The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Worship (Page 4 of 27)

Spiritual Formation by Church

September 20, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’m having some of those standard conversations with Cowboys fans today. The main theme today with the Star-gazers is that the team should be 2-0. They ought to be 2-0. They could very easily be 2-0. It’s simple to argue back that it’s just as likely that this team would be 0-2. In many ways, they ought to be 0-2. They could very easily be 0-2. That’s the way it is every week with an eventual 8-9 or 9-8 football team.

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There is no spiritual formation without the Church.

“Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” ~ Colossians 3:12-14

How? How do we do this? How do we put on these virtues, these Christ-like qualities, these fruits of the Holy Spirit? How do we add them to our lives and develop them as critical components of our nature?

“As members of one body… Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” ~ Colossians 3:15-16

This sounds like worship. This passage is about worship in and with the Church. It shapes us.

And I know becoming like Christ is a full-time, all-the-time, seven-days-a-week lifelong journey. I know. But our formation radiates from and is nourished by the worship of the Church, gathered together every Lord’s day around the Word and the table. There is no spiritual formation without the Church. Not because there’s anything magical or superstitious about the church building, but because the Church is the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ, given life and sustained by God’s Spirit and formed by our Christian practices together. Worshiping together every week makes us more like Jesus.

We have publicly welcomed 32 new members to the GCR Church here in Midland over the past two Sundays. I’m certain your church has added a few new members over the past several months. You don’t get to interview these new members. Nobody gets to vote. All these new men, women, and children – nobody asks you if it’s OK to make them members of your church. God chooses people and moves them in and requires us to love each other. Our worship forces us to sing other people’s songs, to listen to other people’s opinions, to pray over other people’s cares, to forgive other people’s wrongs, and to eat and drink a meal together every Sunday. And it shapes us. It clothes us with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness. And patience. You know it does.

So we are devoted to the Church’s worship. We’re committed to it. We don’t miss it or skip it. We don’t quit on it or give it a lesser priority in our lives. We know our worship together makes us more like Jesus.

Peace,

Allan

Connected at the Gardens

October 8, 2020 / / 0 Comments

With the rising number of Covid-19 cases in Amarillo and within our church family, I was concerned that last night’s Central worship event at the city’s Botanical Gardens might be sparsely attended. “I Come to the Garden Alone” was not on the set list, but I was afraid it might be the reality.

Not even close.

 

 

 

 

Between 70-80 of us showed up last night to enjoy the beauty of the gardens and worship together in song, Scripture, and prayer. The weather was absolutely beautiful under that big shady oak tree, the butterflies were doing their thing, the fellowship was sweet even from behind our masks, and the fall decorations added a wonderful touch to the evening. A bird pooped on Hannah and a few of us got hit by falling acorns, but it was a really nice evening together as a church family.

 

 

 

 

 

The theme of the evening went along with our Missions Month theme: “Connected.” We are connected together in that we all need the same grace of God, we are all saved by the same blood of Jesus, we all share the same Holy Spirit, and we are all sent on the same mission. When our nation feels so fractured, when our families and neighbors seem so separated, when our church is more scattered than gathered, when the whole world is more focused on the distance and the differences between us, we need to intentionally remember all the things we have in common. Now is the time to consider the countless ways we are attached.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worship does that. Singing the same songs together to the same Lord. Reading the same passages of Scripture together out loud as a community of faith. Praying together on behalf of those who are not with us, but to whom we are so connected. Being reminded of who we are and where we’re going and who’s getting us there.

 

 

 

 

 

All who attended, I think, really needed what happened last night. I know I did. I have to remind myself once or twice every day that so much of what’s happening around me is completely out of my control. Things with our church, things in our city, things in the world — I have no control over hardly any of it right now. So I shouldn’t worry about it. I shouldn’t let it stress me or get me down. The only One who is in total control is our Father and he wants nothing but good for me and for the people I love. I remembered that again as Whitney led us in prayer last night. What a blessing she was to everybody in the garden and what an immeasurable encouragement it was to her. I remembered it while watching Melissa struggle with her young son as she led us in worship. What a picture of perseverance and commitment to her kids and to her church family. I was reminded while we were singing “Amazing Grace” and “Days of Elijah” together last night with so many dear and faithful Christians. The days of great trial? The days of tribulation? Behold, he comes!

Worship connects us to each other and to our Lord and to his great promises. I’m grateful to God for meaningful times like last night.

Peace,

Allan

Songs in the Night

September 23, 2020 / / 0 Comments

“Behold! Bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord
who minister by night in the house of the Lord.
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and bless the Lord.
May the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.”

~ Psalm 134

It is nighttime at the temple. This psalm describes nighttime worship in the presence of God. King David had set things up so that God was worshiped around the clock at the temple, during all hours of the day and night. If you look at Psalm 92 and a couple of places in 1 Chronicles, you see that the temple choirs and praise bands blessed the Lord all day long and through the night. I know when you’re in church on Sunday morning you’re constantly glancing at your watch, you’re leaning over to the person next to you: “When is this over?” If you were in the temple in Jerusalem and asked a priest, “When is this over?” he would say, “It’s not! It’s never over! From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised!”

This 24-hour worship in the temple, this around the clock praise in the presence of God, is symbolic. It’s supposed to communicate certain realities that we can’t always see.

One of those realities is that our God never sleeps. Our God is 24/7. The pagan temples of this time always closed down operations at night because the god(s) needed to sleep. Remember Elijah talking trash to the priests of Ba’al on Mount Carmel? “Why is your god not answering you? Maybe he’s taking a nap!”

Not our God.

Psalm 121 assures us that God is watching over us and will not slumber, he will not sleep. Psalm 127 tells us the Lord provides for us while we sleep. You and I can be sound asleep in the middle of the night, knowing our Lord is wide awake and watching over us and our loved ones, protecting us, doing what’s best for us.

It also reminds us that God gives us songs in the night. When it’s dark. When times are tough. When you can’t see your way. When you can’t do anything else. You can always praise God. In fact, that’s probably the best thing you can do: bless the Lord. Even in the night.

Psalm 42 says by day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me. Psalm 77 claims that we remember our songs in the night. Job’s friend mused, “Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?” David sings in the darkness of the cave while his life is in danger. Paul and Silas sing while they’re suffering at night in the Philippian jail. Jesus and his disciples sang a hymn while they walked to Gethsemane on that terrible night.

When you are sound asleep, God is being praised. And in the depths of your darkest night, you can always praise God.

Go Stars.

Allan

Psalm 19

September 8, 2020 / / 0 Comments

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their works to the ends of the world.

Uniting as One

June 29, 2020 / / 1 Comment

More than one-thousand followers of Jesus from at least sixty-three churches in Amarillo gathered on the downtown Potter County Courthouse lawn last night to praise God together and to pray to him for healing for our land and harmony for his people. “Uniting as One” was a city-wide, all-church, interracial, interdenominational event meant to express our unity as one Body of Christ.

 

 

 

 

It was not a protest, it was not a demonstration; it was a Christian worship service. Black and white and Hispanic churches, young and old, the overly-demonstrative and the too-laid-back, folks from both sides of I-40 — together in Spirit and in truth. We sang Gospel hymns and contemporary praise (for a brief moment when the power went out, we even sang acappella!), we read Scripture about unity and humility and obedience, we prayed for our city and our churches, and we met a lot of people. We prayed for God’s justice and peace for the state of Texas, for the United States, and for all of God’s creation. And we showed all of Amarillo and anybody else who’s paying attention that all Christians are united together in Jesus, that we are committed to living and serving and worshiping together in peace and love and unity, that we are resolved to tear down walls and build bridges. Together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was not a photo opp (although many pictures were taken and posted) and this was not a box to check for what a church is supposed to do when racial strife makes the news (Remember? We had that worship service!).  No, this was a stand. This was a Christian line in the sand that the followers of Jesus in Amarillo, Texas will not be divided over anything. Not race, not color or ethnicity, not zip codes or geography, not language or culture or national politics — nothing is going to divide God’s people in this city!

 

 

 

 

There was also a call to action last night, a serious challenge for all in attendance. Pastor Anthony Harris, from St. John Baptist Church, asked all of us to sit down to a meal with somebody of a different color sometime in the month of July. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever. Go to their house, invite them to your house, meet at a restaurant, doesn’t matter. But everyone was challenged to commit to sharing a meal together with somebody whose skin is a different color sometime in the next five weeks.

Because if we all do that, things will change.

 

 

 

 

Our God chose a table, he chose a common meal as the way to show his oneness with his people. Around the table is where you experience unity and fellowship. Sharing a meal is how you strengthen family and develop friends. Being at the table together expresses acceptance and presence. To eat and drink a meal with someone is a show of solidarity: “We have things in common!” And if all the Christians in Amarillo do this, things will change.

 

 

 

 

I was honored to be asked to speak at last night’s historic event. I was humbled by the sheer enormity of what God seems to be doing in our city and grateful to be involved in some small way.  I was encouraged by the spirit of the gathering, the mutual love and acceptance, the combined eagerness to do something significant “that the world may believe.”  And I was reminded why it’s so great to live in Amarillo and so great to be at Central.

I praise God for the new friends I’ve made in the past six weeks and I thank him for whatever is coming next.

Peace,

Allan

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