The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Shooting While Scattered

April 8, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Bump Wills…

Thanks to Florida’s suffocating defense that kept Houston from even attempting a shot on their final two possessions, Tim Neale won our church office March Madness bracket challenge and I finished in second place. Tim is our back-to-back office champion, but we don’t know whether he qualifies for the free meal and dessert at our next staff lunch, or if we should buy it for his son, Seth. I finished as the runner-up. Andrew nailed down last place pretty decisively.

In other news, I won our Stanglin family bracket, finishing two points ahead of Whitney and six points ahead of last year’s champion, Carrie-Anne. That means Carrie-Anne’s bracket came off the front of the refrigerator first thing this morning and mine went up. It’ll be on full display in our kitchen for twelve glorious months. It’s just something we do. I’m not certain how healthy it is, but it’s just something we do.

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One of the several reasons we chose Emerson Elementary as a GCR local missions partner is that they are the MISD campus for “medically fragile” students. All Midland public school students from 7th grade down who have special physical needs go to Emerson where they have trained staff and facilities to take care of them. That part of the campus is equipped with hospital beds, oxygen, lifts, and everything that’s needed to support these most vulnerable in our community. They do incredible work at Emerson, work that most people know nothing about.

Our church recently purchased a special set of swings for the Emerson playground that meets the particular needs of those sweet kids. GCR bought the swings and paid for the playground expansion and the installation of the swings as just another piece of our partnership together. The swings were completed and unveiled last week, and our ministry team was invited to play with the kids on the new equipment this morning.

The sun was shining, the winds were calm, and the swings were swinging. The kids squealed with absolute delight and more than a couple of us joined them in being sad when it was over.

We are so thankful to God for our partnership with Emerson and so blessed by him to know so many wonderful teachers and staff who take such loving care of these precious children. We’re considering building into our work schedule some daily P.E. time at Emerson.

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Our youth minister, Jadyn Martinez, has been on mandatory bed rest for the past three weeks or so while she endures the final laps of a high-risk pregnancy. We’re missing her terribly around here, so yesterday we surprised her by showing up at her house for lunch. There was some fear that the surprise might raise her blood pressure and liver counts so that little Zion might come a week or two earlier than we need. But her doctor’s appointment late yesterday confirmed that everything’s still really good.

Except for Jim eating most of Jadyn’s chips, I think she enjoyed the surprise and getting to spend a loud lunch laughing together and getting caught up. Or she faked it really well.

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It was 34-degrees at Wrigley Field last night when the Rangers started their game against the Cubs. The wind chill was 23. And the Rangers were not good. Nasty Nate was uncharacteristically wild–two walks, two plunks, two stolen bases–and the Rangers bats were frozen in the 7-0 shutout loss. I’m not sure if that game has anything at all to say about where Texas might be in a month or two, or even at the end of the year. We’re not reading anything into an April game that was the second coldest in Rangers history. But how they respond tonight in equally frigid circumstances? What they learn and how they bounce back or not? That might could tell us something.

Josh Jung is off the DL and should be in the lineup tonight. I’m hoping that can help get this team over the Mendoza line.

Peace,

Allan

The First Thing First

March 19, 2025 / / 0 Comments

My two grandsons are in there! The boys!

Valerie is 22 weeks in, due in mid-July, and she looks straight-up amazing!

Let the record show that my NCAA tournament bracket is weak this year. So weak. For the first time in my life, I am going with all four number one seeds in the Final Four–Auburn, Duke, Houston, and Florida–with Cougar High beating Auburn for the championship, because I don’t know what else to do. I have no hopes of being competitive in our church bracket. I have picked Texas A&M and Texas Tech to make it to the Sweet Sixteen and I have picked Texas to lose their opener. I’m picking against the ‘Horns on principle for the integrity of a non-gimmicked 64-team bracket. And because they stink.

More importantly, we are eight days away from Opening Day.

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We Christians who talk about love all the time and claim to belong to a God of love and to follow a Messiah of love don’t always love so well. So, people have a hard time believing in our God and Messiah.

But love is the main thing. It’s the number one thing. Love is the most important thing. Our Lord Jesus tells us in unambiguous terms, over and over again, that loving others is the primary commandment. It comes first. For disciples of Christ, nothing else ever comes before love. All other Christian commands and obligations come somewhere after the first priority to love.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” ~1 John 4:7-12

Since our salvation is delivered by love, since the Church is born out of love, since we exist as a people of God only by the love of God, then our very reason for living is to embody that same love among ourselves and in God’s world.

Here’s the hard truth: If you’re not a loving person, you don’t know God. If you’re not showing love to others, you haven’t truly understood God’s love for yourself.

Nobody in the world will listen to you talk about God if they experience you as an unloving person. You’ve got no credibility. It’s obvious you don’t know who you’re talking about.

If you’re a salesperson at Rogers Ford, it’s probably best that you don’t drive a Chevy around town. They don’t get the president of PETA to run the membership drive for the NRA. And you’re never going to influence anybody for Christ if you’re not a loving person. You’ll drive people away.

The Church is fractured and our witness to the world is compromised because we keep getting this one thing out of order. Instead of loving first, we judge first. Instead of loving first, we condemn first. We yell first. We complain first. We insult first. We forward the email and repost the post first. And then love might or might not come somewhere after that. It’s out of order.

We discern socio-economic boundaries first, we put racial differences first, and then we decide when and how to show love.

We prioritize politicians and parties and partisan platforms first, and then we figure out who and how and if we’re going to love. It’s backwards!

We want to investigate someone’s criminal history first, we want to question someone’s immigration status first, or categorize someone according to their outward appearance first, and then we think about where and how and if we’ll show love. That’s the wrong order!

Yes, there are difficult passages in the Bible that have to be figured out and there are some verses that need careful discernment and there are parts of Scripture with which followers of Jesus can legitimately disagree. But the command to love as the most important command and the primary command that outweighs all other commands is not one of them!

This is a critical time in our Lord’s Church. Theologians and historians and sociologists have been telling us for more than 40 years that we are going through the greatest transition in the last 500 years of Church history. And what you do matters. It matters to you and to your family, it matters to your friends and your city and the country in which you live, and to the whole world.

Anger is acceptable in our culture, but that’s not who you are. Discord and division are society’s tools, but not yours. The culture encourages you to take care of yourself first, but that’s a non-starter for Christians. Asserting myself and my rights and my personality is not my priority as a follower of Jesus. We do not go along with the world on that. We don’t say, “Well, that’s just the way the world is” or “That’s just how things work and how things get done.” To somehow justify not loving people–no matter the reason–is to squash our creativity and insult God’s grace and ignore the command of Christ.

Our Christian faith and our Christian beliefs and our Christian experience with the love of God compels us to move toward all people and embrace all people, whether they step toward you or not. That’s not the point. The point is moving toward people in love the way God in Christ moved toward you. In love.

Peace,

Allan

Does It Feel Wet Outside?

April 8, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Ralph Strangis…

All our church ministers and staff, all the Opportunity Tribe kids, and the Mission Agape folks just spent an hour or so enjoying the eclipse together. We chewed Eclipse brand gum, ate lots of Oreos (Ryan concocted some far-fetched eclipse connection), and generally cracked eclipse jokes, made fun of each other, and laughed the whole time. Kim brought out her mystical Mayan stone, Pam produced an impressive array of shadow-casting kitchen utensils and disco balls, and Jim asked several times when it was appropriate to leave an eclipse party and not seem rude. J.E. wanted us to change into our Nikes and track suits (at times, it did look like we were all waiting to be lifted away), we all overplayed the darkness and cool down factor, and at one point Dan asked if it felt “wet” outside. I must have heard and/or overheard fourteen explanations of refraction and at least that many descriptions of how this eclipse is or is not similar to what we experienced back in October.

Some of us were disappointed that the dogs didn’t speak in tongues and no birds dive-bombed the parking lot. Turns out the animals don’t really freak out as much as the humans.

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The NCAA men’s basketball tournament concludes tonight, but Carrie-Anne clinched our family bracket Saturday when UConn took down Alabama to advance to the Final. As soon as the clock hit 0:00 on that game, C-A sent her little victory bitmoji through our family text, much to almost everyone’s delight. If UConn wins tonight, Whitney will finish in second place. If it’s Purdue, then Valerie’s husband David takes the silver. I need Purdue to win just so I won’t come in last. My March Sadness began weeks ago.

As for our office bracket here at GCR, if UConn wins, Tim and Cory will finish 1-2. If Purdue wins the title, Kristin takes our office contest and J.E. comes in second.

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We have turned MidWeek into MixWeek at GCR by combining all our Wednesday night kids programs, youth worship, and adult classes into one big “Running the Race” series. We kicked it off last Wednesday with GCR Olympics, featuring a massive Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament and an egg-throwing contest. The young people led our church in worship–we sang their songs their way– and then we spent 30-minutes or so mixing it up together with the games.

The idea this past Wednesday was to partner up with someone at least 20 years older or 20 years younger and compete against other similar pairs. By the end of the Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament, we had half the church on one side of the gym and the other half on the other side, all cheering for their representative in the final match. Same deal with the egg-toss. Then we gave out medals and ate popsicles together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week, the young people will again lead us in worship, and then we’re going to spend 30-minutes or so in some formative Christian practices. We’ll have nine or ten prayer stations and Scripture stations in and around the Worship Center–some ancient practices and some brand new ways to engage God together in Word and Prayer.

The overarching goal is to intentionally put our children in front of our older adults and for our older adults to pour into our children so we can all learn what God wants us to learn from each other. We are putting ourselves in situations with our church’s children so God can teach us what we need to learn and change in us what needs to be changed to become more like them. And more like him.

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I’m not going to write anything about the Rangers. Not yet. Out of the gate, they look like they’re going to be an even better team than they were last year. But I don’t want to jinx anything. For now, I’m putting all my energies into the Stars and their promising Stanley Cup pursuits. Lankford can keep hitting 100-mile-per-hour lasers off his bat, the Rangers can keep averaging seven runs per game, and Bochy can keep whispering into his bullpen. I’m not going to say anything about it yet. Go Stars.

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Over the Christmas break, I bought a two-dollar Whoopee cushion with the four-million tickets we collected during a family trip to Cinergy. Now Whitney is pressing the cushion every time a player misses a free throw during the NCAA tournament. Every game. Every miss. “Pppphhhhrrrrrppphhhh!!” It makes me giggle. It makes Whitney laugh so hard she can’t breathe. It wears Carrie-Anne plumb out.

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Peace,

Allan

Scattershooting on Opening Day

March 28, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Hank Blalock.

Today is Opening Day! And for the first time in the history of baseball, the Texas Rangers are the defending World Series Champions! It still feels weird and wonderful to write that sentence. Now, how do we do this? What does Opening Day look like when you’re the World Series Champs? For starters, the game begins at 6:35pm instead of the 3:00pm first pitch that was announced when the season schedules were released, and it’s being broadcast on ESPN for the national prime time audience. Usually, I’m taking off work right after lunch on Opening Day to watch the season’s first game. So, that’s a new wrinkle.

Plus, there’s the additional matter of raising the World Series Championship banner at Globe Life Field. That happens at 6:00pm and ESPN’s Baseball Tonight is covering all the ceremonies live. It’s all wonderful and glorious and beautiful in a million ways.

But it’s also complicated.

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day God’s people traditionally gather to remember our Lord’s last supper the night he was betrayed. This is the worship event in which we share the meal with other Christians and remember our Lord’s commands on that evening to love one another just as he loves us. The 4Midland churches are meeting at First Presbyterian tonight, all four of our congregations–GCR, First Baptist, First Methodist, and First Pres–to sing and pray and celebrate communion together.

My plan is to set the DVR to record all the Rangers’ banner-raising festivities and the opener against the Cubs. We’ll start the game once we get home at about 8:00pm. That puts us behind the live action by about an hour and a half, which means it will be almost impossible to flip to the March Madness during commercials. I blame the commissioner of baseball. Or Satan. We were all going to be worshiping tonight with our brothers and sisters at First Pres. It’s baseball that scheduled Opening Day on top of it.

We’re all suffering.

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Speaking of March Madness, my bracket is not doing well. I lost Baylor as a Final Four team on Sunday and I’m struggling. I said in this space last week that I would not be counting Carley’s dog’s entry into our family pool. Well, I am counting him as a full participant now, just so I don’t finish in last place. Val and Whitney are neck and neck for the lead heading into the Sweet 16. As for the church office pool, I’m right in the middle of things, almost as close to last place as I am to first. Jadyn is leading the pack right now, with Tim right on her heels.

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Carrie-Anne and I spent last night with our GCR Youth Group, planning the summer, playing some crazy party games, worshiping and praying together, and meeting our awesome summer interns Avery and Chloe. When it was over, everybody gathered outside to check out the brand new church vans! We’ve been needing  **ahem** more reliable transportation for a while now, and these new super-tall, super-wide, 15-passenger vans do fit the bill. I don’t know if the vans will spur anyone to sign up for mission trips or camps but, according to the reactions last night, it’s not going to hurt.

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Back to the Rangers, they have now joined the 18 other MLB teams with corporate sponsorship patches on their uniform sleeves. I do hate this. It’s so bush-league, so cheesy. Energy Transfer’s logo is on all six of the Rangers jerseys for all 162 of their games, plus playoffs. Energy Transfer? Yes, according to reports, the Dallas-based energy infrastructure company. It doesn’t get more corporate than that. I understand that Energy Transfer was founded by Rangers owner Ray Davis back in the ’90s, but if you’re the Texas Rangers and you’re going to wear a company’s logo on your sleeve, shouldn’t it be a recognized and beloved state brand? Did they even ask Dr Pepper or Whataburger? What’s wrong with 7-11? Dairy Queen feels perfect. I do hate this.

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The Rangers have whiffed big even before they faced a single Chicago pitcher. I do not understand why they let Jordan Montgomery sign with the D-Backs in free agency. It’s a one-year, $25-million deal with Arizona when he claimed he wanted to stay in Arlington. You can’t ever lose with a one-year contract. How did the Rangers not get this done?

I cannot wait to watch Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford playing together in the same Rangers outfield. Carter is technically a rookie, since he wasn’t called up until after Labor Day last season. So it’s possible–dare I say likely–that Carter and Langford finish 1-2 for MLB Rookie of the Year. Carter, Langford, and Adolis Garcia give Texas the best outfield in the majors. Tons of range, power hitting, and cannons attached to their shoulders.

Nasty Nate Eovaldi on the hill. Bruce Bochy in the dugout. A World Series championship banner flying above the stadium. The Texas Rangers begin their defense of their World Series title tonight. Let’s run it back, boys! Let’s repeat!

Let’s Go Rangers!
Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!

Allan

An Unending Love

March 21, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I came across this poem about three weeks ago and have read it out loud and talked to the Lord about it several times since then. It’s written by Rabbi Rami Shapiro and has been a source of deep blessing for me lately. I hope it will be for you, too.

We are loved by an unending love.

We are embraced by arms that find us even when we are hidden from ourselves.
We are touched by fingers that soothe us even when we are too proud for soothing.
We are counseled by voices that guide us even when we are too embittered to hear.

We are loved by an unending love.

We are supported by hands that uplift us even in the midst of a fall.
We are urged on by eyes that meet us even when we are too weak for meeting.

We are loved by an unending love.

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled,
ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices;
ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles.

We are loved by an unending love.

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March Madness begins today and that means keeping up with the seven brackets in our annual family contest. Seven. Not eight. Carley entered a bracket for their dog that selected every school with a canine/wolf mascot, but I’m not keeping up with it. I’ve got Houston, Baylor, Creighton, and UConn in the Final Four with Cougar High beating the Huskies for the national title. I’m fine with losing to Collin or David. I could even get over it if Whitney scores better than me. But if I lose to the dog, I’ll never fill out another bracket again.

Peace,

Allan

Servants FOR the Church

March 15, 2023 / / 0 Comments

I have completed my March Madness bracket in preparation for the most glorious two-and-a-half weeks in sports. I’ve got NC State upsetting Baylor in the second round and Penn State doing the same thing to A&M. I’ve got Texas losing to Houston in the Midwest Regional Final and TCU going all the way to the West Regional Final and losing to UConn. I’m picking Arizona and Duke to join Houston and UConn in the Final Four with Cougar High beating Zona for the championship. Those are my picks. And I am less confident in them as I have ever been.

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As we prepare to select additional shepherds at our church at GCR, let’s discuss some of our expectations as church members. Deep inside our bones, all of us are free-enterprise, open-market, individualistic consumers. All of us drink deeply from the wells of retail and marketing. The customer is always right. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. 30 days free trial. Sometimes, if we’re not careful, we sell Christianity or the Church by trying to make it low cost and high value. We have to continuously guard against those cultural tendencies.

We can also treat our elders as if they are “goods and services” we’re owed as faithful church members.

I do believe our shepherds should be a front line support for our families and our marriages. They should be present during times of illness and death. I think all that is in the job description. But is that the ultimate end of eldering? Is the goal for a shepherd to provide encouragement and comfort to the members? When the elders get to heaven, will Jesus’ first question be, “Did you provide enough emotional support for my sheep?” I think that question will be on his list, but I don’t think it’ll be in the top ten.

If we’re not careful, the care and support of an elder could become another of the consumer goods to which church members feel entitled. We might read our elders through consumer eyes. And consumers either get what they want or they go shopping elsewhere.

Shepherding is not a free counseling service that provides comfort in the hospitals and prayers at the funerals. Shepherding is a mentoring program designed to call every member of the church into Christ-like living. Elders are to teach and model and lead others toward more selfless service, submission, sacrifice, and, yes, even suffering. And that’s a lot harder than just being a comfort during times of trial.

Sometimes we get the idea that the church owes me counseling and comforting and the top guys showing up to anoint me with oil and pray with my family whenever I call. Or my friend’s family. Or the funeral of somebody who sat on the west side. Sometimes it’s not the natural result of loving relationships and community in Christ, it’s an entitlement, something bought and demanded. So, the elders, instead of being viewed as our spiritual leaders who call us and lead us to faithful service, are seen as our servants to sacrifice and serve for us so we don’t have to.

When a visit or a prayer by an elder becomes something that’s demanded by people who wouldn’t go to the funeral of that elder’s mother, we’ve turned Christianity into a commodity instead of a community. We’ve completely forgotten we are members of this faith community to learn to become like Christ, not to have our egos stroked or our consumer demands met.

So, yes, it is right and necessary that our shepherds visit the hospitals and attend the funerals. But only if the members see that as an example to be followed, not as a service to be expected or demanded.

True shepherding is leading God’s people to do what the elders do. To be visited and served by church members trained by their elders to visit and serve on their own would be the sign of a deeply healthy congregation – a richly blessed body shaped in the image of our Lord.

Peace,

Allan

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