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Category: Lord’s Supper (Page 13 of 15)

Glory In The Church

December 29, 2010 / / 3 Comments

“To him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen!” ~Ephesians 3:21

We spent all of 2010 here at Legacy camped out in God’s self-description in Exodus 34:5-7. Moses tells God, “I want to see your face. Show me your glory.” And God responds by telling Moses, “I’ll show you my glory. I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you.” And God reveals himself to his servant. He declares his name, his eternal qualities, his divine characteristics to Moses. We learn in Exodus 34 that God is compassionate. Gracious. Patient. Loving. Faithful. Forgiving. Holy.

Scripture tells us we are to reflect that same glory of God. As we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ, we are to increasingly reflect that glory of God, with the same glory that comes from the Father. We are to be compassionate. Gracious. Patient. Loving. Faithful. Forgiving. Holy.

On the last Sunday of 2010, I wanted us to consider what it means, what it looks like, to reflect the glory of God in his Church. What does it mean for God’s Church, this family at Legacy, to embody these eternal qualities of our Father? In preparation for this final Sunday, I asked our congregation about four weeks ago to send me their photos. I wanted them to send me pictures of God’s glory. How do you see the compassion of God? How is his faithfulness communicated to you? Where do you experience God’s great love?

I received 146 pictures from more than 70 of our members. Pictures of sunsets and babies, mountains and baptisms, grandmas and Give Away Day. And we shared the pictures with one another during communion.

 

Koinonia. Communion. Sharing. Partnership. Community.

What better place than at our Lord’s Table to share these testimonies to our God’s great grace and love? As we ate the bread and drank the cup, we rejoiced together in God’s great salvation as manifest in pictures of God using Legacy to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and lift up the fallen. Pictures of the empty tomb followed pictures of our quilting ladies. Pictures of Jesus as the Great Shepherd were mixed in with pictures of our families reading the Bible together. Images of missionaries and sunflowers, vast oceans and VBS chaos, congregations in Vietnam and Ukraine and our own small groups singing at local nursing homes. Pictures of Al & Marie Grant, whose 70-year marriage reflects the uncompromising love God has for his people. A picture of Quincy, who is a constant witness to the glory of our God. A picture of DeAnn’s new back door, installed by her brothers and sisters at Legacy. DeAnn sent the photo to me, explaining that it daily reminds her of “the love that has been shown to me and my girls over the last few months. Not only have they repaired our home, but in doing so have begun to repair our hearts. That is God’s glory! I am blessed!”

                                  

Sunday at Legacy we combined the table imperatives of “recognize the body” and “do this in remembrance of me” in a powerful way. We saw Christ in each other on Sunday. We gave honor to what God is doing for and among his people. We explored what it means to be a “body.” And we recognized our God in Christ as the gracious force behind those faithful blessings.

Our table time should be the most important time of our Sunday gatherings. It should get the most attention. It should serve as the climax of our assemblies.

Sunday at Legacy, it was.

Peace,

Allan

God's Saints

August 31, 2010 / / 0 Comments

God’s SaintsI am truly blessed by the fellowship meals we share together on the Fifth Sunday evenings here at Legacy. I very much enjoy looking at the faces of my brothers and sisters instead of the backs of their heads. I believe I can see the risen Lord in those faces, don’t you?

I think around those tables in the gym is where we uniquely experience the mercy and grace of God. We share that mercy and grace and acceptance and love in getting somebody a refill on their iced tea, in helping someone clean up a spill, even in saving seats for somebody we particularly want to sit by. We experience mercy and grace and acceptance when we eat together.

This past Sunday night I asked our church family to look closely at the people around all those tables.

“Look at them.” (audible groans)

“These are your brothers and sisters.” (playful rolling of eyes)

“This is your family.” (louder groans)

Look at them. You’re responsible for them. Now take care of them. Love them. Accept them. Nurture them. Encourage them. Be careful with them. Get involved with them. Minister to them. Know them. Tolerate them. Share with them. Laugh and cry with them. Sacrifice for them.

Love them.

“God gave you these people,” I said. “Now love them.”

We don’t choose the saints. God chooses the saints. God gathers together these men and women. He chooses and blesses and predestines and makes known and lavishes and loves and gathers these people we sit with at church. I like the way Eugene Peterson puts it in his latest book — I’m in the middle of it right now — Practice Resurrection:

These people embarrass us with their haphazardness, exhilarate us with their joy, offend us by their inconsistent lives, comfort us with their compassion, bully and criticize us, encourage and bring out the best in us, bore us with their blandness, stimulate us with their enthusiasm.

But we don’t choose them. God chooses them. We are a family with the people God chooses. His saints.

So, this coming Sunday, look around. These are your people. God gave them to you.

Now love them!

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Rangers magic number is 24!A two-hit shutout last night by Ceej and Feliz. Depending on how Lee does tonight, I’m of the mind now that Wilson might ought to be the starter in Game One against the Twins or the Yankees or the Rays in October. He’s the rock. He’s the stabilizer. He’s the constant. Wow. Cruz picked up right where he left off, too. The magic number is 24…

Peace,

Allan

The Real Thing

May 18, 2010 / / 1 Comment

“I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?” ~2 Corinthians 11:28-29

The Real ThingScripture puts before us, unashamedly and unapologetically, the great challenge of living together in community. The Gospel message of salvation from Christ Jesus is a message that breaks down all the barriers between God and man and between man and man. It’s a holy reconciliation that draws all people to God and to one another. It’s a common experience in a common Savior around a common table that unites us to God and to one another.

And we live it together in relationships. We live into it together in community.

Paul claims to identify so closely with his brothers and sisters in Christ that he hurts with them when they hurt. It really bothers him. When a brother is led away into sin, it tears him up inside. He can’t stand it. And he’s compelled to do something about it, not because he cares about himself or the reflection it may have on him as a teacher, but because he loves these people so very much. He lives and dies daily with and for his church family. He rejoices with those who rejoice and mourns with those who mourn. He’s truly invested in these people. Paul’s committed to them so much that their individual ups and downs impact him physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

It’s real.

How bothered are you to hear that a sister in Christ has been taken to the emergency room? Bothered enough to call? Bothered enough to visit? How upset are you to learn that a brother in Christ has lost his job? Upset enough to send a card? Upset enough to send a check? How concerned are you to find out a member of your church has left the Lord and is living in rejection of God’s grace? Concerned enough to take him to lunch? Concerned enough to talk to him all night on his back porch?

These kinds of relationships with and feelings for one another are not built during the Sunday morning worship hour. Those kinds of things — the “for real” things between us — occur on Sunday nights at IHOP and in our living rooms and kitchens. It happens in the Legacy quilting room on Monday mornings and in hospital rooms on Thursday nights. Relationships are built during Tuesday Bible studies and at the movies on Friday. Christian community happens at the Senior banquet in May and the campouts and retreats in July and the football games in the fall.

It takes time. It takes energy. It takes a dedication to something bigger and more important than self. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it’s not necessarily fun. But all the time, living in deep Christian relationship with one another is the divine will of our God.

Peace,

Allan

Power In The Blood

October 5, 2009 / / 2 Comments

PowerInTheBloodThe blood of Jesus is what courses through our veins. It’s in our DNA. It’s the thing that unites us with all baptized believers who are saved by the grace of God through faith in the Son. The pouring out of his blood is what breaks down the barriers that divide us.

The moment our Christ died, the veil in the temple was ripped in two, torn in half from top to bottom. No more separation. The writer of Hebrews makes a pretty big deal out of this. The death of Jesus, his blood, opens up this new and living way by which we live an integrated life. We’re now integrated with God by total access to his throne in the Holy of Holies. And we’re integrated with one another to live in perfect Christian unity.

There’s an ancient communion prayer written by Hippolytus late in the 3rd century that speaks to the power of Christ’s blood:

“We render thanks to you, O God, through your beloved Son Jesus Christ, whom in these last times you sent to us as a Savior and Redeemer according to you will and in whom you were well pleased. And he was betrayed to voluntary suffering that he might destroy death and break the bonds of the devil and tread down hell and shine upon the righteous.”

Those are powerful words. Destroy. Break. Tread.

Those are fitting words, appropriate action verbs, worthy of what our crucified and resurrected Lord has accomplished for us by his great love and grace. Ephesians 2 tells us in no uncertain terms that when Jesus poured out his blood he “destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” and he “abolished the certificate of debt that stood against us.”

He himself is our peace — our peace with God and with one another.

There’s power in the blood. Great power. Wonder working power.

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100.7 FM, The WordThe Word FM — 100.7 on your radio dial — a local Christian talk radio station here in DFW, has designated Legacy as their Church of the Week. What it means for Legacy is a week’s worth of 60-second promotional spots that I recorded in their Irving studios a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t heard the edited versions yet, but they do focus almost exclusively on our outreach to our community. Specifically the spots mention our involvement with our local elementary schools. And I spend about 30 of those seconds talking up this Saturday’s 27th annual Legacy Give Away Day.

What it could mean for you is $250 cash. At 3:00 this afternoon Texas time, Janet Mefferd will begin her talk show and at some point during that first hour, between 3:00 and 4:00 today, she’ll ask callers to identify this week’s Church of the Week. The first caller to correctly identify the Church of the Week as “Legacy Church of Christ in North Richland Hills” wins the 250-bucks. The call-in number is 800-949-5973. Be ready for it.

And then you can take me to lunch on Friday. I’ll be listening for Janet to call your name.

Peace,

Allan

Bold Vision, Bold Men

October 1, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Thomas CampbellIn 1809, Thomas Campbell’s fiery sermons about Christian unity and his very public convictions that all Christians should return to a pure and simple form of New Testament Christianity got him censured by his presbytery and then fired by the Synod in Western Pennsylvania. A couple of years earlier, Barton Stone, a Presbyterian minister in Kentucky, dissolved his presbytery to unite with everyone who would simply be known as Christians and base their beliefs solely on the inspired Word of God.Barton Stone

Both Stone and Campbell had a bold vision. It was a mind-blowing, earth-altering vision. Christians only. Unity in Christ. For the sake of the world. Putting aside party zeal and tearing down denominational walls, these men dreamed and prayed about the one Church we read about in our Bible. The one Church Jesus prayed for the night he was betrayed. The physical and tangible unity of Christ’s Church that proves to the world that he really is the Messiah.

Bold vision.

It was risky. It was dangerous. It was career-ending. It cost them their jobs. It cost them many relationships with family and friends and professional colleagues. But they valued the Scriptural doctrine of unity more than they valued the denominational things that divided.

Bold men.Declaration and Address, September 7, 1809

They went into this thing knowing how difficult the road would be. But they believed they were acting in concert with the bold moves of Jesus’ disciples who’d gone before. They were only doing what they thought needed to be done in order to be pleasing to God. In Campbell’s Declaration and Address, long regarded as the founding document for Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement churches, he writes that they would never be dissuaded by men from their attempts at restoring the unity of the body of Christ:

“Indeed, should christians cease to contend earnestly for the sacred articles of faith and duty once delivered to the saints, on account of the opposition, and scanty success, which, in many instances, attend their faithful and honest endeavours; the divine cause of truth and righteousness might have long ago been relinquished.”

Knowing the road to Christian unity would be paved with potholes of preference and prejudice, knowing that they would face the intimidating forces of sectarianism and the walls of tradition, knowing they would be basically starting over from scratch with nothing but Holy Scripture and the grace of God, Campbell sums up their charge for unity in God’s Church by saying,

“What, shall we pray for a thing and not strive to obtain it! Sincerely and humbly adopting this model, with an entire reliance upon promised grace, we cannot, we shall not, be disappointed.”

Bold vision. Bold men.

Bold VisionDoes their story—no, our story!—have any implications for God’s children today? Does it mean anything? This is our heritage. It’s our history. These are our 200-year-old roots. This is our legacy: unity with God in Christ and unity with all those who call on the name of the Lord; profess Christ Jesus as Savior and King; are baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection; and celebrate that salvation around his table on his day.

“Not that we judge ourselves competent to effect such a thing; we utterly disclaim the thought. But we judge it our bounden duty to make the attempt, by using all due means in our power to promote it; and also, that we have sufficient reason to rest assured that our humble and well-meant endeavors, shall not be in vain in the Lord.”

Amen.

Allan

Intentionally One

September 30, 2009 / / 8 Comments

Great CommunionThe American Restoration Movement began 200 years ago with Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, a call for unity and peace among all Christian denominations based on the pictures of God’s Church we see in the New Testament scriptures and on Christ’s prayer for unity on the night he was betrayed. The founding document of our particular stream of the faith declares that the Church is “essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one.” He called on all Christians everywhere to drop their denominational tags and creeds and party affiliations and come together as one body in our Lord Jesus. The plea was for disciples of Jesus to recognize that they are “Christians only, but not the only Christians.” Campbell exhorted all believers to speak only where the Bible speaks and to exercise grace and mercy where it didn’t.

Thousands and thousands of people gave their lives to Christ. And hundreds of churches dropped their denominational names and practices in order to embrace this call to Christian unity.

These are our roots. This is our foundation. It’s so simple. And powerful. This document spells out clearly the intentions of our founding fathers.

“…to manifest the realities of Christian unity in their tempers and conduct, to consider each other as the precious saints of God, to love each other as brethren, children of the same family and father, temples of the same spirit, members of the same body, subjects of the same grace, objects of the same divine love, bought with the same price, and joint heirs of the same inheritance. Whom God hath thus joined together no man should dare to put asunder.” Great Communion

One hundred years ago, in Pittsburgh, over 25,000 members of the Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and Christian Churches came together at Forbes Field to celebrate a joint communion service in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Campbell’s Declaration and Address. This year, this Sunday October 4, bicentennial communion services are being held all over the world. Stone-Campbell Restoration churches are gathering together in Canada, Australia, China, Europe, and in dozens of places here in the United States to celebrate what Campbell called “that great ordinance of unity and love.”

Breaking BreadThe Great Communion D/FW is being held at the Compass Christian Church in Colleyville this Sunday afternoon. I have no idea how many people will be there. I don’t know if we’ll be sharing communion with a couple hundred brothers and sisters or a couple thousand. I don’t know. I don’t know how many people really know or care about our history and heritage in Churches of Christ and the strong ideals of unity and love that founded our faith movement. I’m not sure how many, if any, of us have ever read the Declaration and Address with its unyielding call to unity. I do know that this joint communion service Sunday at Compass will serve as a sort of family reunion. It’ll allow us to come together on the many, many things on which we agree, including the importance of a weekly communion celebrated on the day our Lord was raised from the dead. It helps us break down barriers and tear down walls. It allows us to live out, if even for a moment, the unity we preach and pray for. It provides a time for us to remember the great contribution of the ones who’ve gone before and to reflect on the call for Christian unity that birthed our movement. And it gives us another way to celebrate together our common salvation in our one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I hope to see you there.

 Peace,

Allan

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