The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

AllanStanglin.com

Author: Allan (Page 93 of 492)

Christian Practices

October 13, 2022 / / 0 Comments

A word to our Golf Course Road congregation here in Midland as we commit to more of the ancient traditions like dwelling in the word, lectio divina, praying Scripture, borrowed prayers, imaginative reading, and memorizing and reciting the Bible. These spiritual disciplines give us a variety of tried and true ways to engage our God through Word and Prayer. These are the well-worn paths to experiencing Scripture and prayer with all our senses, not just our brains and intellect. I’m excited for us to read and pray together with our hearts and emotions, too.

As we get into this, be aware that a lot of people who talk and write about spirituality and being spiritual do so in terms of silence and solitude. That’s the focus, the general theme that runs through all of it. Some people who talk about Christian practices and write about spiritual disciplines seem to value silence and solitude above all other practices. They value silence over sound. They value solitude over community. They prioritize the authority of tradition over the challenge of freedom and prize predictability and rule over spontaneity and experiments.

I would suggest a balance.

I would invite you to try all of it, to experiment with a variety of ancient Christian practices and new Christian ways of paying attention to what God is doing in your life. You don’t have to be an expert in any of them or in all of them. I would only suggest that we value all of these practices and explore them together as important places where God is at work.

Peace,

Allan

Friday Night Lights For Real

October 8, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Whitney and I took in the annual Rumble at Ratliff last night as the Odessa Permian Panthers battled Odessa High in the rain and the chill of a West Texas Friday night . It was the District 2-6A opener for both teams and the energy was high. This was our first trip to historic Ratliff Stadium, the home of Friday Night Lights, the place and the team Buzz Bissinger introduced to the whole world in 1990. And my oldest daughter and I were immersed in and impressed by the whole MOJO experience.

Little did we know that getting to the stadium 25-minutes before kickoff was too late. The line of cars – more trucks than cars, of course – was still backed up to the main road early in the second quarter. Whitney and I made it to our seats, on the 20-yard line about halfway up on the Permian side, in time to see the Panthers score a touchdown on their opening drive. And they just kept scoring. A 98-yard touchdown drive. A 75-yard touchdown drive. The boys ran a lap around the field after every score, bearing massive flags with the Permian “P.” The final flag in the line, the MOJO flag, declared itself to be “The 7th Flag Over Texas.” It was electric.

Ratliff Stadium is bigger and nicer than Bivins Stadium in Amarillo where we watched the Sandies play for ten years. The video boards are like HD TVs in both end zones, the live shots and the replays crystal clear. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The stadium is really great. Lot of history here. Really cool just pulling into the parking lot and seeing the stadium facade just like it looks in all those establishing shots and cutaways in the Billy Bob Thornton movie.

Permian has a serious defense and a ton of speed on both sides of the ball. The Panthers racked up 361 yards rushing and shut the Bronchos out on defense – the only OHS score came on a 90-yard kickoff return. Permian controlled last night’s contest from the opening whistle to the final knee and improved to a perfect 6-0 with the 38-7 victory. Next up, the Panthers host Midland Legacy’s Rebels.

How do we get tickets? And how early do we need to get there?

Hook ‘Em,

Allan

Each Member Belongs

October 7, 2022 / / 0 Comments

“In Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” ~Romans 12:5

Plenty of studies have been conducted over the years that prove the importance of strong relationships. You’ll be in better health, you’ll be happier, and you’ll live longer if you have close friends. Even if you have poor health habits, the effects are mitigated by having a group of good friends. According to all the research, it’s healthier to eat donuts together than to eat broccoli by yourself!

That’s a theology I can embrace!

When God gathers us together in Christ, we belong to each other. All of us. Almost all the commands in the Bible are “one another” commands: love one another, build one another up, encourage one another, pray for one another, be devoted to one another, honor one another, live in harmony with one another, accept one another, instruct one another, greet one another, agree with one another. serve one another, be patient with one another, be kind and compassionate to one another, submit to one another, forgive one another. These commands can only be obeyed in community. We can only follow these instructions if we’re together, if we live and worship and serve together, and if we really belong to each other.

I think you can get to heaven without good close Christian friends. Probably. But you’re not going to be changed by God to become all he intends for you to be without other disciples of Christ pushing you, challenging you, lifting you up, helping you, and worshiping and serving with you.

That’s church. At least, that’s the intent of church. We know that’s how and why it started. From the very first day, the church is built on and functions through intimate Christian relationships.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” ~Acts 2:42-46

All these people from all different walks of life gathered by God to live together in community with Christ. Every day. In each other’s homes. Loving each other, serving each other, ministering to each other, taking care of each other, eating together, singing and praying together. They devoted themselves to the communion, it says, the koinonia, this sharing of life together in Christ.

As a whole, generally speaking, we don’t do this very well anymore. Over the centuries, the church, the community, has moved from smaller intimate groups who share life together in Christ to larger more impersonal groups who share a weekly meeting. We’ve moved from encouraging one another and building each other up to, “Hey, you got a problem? Go talk to the preacher.” “You’re dealing with some issue? Call the elders.”

We’ve moved away from the priesthood of all believers where everybody meets the needs of the ones in their community to specialized programs.

“Dan’s in the hospital? I don’t do that. That’s not my ministry.”

“Trudy’s lawnmower broke? That’s not my program. But somebody at the church does stuff like that.”

“We haven’t seen John in three months? The church should have a visitation team.”

“George and Jane’s teenage son is in trouble? Don’t we have a youth minister?”

Over the decades and centuries, we’ve lost community in church. We’ve turned the church’s weekly community thanksgiving meal together into the most individual and solitary, leave-me-alone time imaginable. We’ve gone from doing life together in Christ around the kitchen table to a solemn ceremony in an auditorium. Don’t distract me!

We’re trying to shift some of that here at the Golf Course Road Church in Midland. We’re starting twelve new small groups as a step toward formational Christian community. These groups are going to eat together and study the Bible. But they’re also going to practice spiritual disciplines together and serve on mission together in our city.

We’re also doing more interactive things when we’re together in the worship center on Sunday mornings. We’re doing more participatory things, more getting up and moving around, more eye contact, more talking to each other. We’re attempting to shift the Lord’s Meal to be more about communion, more about fellowship and sharing, and less about individual meditation.

There are plenty of things our churches can program and plan to cultivate an environment for tighter Christian community. But maybe you could start by grabbing a dozen donuts in the morning with some future friends.

Peace,

Allan

Two Years Gone

October 6, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Two years ago today the news crawled across the bottom of my screen. I immediately called our youngest daughter Carley and listened to her voice mail message for about two seconds before she texted me: “I know. I’m in class.”

His stripes adorn my laptop. His poster I bought from the Mesquite Sound Warehouse when I was 16 hangs in my garage. And his music lives deep inside my soul.

Eddie Van Halen. Tough day.

We’re Not Volunteers

October 5, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I think a lot of us have this idea that Church is a volunteer organization. We talk like the men and women in our congregations make their own decisions on whether to belong or not. It’s like you experience a personal relationship with God in Christ and then you join a church community that exists to promote your personal spiritual health. We act like people join a church based on common interests and likes and dislikes they share with other people and they can stay or leave depending on whether they feel like their needs are being met. Knowledge of God, understanding who God is and what God is doing, reshapes the way we see Christian community. This is all God’s work, not ours.

“In fact, God has arranged the parts in the Body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” ~1 Corinthians 12:18

In the Bible, whenever the Gospel is preached, when the power of what God has done for the world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is proclaimed, these communities of faith just pop up. These churches are only defined by one thing: their joyful acceptance of the Good News of salvation from God in Christ. Nothing else. The churches in the Bible are made up of Jews and Gentiles together, rich and poor people together, free people and slaves together, men and women together, national citizens and foreigners and refugees together. People don’t choose that setup. Only God puts us in communities like that. Communities of faith.

We see it in the way our Lord built his community. He put together a group of people that nobody else ever would. A liberal tax collector and a right-wing Zealot, a couple of poor fishermen, a couple of guys with horrible anger issues, a couple of self-serving betrayers. None of them chose to be in this group. They were called.

That’s the way God puts people together. No screenings. No background checks. No qualifications or applications. It’s outrageous.

You know, before I go over to someone’s house or invite somebody over to our house, I want to make sure they’re mostly like us. Where do they live? What does he do? Where do their kids go to school? I want to see their voting record. I want to see the stickers on his truck. Are they OU fans? I want to know all these things before I commit to any kind of community with these people.

Our God most certainly does not build community that way. He calls us and gathers us together in Christ. He calls us and places us within a community of faith for his glorious purposes.

You should feel called by God to belong to the church where he’s placed you. If you don’t feel called to be there, in that place, with those people, for God’s purposes, then you probably should re-think why you’re there. The people in your church are not volunteers; we’re not here by choice. We are called and placed in our communities of faith by our Lord.

Peace,

Allan

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑