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Not Up to the Task

April 7, 2023 / / 0 Comments

I’ve got this Sunday’s sermon finished, and it’s not that great.

The Easter sermon is the hardest one to write. It’s nearly impossible. I struggle with it every year. It’s not for lack of effort. I began planning this year’s Easter sermon on our latest trip to Israel, almost a year ago. It occurred to me then that, if I showed the pictures from our tour of the historical site of Jesus’ tomb in Jerusalem, I could stir our people to experience the thrill of the Resurrection that I’ve experienced. But it’s not working like I thought it would. It’s not enough.

Reinhold Niebuhr is quoted as saying he would always attend a “high” church on Easter Sunday where there would be great music but very little preaching. In his estimation, “No preacher is up to the task on Easter.” I think he’s probably right.

John Updike’s poem “Seven Stanzas at Easter” beautifully and perfectly identifies the cause of every preacher’s frustration leading up to Resurrection Sunday. One of the lines is: “Let us not mock God with metaphor, / analogy, sidestepping transcendence… / let us walk through the door.”

Yes, it is a waste of time to try to explain the Resurrection. Some things can’t be reduced to an explanation and are greatly diminished in the process of trying. The task on Easter is proclamation, not explanation. On Easter, the preacher should only offer an invitation to “walk through the door” into a brand new world where the ultimate reality isn’t death, but everlasting life in the One who brought our Lord Jesus out of the grave.

Proclaim the Resurrection. That’s what the apostles did. And that’s what we’ll do together at GCR Church this Sunday.

Peace,

Allan

Moist in Houston

April 5, 2023 / / 2 Comments

It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. It’s not two ministers walk into a Pappasito’s in Houston, it’s the awkward T-shirts they’re wearing.

Carrie-Anne had an oncology appointment at M.D. Anderson yesterday, a check-up at the halfway point of her chemotherapy treatments, and the highlight of our day was meeting up with our great friend Greg Dowell who’s in Houston this week being treated for his own cancer issues. Greg and I spent ten years together, side by side, ministering to and with the good people at Central Church of Christ in Amarillo and we miss him and his family terribly. He was diagnosed with colon cancer less than a month after Carrie-Anne received her diagnosis and, while our two situations are very different, the timelines have been very similar. Greg is scheduled for a pretty important surgery in Houston this Friday and it just worked out yesterday that we’re both in H-Town at the same time and spent three hours catching up with each other at Pappasito’s.

When I  say catching up, I mean we laughed hysterically for three hours. We mostly just laughed.

I can’t really explain the T-shirts – long story. I can’t really say what we’re laughing so hard about in this picture, either. I’ll just say that Greg Dowell is one of the great blessings and joys in my life. I thank God for our friendship. And I pray that our Lord heals him completely.

As for Carrie-Anne, the appointment yesterday went perfectly. The oncologist assured us that everything seems to be working well, all the counts and markers are where they are supposed to be, and everything’s still very much on schedule. She was surprised to see Carrie-Anne’s hair – all of it! And her fingernails – long and strong and healthy! Those cold caps and frozen gloves are working! After the doctor spent a half hour praising Carrie-Anne for her diet, for her diligence with the vitamins and the cold caps and the rest, for her dedication to doing every single thing they’re telling her to do, she told Carrie-Anne she wanted to take a picture of her and put her on a poster as the perfect example for how someone needs to tackle cancer. That’s when I said, “I just can’t get her to quit smoking!”

I wish you could have seen the doctor’s eyes.

And her face. She didn’t know what to say. Until Carrie-Anne assured her that I was joking. That was pretty funny.

Carrie-Anne and I continue to praise our God for the good people in our lives who are supporting her and loving us through this thing. Thank you so much for your prayers, your texts, your phone calls, your cards, your emails, your hugs, the food – all of it – an undeniable testimony to the way our Lord cares for his people through his people.

Peace,

Allan

Hosanna!

April 3, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Palm Sunday is the day the Church traditionally remembers Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. This is how we begin Holy Week. Most of us call it the Triumphal Entry. Most of our Bibles use that heading to mark off the Gospel passages that describe our Lord’s riding into the city.

But we remember that Jesus did not ride into Jerusalem on a war horse, but on a lowly beast of burden – a mule. Jesus did not enter in power or violence, but in humility and peace. He did not come to assert his rights and force his will, he came to lay down his life and die.

Hosanna means “save us!” It’s a cry for deliverance, a request for rescue – please, save us! But it’s also a confident proclamation that God will save and, therefore, a declaration of praise.

Yes, Jesus came to save. Of course, Jesus came to win. He came to defeat forever the forces of sin and death and Satan and anything else that might separate us from God and one another. But he came in submission. In service and sacrifice. To suffer and die.

Hosanna!

Allan

Flipping the Script

April 3, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Prevailing baseball wisdom says you can’t win a pennant in April, but you can sure lose one. After three games and a series sweep of the National League Champion Phillies, the Rangers are flipping the script from a long line of previous opening weeks and raising hopes that were already riding pretty high, pretty early.

The last time the Rangers started a season 2-0 was in 2011 when they went to the World Series. The last time they scored 27 runs in their first two games was… never. It’s never happened. Instead of blowing touchdown leads in the season’s first games, the Rangers actually came back from a 5-0 deficit in the opener, outscored Philadelphia 11-2 down the stretch, and went to bed Thursday night with a winning record for the first time in 31-months. They exploded for 16 runs in game two on Saturday and a won a pitcher’s duel last night to finish the season’s opening weekend in first place with a 3-0 record.

This team is going to be fun to watch this year. Too bad Bally Sports is making that next to impossible. We’re paying $20 per month for the Bally Sports ap and that still doesn’t get us any Rangers games. Does anybody have a cable TV username and password I can borrow?

Peace,

Allan

Actual Leadership

March 30, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Today is Opening Day and this is the year the Texas Rangers win 90-games and lay the groundwork for a World Series Championship in 2024! They have the best team they’ve ever had in their miserable history, the best starting rotation in the Major Leagues, an All-Star duo up the middle, and the best pitcher in the world in Jacob deGrom. Bochy-Ball begins today. And it’s going to be a whole lot of fun.

Yes. I know. I’m drinking in every bit of it. I’m swallowing it whole. Hook, line, and sinker. I’m in.

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When a baseball team is picking its captain, they don’t choose a rookie. Has a rookie ever been made the captain of a sports team? Healthy teams pick the ones who’ve won championships and played in All-Star Games. They select as captains those who’ve been doing it at a high level for a long time. They choose the ones who arrive early and stay late and live in the weight room. They don’t pick a guy because he’s all blinged-out and he drives a million dollar car and he just filmed a really funny commercial for Nissan. They pick a man with experience. A man who goes above and beyond.

They look around the locker room and say, “Who do we want to be like? Who can we imitate? Who’s already been there and might be able to get us there with him?”

That’s the guy they choose as their leader.

It’s very similar to selecting shepherds to lead your church family. We look around the congregation and ask, “Who do we want to be like? Who can we imitate? Who looks the most like Jesus?  Who’s acting and thinking and living like the Christ?” Let’s pick that guy.

You’re not looking for men who CAN be shepherds; you’re looking for men who already ARE shepherds. You just need to make it official.

“Respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord, and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.” ~1 Thessalonians 5:12-13

Designate the ones who are acting like shepherds. The ones who are working hard to serve the saints. Submit to them (1 Corinthians 16:16). The ones who are already teaching, praying, and encouraging; the ones  who are already making the visits and volunteering and leading small groups and pouring themselves into the relationships and the mission of your congregation. Follow them.

“Take note of those who live according to the pattern.” ~Philippians 3:17

Those who live according to the Gospel. Those who live in the name and manner of our crucified and coming Lord Jesus. Take note of them. Recognize them. Point them out. And follow them.

These church leaders are selected because of their work; they don’t start working because they get selected. The Bible says look at the people who are already serving the Lord and his Church and acknowledge them. These people are surfacing as spiritual leaders, so recognize it officially. Does he act like Jesus? Does he sacrifice and serve? Does he consider the needs of others more important than his own? Does he dwell in the Word and pass on the faith? Is his life being visibly transformed by the Holy Spirit?

Then he’d probably make a good elder.

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Our Worship Minister here at GCR, Cory Legg, and I are heading to Abilene today for the now twice-annual ACU Summit. The highlight of the day will be the keynote dinner with and presentation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, the history professor at Calvin University and author of “Jesus and John Wayne.” Her 2020 book articulates so well the problem the American Church has with credibility and Christian influence because of our ties with national politics. She connects the dots so clearly between the Church’s grab for power by using the ways and means of the world as opposed to transforming the world by Christ Jesus’ ways of sacrifice and service. She says so well in this book what I’ve been trying to say clumsily and without much effect for almost twenty years. I can’t wait to hear her this evening.

And if you’ve been thinking deep down in your gut for a while now that there’s something wrong with Christians asserting their rights, demanding their positions become everybody’s positions, and using power, threat, and violence to accomplish it, then I urge you to read her book. There’s a reason the Church is dying in the United States. And we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Lord, have mercy on us.

Peace,

Allan

Spiritual Leadership

March 29, 2023 / / 0 Comments

When a church is selecting its leaders, it needs to look for spiritual leadership, not worldly leadership. The difference between the two is huge. It’s leading by sacrifice and service instead of by authority and power. It’s paramount. If we’re following the example of our Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd, this is a non-negotiable.

“When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” ~John 8:28

Jesus says, in other words, “When you see my dying, when you watch me willingly give up my life for others, you’ll know I am the promised Messiah, the Good Shepherd.” Jesus is always completely surrendered to God’s will. He is doing God’s will in God’s ways. The proof of that is in his willingness to humble himself, to make himself the least important person in the room. To die.

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” ~John 4:34

My food, my passion, the thing that sustains me, the thing that motivates me, what keeps me going, my everything – is to do God’s work in God’s ways. My Father sets my agenda and he alone determines how I conduct my ministry: with sacrifice and service and submission. That’s how a shepherd leads. Never by power. Never by authority. It’s spiritual, not worldly.

The mother of James and John tells Jesus to ordain them as rulers next to Jesus in the coming Kingdom. He asks if they can pay the price. She says they can. He knows they can’t. The other disciples are indignant. So Jesus gathers all twelve together and gives them a lesson in the differences between spiritual leadership and worldly leadership.

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles (nations) lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life.” ~Matthew 20:25-28

Jesus is talking about government leaders and business boards and military commanders. The way they lead is not the way we lead. Good shepherds lead from the back of the line, never the front. They lead by washing feet and dying, never by dictating and demanding. No chain of command, no hierarchy, no flow charts. The biblical model of Jesus, the Chief Shepherd, turns all that upside down. It’s the exact opposite of the way the world leads.

We mess this up in the church sometimes when we select worldly leaders as our spiritual leaders. It doesn’t work. Our culture tells us to choose successful men which means men who make a lot of money and dress nicely and drive expensive cars and live in massive houses, men who are leaders in the community, influencers in politics, and members of the board. Don’t do it. That’s exactly the opposite of spiritual leadership.

Peace,

Allan

 

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