Category: Resurrection (Page 10 of 12)

I Owe You a Post

April 12, 2010 / Allan / 2 Comments

It’s been a full eleven days since my last post. Sorry. Thank you. Let’s get caught up.

(As always, click on the images to get the full size)

We had a fantastic couple of days at LTC over the April 2-3 weekend. Lots of gold, silver, and bronze brought back to Legacy from the DFW Hyatt. My favorite part of Leadership Training for Christ is going to as many of the events as possible and cheering on all our kids. Encouraging them. Telling them what a great job they did. Recognizing in them the great gifts they have from God and seeing in them all the wonderful ways our Father will use them to his eternal glory. I love laughing with them and patting them on the back and hugging them after a job well done. Our teachers and volunteers do a great job with LTC here at Legacy. And the kids always respond with award-winning performances.

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Our four-day Resurrection Renewal was a God-glorifying, Church-edifying, Gospel-verifying event that started Easter Sunday morning with 1,200 men, women, and children lifting our hearts and voices to God in praise and thanksgiving for the empty tomb. Four days of participating in the Resurrection accounts from Holy Scripture. Four days of basking in the power of the Resurrection and gaining new strength in our Resurrection hope.

Two brand new souls experienced their own resurrections Wednesday evening as they were buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of eternal life. Five of our brothers and sisters publicly confessed their sins and asked for the prayers of their church family as they declared their own new beginnings.

I’m so proud of my Legacy family. We baked cookies and served refreshments. We greeted visitors and held doors. We organized and taught fun interactive children’s classes. We invited our friends. We wore empty tomb T-shirts and passed out flyers. We were/are the kind of church family — the kind of Resurrection Community — to which anyone would want to belong.

And it’s not over.

I’m so encouraged by the conversations I’m overhearing in the hallways during and following our Resurrection Renewal. We’re thinking and talking about the right things. Our attention at Legacy is shifting from an inward to an outward focus, from one of being served to one of serving others. This is just the start. We’re going to keep inviting our friends to Legacy. We’re going to keep talking about the Resurrection. We’re going to keep paying more attention to the lost than to the saved. And we’re going to remember that the Resurrection is not simply something we sing about or teach. It’s not something we merely believe. The Resurrection is who we are.

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By the way, many of you have been asking about the three-minute video we showed at the end of the sermon Easter Sunday morning. The audio was from a sermon preached by S. M. Lockridge called “The Seven-Way King.” The video images were produced and edited by Albert Martin. Jeff Walling has used the video on several ocassions at WinterFest and the Tulsa Workshop. You can check out the video again by clicking here.

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For the second time in three years, Whitney wound up winning the annual Stanglin Bracket Racket. She correctly picked Duke to win it all and edged me out by a total of six points in our family college basketball pool.

I kept hoping and waiting for the Hoosiers miracle. I kept wishing for Shooter to show up and coach the Butler Bulldogs into a picket fence play with Jimmy Chitwood / Gordon Hayward hitting the game-winner at the buzzer. Only in the movies, I guess.

Whitney also, last January, correctly predicted the winner and the final score of the Super Bowl. Seriously! She not only chose the double-digit underdog Saints to beat the Colts, she picked the exact final score! We’re taking her to Vegas tomorrow. Or maybe to the QT to at least buy a couple of lottery tickets.

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We got to see lots of old friends this past Saturday night at the annual Oklahoma Christian University Alumni and Fundraising dinner here at Legacy. It was the biggest North Texas dinner to date. Tons of money raised and pledged for the new Bobby Murcer Athletics center and for scholarships to deserving DFW kids. The highlight for me was catching up with my old Delta buddies and reliving our quests for All-Sports trophies and Spring Sing laughs. What OC event would be complete without a Delta Alumni photo?

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Whitney and Valerie were in Glenrose for a youth retreat. Carrie-Anne stayed in bed. So Carley accompanied me early, early, early Sunday morning to the Red Lot on the northeast side of Texas Stadium to witness in person the implosion of that iconic landmark. We woke up at 4:00am, got there at 5:15, (we handed the parking lot attendant $25, he handed us four boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese) and worked our way to the front of the barricades to hear — and feel — the concussions of the dynamite and suck the concrete and steel dust into our lungs.

I still can’t really imagine that Texas Stadium doesn’t exist anymore. My aunt LouAnn took me to my first ever Cowboys game in that building when I was twelve. I saw Drew Pearson’s consecutive-games-with-a-catch streak end in a close win over the Patriots there with Paul Barron. I wore my blue Roger Staubach jersey. Paul politely asked me to stop yelling so much through my Cowboys popcorn container which doubled as an effective megaphone. I think the people in front of us were giving us looks. When I was 15, Mike Cunningham and I got thrown out of an SMU-Texas Tech game there for dropping ice cubes off the second deck. When I was 16, Todd Johnson and I froze to death there in a miserable January Cowboys playoff loss to the Rams. I remember a two-touchdown fourth quarter performance by Chuck McSwain there in a pre-season win over the Dolphins. I remember a wild Sunday night shootout with the Raiders with five other high school friends. We jeered Marc Wilson and I ate too many bugles. And I was in the stands when a rookie Troy Aikman outpassed Dan Marino in a close loss in ’89.

I was also blessed to roam the sidelines, pressboxes, and underground tunnels at Texas Stadium for four seasons as a radio reporter for KRLD and AM 990. I ate my meals across the hall from the locker room. I ticked off Bill Parcells and made Terrence Newman laugh. I squeezed through the crowds to interview quarterbacks and linebackers and enjoyed leisurely conversations with offensive linemen and kickers. I rode elevators with movie stars and singers. I met Tex Schramm there. I shared work space with the giants in the sports media industry, some of them my heroes of the past and present. I was there when a Thanksgiving Day halftime performer caught on fire. And I was part of the standing ovation when Emmitt Smith passed Walter Payton.

Even after watching it completely collapse into a pile of debris yesterday, I still can’t really imagine that Texas Stadium is gone. I saw Tom Landry coach there. I saw Staubach throw and Tony run. I can still see the end zone scoreboard flash “Martinized!” after a huge Harvey Martin sack. I can still hear Tanya Tucker’s “When I Die” after every Cowboys touchdown. And I can still hear Tommy Loy’s trumpet playing the national anthem.

Thank you, Carley, for going with me and for screaming, “That was awesome!” at the top of your lungs when Texas Stadium was demolished. Forgive your dad for not feeling the same way.

Peace,

Allan

Do You See It?

April 1, 2010 / Allan / 3 Comments

“God gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.” ~Romans 4:17

Our Father doesn’t see Sarah’s barren womb; he sees the birth of a great nation. God doesn’t see a drowning prophet; he sees 120,000 Ninevites calling on his name. He doesn’t see a rejected Samaritan woman on her sixth husband; he see a powerful evangelist who converts an entire village. Our God doesn’t see a dark grave in a garden outside the streets of Jerusalem; he sees the light of eternal life walking out of that tomb to eternally defeat the powers of sin and death.

“God gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.”

I see our worship center at Legacy this Sunday with more than 1,600 people in it. Maybe 1,700. It depends. I see Doug Crowell and Steve Fleming scrambling to grab chairs and line the aisles as people just keep coming in. I see people who haven’t been to Legacy in months singing and worshiping God with tears in their eyes. I see visitors, our friends and neighbors, who don’t know our Risen Lord being confronted with the truth of the Gospel of salvation and being moved by our God to respond in faith. I see wet people climbing out of a baptistry, saved by the blood of the Lamb. I see the North Richland Hills fire marshal writing us warning citations for violating occupancy codes. I see our God exceeding our wildest expectations for Easter Sunday and our Resurrection Renewal.

Do you see it?

I know you’re praying about it. But, do you see it?

Invite those people you haven’t seen here in a while. Reach out to that man across the street. Hand a flyer to your dry cleaning guy or the lady who cuts your hair. And this weekend, let us call on our God who gives life to the dead to “call things that are not as though they were.”

I can’t wait to meet your friends!

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One of our teens at Legacy is doing some kind of a school project that involved me giving her my list of the top ten most important books of all time. It was fun. I thought I’d share. These are the books that have had a dramatic impact on my life and have served to shape my mindset and worldview. In no particular order:

The Bible (OK, the first one’s in a particular order…)
The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
The Reason for God by Timothy Keller
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

Looking back at this list now, I wish I had put H. G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights in there. I guess I’d take out Grapes of Wrath or the Decline and Fall.

Peace,

Allan

Eternal Perspective

March 30, 2010 / Allan / 0 Comments

We live differently when we live in the Risen Lord of Heaven and Earth. We act differently. We speak differently. And it’s obvious to those around us. Things of this world don’t matter as much. The fact that Jesus is alive today guarantees that we will defeat death, too. And it changes everything. Everything.

“The Resurrection addresses those who insist on protection and security of the individual, institutions, and country. Such persons set up mechanisms of defense along economic, racial, and national lines.

In sharp contrast, the life of the Spirit, with its hope in the Resurrection, does not, indeed cannot dwell on preservation of the flesh — personhood, institutions, nations. Rather the corporate life of the Christian becomes one of risk. A Christian hospital can accept more welfare patients than economically advisable because it knows God’s love for the poor does not depend on its continued existence. Christians can call for total disarmament in the midst of a cold war because they know the future of the world does not depend on the survival of their nation. A Christian can risk his or her life because a Christian knows this life is not the end.” ~Graydon Snyder, 1992

A Christian church can take bolder risks in evangelizing its neighborhoods, bolder risks in giving to children’s homes and homeless shelters, bolder risks in denying self and sacrificing self knowing that the salvation of the world and the salvation of my soul is in the powerful and loving arms of the God who promises and delivers a Resurrection.

The Resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of every sermon preached in the New Testament. The reality of the Resurrection is the cornerstone and proof of the divine goodness of the Kingdom of God. The Apostles preached the Resurrection boldly and joyfully even at the cost of their very lives. The Resurrection of Jesus is so strong. It’s so powerful. It’s our hope. It’s our trumpet call. It’s the compelling force behind our Christian lives and the imperative push driving our Christian mission.

The Resurrection of Jesus is a big deal in the Bible. And it’s a big deal today.

If we embrace the Resurrection, if we claim the power of the Resurrection as our own, it will radically impact the way we live. When we understand that the glory of the Resurrection and eternal life with the Father is what awaits us after death, then we have no problem risking our lives or our well-being for the Gospel. We don’t think twice about our feelings or our fate, our reputation or status or power or popularity, when we invite people to church or talk to them about our Lord.

May our God overwhelm you today with the peace and grace that comes from our Risen Lord. And may he grant you the blessings of an eternal perspective grounded in the Resurrection.

Peace,

Allan

By All Possible Means

March 17, 2010 / Allan / 5 Comments

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” ~1 Corinthians 9:22

There are stumbling blocks in the Gospel message. Big-time stumbling blocks. The cross of Christ is a huge one. The call to sacrifice and service messes people up. The Resurrection can get in the way. The requirement to surrender is a problem. The directive to die is another one. The Lordship of Jesus can be a real issue.

Those are all certainly necessary components to the Good News. But if we’re not consistently preaching and teaching and living those things, then it’s not Christianity. It’s another religion, entirely.

Our mission as God’s Church is to remove each and every unnecessary obstacle, to strip away the things that would prevent an unbelieving world from accepting the grace and forgiveness of Christ. That doesn’t mean running away from our traditions or carelessly discarding our practices. It doesn’t mean we treat our heritage flippantly.

It does mean we are constantly evaluating the things we do and the reasons we do them. It means we are always thinking and reflecting. And we measure our message against the will of our God and the mind of our Christ: not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

It means that when we consider a change, we don’t ask, “How will this affect me?” or “What if this upsets one of our members?” We ask, “How will this reach someone on the outside?” And if it might, we take the risk and we do it. Boldly.

We need to be less concerned with our own congregations and church structure and organization and worship practices and much more concerned with understanding our culture, getting inside the heads of the people around us and determining what makes them tick. We should be eaten up with trying to figure out their access points to the Gospel.

We should never ask, “How many Church of Christ people live within ten miles of our building and how do we get them here?” We should ask, “How many lost people live within ten miles of our building? And how do we win them for Christ?”

Yes, we need to be faithful to our past. But we also need to be faithful to our future. That’s a God-ordained responsibility, too.

Paul says “by all possible means.”

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More empty tomb “tags” from around our community:

How about that “tag” on the grave marker there? Paul Brightwell’s dad died almost a year ago. He sent me that picture last night with these words: “I laughed; then I cried, thinking, someday, because of the empty tomb, we will see each other again; and then I rejoiced.”

That’s what Resurrection Conversations are all about. That’s what the power of the Resurrection and the hope of the Resurrection is all about.

Keep applying those decals. Keep dropping those cards. And when people ask, tell them that the tomb is empty. And tell them that means death has nothing on you. And neither does sin.

Peace,

Allan

We Put Up With Anything…

March 16, 2010 / Allan / 1 Comment

“We put up with anything rather than hinder the Gospel of Christ.” ~1 Corinthians 9:12

Most of the rules and regulations we devise to keep our “decency and order” intact in the church are motivated, I believe, by our deep desire to keep from offending our brothers and sisters. And that’s not an awful motivation. It’s noble, I think, to not want to do anything that would hurt a fellow Christian. It’s very Christ-like, actually.

The problem comes when those brothers and sisters insist on rules and regulations — and even more rules and regulations — so they’re not offended. When believers impose their own comfort zones and cultural or generational preferences on fellow Christians so as not to be offended, it’s just flat-out wrong. They use the “weak” brother position as a weapon of power. They use “weak” as a means to control. And it’s ungodly.

Paul tells us to be careful that the exercise of the great freedom we have in Christ does not become a stumbling block to the weak (1 Cor. 8:9). In that same context — same paragraph — Paul defines the “weak” as a brand new Christian who was just worshiping idols in the pagan temples a few days earlier. These “weak” Christians are still wet behind the ears, figuratively, of course. Still dripping from their very recent baptisms (8:7). And then he goes on to explain that causing a “weak” brother or sister to stumble means to cause them to participate in activities that violate their own consciences (8:10-11).

Generally speaking, the complainers among us are never in a million years going to adopt the practice(s) against which they are railing. Generally speaking, those who gripe are never going to defile their conscience by participating in the debated activity. Generally speaking, these brothers and sisters we’re trying so hard not to offend are not brand new Christians, either. They should know better.

“Why should my freedom be judged by another’s conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?” ~1 Corinthians 10:29-30

Paul says we should not cause anyone to stumble, not “grumble.”

If you see a fellow Christian drinking a beer or worshiping God with a piano or sporting a nose ring or vacationing in Vegas or taking communion on Saturday night, leave it alone. Even if you’re really offended. Leave it alone. The only complaint you have is if by seeing these offending practices you begin participating in them yourself and violate your conscience. Let me know when that happens.

“I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” ~1 Corinthians 9:19

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” ~1 Corinthians 9:22

“Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” ~1 Corinthians 10:24

“I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.” ~1 Corinthians 10:33

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Corey and Emily Mullins, Legacy’s missionaries to Australia, are now proud parents of a brand new baby boy. Enoch Elian was born yesterday at 6-pounds-2.5-ounces and 18.5-inches long. Congratulations! You can read all about it and see all the pictures by clicking here to the Mullins’ blog. I got an email last night from Mark Hooper that simply said, “The Mullins’ baby was born naked. Please pray for him.”

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More than 900 empty tomb T-shirts arrived here this morning. Many wonderful volunteers are tirelessly sorting and packaging the shirts for pick-up on Sunday. We also received 300 more empty tomb decals today to meet the still-steady demand. And we still have nearly 3,000 of the empty tomb cards ready to go.

More importantly, the stories keep coming in, too.

The Legacy Church of Christ is engaging our community with the Gospel. Resurrection Conversations are happening out there. Mike Trader with his IT guy at work who saw the empty tomb on Mike’s phone. Keith Alexander and a group of 30 by-standers at a Goodwill store who were intrigued by the “saw blade” design and the “piece of toast.” Richard Ashlock at work. My family at Rosa’s. All the Legacy school kids having Resurrection Conversations in class, during lunch, and in the halls.

We’re hoping that saturating our community with the empty tomb images, and the resultant conversations, will get people into our building during the Resurrection Renewal here April 4-7. A wonderful side benefit for us is that our mindset is being directed to people and things outside our building, not inside. We’re looking out now, not in. And that’s critical for anyone who calls himself a disciple of Christ.

Peace,

Allan

Resurrection Renewal

March 1, 2010 / Allan / 5 Comments

This is not a lock-jawed Pacman chasing a ghost without a face. And it’s not what happens when you open up your Big Mac container and the meat has slid clean off the bun. This is a symbol of the Resurrection. This is the empty tomb of Jesus. This represents the power of the Resurrection. This symbol stands for the hope we have in the Resurrection. And we’re going to use this image to bring people to our Christ.

Our hope is to outfit the entire Legacy congregation — one thousand men, women, and children — in empty tomb T-shirts. Yesterday we took orders for 659 shirts. In less than an hour. We also saw over two-thousand empty tomb decals fly out the doors. Most of them went on our cars and trucks and the backs of our cell phones.

The goal is to completely saturate our community with this symbol. We want people to see this Resurrection image everywhere. And then, after a few days, when people see the symbol on our shirts and our cars and our phones, they’ll initiate the conversation.

“Hey, what is that on your shirt? I’ve seen that around town.”

“I’ve seen that logo on a bunch of cars lately. And you’ve got it on your phone. What is that?”

And then we begin our Resurrection Conversations. We tell them that the tomb is empty. We tell them that our King is alive today and reigning at the right hand of our Father in heaven. And we tell them that because Jesus lives, death has nothing on us. And neither does sin. And then we invite them to Legacy on Easter Sunday for the start of our four-day Resurrection Renewal. Five sessions of Resurrection singing and reading and praying and preaching. Resurrection Power. Resurrection Hope. Resurrection Proof. Resurrection Mystery. Resurrection Community. Very evangelistic. Very visitor-friendly. And if we do it right, if every one of us gets involved in getting this symbol out there in our town, the people will start the discussions for us.

That’s the plan we unvieled yesterday. And I completely underestimated the response.

It was chaotic. It was crazy. It was hectic. It was loud. And it was wonderful and inspiring. Everyone bought in. All three exits out of our parking lots were staffed with teens putting empty tomb stickers on the backs of cars as they were leaving. Two dozen volunteers took T-shirt orders and applied decals to the phones. Before I even made it to lunch yesterday I had two text messages from two different people telling me about Resurrection Conversations they’d already had at restaurants. All day today I’ve been receiving similar messages. Chandler and Philip and Conner. All three of my own daughters. The phones have been ringing at the church offices all day today with people wanting more shirts and more stickers. The symbol is showing up on our members’ Facebook pages. Our people are tagging their email signature lines with the image. Resurrection Conversations are happening all over NorthEast Tarrant County.

And our God gets all the glory.

The Resurrection of our Savior is a big deal. And we’re giving it big deal treatment this Spring at Legacy. Like the very first believers two-thousand years ago, we’re using it to convince our community that Christ is Lord. This thing has the potential to change the mindset of our congregation. I pray we’re going to start focusing much more now on what’s happening outside our walls then on the inside. And, by God’s grace and the power of his Spirit, this thing could quite possibly turn our town upside down for the Kingdom.

I’ll keep posting pictures here as more of these things roll in.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Resurrection (Page 10 of 12)

I Owe You a Post

Do You See It?

Eternal Perspective

By All Possible Means

We Put Up With Anything…

Resurrection Renewal

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