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Ordained by God and His Church

June 6, 2023 / / 0 Comments

By God’s grace, we just concluded a smooth, drama-free, Holy Spirit led, and healthy shepherd selection process here at the GCR Church. We have ordained four new elders — Gary Glasscock, Richard Hatchett, Michael Humphries, and Marc McQueen — to join the current group of seven, to give us a terrific team of godly men committed to shepherding this church in the name and manner of our Lord Jesus. The process culminated Sunday in an ordination service that was, by all accounts, a beautiful and inspirational moment for our whole congregation.

We wanted the service to feel like the whole church was participating in ordaining these four new shepherds and affirming and blessing the whole group of eleven. We wanted the charges and pledges to go both ways – the elders would make promises to the church and the congregation would make promises to the elders. Several shepherds and ministers and support staff made wonderful suggestions along the way and we wound up with what I would consider a model for an ordination ceremony.

First, we gathered around our elders and and prayed thanksgiving and blessing over them. We asked all eleven of our shepherds and their wives to step out into the aisles where we could get to them, and we got out of our seats, put our hands on them and our arms around them, and talked to the Lord about them. We thanked God for the dedication of these men and their wives to seeking the Lord and following Christ and serving his Church. We expressed our love for them to the Father. And we lifted each of them up – these men, their wives, their families, their ministries, their service to our congregation – to the Lord in trust and faith.

Next, we brought all eleven couples to the stage and four of our young children from the congregation presented the new elders with beautiful shepherds’ staffs as symbols of godly leadership. We want these staffs to serve as reminders that they are called to lead this church with the same priorities our God lays out in Ezekiel 34: lead us to good pastures, where there is peace and rest; keep the big sheep from running over the little sheep; keep all of us from butting heads with each other; search for the lost and bring back the strays; bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.

 

 

 

 

And then we charged our elders with the specifics. I started the charge, but we had four other members of the church stand up in the middle of the congregation to also address the shepherds with our expectations. It went like this:

Allan: On behalf of the church family here at Golf Course Road, in the presence of our God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, believing that we have not acted in haste but have prayerfully depended on our God, we charge you men to be faithful shepherds of our flock.

Then Juan Alcaraz and his family stood up from their seats on the left side of the worship center: Believing that the Spirit of God has called you to this ministry and that you are a gift of his grace to our congregation, we charge you to accept this calling with humility and compassion. We charge you to devote yourselves to prayer, to commit yourselves to the ministry of God’s Word, and to consecrate yourselves to the earnest shepherding of our church.

Elders: By God’s grace, we will.

Then our whole youth group stood up on the right side of the church as Mallory West, one of our high school freshmen, read the next lines: As you shepherd us, will you submit to the Lordship of Jesus and to his example by taking the very nature of a servant and considering the needs of others more important than your own?

Elders: By God’s grace, we will submit to the Lordship of Christ, to his church here at GCR, and to one another. We will sacrificially serve the church with humility and compassion in the name and manner of Jesus.

Then Corene Morton stood up in the middle of the church: Will you diligently seek the Lord in ways that we can follow, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ?

Elders: By God’s grace, we will train ourselves for godliness; we will pursue the way of righteousness, faithfulness, gentleness, and love.

Then Ken and Carolyn Arnold stood up from their seats: And will you guard this church as the blood-purchased possession of Christ?

Elders: By God’s grace, we will teach and admonish in humility, encourage and support in love, and faithfully lead and protect our brothers and sisters at GCR as our Lord’s most prized possession.

At this point, I asked the entire church to stand and I asked them two questions, to which they responded in unison: Do you acknowledge and publicly affirm these godly men as your shepherds and receive them as your elders as gifts of God’s Holy Spirit to this church?

Church: We acknowledge these men as elders ordained by God and we receive them as our shepherds and as gifts of God’s Holy Spirit to this church.

Allan: Will you love and pray for these men, will you work together with them in humility and unity and good cheer, will you give them all due honor and support in the leadership to which our God has called them?

Church: By God’s grace, we will obey and submit to these men, so that their work will be a joy and not a burden.

Allan: Let all in the church who agree, affirm so by saying, “Amen!”

And they did. Then Joe Coffman, one of our former long-serving elders, led us in a beautiful congregational prayer of thanksgiving and blessing over the whole thing.

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t just four guys on the stage and a prayer. It was our whole church, from the youngest among us to the oldest, in the aisles, on the stage, holding microphones, asking and answering questions, making eye contact, making promises, giving and receiving hugs, saying prayers and being prayed over.

We do not “install” elders; that’s what you do with dishwashers. We ordain them. We affirm them. We charge them and bless them and use holy words to lift them up to the Father. It’s relational. It’s between a church and its spiritual leaders in the presence of God. It’s not an “installation.” It’s a sacred moment in the ongoing story of what the Lord is doing in and through his people in this place. Treating it as such will inspire your church. And it’ll bless your shepherds. And it will honor our God who brings us together in Christ Jesus.

Peace,

Allan

Penultimate Procedure

June 5, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Dr. Manny walked into the examination room at the Allison Cancer Center Friday morning and victoriously declared, “The Penultimate Procedure!”

Yes, sir, the next-to-last “Red Devil” infusion intended to completely annihilate any remaining cancer cells hanging around my wife Carrie-Anne. Friday’s treatment was number fifteen out of sixteen total infusions, the third of what I’m calling the Final Four. These last four are the ones doctors and patients in the breast cancer community call the “Red Devil” because of its unmistakable color and its nasty side effects. For Carrie-Anne, these side effects have been minimal and short-lived, relatively speaking. But this past weekend was a little more difficult than the previous two. She was light-headed and woozy all afternoon and evening on Friday. She spent most of Saturday and Sunday completely wiped out physically and wrapped from her waist to her ankles in heating pads and electric blankets to soothe her sore and aching bones. But no mouth or throat sores. And no nausea (the only nausea C-A experiences is driving in the car with me to the oncology hospital while I’m eating a cheese and jalapeno sausage kolache). She is experiencing a loss of appetite for the first time and some minor changes in the way things taste, but none of the worst things we were assured would happen with these final four treatments.

Praise God. He has been very merciful to us, gracious beyond what we deserve. And we are so grateful.

Carrie-Anne has begun losing some of her hair in the past couple of weeks, which makes everything a little more emotional. But she started out with so much, I think she could lose half of it before anyone would notice. We’re still doing the frozen caps on chemo days, still keeping the temperature at 35-degrees below zero and changing them in and out of the dry ice and onto her head every 25-minutes for eight hours. And you can tell from the picture we’ve added another strap, the yellow one, to lock that thing onto her head even a little tighter. And she holds it against her scalp with her hands now, doing everything she can to save that hair. By God’s grace, it’s working better than anyone at the Allison Cancer Center has ever seen. In fact, during our past two treatments, two different doctors have come to the infusion room just to marvel at C-A’s hair and overall health. We keep being told by all the experts she does not look like someone who’s gone through five months of chemo. And, again, we give all the glory to our God.

One more infusion remaining. June 16. Less than two weeks away from completing the treatments and getting most of our lives back. At that time, I’ll write much more about the woman under that awkward cap. She is remarkable in more ways than I realized. And I’ve known her and loved her for 34 years.

Peace,

Allan

Genuine Authority

June 1, 2023 / / 0 Comments

This Sunday, we are ordaining four new elders here at GCR Church. These four, plus the seven current shepherds, will be charged by the congregation to shepherd us in the name and manner of Jesus. And the church family will pledge to obey and submit to their leadership so their work will be a joy, not a burden.

Obey and submit?

Well, yeah, that’s what it says in Hebrews 13:17.

Obey and submit? Do we really want to use those words anymore? It makes it sound like the elders are ruling us with some kind of authority. What kind of authority do the elders have over us?

The only kind of authority that matters in God’s Church. The only kind of authority that exists in the Kingdom of God. The genuine authority of sacrifice and service. The authority of a life lived not to be served, but to serve.

In the spirit of the upcoming ordination service at GCR; to all church elders past, present, and future; and for all churches that occasionally select elders, I submit this passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together (1938):

Jesus made authority in the fellowship dependent upon brotherly service. Genuine spiritual authority is to be found only where the ministry of hearing, helping, bearing, and proclaiming is carried out. The desire we so often hear expressed today for “authoritative personalities” springs frequently from a spiritually sick need for the admiration of men, for the establishment of visible human authority, because the genuine authority of service appears to be so unimpressive.

The bishop is the simple, faithful man, sound in faith and life, who rightly discharges his duties to the church. His authority lies in the exercise of his ministry. In the man himself, there is nothing to admire.

Genuine authority recognizes that it can exist only in the service of Him who alone has authority. Genuine authority knows that it is bound in the strictest sense by the saying of Jesus: “You have only one Master and you are all brothers” (Matthew 23:8). The Church does not need brilliant personalities, but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former, but in the latter, is the lack. The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.

Genuine authority is determined by the faithfulness with which a man serves Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary talents which he possesses. Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his own, who himself is a brother among brothers, submitted to the authority of the Word.”

Peace,

Allan

Costly Imitation

May 31, 2023 / / 0 Comments

“The humble person is not one who thinks meanly of himself; he simply does not think of himself at all.” ~Andrew Murray

We are disciples of Christ knowing that, when we sign up to imitate the Son of God, it’s going to cost us. His grace is free. His love and forgiveness is a gift mercifully given to all of humanity. But in order to accept that gift, we must humbly submit to his lordship and follow in his steps of sacrifice and service.

And that’s not easy. In fact, it’s quite costly.

According to the beautiful passage in Philippians 2, the One we imitate gave up everything that was rightfully his: deity, equality with God, eternal power, heavenly glory. He gave all that up in order to serve humans. Jesus’ outlook was shaped by unselfish concern for others. His attitude was one of deep humility. Jesus willingly traded heaven for earth, glory for shame, a royal scepter for a slave’s water bowl, life for death — “even death on a cross!” This is the true expression of his innermost character, the nature of our Father.

To fully imitate the Christ is to humbly consider others better than ourselves, to look to the interests of others. And that will mean willingly sacrificing our very lives, dying to ourselves to meet the needs of those around us. That sometimes means giving up our pew. Occasionally, it means giving up our preferences, It always means giving up our position.

What is it costing you to be an imitator of Christ?

Peace,

Allan

There’s No Crying in Baseball

May 30, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Our entire GCR Church family is taking in the RockHounds baseball game together next Wednesday June 7. It’s a church picnic situation with burgers and dogs, chips and popcorn, and all the sodas we can eat and drink. Cory and our worship team will sing the national anthem, one of our shepherds, Brandon Brunson, will throw out the first pitch, and a bunch of our younger people will serve as contestants for the promotional games they stage in between innings.

To promote the event, our ministry team put on our own dizzy bat race at the RockHounds stadium last week and Dan turned it into a video we showed to our congregation on Sunday.

That’s one of our youth ministry interns, Nate, inside the Rocky RockHound mascot costume; he’s still defumigating his hair. Kudos to Brenda for her superb acting skills while being shoved up against the infield netting. And, for the record, Kristin is probably the first person to ever spit on a GCR church video.

Peace,

Allan

Admiring Val

May 29, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Our daughter Valerie is on the worship team at the Jenks Church in the suburb just outside their home in Tulsa, and she sings on stage with them at least two or three times a month. Yesterday, she led the congregation in the classic hymn ‘Blessed Assurance.’ That beautiful alto voice she’s had her whole life, her wide open heart to our God and what he’s doing among his people when they assemble in his presence, the Holy Spirit gifts she has and uses to bless our Lord’s Church – all of it was on display yesterday and I couldn’t be more proud. Not just proud, but grateful, thankful that I’m related to her. Thankful for the leadership at Jenks Church and for the ways they encourage Val’s gifts and intentionally fan into flame her service to our God. And blessed, very blessed by God to hear that girl sing his praise. You can check it out by clicking here and forwarding the video to the 16:10 mark. Carrie-Anne and I will be privileged to worship with that great congregation in person in a couple of weeks. I’ve told Val to make sure she’s got a couple of solos and our son-in-law David is leading the communion time and the benediction.

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We concluded our Hearing God sermon series yesterday at Golf Course Road. My prayer is that the series has given us permission and some language to talk about all the different ways our God speaks to us and guides us as we follow his Son together. I hope we’re hearing the voice of God and tuned into his continuous communication like never before. I pray we’re embracing and owning the two-way relationship we have with the Creator – it’s not a monologue in which we do all the talking, it’s a dialogue in which the communication goes both ways. And I hope we’ve been liberated to experience and express what we’ve long suspected, that our God is speaking to us and giving us personal guidance every day. Here’s a link to all six of the Hearing God sermons.

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I don’t want to risk anything by writing about tonight’s Game Six. Here’s a link to a decent preview from the NHL website.

Go Stars.

Allan

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