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Category: Allan’s Journey (Page 20 of 29)

To Central

July 13, 2011 / / 4 Comments

I can’t adequately express to you the excitement we’re experiencing, nor the tremendous anticipation we’re feeling, for what our God has in store for us together. There’s no doubt in our minds that our Lord has brought us together at this time for very specific reasons. And we really can’t wait to join you in doing his work and his will together in Amarillo.

We’re so thankful for the faith and confidence you’ve placed in me and my family to represent our Lord and his Church at Central. That blessing and responsibility are not lost on us. It is sacred to us. We respect it. We cherish. And we’re going to keep it. This is so much bigger than all of us. We know that anything and everything that happens through me or through us together at Central is only our God using us to his glory and to the glory of his Kingdom.

Thank you so much for the warm welcome you’re already giving us. By 2:00 Sunday afternoon, I already had more than 30 emails and voice mails and text messages from our new family at Central, more than half of them from people we haven’t even met yet. And the encouragement and offers of assistance and friendly ‘hellos’ keep coming in. We can feel the excitement up there all the way down here. And it gives us great hope while we dwell among all these moving boxes and sad goodbyes. Each trip up there, every person we’ve met, has been a great blessing to us. Your kindness and generosity is overwhelming. We’re so ready to meet all of you and start returning the favors. And we’re looking forward to many years of faithful service together at Central.

“I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong — that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” ~Romans 1:11-12

Be assured that each of you and your families are in our constant prayers. Please be in fervent prayer for us as we prepare to join the Central Church of Christ. May our God bless us. And may he bless our efforts to partner with him in the redemption of his world.

Your servant in the grace and truth of Christ Jesus,

Allan

To Legacy

July 11, 2011 / / 9 Comments

My family and I will always listen for God’s voice. We will always follow his way. We will always answer his call. Through prayer and study and meditation and reflection and conversation, we will always be receptive to our Father’s leading.

Over the past several months it has become very clear to me that I cannot remain as the preaching minister at the Legacy Church of Christ. God has made it evident in some very surprising ways and in some ways that have been building for quite some time. So, again, after many weeks and months of difficult discernment, we have made the hard decision to leave our family at Legacy.

At the same time, our faithful Father has opened a door of tremendous opportunity for us in Amarillo. I have accepted the role of preaching minister at the Central Church of Christ and will begin my work there in September. Central is a downtown church with a downtown mindset, determined to reach its downtown community with the love of our Savior. They are driven by the mission to take Jesus to all peoples, all cultures, all languages, all tax brackets. That church seems to be defined by sacrificial service to others in the name of Jesus. They are committed to the arduous task of making their congregation reflect the Gospel nature of the all-inclusive table of our Lord. And most of you reading this blog know how attractive that is to me.

Of course, we leave Legacy with a great deal of sadness. My heart is heavy. I’ll forever be indebted to Legacy for showing such a tremendous faith in our God in bringing me here in the first place. Five years ago, you had absolutely no reason to have any faith in me. Your faith was obviously in our Father. And I thank you. You have nurtured me. You have supported me, encouraged me, and walked with me. You’ve shown great patience with me. And understanding. You’ve helped me.  Since day one, you’ve lovingly embraced my whole family. There are hundreds of you who have touched Carrie-Anne and me and our girls in profound and eternal ways. I have never felt for one minute that I was not loved at Legacy. We love you, too. A bunch.

Now, this is not the end of the world for me or for Legacy. It’s not like I’m leaving ministry. I’m not going back into radio. We are all still involved together in the great work of the Kingdom of our God. We still belong to the same Church of God. We’re still on the same board, working for the same mission and goals; I’m just moving to a different square.

As for Legacy, I’m convinced that this is the right move. I did not establish this church. And neither did you. This church was cruising along for almost fifty years before I got here and it’ll be just fine for fifty or five-hundred years after I’m gone. God established this congregation and he put it right here on Mid-Cities Boulevard for his specific purposes. He placed Legacy right where it is to be a light to this community. He placed it here so people in Northeast Tarrant County will find forgiveness and mercy and grace and love. He put Legacy right here in order to reach the lost, in order to comfort and bless and save. I firmly believe that our Father already knows the next Legacy preacher. This guy is a devoted man of God. And he will, by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, take Legacy to places I wouldn’t be able to. My prayer is that, with this man, my brothers and sisters here will embrace God’s vision and identify God’s holy mission for Legacy and jump into it with everything you’ve got. And turn everything rightside up for Christ.

I’m leaving Saturday for a four-day speaking engagement at the Northside Church in Benton, Arkansas where my great friend Jim Gardner preaches. So I won’t be here this Sunday. My shepherds here at Legacy have graciously allowed me a last opportunity to preach here at Legacy on July 24. I wanted the final chance to encourage you, to bless you, to affirm my great love for you, and to remind you of God’s marvelous plans for you.

You and each of your families and the entire Legacy family are in my constant prayers. Please keep us in yours.

May our God’s will be done at Legacy just as it is in heaven.

I love you,

Allan

Renew Them In Our Day

May 11, 2011 / / 0 Comments

“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

I’m still learning how to pray. I read the psalms and I read the prayers of the prophets and I realize I have such a long way to go. In order to pray with the mind of Christ, I must pray the will of the Father. But during my moments of most honest reflection, I admit, I’m usually praying for the will of the preacher.

Habakkuk prays that God’s deeds, not his own deeds or desires, might be renewed. Usually, I’m sorry to say, I’m talking to God about some specific project or idea or initiative and asking him to renew my work. I’m cruising along preaching and ministering and administrating and doing what a good preacher in a good church is supposed to do and everything’s great. But as soon as somebody bumps the table, as soon as there’s a little mess, suddenly prayer becomes very, very important to me. Now I’m really alert to prayer and the deep need for prayer and my intense dependence on prayer.

And I beg God to renew my work. God, fix my preaching. Lord, help our Small Groups. God, would you please revive my Bible class? Lord, build my ministry back up. If I’m not careful, my interest is really on what I’m building and not really on what God may actually want. It’s humbling to admit, and a tough lesson to learn, that quite possibly God’s not nearly as interested in my little stacks of programs and sermons as I am.

God, renew your deeds. Revive your work.

Do a new work, Lord. Don’t just refurbish or clean up what I’m doing. God, create something brand new here, something I haven’t even thought about. Do something I would never dream of, Lord. For your purposes. To your eternal glory, God. May your will be done in my preaching, not mine. May your will be done at Legacy, not mine. Lord, may your will be done in our Small Groups, in our elders’ meetings, and in this community, just like it is in heaven.

Renew your deeds, God. Not mine.

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I’ve added a new link to the list there on the right. This is a blog I read regularly and have been meaning to include on my site for quite a while. I’ve just not taken the time.

John Mark Hicks’ blog, John Mark Hicks Ministries, is a wonderful source for Restoration and Church of Christ history and perspective. John Mark’s is a prophetic voice, speaking God’s Word into the culture and into our churches with spirit and truth. And, as regular readers to my blog know, I’m a huge fan of his research and writings on the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and our corporate worship assemblies. His trilogy of books on those three “sacraments” are among the best written on the topics in decades. “Come to the Table” is arguably the greatest work on communion ever produced by a C of C scholar. OK, I know. All that sounds a little over the top. Sorry. Hicks is good. You’ll like his blog.

Peace,

Allan

Much Will Be Demanded

May 2, 2011 / / 0 Comments

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.” ~Luke 12:48

Jesus fed the five thousand with some rolls and a couple of fish. Scripture tells us he gave the food to his disciples and they, in turn, passed it on to the crowds. But what if the disciples had just held on to the food?

“Hey, thanks for the lunch, Jesus.”

Then Jesus hands them more. “Oh! OK. Thanks for the dinner, too, Jesus.”

Then Jesus gives them more. “Wow! Allright! Thank you, Jesus.” What if the disciples started looking around for some to-go boxes? What if they began trying to figure out how to get all this food home? What if Jesus’ followers had just held onto the food for themselves when their Lord was giving them more than enough to share with everyone in the crowds who had need?

Along with God’s great gifts comes great responsibility.

I never could shake those words of Jesus at the end of Luke 12. They didn’t really give me a guilt trip; they didn’t knock me down every time I read them or thought about them. It was more like a heavy burden that followed me everywhere I went. Because I’ve been given much. Materially, financially, physically, I am blessed. I’m rich. More than that, God has completely forgiven me of every one of the horrible sins I’ve ever committed in my life. He’s totally restored me to a perfectly righteous relationship with him. By the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, I am eternally wealthy. I’m Bill Gates and Donald Trump combined. With a great haircut and 50 lawyers! And because of his great gifts and his matchless grace, it is demanded of me that I use the abilities and talents and opportunities he gives me, not to talk about the Cowboys and Rangers and Mavs, but to boldly proclaim salvation from God in Christ! It’s required of me to declare his love and mercy that are available to all mankind and his will and his plan to redeem and restore all of creation forever.

After many years of dealing with Luke 12:48 — alternately ignoring it, wrestling with it, praying about it, trying to shake it — I finally got up the faith or the guts (or both) to act on what God was demanding of me. And I will never look back.

The truth is that when my crucified and risen Lord returns, I couldn’t bear the thought of explaining to him the way I used his gifts and grace for all of my adult life: camped out in press boxes and locked up in studios talking about and obsessing about things that don’t matter.

He is coming back. Right? Yes, you know that.

Peace,

Allan

Who Stands Fast?

March 3, 2011 / / 2 Comments

“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God — the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Eve 1942

The life of a disciple is active, not reactive. It has nothing to do with just talking about faith or teaching religious principles or believing theological ideas or keeping biblical rules. It has everything to do with living one’s whole life in obedience to God’s call through personal action. It doesn’t just require a mind. It requires a body, too.

Ours is a life given to us by God to be lived not in some kind of rigid, cramped, crowded, small, compromised, legalistic way but in a full, wild, joyful, exuberant, cheerful, celebratory way. A way that apprehends and assimilates and then radiates the freedom we have from God in Christ.

The way I see it, a full grasp of the freedom we have in Christ and the grace and mercy we’ve received from our God will come to mean, eventually,  that we are no longer afraid of sin. We’re not worried about messing up. We don’t hold back because of an anxiety over doing something that might displease our God. At the very least — stay with me here — avoiding sin will not be the main thing that drives us as we follow our Lord.

Our Father wants his beloved children to operate out of joy and freedom to do what is good and right, not out of fear of making a mistake. Isn’t that one of the great lessons in Jesus’ story about the servants and the talents in Matthew 25?

We must be more zealous to please God than to avoid sin. We must act in faith that our God who calls us to live boldly and outrageously for him also promises us that if and when we do mess up in enthusiastic service to our King, he promises forgiveness and consolation and salvation.

The Christian life is an active life. Our God calls us to give our whole selves to him. Brakes off. No looking back. Full speed ahead. He’s not going to punish us when, in pursuit of his will, we might mess up.

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Last Sunday’s sermon on Christ’s return from Revelation 21-22 prompted many, many kind comments and encouragements from dozens of my brothers and sisters here at Legacy. Many had never thought about heaven and earth and God’s ultimate mission in the ways Scripture so plainly paints it. Many seemed refreshed at the biblical promises that God’s will is ultimately going to be done on earth just as it is in heaven. That’s why we’re told to pray it, right? And that’s why we join it. The mission. The salvation objective. Those are the things we’re going to be considering together during Missions Month throughout March.

In a related item, Patrick Mead has posted a hilarious re-cap of all the individuals and groups throughout history who have predicted the return of Christ and the end of the world. Of course, mankind has a 100% fail rate in this useless undeavor. But the list is hilarious. I especially like the parenthetical comments in his list. One mentions the possibility that Van Halen may be the anti-Christ which may or may not, combined with Orwells’ vision, have led to the speculation about the year 1984. There’s a group called the Sword of God Brotherhood that is claiming the end of the world will come in 2017. They say that they alone will be spared and tasked to repopulate the earth. Here’s hoping there’s a Sword of God Sisterhood, too.

You can read the complete list by clicking here.

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I’m 24 hours away from my annual camping trip with my Four Horsemen friends. A weekend of encouragement, prayer, meditation, food, bonding, and at least one unforeseen near-catastophic incident to remember forever. These are the guys. These are the ones. They are my closest friends. They keep me going. They keep me accountable. They challenge me and they exhort me. They mature me in our faith. They inspire me to be a better man, a better husband and dad, a better preacher, a better disciple. Even while we’re throwing rocks at raccoons and making fun of Dan’s always-on survival mode, Jason’s tough guy facade (what a fake!), and Kevin’s wardrobe.

I can’t wait.

Peace,

Allan

A Tidbit After Bread

January 10, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Regular readers of this blog will know of my deep respect and admiration for German theologian and Christian martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. No books have had more of an impact on my walk with Christ, my calling as a congregational preacher, and my faith in God than Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship and Life Together. Costly grace. True discipleship. Christian community. These are all concepts that Bonhoeffer not only wrote about brilliantly, but also lived out genuinely.

So you can imagine my delight at receiving over the Christmas holidays the first Bonhoeffer biography in almost 50 years. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by New York author Eric Metaxas. I took a big bite out of this massive 542-page volume last night. And I intend to have it completed by the end of the week. It is excellent.

In the several books on Bonhoeffer I’ve read, I’ve seen his “tidbit” quote about complete commitment to Christ.

“The religion of Christ is not a tidbit after one’s bread; on the contrary, it is the bread or nothing. People should at least understand and concede this if they call themselves Christian.”

I knew the quote was taken from a lecture on the essence of Christianity that Bonhoeffer delivered early on his career. But this new book tells me it was part of a three-lecture series to a group of teenage boys he was mentoring in Barcelona in the winter of 1928. Bonhoeffer was 22-years-old. But he already had a firm grip on what Jesus meant when he said, “Follow me.”

The title of the lecture is “Jesus Christ and the Essence of Christianity.” It was number two in his series, preached to the teens on December 11, 1928. And this new book has published a pretty big chunk of it.

Bonhoeffer begins by talking about the fact that most Christians have actually exiled Christ from their lives. He says, “Of course we build him a temple, but we live in our own houses.” Bonhoeffer points out that we only take Jesus seriously on Sunday mornings. Our religion only has meaning on the first day of the week where one “gladly withdraws for a couple of hours, but only to get back to one’s place of work immediately afterward.”

OK, now here’s the really good stuff about taking Christ and his call seriously:

“One admires Christ according to aesthetic categories as an aesthetic genius, calls him the greatest ethicist; one admires his going to his death as a heroic sacrifice for his ideas. Only one thing one doesn’t do: one doesn’t take him seriously. That is, one doesn’t bring the center of his or her own life into contact with the claim of Christ to speak the revelation of God and to be that revelation. One maintains a distance between himself or herself and the word of Christ, and allows no serious encounter to take place. I can doubtless live with or without Jesus as a religious genius, as an ethicist, as a gentleman — just as, after all, I can also live without Plato and Kant. Should, however, there be something in Christ that claims my life entirely with the full seriousness that here God himself speaks and if the word of God once become present only in Christ, then Christ has not only relative but absolute, urgent significance for me. Understanding Christ means taking Christ seriously. Understanding this claim means taking seriously his absolute claim on our commitment. And it is now of importance for us to clarify the seriousness of this matter and to extricate Christ from the secularization process in which he has been incorporated since the Enlightenment.”

Yes, Christ Jesus is an all-or-nothing proposition. Yes, we have a long way to go in our understanding and our practice.

Peace,

Allan

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