The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Golf Course Road Church (Page 11 of 25)

Those People

July 10, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Chris and Liz Moore are two of those people. You know those people. Those people you’ve known and loved for a quarter century, who’ve been with you through some memorable highs and a couple of devastating lows, and who love you unconditionally. Those people who were part of your really tight group when the Lord was doing some eternal work on your soul. Those people who laugh with you until you’re crying and cry with you until you’re praying. Those people who stay late after your daughter’s wedding to help you clean up. Those people who know you well enough and think enough of you to lift your spirits when you need it and call you out when it’s necessary. Chris and Liz Moore are two of those people.

Chris and Liz were there when God was chasing Carrie-Anne and me in the early 2000s. When the Lord was calling us and shaping us, when God was speaking to us and revealing himself to us and opening our hearts to receive him and his holy will more fully into our lives, Chris and Liz were there. We worshiped and served with them at the Mesquite Church, we took road trips with them to Oklahoma for the Tulsa Workshop, we talked about the Church and prayed for our congregation, we camped out together in the rain, we played games until late into the night, we watched Super Bowls, argued about the Cowboys, and touted the merits of Van Halen and Ted Nugent versus Aerosmith and Boston.

Chris and Liz came out to see us in Midland this past weekend. We talked together and stayed up too late and laughed and laughed and laughed. We played miniature golf and 99. We ate wonderful food and caught each other up with all our mutual friends. We worshiped together at GCR and introduced them to all our new friends. And we were reminded that God blessed us beyond what we could have asked or imagined when he put the Moores into our lives in 1999. They are crazy fun, deeply reflective, partners in the Gospel, and our lifelong friends.

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Carrie-Anne and I are in Houston preparing for her reconstruction surgery at M.D. Anderson. We just polished off a very enjoyable dinner at the P.F. Chang’s at Galleria Park and are settling into our Hampton Inn Suite. We have an oncology appointment tomorrow with her cancer surgeon, Dr. Refinetti; three appointments on Wednesday with her plastic surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and somebody else (I can’t remember); and then her surgery is scheduled for Thursday morning.

We’re almost finished. This week marks the end of a journey that began with Carrie-Anne’s diagnosis on October 28 and has been marked for nine months by our God’s continuous grace. We are blessed by our Lord and overflowing with gratitude and praise.

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Some people have joked that C-A and I timed it perfectly to be away from Midland during VBS week at GCR.

It’s not funny. We love VBS and are absolutely sick to be missing it. We’re expecting more than 200 kids at our VBS Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening. And if we’re not all present and pouring into these children and their families, we are missing our calling. And our mission. If you don’t normally help with VBS, I suggest you show up one of these nights, if for nothing else, to meet some parents who are dropping off or picking up their children, or to give a high five to a second-grader and tell her how awesome she is. You’ll be blessed. But that kid might be impacted eternally. You know how that worked in your own life. Why not give a little back this week? Especially since C-A and I can’t be there.

Peace,

Allan

Ordained by God and His Church

June 6, 2023 / / 0 Comments

By God’s grace, we just concluded a smooth, drama-free, Holy Spirit led, and healthy shepherd selection process here at the GCR Church. We have ordained four new elders — Gary Glasscock, Richard Hatchett, Michael Humphries, and Marc McQueen — to join the current group of seven, to give us a terrific team of godly men committed to shepherding this church in the name and manner of our Lord Jesus. The process culminated Sunday in an ordination service that was, by all accounts, a beautiful and inspirational moment for our whole congregation.

We wanted the service to feel like the whole church was participating in ordaining these four new shepherds and affirming and blessing the whole group of eleven. We wanted the charges and pledges to go both ways – the elders would make promises to the church and the congregation would make promises to the elders. Several shepherds and ministers and support staff made wonderful suggestions along the way and we wound up with what I would consider a model for an ordination ceremony.

First, we gathered around our elders and and prayed thanksgiving and blessing over them. We asked all eleven of our shepherds and their wives to step out into the aisles where we could get to them, and we got out of our seats, put our hands on them and our arms around them, and talked to the Lord about them. We thanked God for the dedication of these men and their wives to seeking the Lord and following Christ and serving his Church. We expressed our love for them to the Father. And we lifted each of them up – these men, their wives, their families, their ministries, their service to our congregation – to the Lord in trust and faith.

Next, we brought all eleven couples to the stage and four of our young children from the congregation presented the new elders with beautiful shepherds’ staffs as symbols of godly leadership. We want these staffs to serve as reminders that they are called to lead this church with the same priorities our God lays out in Ezekiel 34: lead us to good pastures, where there is peace and rest; keep the big sheep from running over the little sheep; keep all of us from butting heads with each other; search for the lost and bring back the strays; bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.

 

 

 

 

And then we charged our elders with the specifics. I started the charge, but we had four other members of the church stand up in the middle of the congregation to also address the shepherds with our expectations. It went like this:

Allan: On behalf of the church family here at Golf Course Road, in the presence of our God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, believing that we have not acted in haste but have prayerfully depended on our God, we charge you men to be faithful shepherds of our flock.

Then Juan Alcaraz and his family stood up from their seats on the left side of the worship center: Believing that the Spirit of God has called you to this ministry and that you are a gift of his grace to our congregation, we charge you to accept this calling with humility and compassion. We charge you to devote yourselves to prayer, to commit yourselves to the ministry of God’s Word, and to consecrate yourselves to the earnest shepherding of our church.

Elders: By God’s grace, we will.

Then our whole youth group stood up on the right side of the church as Mallory West, one of our high school freshmen, read the next lines: As you shepherd us, will you submit to the Lordship of Jesus and to his example by taking the very nature of a servant and considering the needs of others more important than your own?

Elders: By God’s grace, we will submit to the Lordship of Christ, to his church here at GCR, and to one another. We will sacrificially serve the church with humility and compassion in the name and manner of Jesus.

Then Corene Morton stood up in the middle of the church: Will you diligently seek the Lord in ways that we can follow, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ?

Elders: By God’s grace, we will train ourselves for godliness; we will pursue the way of righteousness, faithfulness, gentleness, and love.

Then Ken and Carolyn Arnold stood up from their seats: And will you guard this church as the blood-purchased possession of Christ?

Elders: By God’s grace, we will teach and admonish in humility, encourage and support in love, and faithfully lead and protect our brothers and sisters at GCR as our Lord’s most prized possession.

At this point, I asked the entire church to stand and I asked them two questions, to which they responded in unison: Do you acknowledge and publicly affirm these godly men as your shepherds and receive them as your elders as gifts of God’s Holy Spirit to this church?

Church: We acknowledge these men as elders ordained by God and we receive them as our shepherds and as gifts of God’s Holy Spirit to this church.

Allan: Will you love and pray for these men, will you work together with them in humility and unity and good cheer, will you give them all due honor and support in the leadership to which our God has called them?

Church: By God’s grace, we will obey and submit to these men, so that their work will be a joy and not a burden.

Allan: Let all in the church who agree, affirm so by saying, “Amen!”

And they did. Then Joe Coffman, one of our former long-serving elders, led us in a beautiful congregational prayer of thanksgiving and blessing over the whole thing.

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t just four guys on the stage and a prayer. It was our whole church, from the youngest among us to the oldest, in the aisles, on the stage, holding microphones, asking and answering questions, making eye contact, making promises, giving and receiving hugs, saying prayers and being prayed over.

We do not “install” elders; that’s what you do with dishwashers. We ordain them. We affirm them. We charge them and bless them and use holy words to lift them up to the Father. It’s relational. It’s between a church and its spiritual leaders in the presence of God. It’s not an “installation.” It’s a sacred moment in the ongoing story of what the Lord is doing in and through his people in this place. Treating it as such will inspire your church. And it’ll bless your shepherds. And it will honor our God who brings us together in Christ Jesus.

Peace,

Allan

There’s No Crying in Baseball

May 30, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Our entire GCR Church family is taking in the RockHounds baseball game together next Wednesday June 7. It’s a church picnic situation with burgers and dogs, chips and popcorn, and all the sodas we can eat and drink. Cory and our worship team will sing the national anthem, one of our shepherds, Brandon Brunson, will throw out the first pitch, and a bunch of our younger people will serve as contestants for the promotional games they stage in between innings.

To promote the event, our ministry team put on our own dizzy bat race at the RockHounds stadium last week and Dan turned it into a video we showed to our congregation on Sunday.

That’s one of our youth ministry interns, Nate, inside the Rocky RockHound mascot costume; he’s still defumigating his hair. Kudos to Brenda for her superb acting skills while being shoved up against the infield netting. And, for the record, Kristin is probably the first person to ever spit on a GCR church video.

Peace,

Allan

Admiring Val

May 29, 2023 / / 0 Comments

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

Oh What a Foretaste of Glory Divine!

May 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

No one knows the time or the day. It happens in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye. One minute you’re laboring over the final pages of Sunday’s sermon and the next minute your head is spinning with the completely unexpected announcement that Blue Bell Ice Cream and Dr Pepper have teamed up to bring us Blue Bell Dr Pepper Float.

Yes. Let those words wash over you and transform everything you thought you knew about God’s plans for our world.

Blue Bell and Dr Pepper together in the same gold-rimmed carton. How can this be? Yet, at the same time, what took them so long?

This is an act of sacred beauty. A foretaste of the holy coming together of heaven and earth. We are a blessed people and highly favored by God. He has seen fit to combine the best ice-cream in the country with the 23 flavors of the first and best soft drink in the country, and it could only happen in our great Republic.

Today is my monthly lunch and prayer time with my pastor friends at First Baptist, First Pres, and First Methodist. I found it very difficult to talk about school bond elections, Bible translations, and church polity while my brain was locked in on Blue Bell Dr Pepper float. Will we have it here in Midland? Am I driving to Lubbock tonight?

As soon as lunch was over, I rushed over to HEB and there it was – a dozen half-gallons gleaming from the center of the frozen display case. And two of ’em were mine!

I walked into the church offices and excitedly declared an ice-cream party in the break room. Styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons, an ice scoop instead of an ice-cream scoop – it was okay, we made it work. Those of us who love Dr Pepper were blown away. Yes, it does taste exactly like a Dr Pepper float. Yes, it is  authentic. Yes, they did it right. Those among us who do not love Dr Pepper were less impressed. Philistines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cory had the beautiful idea of getting some ice cold DP out of the break room fridge and pouring it over the Dr Pepper float ice-cream to make a Dr Pepper Float Float. And, yes, we did. Certainly.

I am thankful to live in a such a place as Texas. I am mindful of those less fortunate who live in places like Illinois or Connecticut or Oklahoma. Blue Bell Dr Pepper Float is a divine glimpse of the promised feast. We’re a little closer to heaven, friends, than we were this time yesterday.

Peace,

Allan

Christian Accountability

May 15, 2023 / / 0 Comments

We’ve presented the names of four new elders as selected by our congregation – Gary Glasscock, Richard Hatchett, Michael Humphries, and Marc McQueen – to our church family here at GCR and we’ve entered into a time we’re calling Biblical Accountability. Or Christian Accountability. It’s not “Scriptural Objections.” We’re not using that old traditional Church of Christ language. That term never allowed for an objection to a man who was stubborn, closed-minded, or mean-spirited because it’s hard to come up with book-chapter-verse on those things – if you can’t cite the passage, you can’t make an objection. And the word “objection” is just a negative word. It formed us as a people in negative ways. It caused us to look first and foremost for reasons to disqualify a servant-leader who had been selected by the congregation, instead of reasons to support him.

We like Biblical Accountability. Or Christian Accountability. It’s not just these four men who are accountable to Scripture and to our calling as followers of Jesus, it’s the entire church body. We are all accountable in this together.

Now is the time to encourage and support these men and their families, to lift them up to our Father in prayer, and to thank them for answering the church’s call to serve. Now is the time to honor these new elders and to show them respect. Now is the time to determine to “make their work a joy, not a burden.”

If for any reason you cannot support one of these men or submit to his spiritual leadership, now is the time to go to that brother in Christ and make things right. Because this is what Christians do. In a posture of humility and grace, in a spirit of fellowship and love, knowing that forgiveness is Christ’s great work and unity is our Lord’s fervent prayer, reach out to that brother in a faithful effort to exercise the ministry of reconciliation we have all been given by God’s Spirit. Because these are our values, our beliefs; because this is what the Bible teaches.

If whatever is between you cannot be resolved, then you are encouraged to contact the current shepherds to seek resolution according to Gospel principles and biblical teaching.

I believe these four men are gifts to our church by God’s Holy Spirit. I believe this period of Biblical Accountability is a good shift for us and a healthier way to confirm the Spirit’s anointing within our congregation. And I praise God for this exciting and hopeful season at GCR.

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We are also thrilled to announce that we have brought on a second youth minister here at GCR! Jadyn Martinez comes to us from Lubbock Christian University and will be working side-by-side with J.E. Bundy to minister to and with our church’s teenagers and their families. Oh, my word, Jadyn brings a ton of energy to this gig. She’s a fireball of enthusiasm and excitement for life and she has a heart called by the Lord to minister to these young people. She’s the daughter and granddaughter of a great family of CofC ministers, she’s living a wonderful story of love and grace, and she’s just going to be terrific! Her husband, Isaiah, is a tremendous source of encouragement and support for Jadyn. And their nearly-two-year-old daughter, Shiloh, is adorable and will soon become our church staff mascot. It’ll take like twelve minutes.

Jadyn will be moving to Midland, hopefully, in the next three weeks and should start full-time with us by June 5. You’ll know when she gets here. She’s fun and loud and in your face. We can’t wait!

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There’s nothing better in all of sports than a Game Seven in the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. Nothing provides more continuous edge-of-your-seat intensity and tension. Nothing is faster, harder-hitting, or more desperate. Nothing more unpredictable. Every shot, every shift, every penalty, every odd-man rush and near-side faceoff. Heart-stoppingly glorious. Soul-crushingly disappointing. There’s nothing like it.

My faith is in Pete DeBoer tonight as the better coach. So far in these playoffs, the Stars are 4-0 following a loss with a goal differential of +10. DeBoer has never lost a Game Seven (6-0). He flat out knows how to coach.

Go Stars.

Allan

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