The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Evangelism (Page 1 of 21)

Open to Our Witness

October 7, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Jonah is asleep at the bottom of the ship when the Lord sends a violent storm. The ship is taking on water, the Bible says the boat is beginning to break up. The sailors all believe they’re going to die. They’re each praying to their own gods. These are not Israelite sailors–these are pagans. Idol worshipers. Foreigners. From different countries with different customs and cultures and languages. And they’re scared to death.

They go downstairs and wake up Jonah. We drew straws! We cast lots! We rolled the dice! We shook up the Magic 8-Ball! And it all points to you, Jonah! What’s the deal? Who are you? 

And Jonah, in the middle of the storm, in the middle of the turmoil and chaos, in the middle of the anxiety and fear, in the middle of a foreign mission field on board a pagan ship, says,

“I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” ~Jonah 1:9

The Scripture says this terrified the sailors even more. What, are you crazy? You’re running away from the God who created the sea, ON THE SEA?!? Who does that?? We’re all dead!!

Here’s what I see in the first chapter of Jonah. The runaway prophet confessed God as Lord, and that’s all it took to save these pagan sailors.

Jonah confesses the Lord out loud to these frightened men. They reluctantly act on Jonah’s instructions, they throw him overboard. And they call on the name of the Lord. They beg the Lord for forgiveness. And when the storm immediately goes away and the sea immediately grows calm, they greatly fear the Lord. They revere the Lord. They’re in awe of the Lord. They’re moved. And they worship the Lord. They offer sacrifices to God and they make vows, they make commitments to God right there on the spot. Jonah confessed the Lord to these pagan sailors. And the sailors saw God. They experienced God’s salvation. And their lives were forever changed.

Hear me on this. The world is not closed to our witness. Even if it’s a weak witness. The world is open.

I imagine when Jonah first payed his fare and boarded that ship, he never dreamed of talking to those sailors about God. They would never listen. Those are some rough dudes. I can’t relate to these guys. Those kinds of people aren’t interested in God. And Jonah goes downstairs to take a nap. But the truth in the next parts of the story tell us that the world is open to our confession. Even when it’s weak.

Our world is in crisis. The world we live in right now is desperate, it’s hopeless. People in Midland are searching for truth. People all around you are dying for something to believe in, something stable and secure to hold on to. People all over the world are rolling the dice, casting lots, drawing straws, shaking the Magic 8-Ball, looking, looking, looking, for answers. Looking for help. And they’re mostly wide open to the truth if we’ll just confess it in front of them.

The sailors were not looking for this witness. They weren’t looking for Jonah’s confession of faith, they weren’t looking for the Creator of Heaven and Earth, they didn’t know what they were looking for. But through Jonah’s witness, as weak as it maybe was, they encountered our God and experienced his salvation from the storm. They acknowledged their helplessness. They realized the futility of rowing against the storm by themselves. And they believed in the Word of God and they acted on it. And they worshiped him.

Open your mouth and confess God as Lord in front of non-believers. The people around you are open.

Peace,
Allan

Answering the Call

October 5, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Missions Month at GCR has become just about my favorite time of the year because we get to hang out with some of the very best people I know. Brad and Melissa Hooley, our Nexus church-planting partners from the Mountain View Christian Church in Kalispell, Montana, spent the weekend with us and we had an absolute blast getting caught up on everything the Lord is doing up there. We grilled fajitas for ten Saturday night and ate and laughed and prayed together around our dining room table. Brad and Melissa led our communion time Sunday and then we celebrated GCR CrocktoberFest with a Crockpot potluck feast after church. While the little kids played loudly, Jason Kumalo told us all the great salvation things God is doing in and through our Namwianga Missions partners in Zambia. Brad and Melissa joined us in the DP room Sunday afternoon to watch the Texans yellow flag themselves into a loss to the Cowboys. Then we hoofed it back to church for a pizza party with the GCR group that visited Kalispell three summers ago when Mountain View Christian first launched. We capped the night with a rousing game of “99” back at Stanglin Manor in which I was the first one eliminated and Brad ran the table to win. Mostly graciously.

I’m not even sure it’s possible. But if it is, I almost had too much sopapilla cheesecake.

God bless the Hooleys–all six of them!–and our brothers and sisters at Mountain View Christian.

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To help us better understand our God’s will to save the whole world and our role in his salvation plans, we are spending four Sundays in Jonah–one chapter of the story per Sunday. One of the takeaways from yesterday’s lesson is that God’s call is very clear. Always. He tells Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh. Very direct and to the point. There’s no misinterpreting or misunderstanding God’s call on Jonah. It’s really very simple. Go and preach to Nineveh.

Nineveh is the capital city of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians are Israel’s national enemies.

Jonah doesn’t misunderstand God’s call. God’s call is crystal clear. Jonah just disagrees with God’s way of dealing with the bad situation in Nineveh. I can almost hear Jonah:

Nineveh? Seriously? Those people are terrible! You don’t preach to people like that; you wipe ’em out! You destroy them! Those people are despicable! They have no regard for human rights! They treat women horribly! They’re always starting wars! They kill people at the drop of a hat! They don’t believe in our God! They don’t share our values! They’re all crazy! Come on, God, you’ve seen the news! Those people are insane! They’ve always been that way and they will be that way forever! They’re trying to take over the world and force their philosophy on everybody! They’d love to see us all dead! Have you read the things they write? Have you seen their videos? The best thing that could happen to them is you blowing them to Kingdom come! We should turn that whole part of the world into a giant sand trap!

I’ve been reading Jonah’s forwarded emails.

God wants all the people of Nineveh saved. He wants them to repent and come into a saving relationship with him. And God wants to use Jonah to make it happen. But Jonah doesn’t want to participate in the salvation of this particular people. So Jonah runs. I think he knows he can’t run away from God, but maybe he can get lost in another culture, another place, where he can ignore God. Jonah can maybe immerse himself in other things. He can become overly occupied with his possessions, his job, his hobbies, sports, a house, maybe a wife and kids.

The country we live in would tell us we have “enemies” in Iran. You may know that Iran is one of the two or three places in the world right now where Christianity is growing the fastest. Our government would tell us we have “enemies” in Russia and China. And our God loves them and he wants them to be saved. We know that. But sometimes our language and our prayers and our forwarded emails and posts don’t reflect that.

How quickly we forget that while we were God’s enemies, Christ died for us.

We have “enemies” right here in Midland. You have “enemies” in your town, too. Enemies of our property values. Enemies of our employment figures and tax rates. Enemies of our political positions and comfort zones. And our God’s unmistakable call is to take to them the Good News of salvation in Christ Jesus.

It’s clear.

We believe our Lord meant it when he said love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. We believe in the Great Commission. We understand Christ calls us to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and all over the whole world, to the very ends of the earth. We believe witnessing like that, showing God’s love and mercy to our enemies, imitates our Lord.

Our Savior crosses all the barriers that separate people–social, cultural, racial, political, geographical, economic–he smashes through all that to save violent outcasts, those possessed by demons, warring Zealots, traitorous tax collectors, Roman centurions, and thieves on crosses. He broke through all those barriers to save you. And me.

And our God unmistakably calls us to reach out to others the same way.

Peace,
Allan

Every Opportunity

August 13, 2026 / / 0 Comments

“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.” ~Colossians 4:5

The older translations say “redeeming the time,” because, in the original Greek language, this is a commercial term. The verb means to buy it all out, like you know a good deal when you see one and you grab it. Like when you see Coconut Dr Pepper on the grocery store shelf, you buy all of them! You fill up your cart!

Like Black Friday, too, maybe. By the way, let’s be honest, Black Friday is decidedly not about Christmas shopping. The biggest Black Friday sales are on couches, mattresses, SUVs, and 300-inch TVs. You’re not buying that to give to Uncle Bill and Aunt Kay. But the idea is that I’ve got to buy this today. It’s about urgency. I’ve got to do this right now, or that price will be higher or those items will be gone. This is a pressing matter. Watch for the opportunity and then go for it.

I believe our God is moving in Midland, Texas. He is at work in your town, too. God is at work in the lives of your friends. He is doing something with your co-workers. God is drawing your next-door-neighbors closer to himself. God is pursuing everybody. He wants to be in holy community with everybody. Our God loves all people and he wants all people to be saved. And he is putting those people right in front of you. Pray for it. Watch for it. Make the most of it.

Anticipate these divine appointments with the people God is pursuing. Don’t be surprised by it. And don’t be scared. There’s nothing to be afraid of. God’s got this. He’s way ahead of you. When he puts somebody right in front of you, the absolute truth is that he’s been convincing them and drawing them and preparing them for your conversation for a while now. You don’t have to start anything. Just be alert to it and jump in.

Jesus just asked somebody for a drink of water at a well. Peter just knocked on the door at Cornelius’ house. Philip saw some guy reading his Bible and asked him if he wanted to talk. Paul asked his jailer about his grandkids. Watch for the opportunity and then make the most of it.

When God is in the middle of things, the holy potential is everywhere. So watch for it. And the make the most of every opportunity.

Peace,
Allan

Holding the Net Together

July 21, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Jesus said he would make us fishers of men, fishers of people. He has sent us out, you and me, to be fishers of “every human.” But you’re not fishing with a pole. You’re not sitting by yourself at the end of a pier with a rod and reel. We’re fishing together with a net. You’re not by yourself holding a stick and a string. We are all holding the net. Together.

It’s a huge net. It’s massive. It’s not the size of a volleyball net, it’s a giant net that spans across generational time and space. And it’s not made of rope or cord; it’s made of Christian seed sown to the Holy Spirit wind.

It’s a song written by Charles Wesley here, a plane assembled by Boeing there, a pie baked by a widow in 1843, an invitation to church written in 1391–God’s Holy Spirit weaves together all these weak and meager threads and it becomes the net. Do you see it?

It’s so big. And it sweeps back and forth across the world. It sweeps across every society and through every culture. The net is drawn in and out through all the decades and centuries. It turns and dips to snag one more soul God is faithfully trying to reach. It speeds up and slows down, it expands and withdraws to catch one more dad, one more teenager, one more generation. While you were sleeping last night, the net was catching souls: maybe a prisoner in Russia, maybe a single mom in Vermont, maybe a cab driver in Tokyo, or a teacher in Nigeria were swept up by the love of Christ.

The mission of the Church is a huge net and you’re holding onto it with us. Your faith and hope and love keep that net moving. Your good deeds for others, the ways you proclaim and share the love and grace of God with your words and acts of service–all of that contributes to our Lord’s salvation net.

The net is floating today by the eternal seeds of the Kingdom sown at GCR by Bert Mercer, Doug Parsons, and Ronnie White. When you serve a meal at Family Promise, when you read to kids at Emerson Elementary, when you write a check for Missions Sunday, when you send a card to your co-worker, when you use blue food coloring and whipped cream at VBS to tell the story of Jesus walking on the water, you are helping to maneuver that massive net.

When you warmly greet a visitor at church on Sunday morning, when you buy lunch for the guy behind you in the drive-thru, when you pray for your neighbor, the Holy Spirit breath of God moves another corner of that net to snare one more lost soul.

Here at our church in Midland, I think about Willie Goudeau and Yvonne Brooks and James and Debbie VanStavern who are still holding that net with Gabby and Kendall and M.J. and Preston. Frances Collins and Wanda McGraw are holding that net; so are Dalton and Hannah Mills, Philip and Caitlin Landry, and Justin and Anna Washburn.

So are you. You’re holding the net. We are, all of us, right now today and forever, connected together by the mission of the Church.

Peace,
Allan

Praying on Mission

January 30, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Interesting tidbit to begin this post. Eight teams qualified for the divisional round of the NFL playoffs this year: Rams, Seahawks, Bears, Pats, Broncos, Texans, ‘Niners, and Bills. Seven of the eight quarterbacks who started those games weren’t even born the last time the Cowboys won a divisional playoff game! The lone gray-hair, Matthew Stafford, was seven-years-old in January 1996–a cute little 2nd grader in Highland Park with a Troy Aikman jersey. Sam Darnold, the starting quarterback for Seattle in next Sunday’s Super Bowl, wasn’t born the last time the Cowboys made it to the postseason’s third week–and he’s already played for five NFL teams!

This 30-year drought is moving out of the realm of a generational thing and into oblivion.

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In Ephesians 3, the apostle Paul prays this beautiful prayer for the church. He prays about transformation, that God may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, that Christ may dwell in your hearts, that the church may be rooted and established in love, that we would have power together with all the saints to grasp the love of Christ, to know the love of Christ, to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!” ~Ephesians 3:20-21

The prayer is for God to do a whole lot, for God to do incredible and unimaginable things with his power that is at work in the Church. This prayer is not a wide-open request for God to demonstrate his power in random ways. This is a specific request for God to act in spectacular ways through us, through his Church. The transforming power of God belongs to us. So, we’re not asking God to do great things while we sit in the pews and wait on it. And study it. And talk about it. And agree that it’s good. The Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power!

In Matthew 9, Jesus tells his followers to pray for workers to send to the fields. Pray about it. This is what we want the Father to do: raise up workers. Then in the very next verse–one verse!–he’s giving them the authority and giving them the power and sending them into the fields to do the work! Have you ever noticed that?

Be careful when you pray. The answer to your prayer might be God moving you into his mission.

If you pray for God to use your church, or to work through your church, you’d better be prepared to get off your pew and into the mission. If you pray for the hungry and the sick, if you pray for God’s will to be done in your town just as it is in heaven, you’d better open your eyes, your ears, and your heart to how God wants to work through you to do it.

Peace,
Allan

 

Powerfully Present

October 22, 2025 / / 0 Comments

If we’re not careful, we can de-personalize our God. We can’t think about God in terms of an idea or a force or a doctrine. You can’t love an idea or a force, you can’t be in relationship with a doctrine. So, we effectively remove the command to love God and replace it with acknowledge God. Or respect God. Consider God. Defend God. Study God.

Those verbs require very little, if any, personal relationship.

But our God is a personal and relational God. We know this because he revealed himself to us in his very personal and relational Son. Jesus Christ gave up everything to live with us, to live among us, and to live like us.

The Gospels all record our Lord Jesus going out of his way to be relational and personal with the people he met along the way. Just in the Travel Narrative, that ten-chapter section in the middle of Luke that gives us the details of Jesus’ last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, Jesus interacts with people very personally. Intimately. Our Lord is powerfully present.

Luke 10 – Jesus is at Mary and Martha’s house getting ready for a meal. Picture our Lord inside their house, sitting down at their table eating their food, with them. Teaching them. Blessing them.

Luke 11 – Jesus teaches personally teaches his followers how to pray. And then he teaches them about hospitality by telling them a story about a meal. At the end of the chapter, Jesus is inside a Pharisee’s house, reclining at his table, eating his food, with him. And he teaches with a parable about dirty dishes.

Luke 13 – Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Jesus is not a monk. He is at church every time the doors are opened, with God’s people, as was his custom. There’s a woman at church who’s been crippled for 18 years. When Jesus saw her, the text says, he called her near. He spoke to her. The Bible says he touched her. And he healed her. In the parable at the end of the chapter, Jesus paints a picture of the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God by saying it’s like a huge meal: “People will come from east and west and north and south and will take their places at the feast in the Kingdom of God!”

Luke 14 – Jesus is at another Pharisee’s house eating supper. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that our Lord is always eating a meal, just finishing a meal, or on his way to a meal. Jesus teaches and heals and blesses around the table. Around the bread and the fish, the fruit and the wine, the conversation and the hospitality. There are more stories about food in this chapter. The great banquet and all the invited guests. The open invitation. All things are ready! Everybody is invited to eat with the King!

Luke 15 – Jesus is accused of eating meals with sinners, of getting too close and personal with people who are unclean. So he tells these stories about seeking and saving the lost. Friends and neighbors rejoicing together over lost coins and sheep that have been found. The celebratory feast with the fattened calf and the loud music and dancing when the prodigal son comes home. Jesus says, “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”

Luke 16 – Jesus tells a story about a poor man who longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.

Luke 17 – Another story about sitting down and eating.

Luke 18 – Jesus pulls little children up into his lap. Sticky-fingered, snotty-nosed little kids. “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them!” At the end of the chapter our Lord encounters a blind man at the Jericho city gates. Jesus brings the man near to him, the Gospel says. “What do you want me to do for you?” And he heals him.

Luke 19 – Jesus plucks a wee little man out of a Sycamore tree and says, “I must stay at your house today!”

The point is that Jesus went inside people’s houses. He went to people where they were. Around a table. In the kitchen. In the living room. Eating and sharing meals together.

Jesus never does anything halfway. When it comes to people, when it comes to the lost, our Savior goes all the way. He goes into people’s houses where it’s personal and close. He looks at their family pictures on the walls in the hallway. He reads the cartoons and the baby shower announcements held in place by flower magnets on the refrigerator. He sits down and shares meals. He passes the mashed potatoes. He compliments the cook. He laughs. He listens. And he shares.

Personal. Relational. Powerfully present.

Peace,
Allan

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