The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Stanglin Family (Page 17 of 26)

THE Faith

September 4, 2012 / / 1 Comment

As the father of three teenage daughters (OK, technically Carley turns 13 next week), I have a lot to fear. I fear the boys. I fear the proms and the weddings. I fear the drama. I fear the things I don’t understand and can never relate to. And, did I mention, I fear the boys. But I also have another fear. I fear that one day one of my daughters may tell me she’s not interested in my religion.

My religion.

I’m human. Oh, my word, yes, I’m human. And as a father, my potential for failure is great. In my efforts to protect them and shape them and provide for them everything they’re going to need to fully function in this world and, at the same time, deny them the things they want that would ambush that process, I’m scared to death of being too strict. And in my sincere struggles to be open and accessible and relational, I’m scared to death I won’t have the courage or integrity to give them the proper structure and rigid discipline they need. My fear is that some day one or more of my daughters, damaged maybe by my failures as a dad, might see some connection between those failures and my religion. It would be easy to do. I’m afraid they could use that as an excuse to leave the Church. I’m not crazy, right? You’ve thought similar things before, yes?

So, I’m determined to teach my girls that my religion is not my religion; my faith is not my faith. It’s much, much bigger than that. I received it from my parents who, in turn, received it from their parents. The Christian faith in our family is deep and old. It belongs to me because I inherited it from them and didn’t throw it away. I’ve held it in trust for my kids. I’m passing it on.

I tell my daughters that rejecting the faith is not simply a matter of throwing away the tastes of their parents; it’s not just chunking my idiosyncrasies or abandoning my methods of control. Christianity is a long held belief about the nature of true reality. Our faith is a way of looking at life and living in this world. It’s been attested to by millions of very different people over many different centuries in a great variety of many different circumstances in countless different ways. It’s not just mine. The faith is universal and eternal. It’s everything.

Yes, my kids will be free to accept or reject the faith. But I’m doing everything I can to make sure they understand that what they choose to accept or reject is not simply their parents’ religion. It’s an old, old faith. One faith. Just one. The significance of the differences among the Christian denominations is made totally insignificant by the great march of time. This one great thing to be accepted or rejected is not my religion, not my family’s religion, not the U.S.A.’s religion. It is the Christian faith. It’s been passed down for over two thousand years. Each denomination has passed it down and transmitted what all Christians everywhere for all time have confessed. It’s one eternal faith.

Any faith that is Christian certainly has the proper pedigree. If it claims Jesus as the Son of God and the only way to the Father; if it claims salvation through the death, burial and resurrection of the Christ incarnate; if it claims Jesus as the exclusive Savior of the World, it goes directly back to the original apostles who saw and heard everything and to whom it was all revealed by the Holy Spirit.

We can’t say the words “my faith” apart from owning a faith that came from others. We all know that. But I’m not sure we teach it enough. This is not a private thing, or even a familial thing. It’s much more than family or denomination or nation or century or era. It is mere Christianity. It’s ancient and universal. And it’s weightier and more worthy than all the faulty expressions we’ve experienced in our churches or in our parents.

Now, I’m still scared. And I’m still very, very aware of my great potential for failure as a dad. But my kids are all going to know that Christianity is not my faith, nor my religion. It belongs to eternity.

Peace,

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

Vacation Pics

June 19, 2012 / / 2 Comments

If you’re looking for the brilliant theological insight and outstanding religious reflection normally found in this space, you’ll have to check back tomorrow. Today it’s pictures from our recently concluded and barely-recovered-from Orlando vacation. That’s all. Just pictures. Mostly of the girls, of course.

Come on, it’s not nearly as bad as subjecting you to an hour-and-a-half slide show on the wall of our living room after dinner.

Thursday was spent all day driving from Amarillo to Gulf Shores, Alabama. There’s a really nice beach in Gulf Shores and a couple of really nice shops. But the main reason anybody would visit Gulf Shores is to eat dinner at Lambert’s Cafe where the very loud and funny wait staff throw huge homemade rolls across the restaurant to guests at their tables. So, following a relaxing Friday at the beach, we ate at Lambert’s. And ate and ate and ate. It still cracks me up to watch waiters tossing rolls across the dining room. It’s so funny watching them ricochet off the hands of 80-year-old women and off the heads of six-year-old kids. I’m proud to report our table went fourteen for fourteen; no drops.

We drove all day Saturday in a hurricane to reach Orlando just as it was getting dark. Sunday was our last calm day as we worshiped with the First Christian Church in Kissimmee (at the beginning of the service they promoted the upcoming Christian Church Convention which is being held in Orlando this year and put Jerry Taylor’s picture on the screens as one of the featured speakers; at that very moment, Jerry Taylor was preaching in my place at Central!) and took in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium. After that, it was four non-stop dawn to dusk days at the three Universal theme parks:

Two days at Adventure Island which features all the Harry Potter rides and exhibits. FYI: you cannot get drunk on Butterbeer. Trust me, we tried. Two of the best rides — and two of the longest lines! — are in the Harry Potter part of the park. The kids flipped out on all the movie set recreations.

One day at Universal where The Simpsons ride is making a killing poking sarcastic fun at amusement parks and commercialization and long lines and high prices and everything that is Orlando, Florida. The best roller coaster we rode all week is at Universal. It’s called the RockIt Roller Coaster and it lets you choose from about 60 different songs in six different categories to listen to as you plunge 150 feet at an 80-degree angle and then loop and corkscrew your way around the track at 50-miles per hour. ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin'” was my song of choice. Carley preferred some cover of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild” I’d never heard before.

And one day at Universal’s Wet N Wild water park which turned out to be mostly just wet and wet after a massive thunderstorm rained out our afternoon.

We drove all the way to Little Rock on Saturday, worshipped with the West-Ark Church of Christ in Fort Smith on Sunday, dropped Valerie off at Oklahoma Christian for Camp Zenith, and then limped home Sunday night where Carley met her Missions in Amarillo buddies for the start of her week.

When I met all the Junior High girls at Matt and Sara’s house this morning, they had all dyed the ends of their hair red. I don’t have pictures of it yet. I’ve got time. There’s no way Carley will get all that washed out this week.

Peace,

Allan

Warrior Dash 2012

April 23, 2012 / / 6 Comments

My thighs are still burning today with every step, I’ve pulled something in my right shoulder blade area that I’m still feeling with every breath, and I’m still wiping mud out of the corners of my eyes and coughing up dirt balls. But Warrior Dash was an absolute blast. And we can’t wait for next year’s.

It was mainly the same crew from Legacy that ran last year’s event down in Roanoke, a couple of blocks east of the Texas Motor Speedway. Twenty of our dearest friends, ranging in age from 15 to… well… let’s say around 50… and ranging in degrees of fitness from superstar athletes like Hudson and Jordan to out-of-shape desk jockeys and preachers like me. It’s a 5K (a little over three miles), through an obstacle course, in the mud. And, yes, even though this crazy event appeals much more to people half my age and who drink much more than just Diet Dr Pepper, we always have a great day at Warrior Dash. And this year was no different.

  

Valerie had a couple of buddies her own age show up to run with her this time, although I”m not sure Samantha and Shannon really understood what they were getting into. As race officials were herding us all into the line for our 10:30 am start, Samantha got a first look at the huge video monitor showing highlights from last year’s Warrior Dash and started flipping out. We tried to assure her that, while it may look lethal, she probably wouldn’t die.

 

We donned our complimentary warrior helmets and took all the obligatory pre-dash pictures and then decided, probably a little too late, we needed to stretch. Yeah, for most of us it was way too late for that. Before we knew what was happening, we were counting down from ten and then running under a couple of fire-belching cannons on top of the starting gate. We were off!

Last year I had tried to keep up with Hudson, which lasted about half a mile. This time I was going to be in a better situation. Steve, Keith, Mike, Tracy, Kevin, and I had planned beforehand to run/jog this thing together. My only concern was besting my time from a year ago (43:42) and finishing without injury. Early on, neither of those goals appeared to be realistic. The recent rains in DFW made the course wetter and slicker and grosser than the year before. Just a little over a hundred yards in, Tracy bit it. Big time. I think he might have been wearing his yard work shoes. You know, the old tennis shoes, grass stains on the toe and the sides, missing that first crucial layer of sole? Tracy went down hard on his right side, almost taking Mike and me down with him. But, thankfully, he popped back up, only to discover he was now carrying about 40-pounds of extra weight in mud caked to his right leg and arm. We were all a little more careful after that.

About halfway through the course our party of six broke up a bit. Kevin and Mike kept running/jogging while Tracy and I found ourselves increasingly jogging/walking. At one point along the course, a huge sign meant to encourage participants screamed at us, “Are You A Warrior?!?” To which Tracy replied out loud, “Do warriors walk?” We were definitely walking in spots. But at least we were ahead of Steve and Keith. (We’d better be; Keith’s still recovering from a hip replacement surgery.)

So we crawled through the pits, scaled the cargo net walls, climbed the rope which had a couple too few knots in it, manuevered under all the barbed wire, walked/swam through the chest-high water/sludge/sewage, slid down the poles, and climbed more hills than I remember from last year. In fact, they put up a huge hill and and that massive Warrior Wall thing to climb back-to-back right before the fire jump. Now, the flames are only about knee high. But as I approached the double fire jump I was thinking, man, my legs are too tired. I’m not sure I can do this.

The final obstacle is the famous mud pit. It’s right at the finish line, right where hundreds and hundreds of spectators gather to cheer and jeer and take pictures, and right where a participant is the most tired and most unwilling to put up with any nonsense. So, of course, that’s the best place to watch.

   

Nothing like crawling through the mud and the slime, concentrating on staying low so as not to snag the seat of my britches on the barbed wire, and hearing Whitney and Carrie-Anne laughing. And Carl Ball. Thank you. The most impossible part of the whole course was getting out of that mud pit. It was so slippery and gross and I was so tired (and gross) I almost didn’t make it. I think I lost ten seconds clinging with three fingernails to a tiny root of a little dandelion on the side of that hill, praying that I wouldn’t slide backwards back into the gunk.

   

Tracy finished about ten seconds ahead of me. As usual, Hudson and Jordan had already showered and were prefectly clean and groomed, hair gel and everything, by the time I got out. Jerks. Steve and Keith were a couple of minutes back. Valerie and her crew of girls were another ten minutes or so. And then the ladies entertained us all with their fantastic finish about an hour after we began.

 

We took all the “after” pictures together, froze half to death in the barely adequate Warrior Wash, rode the shuttles back to the cars, and then gathered at Mooyah Burgers for a late lunch where we could get all our stories straight. Sandy maybe really actually broke a rib on that very first obstacle, the balance beam thing that teeters up and down about ten feet off the ground. I should hear about that before the day’s over. Everybody else though, as far as I know, is suffering mainly from scratches on our knees, sore legs, and a few stretched muscles. I would say, too, we all feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment. And we’re all already making plans to do it again next year. Carley will be old enough to participate next year. And Carrie-Anne’s already said that if Carley does it, she will, too.

 

While checking my official time in the results tent, I ran into Bradley Bledsoe, one of our good brothers here at Central. We were both very surprised to see each other there; it’s so out of context for both of us. I asked him, “Man, what are you doing here?” He answered, “The same thing you’re doing; trying to act way younger than you really are.”

Allright, who’s going to take the lead and get a Central team up and ready for Warrior Dash 2013? Adam? Olen? Borger? Who’s going to put this thing together?

The time to beat is 43:11!

Peace,

Allan

A Wholistic Approach to Sexuality

April 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

We officially and publicly ordained Tanner Albright yesterday as our new full-time youth minister here at Central. It was a great day for Tanner and his family. I am so privileged to be serving with Tanner as co-workers in our Lord, so blessed to be his partner, so it was a great day for me, too. And because of what God has done through Tanner and what he is continuing to do with and through Tanner, it was a great day for the Central church family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam and Tanner just concluded a teaching series for our Middle School and High School students and their parents that took a truly wholistic approach to sexuality. It was called “Good Sex,” a provocative title to be sure. But the classes were about so much more than just sex.

Our youth ministers and volunteers presented the ideas of purity and sex in the larger context of discipleship to Jesus. Yes, seeking to live a life in pursuit of Christ means being holy in matters of sex. But it’s not just sex; it’s everything. Holy living, following Jesus, means being righteous and pure in all we do. It was a very Sermon on the Mount approach to living in Christ. It’s not just about the sex act itself; it’s just as much about other things we might do or say that are not submissive to Jesus as our King.

And you might get that in a lot of youth programs on sexuality. The thing that made this series really different, though, is the white-hot spotlight it put on the parents. The adults were challenged every week to be pure in their own sexuality, to take captive every thought, to submit everything to the Lordship of Jesus. Even as married adults, most of us struggle to maintain this purity in the things we think about, the things we look at and watch, the relationships we maintain, or the language we use. I told the kids and their parents at the closing ceremony last week, it doesn’t get any easier when you’re married. It’s just as difficult to be pure, it’s just as tough to be righteous.

Ah, the ceremony. This past Wednesday night. Another fabulous job by Adam and Tanner. All the teens and their parents down in the community room to celebrate the past couple of months and to make solemn vows to one another, to themselves, and to our God to seek purity, not only in their (our) sexuality, but in all facets of their (our) lives of discipleship to Christ.

We promised to be a real family to one another. We promised to protect and defend one another, to support and encourage, to correct and discipline one another as we follow Jesus together. As church leaders, we promised these teens and their families that Central will always be a place (and a people) where we can talk and pray openly about anything and everything. We promised that Central will always be where one can find forgiveness, acceptance, and accountability.

Adam wrote a beautiful set of vows that we recited together. You can access those vows by clicking here.

We worshiped together, we exchanged gifts and prayers with our children, and we expressed our love and commitment to one another and to our Lord.

It was just perfect. We need more of this, not less. Excellent job Adam and Tanner. Thank you so much. I’m so blessed by our Father to work alongside you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whitney, Valerie, and Carley,

You are our precious daughters whom we love and in whom we are well pleased. You are no longer little girls. You are beautiful young ladies. And we can’t wait to see what our Lord has planned for you. Your mother and I want you to know how important you are to us and to God. You are beautiful, beloved, and worthy. We want to bless you with the promises of God. You belong to God and have been set apart from the world for his holy purposes. We want to bless you with God’s everlasting love, wisdom, peace, and joy. We also want to bless you with sexual purity and marital faithfulness.

We pray every day for our God’s hand to be present in your lives. May you faithfully serve our Lord Jesus Christ. And may he bless you richly with his mercy and strength.

We love you dearly and are so proud of you.

Dad

Two Press Releases

March 30, 2012 / / 2 Comments

I’m so pleased and proud to share the news that my brother, Keith Stanglin, is leaving his post at Harding University to become Professor of Scripture and Historical Theology at Austin Graduate School of Theology. Officially, Keith is filling the vacancy created by the imminent departure of Dr. Allan McNicol. Unofficially, I hope, Keith is preparing for the position by working on his Australian accent, growing his hair out so it can be a bit more disheveled, and beginning… to… measure… each… word… very… carefully.

You can access the Austin Grad press release by clicking here.

I feel like Keith and Amanda and their three beautiful kids are moving closer to us, but that’s probably just because we’re both now going to be in Texas at the same time for the first time since we were sharing bunk beds in the mid ’80s. Truth is, I think Amarillo is just as far away from Searcy as it is from Austin. But it feels closer. And I’m grateful for that, too.

I’m excited that Keith is going to be working every day, side by side, with some of the greatest people and strongest influences in my life. I consider the faculty and staff at Austin Grad to be among the best and brightest people I’ve ever had the blessing to know. Austin Grad is going to be good for Keith. And Keith is going to be very, very good for Austin Grad.

Congratulations, brother.

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You may have heard yesterday that Jerry Wayne and Troy Aikman are partnering to open up more than 50 Dunkin’ Donuts locations in DFW over the next five years. The quote by Jerry in the official press release is nauseating. At least.

“We have a lot of greats to be proud of here in North Texas. Great people, great sports teams, and great traditions, which is why I am excited about being a part of bringing great coffee, iced tea, and baked goods from Dunkin’ Donuts to the area.”

The release also states that Jones will share responsibilities for “strategic planning, expansion, and marketing” of the donut venture.

Is there another NFL General Manager who’s also running 50 donut shops? How can this man do everything he tries to do with any excellence? How in the world does Jerry Wayne go from negotiating his Dunkin’ Donuts deal and reviewing the scripts for the commercials and approving the logos for the billboards to running down the hall to watch film on a free agent fullback or to take a phone call from another team regarding a potential trade for an upgrade in the secondary? He sits down with his coaches and he’s interrupted by a phone call from Papa John’s about a coupon deal. He’s talking to Pepsi about a corporate tie-in and Mike Shanahan’s on the other line wanting to visit about a free safety. How can Jerry do both?

He can’t. It’s been obvious for almost two decades. He can’t.

The nice thing for Cowboys fans — how many of you are left? — is that this Dunkin’ Donuts deal wasn’t finalized three years ago. If it were, that new stadium in Arlington would be in the shape of a circle, with a much larger circular hole in the roof, complete with silver and blue sprinkles.

Peace,

Allan

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