Category: Dallas Stars (Page 2 of 7)

The Table and the Way of Jesus

We’ve spent all of this week in 1 Corinthians 10-11 because it is the only place in the New Testament that tells us how to eat the Lord’s Supper. We’ve detailed exactly what the church in Corinth was doing wrong; it was the way they were eating the meal. It wasn’t the types of foods or the amount of foods, it was that they weren’t waiting for each before they dug in, they weren’t sharing the food equally, the selfishness and “me/us first” attitudes were causing division.

So how does Paul correct the problem? He points to Jesus. He reminds them of Jesus.

“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.'” ~ 1 Corinthians 11:23-25

The table is shaped by the salvation work of Jesus. The Church’s meal reflects and demonstrates the Gospel values of sacrifice and service. The Lord’s Supper expresses the way of Jesus–selflessness, giving to others, considering the needs of others more important than your own.

“For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” ~ 1 Corinthians 11:26

The Lord’s death broke down all the barriers between us and God and between us and each other. The Lord’s death unites all of God’s people together. Around the table on Sundays, and anytime we eat and drink together in his name, we’re proclaiming and practicing all the salvation things Jesus died for, everything that was accomplished at the cross: acceptance, fellowship, unity, forgiveness, peace.

How we eat the Lord’s Supper matters.

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The Stars have more depth and the better goalie. The Avalanche have more speed and more purely skilled scorers. This thing’s going seven and it’s going to be a two-and-a-half hour heart attack every night.

Peace,

Allan

Three Things

Three unconnected thoughts on a Monday afternoon.

1) The Dallas Stars are doing what it takes to get to the Stanley Cup Finals. Last night’s opening round finale against Vegas was everything a Game Seven is supposed to be: a full-on-two-and-a-half-hour-heart-attack. Radek Faksa’s sublime backhanded tally early in the third period proved to be the game winner, but only after a spectacular shut-down by the Dallas defense, concluding with those last two-and-a-half minutes of a one-goal game when the other team has an empty net and a man advantage. Whew! Jake Ottinger is calmly brilliant between the pipes. Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson are leading the offense. Seguin and Benn are providing the veteran leadership. Stankoven is looking to be the postseason hero nobody saw coming. Stars coach Pete DeBoer is moving the pieces perfectly. It looks like everything’s in place. With the series win over Vegas, the Stars avenged last season’s loss to the Golden Knights in the conference finals and they exorcised once and for all the Adin Hill demons that were swimming around in their heads. Up next is the longtime Western Conference rival Colorado Avalanche whose scoring success in the first round against Winnipeg is frightening. But there’s no way they keep up with the Stars. Vegas was the toughest draw for Dallas.

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2) The new limited edition Coconut Cream Dr Pepper is the first tricked-up flavored Dr Pepper that didn’t disappoint me. I didn’t know anything about Coconut Cream Dr Pepper until today during a lunch with all our ministers. So, of course, I hit two grocery stores on the way back to the church building so we could all try it together. H-E-B had nothing and all I could find at United Market Street was one 12-pack of the Dr Pepper Zero. Good enough. In the great 10-2-4 Dr Pepper tradition, we gathered in the break room at 2:00 for the tasting. And I think it’s really, really good! Overall, the reviews were mixed. Unsurprisingly, the Dr Pepper haters hated it. Brenda said it was nasty and called it coconut-flavored prune juice. Jadyn declared it amazing. Kim called it yummy. Tim said Dr Pepper is a unique enough flavor on its own that adding anything to it only messes it up. And–breaking news–Ryan didn’t even try it. My problem with all the flavored DPs is that the added flavor isn’t strong enough, it’s barely there. But you can definitely smell and taste the coconut in this new one, and it’s truly wonderful. Jim says it tastes like suntan lotion.

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3) Church humor is funny. The HVAC system in our church offices blew a gasket late last week and for two days the AC was blowing extremely frigid air at a high velocity and nothing could be done to shut it down. We were all freezing. Once the situation was remedied, one of our ministers sent the church staff this picture of the thermostat in his office with this caption: “I told you it was cold as hell in here!”

Peace,

Allan

Does It Feel Wet Outside?

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

OT in Big D

Our oldest daughter, the precious blue-eyed angel, turned 31 on Saturday (YIKES!) and we celebrated by attending the Dallas Stars game at American Airlines Center. It was supposed to be a surprise but she ruined it about three weeks ago, Whitney was snooping where she shouldn’t have been and discovered something she wasn’t supposed to know. To her everlasting credit, she quickly confessed. But then she spent the next 20 days worrying about which Stars socks she was going to wear to the game.

We got to Dallas Friday evening, early enough to spend some quality time with our youngest daughter Carley and our son-in-law Collin. Mexican food at Christina’s in Lewisville hit the spot and a Saturday birthday brunch at First Watch was exactly what we needed to get us through to the pizza we were planning to eat during first intermission.

It was our first time to see the recently installed Dirk Nowitzki statue outside the AAC. Magnificent. Loyalty never fades away. Perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We splurged for really good seats at the top of the lower level, near the face off circle on the visitors side. Four young men from Canada sitting behind us had flown in Friday from Ontario to watch their Edmonton Oilers. Beauty, eh? The rest of us in our section were Stars fans and we were reminded again why there is nothing in all of sports like NHL hockey. The first period was eerily quiet as 20,000 people almost silently watch the two teams size each other up. The whole crowd is locked in. Nobody moves. Everybody’s eyes are on the ice. The anticipation is building. It’s really remarkable. Then the explosion of six goals scored in the wild second period had us on that roller coaster. Dallas up 1-0, then gives up the equalizer in about 40-seconds. Dallas down 2-1 and then ties it up on a power play goal. It’s 3-3 heading to the final period. Dallas killed off a crazy five-on-three power play late in the third, and it felt like Game Seven of the Conference Finals. The whole place was going nuts, you couldn’t hear yourself think. The Stars hit the post twice on shots at the other end, and wound up going to overtime. Less than 30-seconds into the extra frame, Wyatt Johnston got out of position and was whistled on a very tickey-tack hooking penalty. Edmonton went on the power play and, seven seconds later, it was over. Edmonton won it 4-3.

Hockey is the only sport that gives you a true sudden death overtime. And it always feels like death when you’re on the losing end. It’s so sudden. That arena instantly went from a million decibels to zero. In a flash. The whole thing is a three-hour heart attack.

I blamed Whitney for choosing the wrong socks.

Peace,

Allan

Admiring Val

Our daughter Valerie is on the worship team at the Jenks Church in the suburb just outside their home in Tulsa, and she sings on stage with them at least two or three times a month. Yesterday, she led the congregation in the classic hymn ‘Blessed Assurance.’ That beautiful alto voice she’s had her whole life, her wide open heart to our God and what he’s doing among his people when they assemble in his presence, the Holy Spirit gifts she has and uses to bless our Lord’s Church – all of it was on display yesterday and I couldn’t be more proud. Not just proud, but grateful, thankful that I’m related to her. Thankful for the leadership at Jenks Church and for the ways they encourage Val’s gifts and intentionally fan into flame her service to our God. And blessed, very blessed by God to hear that girl sing his praise. You can check it out by clicking here and forwarding the video to the 16:10 mark. Carrie-Anne and I will be privileged to worship with that great congregation in person in a couple of weeks. I’ve told Val to make sure she’s got a couple of solos and our son-in-law David is leading the communion time and the benediction.

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We concluded our Hearing God sermon series yesterday at Golf Course Road. My prayer is that the series has given us permission and some language to talk about all the different ways our God speaks to us and guides us as we follow his Son together. I hope we’re hearing the voice of God and tuned into his continuous communication like never before. I pray we’re embracing and owning the two-way relationship we have with the Creator – it’s not a monologue in which we do all the talking, it’s a dialogue in which the communication goes both ways. And I hope we’ve been liberated to experience and express what we’ve long suspected, that our God is speaking to us and giving us personal guidance every day. Here’s a link to all six of the Hearing God sermons.

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I don’t want to risk anything by writing about tonight’s Game Six. Here’s a link to a decent preview from the NHL website.

Go Stars.

Allan

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