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Category: Foreign Missions (Page 7 of 8)

Dance With Who Brung Ya

November 7, 2012 / / 2 Comments

 

Darrell Royal, co-inventor of the Wishbone offense and two-time national championship coach of the Texas Longhorns, has died at age 88. During his 20 years as UT’s head football coach, Royal racked up a record of 167-47-5, including eleven Southwest Conference titles, ten Cotton Bowl wins, and undefeated national championship seasons in 1963 and 1969. I was ten years old when Royal stepped away from the sidelines to leave college football to the Barry Switzers of the world. So most of what I know about him I’ve only heard second and third hand or read in books or seen on TV. I did enjoy the great privilege of meeting Royal at a hospital fundraiser in Burnet back in 1993. I had my picture made with the winningest coach in Longhorns history and he autographed my invitation. A good friend, Larry Pate, framed the 3″x4″ card for me and it hangs on my office wall today.

Royal is remembered for his hard-nosed running attack and his disciplined defense. But he also gained a lot of attention with his folksy quotes and quips. Some of my favorites:

“Three things can happen when you throw the football, and two of ’em are bad.” ~on his unwillingness to install a sophisticated passing game at UT

“You dance with who brung ya.” ~on his refusal to give up on the Wishbone after a couple of tough losses in 1965

“Only angry people win football games.” ~on recruiting

“No, he’s not very fast, but maybe Elizabeth Taylor can’t sing.” ~while defending a backup running back against a reporter’s criticism

Click here for a link to a whole bunch of other Darrell Royal quotes. Click here for the Sports Illustrated article on Royal’s life before, during, and after UT. In honor of the coach, order something off the menu today that sounds like “triple option.”

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You might also be interested to know that the Houston Astros are going with a new logo and uniform design to mark their move to the American League. The new designs borrow quite liberally from the old historic ones — maybe only a die-hard fan could pick out the differences. But I like it. The orange star and the capitol “H” has always been cool. Someday, maybe during Spring Training in March, I’ll rant and rave about Houston moving to the AL West. It’s a travesty. It’s very nearly the abomination that leads to desolation. In the meantime, click here to watch a pretty cool video that highlights the Astros’ uni look from the old Colt .45 days of Larry Dierker, through the rainbow era of Ryan and Cruz, and the blue pinstripes of Bagwell and Biggio, to this brand new look worn by a bunch of players you and I have never heard of.

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Carrie-Anne and the girls and I made the short drive to Tulia Friday to eat Mexican food with our favorite Ukranian missionaries, David and Olivia and Caleb Nelson. David and Liv are on furlough from their seven year commitment in Kharkov, spending several weeks with the Martins in Lubbock where Liv is about to give birth to their second child. The little boy (Luke? Lucas? Lucious?) is due in a week and Olivia needed some chili rellenos. We had such a great visit with this wonderful family. It was such a joy to get caught up on all the Christians and all the seekers C-A and I met during our two week trip to Kharkov in 2010. Re-living Victoria’s baptism into Christ, remembering Alexander, getting caught up with Valery and Andrei; it was such a blessing. We laughed together and we prayed. We marveled at their victories and sympathized with their struggles. We giggled at the mention of fish-flavored potato chips and gagged at the memory of a tall frosty glass of Kafir. I taught Caleb how to flip Froot Loops from the handle of a teaspoon. And we vowed to play a few marathon Phase 10 games together here in Amarillo before they head to Fort Worth after the baby is born.

God is using the Nelsons in a very difficult place. He’s working through them to spread the great news of salvation in Christ Jesus. He’s empowering their whole team by his Holy Spirit to advance the eternal Kingdom. We feel so very blessed to be their friends.

God bless his Kingdom outposts in Ukraine. God bless David and Olivia Nelson and their precious children. May our Father’s will be done in their lives and in Kharkov just as it is in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

On Sao Paulo

July 30, 2012 / / 1 Comment

I’ve been meaning for a while to post a few pictures from our recent mission trip to Brazil. We actually got home on Friday the 20th, went straight to Blue Sky for lunch and then had Ruby Tequila’s for dinner (we had to replenish.) But, hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Carley and Carrie-Anne and I actually joined our Central youth group at the Itaquera church in Sao Paulo early on Thursday morning. Whitney and Valerie seemed really glad to see us after six days — as glad as they could muster at 7:00 am, I guess. Of course, they already had everything figured out: the language, the food, the church building, the games, and the schedule. So we leaned heavily on them for the first few hours.

Most of that Thursday was spent doorknocking the immediate neighborhoods surrounding the church building, inviting people to Gary’s leadership seminar and the VBS. Lots of kids. Lots of kites. Soccer (futbol!) in the streets. And poverty. Wow, the poverty. God, help me. I forget all the time that I really am in the top five percent of the wealthiest people in the world. I must disappoint him constantly. That night we all split up and went to small groups in the Itaquera members’ homes where we studied from Revelation and ate more snacks and sweets. C-A and I were blessed to spend the evening at Carmen’s home where her kind hospitality blew us out of the water. Fabio, an Adam Sandler look-alike with a personality to match, was there with his wife and children. And it was at Carmen’s house where I shared a Bible with Marcel and his sister, Marianna.

The VBS was Saturday. Carrie-Anne and I planned the entire six hours around the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with the five loaves and two fish. The theme was service to others and the fact that God uses our gifts, regardless of the size, to do great things. So we told the story in a couple of ways, weaved baskets made of yarn, went fishing behind a makeshift puppet stage, ate goldfish and Swedish Fish gummies for snacks, decorated the sidewalks around the church building with colorful chalk depictions of the day’s stories, and sang and sang and sang. We had right at 25 kids, give or take a couple here and there (there was some coming and going involved). And I believe we were all made a little more aware of the grace of our God who somehow makes our meager and shallow offerings worthy of his eternal glory.

I preached for the Itaquera congregation on Sunday. It was a halting sermon marked by fitful starts and stops while Sidney interpreted for the patient brothers and sisters in the pews. I tried to paint a portrait with my words of the mystery and majesty of the Kingdom of God as it had been represented in Sao Paulo all week. Here we were, all in one room, all around the common table, worshiping our one Father. Brown people and white people. Portuguese and English. Young and old. Rich and poor. Corinthians football fans and Santos football fans. Painting together, worshiping together, cleaning, praying, teaching children, eating, singing, shopping together. One people. A family. God’s Holy Spirit is the only one who can do this. This doesn’t happen anywhere in the world. Complete equality. Perfect love. Genuine family. People from different continents with seemingly nothing in common brought together by our God and bonded forever by the redeeming blood of the Christ. That is God’s salvation! We had experienced it all week together. So marvelous. So wonderful. So spectacular. So magnificent. Anticipated by God’s people for so long. To quote the apostle Peter, “Even angels long to look.”

It was a decent sermon. But nothing at all like the illustration that followed. All the Texans and Brazilians on the stage together, singing “Jesus Is Lord” and “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.” Whoa. Powerful. We thought we would really impress them with our singing that one verse in Portuguese. But I was almost driven to my knees in amazement and gratitude and humility when they started singing “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” to us in English. Wow. What a blessing.

The huge church potluck was a feast of food and fellowship, capped by Corbin outjumping Trey and Barrett and out-muscle-ing Blake for the Brazilian soccer jersey. The underdog won it and we were all delighted by his enthusiastic victory strut.

I didn’t learn anything on this trip that I didn’t already know in my brain. But what I actually experienced in my heart, what I felt in my soul, served as an unforgettable reminder that what I know in my brain really, really, really matters. Surrounded by my Brazilian brothers and sisters in Christ, listening to them sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” I was reminded that God’s name is praised in Portuguese every day. Every day, our God’s name is praised in Chinese and Spanish and German and English. His name is praised every day on every continent, in every city, in every corner of this world. His name is praised by people of every nation and language and tribe and tongue. You know why? Because he is Lord. He is God. Because he reigns and all the earth is filled with his glory. To belong to God is to belong to something so much bigger and everlasting than most of us can wrap our brains around. We need experiences like our trip to Brazil to remind us how large and eternal is the Kingdom of our God.

What a blessing to be his children.

Peace,

Allan

What´s Sung On The Bus…

July 14, 2012 / / 1 Comment

…stays on the bus.

Grace and peace from Sao Paulo, Brazil. No time this morning to post any pictures, although, even if I had the time, I´m not sure I would know how to do it. I´m typing on a computer in the lobbey of the Blue Tree Hotel, waiting for a few of my Central brothers and sisters to make it downstairs for breakfast before we head out for a pretty big Saturday.

Gary´s leadership seminar started off with a bang last night. Today is the main day for that. We´re expecting about a hundred folks for his lessons and Carrie-Anne and I are looking for about 50 kids to teach and entertain during a sorta-kinda VBS.

We have cleaned and spruced up much of the church building here, we´ve painted one of the classrooms, doorknocked the immediate area for our children´s programs and our worship time on Sunday, we´ve worshiped and shared together with the local Christians here in their homes, and we´ve learned the local language. OK, we´re learning the words and phrases we really, really need; trying hard not to speak Spanish; and everyone´s being really kind and gracious to us. Last night we actually went to a local English school to help people who are learning it as a second language. I´ll tell your right now, watching Larry Borger teach English to a 75-year-old Brazilian man who´s never even met an American was worth a million bucks!

We´re going to get up front tomorrow morning during our worship time together and sing Jesus Is Lord in Portuguese. We´re praying that it blesses the church family here that has been so kind and generous to us. After a few practices on the bus last night, we´re not so sure it´s going to bless anybody. Maybe we´ll just let Blake do it solo.

Graca y Pas,

Allan

Gone Pecan!

July 11, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Carrie-Anne, Carley, and I are headed to Cheddar’s this afternoon for our last American meal for ten days (I lost; I wanted Blue Sky) before settling in for an almost twelve hour flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil. We’re excited to see Whitney and Valerie and the rest of our Central church youth group. We’re ready to hear the stories and get caught up on what God is doing there with and through our great friends. And we’re very much anticipating the rest of what the Spirit of our Father has in store.

I do know that trips like this, especially all five of us together, will shape us as a family more into the image of our risen Lord. We’re going to see up close what our God is doing outside of our American Church of Christ box. We’re going to experience the Kingdom of God more fully than we ever have before. We’re going to sing and worship, study and pray, laugh and cry with brothers and sisters in Christ who don’t speak our language. And we’re going to come, as a family, to a far greater understanding of the magnificent scope of his redeeming work in this world.

We’re also going to realize that it’s possible to survive for ten days without Dr Pepper. I hope.

The blogging will be sporadic at best for the next week and a half. Pray for the hearts of the people in Brazil — those brothers and sisters we’re going to encourage and those outside the Kingdom we’re trying to reach for our Christ. And ask our God to transform our group from Central, to do more with us than we could ever begin to ask or imagine.

Peace,

Allan

Central to Sao Paulo

July 6, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Our congregation’s partnership with God and the redeeming work he’s doing in Brazil is something we at Central truly treasure as a legacy that’s been handed down to us and is worthy of our honor and respect. We’re grateful for the ones who took the Gospel to Brazil ahead of us; we’re so thankful for the formation of Great Cities Missions; we’re honored to join forces with the great Christian missionaries who have sacrificed and served in Brazil in the name and manner of our King. What a tremendous blessing!

And now we’re personally rolling up our sleeves to join that venture in the flesh.

A whole bunch of our Central teenagers and just enough adults to make it work took off this afternoon for Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil. Our two oldest daughters, Whitney and Valerie, are right in the middle of it, excited for the chance to meet our missionaries down there and to work with them in showing the more than eleven-million people in that city the love and grace of God. They’ll be painting rooms at a church, playing with kids at an orphanage, and putting on a VBS for the community. There will be worship time and service time, prayer time and door-knocking (clapping) time. They’re going to Brazil to help change things for Christ.

Carrie-Anne and I send them to Brazil hoping our Christ uses this time to change them, to shape them, to further transform them into the image of our Lord. We pray that our King uses them to his eternal glory and praise, but that he also uses this opportunity to show them what a huge eternal Kingdom we belong to. I want my girls to experience personally what God is doing in other countries, in other cultures, in other ways. I want them to know first-hand that we Christians in America are not the only ones that matter. I want them to see that God works in ways that are wholly unfamiliar to us. I want them to be convinced that God loves all mankind as much as he loves them (us). I want them to be certain that Christians in the United States don’t have the market cornered on God, that none of us has him or the way he operates figured out and neatly packaged in a convenient and comfortable pattern we can all identify and feel good about. I want them to see — to really see! — that our God is wild and he’s on the move; he’s unpredictable and unstoppable; he’s bigger and better and more wonderful than we’ve ever imagined; and he is saving his children of every tongue and nation and tribe and land without discrimination and without end.

God, please show them your glory.

Carrie-Anne and Carley and I are leaving Amarillo Wednesday to hook up with this group in Sao Paulo and, after four days, take Whitney and Valerie with us to catch the first four days of another Central group’s trip to Brasilia. And we can’t wait. What a joy, to be able to share this life-changing, spirit-transforming trip with our entire family! Thank you, Central! Thank you, Lord!

Yes, we really did just put our two oldest daughters on a plane to Brazil with Adam Gray.

And we’re so full of gratitude and peace. May our God’s will be done in Sao Paulo and in Amarillo and in the lives of his children in both places just as it is in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

Benevolence and Evangelism

May 29, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Benevolence and evangelism are not the same thing. They are very closely related; but they are not the same thing. To equate benevolence and evangelism, in word or deed, is to distort the Gospel of Christ and to do harm to the uniqueness of God’s salvation.

Look, I know church people who poo-poo (is that how you spell it?) medical mission trips and humanitarian relief efforts. “That’s not evangelism!” they shout. They say the church shouldn’t be paying for it. And I know church people who take these trips and make these efforts who counter with, “Of course, it is evangelism!” They point to the prophets and to Jesus, the greatest prophet, to validate the money they’re spending on food and surgeries for the poor.

Benevolence is not evangelism, but the two definitely go hand-in-hand. You can have benevolence without evangelism; it happens all the time. But you rarely, if ever, get evangelism without benevolence. When we equate the two, though, we wind up losing what is the single most unique thing disciples of Jesus have to offer to a lost and dying world.

Anybody can do benevolence. There are many motivations for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. You don’t have to be a Christian to do good deeds. Non-disciples do it every day. But Christians have the Gospel of Jesus Christ by which the world can be reconciled to God in a righteous relationship for eternal life. Nobody else can make that kind of offer. No one else can give that kind of invitation. Without confusing the two, Christians need to become good at both.

In his little book Generous Justice, Timothy Keller writes about the importance of benevolence and its undeniable relationship to evangelism:

“Imagine an eloquent Christian preacher who every Sunday delivers compelling sermons. But one of his female parishioners comes to learn that the minister verbally abuses and browbeats his wife daily. After she discovers this, she unsurprisingly finds his sermons completely unpersuasive. Why? His deeds contradict his words, and so his words have no power. Imagine instead a new minister whose public oratory is quite mediocre. However, as time goes on, the parishioners come to see that he is a man of sterling character, wisdom, humility, and love. Soon, because of the quality of his life, his members will find they are hanging on every word of his preaching.

When a city perceives a church as existing strictly and only for itself and its own members, the preaching of that church will not resonate with outsiders. But if neighbors see church members loving their city through astonishing, sacrificial deeds of compassion, they will be much more open to the church’s message. Deeds of mercy and justice should be done out of love, not simply as a means to the end of evangelism. And yet there is no better way for Christians to lay a foundation for evangelism than by doing justice.”

In other words, they won’t care what you know until they know that you care.

For the past two thousand years it’s been proven over and over again: Benevolence and evangelism go hand-in-hand. The Roman emperor Julian hated the Christian faith, but he had to admit that they were gaining new converts because of their tremendous generosity:

“Nothing has contributed to the progress of the superstition of the Christians as their charity to strangers… the impious Galileans provide not only for their own poor, but for ours as well.”

For disciples of Jesus, evangelism certainly starts with benevolence. But benevolence alone does not constitute evangelism. To be Christian, it must be both. Follow the cup of cold water with a drink of living water. Extend the meal with a taste of the bread of life. Tell them about the King who motivates your good deeds and invite them to join us in his eternal Kingdom. Not just benevolence. Not just evangelism. To be Christian, it must be both.

Peace,

Allan

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