodox to our movement! Who says our numbers are declining? Cool.

Sarcastically and sadly,

Allan

Unconverted Membership

February 12, 2009 / / 0 Comments

“Our greatest trouble now is, it seems to me, a vast unconverted membership. A very large percent of the church members among us seem to have very poor conceptions of what a Christian ought to be. They neglect prayer, the reading of the Bible, and the Lord’s Day meetings, and, of course, they fail to do good day by day as they should. Twelve years of continual travel among the churches have forced me to the sad conclusion that a very small number of the nominal Christians are worthy of the name.” ~James A. Harding, 1887

Is it comforting or disturbing?

When you read the stories of Israel in our ancient Scriptures and recognize that we, today, continue to fall away from the Lord, cry out to him in time of trouble, come running back to him vowing a renewed life of total commitment, only to fall away again a short time later, how do you feel? Does it make you feel better that some things never change, that God’s people have always acted like this and always will? Does it ease the pain of our own shortcomings and rebellions to know that God’s used to it? Or does it really bother you? You mean we’re still acting as God’s people the same way we acted four thousand years ago?!? Are you kidding? How depressing. What are we doing? Are we ever going to get it?

Over and over again. Nothing changes.

When you read a statement made by Harding 120 years ago that sounds like it could have been written yesterday, is that good or bad? Does it comfort you or disturb you?

I go back and forth on things like this. It mostly depends on what kind of day I’m having. My mood changes. My outlook on Christian progress, the advance of the Kingdom in this country, the sanctification of God’s holy people, it changes from time to time based on recent experience, I suppose.

This I know: through all the ups and downs of the cycles of God’s eternal people, he loves us. He loves us unconditionally. He sacrifices all and gives it to us. Uncompromisingly. He is a faithful God. Even when his people are faithless. He is patient with us. And he’s working on us right now.

Peace,

Allan

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