The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Christ & Culture (Page 1 of 43)

Holding On

October 10, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I thank God for refreshing my soul and rekindling my heart for his holy mission the way he does every single year at ACU’s Summit. My spirit is overflowing with gratitude today for our Lord and for the good people at Abilene Christian University who continue this annual gathering of church leaders despite the many challenges in providing physical space, brilliant content, inspiring worship, and relational opportunities for an increasingly digitized and individualized group of ministers and pastors.

We typically take seven or eight of our nine ministers on the team at GCR, but this year only four of us were able to make the two-hour drive for the event that covers parts of three days. We do our own tracks with our fellow preachers, youth ministers, children’s ministers, and formation ministers from all over Texas, the Southwest, and parts unknown. But we worship, take in the keynotes, and eat our meals together, sharing what we’ve learned, praying for each other, and laughing. On Thursday, we were honored to be joined for lunch at Twisted Root with Jason Minor, one of our amazing GCR teenagers who is enjoying the first weeks of his freshman year at ACU. We want to keep connections with our kids; what a joy to know that our kids want to maintain those connections with us.

I am at once dismayed and greatly encouraged to know that most preachers are dealing with all the same things when it comes to the current climates in our churches. Today, “Christian” means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, both inside and outside the Church. Some of those things are decidedly un-Christian, which is killing our witness to a desperate and dying world.

I’ll paraphrase what the brilliant Mark Hamilton said during a session on Isaiah 40-55 and its message to our present time and culture. He said the greatest gift the Church can give to our communities and to our world, is calm, reasoned discourse. We should call the demagogues for what they are–in the government and in our society, who they are and what they are doing–we should be clear about it. We should tell our brothers and sisters who are in the rabbit holes to repent and, if they don’t repent, to leave our congregations. Because people who are searching for God will discern very quickly that the church is not the place to seek. This is not a hypothetical; this is real. It is happening with a majority of younger people right now today.

Jerry Taylor’s powerful homily on our fear of death and the spirit of Cain and of the anti-Christ that is so prevalent in our communities and our churches left me feeling incredibly inadequate and gutless. I know my church needs to hear these things, I know I am called by our God to proclaim the truth that Christ lives and that Jesus alone is Lord and that we are collectively losing our minds and our souls by employing the ways of the world and chasing after political power to remake society in our own images. When I asked Jerry afterwards if he had a word for preachers like me in the situations we’re in–there are hundreds of us–he said, “Allan, there are bigger things at stake than your employment.”

I know courage thrives in community and in collaboration. That’s why I am so thankful for my pastor friends in Midland; for my longtime friendships with preachers I’ve known for 25-plus years; for Jason, with whom I study and pray and argue and laugh; and with guys and gals in our unique fraternity I’m just now meeting and getting to know. We hold on to Scripture. We hold on to justice. We hold on to love. We hold on to our Lord and the promises of our God. And we hold on to each other.

Peace,
Allan

4-3

August 12, 2025 / / 0 Comments

“O Midland, Midland, if you had only known on this day what would bring you peace.”

I am stunned. And very, very sad. 

After the three-and-a-half hour meeting, several people asked me why I was stunned. I guess because I’m also naive. And maybe I still do not understand the depth and the power of the divisions in our city.

I am grateful to my fellow pastors and preachers in Midland who showed up to stand up for those in our community whose voices rarely get heard. And for other friends I’ve come to know and love , not just at GCR, but in this place Carrie-Anne and I now call home, who were also at the meeting tonight.

Lord, have mercy on us.

 

Continuing a Troubling Legacy

August 12, 2025 / / 4 Comments

I am troubled by the Midland School Board’s move to rename Legacy High School back to Lee. The board is meeting this evening and it feels like it’s a done deal.

The school was established in 1961 and named after Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general, as a protest against new federal laws banning segregation. In 2020, the name was finally changed to Legacy High School, in a move that many celebrated as cutting ties once and for all with the Confederate names and symbols. But now, five years later, a few new school board members are changing it back. The proposal is to name the school Midland Lee High School, instead of Robert E. Lee High School. A vote on the matter is scheduled for tonight.

I won’t respond here to this group’s claim that the name won’t be tied to the Confederate General, but only to our high school, exclusively the school’s history and nothing else. That is an insult to the intelligence of everyone who hears it.

I do want to address the other thing I’ve heard several times over the past couple of months: This move to rename the high school after Lee is not racially motivated, the African Americans in our community don’t see it as racist, Black people in Midland are not offended, they don’t really care. My question for the board is: Who would they complain to?

What if a middle-aged Black man drives past Lee High School every day on his way to and from work? Maybe his children go to this school. He sees Lee stickers on the back of every other pickup in Midland County. He sees Confederate flags flying out the back of some of those trucks and in front of some of the houses and ranches they belong to. He sees that name “Lee” and the history it represents every day. In the newspaper and on TV, on the sides of helmets and across the fronts of jerseys, on the wall of our restaurants and the sides of our buildings–every single day. If he hated that name and the symbols associated with it, if he found the name and the symbols to be an affront to his dignity and a source of deep pain, who would he complain to?

Oh, I see, you’re trying to put yourself in his shoes.
Yes. Yes, I am.

Shouldn’t we all be doing that? As a Christian speaking to mostly, I think, fellow Christians, isn’t that exactly what our Lord Jesus did? Isn’t that our calling as disciples of Christ, to empathize, to sympathize to walk alongside and understand?

Minorities–by the very definition of the word in conjunction with the broken ways of our world–African Americans, Hispanics, minorities, generally speaking, do not experience an equal status. In this country, because of past history and current structures and a thousand other complicating factors, minorities do not have the same opportunities. The playing field is not level. In our city, African Americans make up less than eight-percent of the population. They are marginalized. Who would they complain to? What could they possibly say? What power do they have? What choice do they have?

But they have complained. They have expressed their disgust with the name. They do speak often about what that name communicates to them.

My question for Christians who want to change the name back to Lee is: If you know how African Americans read that name, if you know the name and the symbols associated with it make minorities feel vulnerable and oppressed, why would you insist? Why would you fight with your words and your good name for a mascot or a logo that you know causes deep pain?

Scripture says be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. In that same Romans 12 context, the Bible says live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, it says, but be willing to associate with people of low position, people who don’t enjoy the same status or numbers or power. Christians treat others the way we want to be treated. We love our neighbors as ourselves. Christians who are seeking the attitude, or the mind, of Christ, the Bible says, consider the needs of others more important than their own.

Slippery slope arguments about erasing history and heritage are completely missing the point. The question for Christians is: Will you identify with the city that’s fading away or with the enduring city that’s coming? Will you love your neighbor more than you love a school name or a flag? Will you love your neighbor more than you love the history and heritage of the South? Will you love the African American men and women of our community more than you love the faded words on your 25-year-old diploma?

We’re known for a lot of things here in Midland. We are known as a people of great generosity. We go out of our way to sacrifice to help others, to give to others, to take care of others, to make others feel loved and like they belong. Can’t we apply those same guiding values and principles to how we name our high school? For the sake of others?

Minorities have a much different experience and viewpoint about life in our city than we do. Our Lord would try to put himself in their shoes. Actually, he did.

Peace,

Allan

A Juneteenth Prayer

June 19, 2025 / / 0 Comments

On this Juneteenth holiday, I invite you to join me in prayer to our God for three things:

~ lament to our Lord the atrocities of slavery and acknowledge to him this country’s sins of racism and segregation

~ thank God for the progress we’ve made  and that we are not where we once were, as individuals and in this country

~ personally resolve before God to continue fighting racism and segregation in all its forms in our communities, our families, and our churches

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Juneteenth used to be an exclusively Texas thing. For Texas Monthly’s wonderful profile of Opal Lee, the Fort Worth grandmother who almost single-handedly turned our Lone Star tradition into an official national holiday, click here.

You might also check out the work Jerry Taylor and others are doing at the Carl Spain Center on Race Studies and Spiritual Action on the campus of Abilene Christian University. Their website is here.

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Finally, this Juneteenth prayer I have borrowed from the Archdiocese of Baltimore:

We pray, O Lord, for change. 
Jesus, you revealed God through your wise words and loving deeds, 
and we encounter you still today in the faces of those whom society has pushed to the margins. 
Guide us, through the love you revealed, 
to establish the justice you proclaimed, 
that all peoples might dwell in harmony and peace, 
united by that one love that binds us to each other and to you. 
And most of all, Lord, change our routine worship and work
into genuine encounter with you and our better selves
so that our lives will be changed for the good of all. 
May it be so in Christ Jesus. Amen. 

Peace,

Allan

Opposed and Irreconcilable

May 13, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Before we get into today’s topic, I would like to make a modest and sensible proposal: the Mavericks send their number one lottery pick, along with Anthony Davis, to the Lakers for Luka. Please.

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I am continuously in search of ways to better articulate my conviction that the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world are incompatible. As disciples of Christ and citizens of God’s Kingdom, we already have our politics. We belong to a holy country without borders and we have a crucified and risen King, we have laws for getting along together and taking care of those around us, we have rituals and traditions that keep our story straight and our loyalties in place, we have ways and means for effecting change and transforming the world.  And all of it stands in direct opposition to the politics of the nations. The two kingdoms have opposite foundations and goals, opposite ways of getting things done, opposite methods for changing peoples’ lives, opposite ideas about wealth and power and force, opposite values–opposite everything.

Our King tells us we cannot serve two masters. We will love the one and hate the other, we will be loyal to one and despise the other. Jesus tells Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world; if it were, my servants would fight.” The politics of God’s Kingdom and the politics of worldly empires not only have nothing in common, they are each directly opposed to the other’s goals and ways and means of reaching them.

My brother, Keith, has heard me talk about this for about 20 years now. He doesn’t agree with me on every point–in his own words, he doesn’t see it as an “either/or,” he’s more of a “both/and.” But he’s come across an article by Paul Kingsnorth, a Christian writer living in Ireland, that articulates my views very well. The article is titled, “Against Christian Civilization” and was published in January by First Things. And it’s excellent.

On the third page Kingsnorth quotes Charles Alexander Eastman, a Dakota Sioux who was eighteen at the time of Custer’s Last Stand: “There is no such thing as ‘Christian civilization.’ I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable.”

I’ve read this piece five times now and I’m impressed with the expert way Kingsnorth weaves his narrative, and I’m thrilled with the clarity it gives the reader and for the potential for moving my conversations forward with others.

I’m asking you to read the article. It’s right here. And it will take some time. It’s thirteen pages and it covers a lot of historic and theological ground. I think you will find it helpful in, at the very least, understanding where I am and, I pray, wrestling with your own understandings and Christian calling regarding what I call Church As State.

Read it today. And I’ll write more about it tomorrow.

Here’s an excerpt to entice you to click and read:

“When we read the life of Jesus of Nazareth, in fact, it is impossible not to see a man who was, in some fundamental sense, uncivilized. He did not tell us to get good jobs and save prudently. He told us to have no thought for the morrow. He did not tell us to generate wealth, so that economic growth could bring about global development. He told us to give everything away. The rich, he said repeatedly, could never attain the Kingdom of Heaven. He did not tell us to defend our frontiers or to expand them. He told us never to resist evil. He did not tell us to be responsible citizens. He told us to leave our dead fathers unburied and follow him instead. He told us to hate our own parents and to love those who hated us. Every single one of these teachings, were we to follow them, would make the building of a civilization impossible.

What we are really hearing about, then, when we hear of defending or rebuilding ‘Christian civilization,’ is not Christianity and its teachings at all, but modernity and its endgame. It is the idol of material progress–the progress that has shredded both culture and nature–which is causing such grief everywhere. ‘Christian civilization’ is not a solution to this; it is part of the problem. And when actual Christianity is proposed instead, the response is so often the same: Oh, yes, that’s all very well, you fundamentalist–but what practical use is it?”

That last line reminds me of G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” in which he says Christianity has not been tried and found lacking; it’s been found difficult and never really tried.

Go Stars!

Allan

Re-Thinking: Part 2

April 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments

My good friend Blu Malone sent me this picture yesterday. A good friend knows you well enough to understand what really irritates you and how to use it to make you laugh. Well done. I love this. I would like it on a sticker. Like six of them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Here at GCR, we’re trying to tackle the reluctance we have to speak to our friends and neighbors about Jesus. We haven’t stopped believing in Jesus Christ as our risen and coming Lord and the source off all truth and light and the only way to salvation. But we have mostly stopped talking. We’re not sharing the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the way we used to. It seems to me that as we address the problem, we should acknowledge a few things we need to stop believing. There are some things we accept as real, that just simply aren’t. And those things can keep us from sharing the Gospel with the people God puts right in front of us every day.

I mentioned two of these things in this space yesterday. We need to stop believing that the Church is in decline and that the Church is irrelevant. Here are three more things we need to stop believing so that we’ll feel more able to talk about Jesus with others.

Don’t believe that people in our culture are not seeking God. It’s not true. Yes, we live in a pluralistic, post-modern, post-Christian society now and there’s no going back. Yes, Christianity is no longer viewed as the only way to God and truth is no longer a fixed, eternal reality. Truth is now something each person decides for himself or herself. And, yes, there are more agnostics, skeptics, and atheists in this country than there’s ever been. But that doesn’t mean they’re not searching. They’re all searching! They’re all seeking! And there’s tremendous potential here for God’s Church.

The research is showing that we’re on the front edge of a backlash against all the pluralism and individualism in the U.S. We’re discovering that living in a world without universal truth is a lousy way to live. We’re learning that addiction to our screens and earbuds isn’t healthy, that it’s doing real damage to our relationships and what it means to be human. And people are looking for something else. They’re searching for a meaning outside of themselves. They’re seeking a purpose higher than their own tweets and posts, something more important than their careers and entertainment. People today are starting to recognize all the noise and clutter for what it is and they’re looking for something genuine and authentic. Something they can trust. People are open to it. People are seeking. And that gives the Church an exciting opportunity.

And what about the idea that everybody’s a Christian? No, we’ve got to stop believing that everybody in Midland or everybody in your town already goes to church. Because they don’t. And we also need to stop believing that people who don’t follow Christ have all heard the Good News about Jesus and thought it through and made the choice to reject it. That’s not true. Census data in Midland County and a couple of more recent surveys show that almost 50% of the people in our city don’t have a church home. Almost half! Barna research that was released last week shows that only 38% of the people in Texas go to church at least once a month. The chances are higher right now than they’ve ever been in your lifetime that your next-door-neighbor doesn’t go to church.

And there’s an increasing number of people who just don’t know much at all about Jesus. Over the last couple of decades, kids in this country are being raised differently than the ways you and I were probably raised. And there are lots of men and women in their 20s and 30s who’ve never heard the Good News. They’ve never heard it. We need to stop believing everybody has.

And we must stop believing that the Gospel is too complicated to share. The Good News of salvation from God in Christ is not hard. It’s simple. But for several generations now–for sure in Churches of Christ, I think–we’ve put too much emphasis on knowing all the details of our rules and regulations and being able to explain and proof-text our inconsistencies and loopholes, that we’ve made sharing the Gospel kind of scary. We’ve turned into a people who’d rather not say anything to our friends about Jesus than risk saying something “wrong” or not being able to answer a tricky question. For a variety of reasons, we’ve come to believe it’s a sin to admit to somebody, “I don’t know.”

The Good News is not complicated. It’s the very simple and beautiful truth that God’s eternal salvation through his crucified and risen Son Jesus is a gift. It’s a loving gift. And his limitless grace continually washes us and covers the stuff we don’t know.

If God is for us, who can be against us? Who’s going to oppose us? What’s going to stop us? What are we afraid of? Trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or sword? The culture, the media, the government, or the atheists? No! In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us!

It looked bad when the world carried out the crucifixion of Jesus. But God used it to save all humanity. It felt bad when the world executed Stephen and scattered the Church. But God used it to expand the borders of his eternal Kingdom. Today, we can be certain that our God is using the circumstances and conditions in Midland right now, and in your community, to do more through his Church than we can possibly dare to ask or imagine.

The question is: What do you believe?

Peace,

Allan

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