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No time to write. We are putting in thirteen and fourteen hour days in Kalispell — 75-percent of it working, 25-percent of it sight-seeing, and 100-percent of it having a blast in this absolutely gorgeous region of Montana. We capped off a hard day with a scenic drive up to Sunday Falls and Blue Lake. I’ll try to write more later. Here’s the team pic from the falls.
The GCR Church in Midland, Texas is taking the next big step in our Gospel partnership with the MountainView Christian Church in Kalispell, Montana. Nineteen of us are spending this week among the mountains and valleys, lakes and pines, to work side-by-side with our brothers and sisters in reaching their community for Christ.
The partnership between our two churches was formed last October as part of GCR’s “Breakthrough” campaign. A gifted and dynamic young couple, Brad and Melissa Hooley, were planting Mountain View Christian through the Nexus church planting organization, and we were determined to do more in our support of Nexus by upping our game with these courageous church planters. We’re not content to just write checks to Nexus anymore; we are going to own our relationship with these missionaries physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, and personally.
It started with a live-streamed communion service together between our two churches via Zoom on their second Sunday. It continued in January when Brad and Melissa and their four wonderful kids spent a long weekend with us in Midland. And today, we have put our bodies where our money is by flying to Kalispell and helping their congregation achieve their plans for outreach in their city.
Today, we cleaned up around the city’s public pavilion, cleared brush and dead limbs around a nature trail, sanded and applied water seal to the wood tables and benches, and planted new flowers at the butterfly garden. This is a beautiful area regularly used by families, civic groups, schools, and nature lovers, but it’s been neglected over the years. Now, as part of their commitment to love their neighbors and to be a positive force in their community, MountainView Christian Church is taking care of it.
We also did a lot of work at their brand new preschool, which is scheduled to open September 6. When the Hooleys were doing their homework on Kalispell last year, they identified a lack of daycares and pre-schools as a point of entry into the community. Opening and operating a pre-school will meet a real, tangible need in the name and the manner of our Lord Jesus. Fifty-one percent of the profit will be put in a church benevolence fund to be used for the community while the remaining 49-percent will be placed into a church building fund. Today we shampooed the carpets, pulled weeds, and removed the rotten landscape timbers bordering the playground, replacing them with brand new six-by-sixes and re-doing the mulch.
Once the work day was done, we walked the downtown strip in Kalispell and enjoyed some wonderful ice cream at Norm’s before heading to Brad’s parents’ house for an incredible dinner with the Hooleys and a dozen other members of MountainView Christian. Check out the picture of Mark playing pickleball in Dwight and Sharon’s driveway. Those mountains and lakes provide the backdrop for almost every scene in Kalispell — just breathtaking. What a delight to break bread with our brothers and sisters in Christ in such a gorgeous setting, to pray with these church-planters, to make connections with these good people who live 1,200 miles away from West Texas, and to thank God for what he’s doing in Montana.
We’re cramming a whole lot into these six days. Brad tells me we accomplished much more today than he expected, which means his bar had been set really low or we really killed it. Either way, we exceeded their expectations, so it’s a win for everybody. I’m always a little worried on things like this that we might be more of a burden on these busy people than a blessing. We were assured by all tonight that is not the case.
Peace,
Allan
Look at all those really good people there!
We held the third GCR Christian Practices Retreat at The Way this past weekend and, as always, by God’s grace and the transforming power of his Spirit, we were changed. A little bit. Here and there. Fits and starts. Bits and pieces. That’s just how it works. But carving out 22 hours with a few brothers and sisters in Christ, away from the distractions of home and work and church, to dwell in the Word and Prayer, to share meals and holy conversation — that certainly helps ignite the process.
David Benner says your spiritual life will only be as deep as you are able to pay attention. This past weekend we paid attention to what God is doing in us and through us for the sake of others. We paid attention to how he has been at work in our lives from the moment we were born, through every up and down, right up to this very moment. We paid closer attention to the transforming words of Scripture. We paid attention to our prayers. We paid attention to one another and our Christ during our meals. And our love grew deeper. Thanks be to God, our love for Jesus and for one another grew deeper.
The next Christian Practices Retreat is September 15-16 at The Way. We’ll take the first 24 who register.
Peace,
Allan
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
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
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
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