The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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An Intergenerational Twist on Missions Month

October 22, 2013 / / 4 Comments

We’re into the final week of our annual Missions Month here at Central, a month in which we focus all of our collective energies and efforts toward our many foreign missions endeavors. The month culminates with a special offering this coming Sunday — our goal, to raise $250,000 to fund and expand current and brand new missions programs. I’m really proud of our whole church family for the way they’ve embraced the idea. Our people are having garage sales, selling homemade quilts and hot sauce, sacrificing massages and manicures, giving up coffees and restaurants in order to meet the mark. The enthusiasm has been tremendous, the excitement level has been high all month, and I think we’re ready to give.

Perhaps most impressive has been the way our teenagers here have really jumped in to the whole raising-money thing. We challenged the kids to use their own talents and gifts to raise their own money to give on the 27th. And they have. My goodness, they have. Our middle school and high school students are making and selling bracelets and bookmarks, they’re baking and selling cookies and cakes. Some of the more creative ones are pooling their imaginations and abilities and working together to raise all kinds of money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We gave the kids a thirty minute opportunity between our Bible classes and worship assembly this past Sunday to display and sell their wares, and it was a giant hit! The concourse around our worship center was jam packed with hundreds of folks crowding around tables and booths to buy the goodies and encourage the young people. There were typical brownies and pies, donuts and Chex mixes. But there were also a few unorthodox offerings. One of the Huddle groups was taking dollar bills as “votes” to determine who gets to throw a pie into the face of which minister at next week’s Fall Festival. I was only a little surprised when I rounded the corner to find Carrie-Anne and all three of our daughters stuffing my “ballot box” with their entries. Good grief, I think they had each asked me for dollar bills before the morning began and here they were helping set me up for whipped cream in my face and cherry pie filling in my ears! Josh Dowell volunteered to be soaked (and frozen!) with water guns and wet sponges for a dollar a pop (I barely missed him on all three of my throws). And one of the Muddle groups raised over a thousand dollars raffling off a really nice Bible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a lot of fun. There was much laughter and fellowship, most everybody was hopped up on sugar by the time our worship assembly began, and our youth groups raised over two thousand dollars for Missions Sunday. But way more important than that, I believe our teens were encouraged and affirmed in critical and formational ways by our church family.

Our kids were truly engaged in something the whole church was doing, and they were enthusiastically supported in cheerful and tangible ways. I think every teenager sold out of everything he or she had brought to sell. And they were all hugged and patted on the back and encouraged the whole morning. That’s important, right? It’s everything! Figuring out ways to mix and mingle our older people with our younger people, being intentional about making our teens an important part of our church family, expressing our belief in them and our gratitude for their efforts — it all plays an invaluable role in passing on the Christian faith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, more than ever, it is paramount that we don’t do anything in our churches without planning ways to get our young people in the middle of it. It’s not going to happen naturally. It’s not anybody’s default. And it’s not easy. It takes hard work and determination to pull this stuff off. But the benefits to the entire congregation in relationship and trust are incalculable.

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

Whitney has reminded me on several occasions that I have not yet posted a picture of her with her new car. Yes, she scrimped and saved her grocery-sacking money and purchased a 2006 Monte Carlo a couple of weeks ago. Seven years old, only 44,000 miles, and clean as a whistle. Sun roof and automatic everything. It’s a pretty sweet ride; I’m not sure she’s cool enough to be driving this thing.

Peace,

Allan

Luv Ya Bum!

October 20, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I was thirteen years old on Thanksgiving Day 1979 when the Cowboys hosted the Houston Oilers at Texas Stadium. Being in different conferences, the two teams rarely played each other; being very, very successful football teams from the same very, very football crazy state made those uncommon occasions when they did match up really special. Dallas was coming off two straight Super Bowl appearances — they beat the Broncos for the 1977 title and lost to the Steelers the following season in Super Bowl XIII — and Houston was well on its way to its second straight AFC Championship Game. And on this day, with my grandmother’s turkey and dressing and no-cook strawberry pie churning in my gut, Earl Campbell ran all over the Cowboys and won the game 34-20.

This was before cable TV and the internet, before hour-long post-game shows. It wasn’t until the ten-o’clock news on channel 8 that night that I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. Bum Phillips, the boot-wearing, ten-gallon-hat-wearing, tobacco-chewing, straight-shooting coach of the Oilers had looked right into the cameras after the game and declared, “I’d rather be Texas’ team than America’s team any day!”

I knew immediately that he had said a very clever thing. I also knew, deep in my heart of hearts, that he was right.

It was hard not to like those Luv Ya Blue! Oilers of the late ’70s. The faces of the franchise, the Tyler Rose and the coach called “Bum,” were Texas icons. Earl Campbell was an east Texas kid who had won the Heisman Trophy with the Longhorns in Austin and Bum was a Texas high school and college coaching legend. He has assisted Bear Bryant at Texas A&M and Bill Yeoman at Houston and Hayden Fry at SMU. Before that, he had actually been the head coach for our Amarillo High School Sandies, for three seasons from 1959-1961. It was during his time here in the panhandle that he came up with his defensive numbering system that is used by all coaches and fans at all levels of football from Pee Wee to the NFL. When a defense is described as a 3-4 or a 4-3, you’re using Bum Phillips’ original terminology. He invented the 3-4 defense and introduced it to Bear Bryant during the Junction Boys days. And he brought it to the San Diego Chargers when he made the move to the pros in 1967. All real football people in Texas knew about Bum Phillips. And with Phillips calling the plays and Campbell making highlight reel runs in his tear-away jerseys, the Oilers won a bunch of football games. And a whole bunch of fans.

They packed the Astrodome, waving their Columbia blue and white pom-poms, screaming and cheering wildly from the opening kickoff to the final gun. They were crazy, these Oilers fans, in stark contrast to the cheese and wine crowd at most Cowboys games. Their quarterback, Dan Pastorini, was a gun-slingin’ guy with long hair, who wasn’t afraid of getting into a scuffle with reporters or fans in a random parking lot. Elvin Bethea was a relentless sack-happy monster of a man. Billy “White Shoes” Johnson flaunted NFL convention with every outlandish touchdown celebration. Kenny Burrough. Ray Childress. This was a fun team to watch.

And it all started with their colorful coach who, quite honestly, was more cowboy than the coach of the Cowboys.

Bum Phillips is better known for his catchy quotes than for almost anything else. He once famously said of Dolphins coach Don Shula, “He can take his’n and beat your’n and then take your’n and beat his’n.” His fatalistic line about coaching rings true: “There are only two kinds of football coaches: them’s that’s been fired and them’s that’s gonna be fired.” When asked about Earl Campbell’s inability to finish a one-mile run at training camp, the coach replied, “When it’s first down and a mile, I won’t give it to him.”

Along with the line about being “Texas’ team,” the other Bum Phillips line I remember seeing and hearing the day it happened was, again, on the channel 8 news the day after the Steelers beat Houston in the 1979 conference championship game. A frenzied crowd had greeted the team on its return from Pittsburgh at a celebration / pep rally that had been planned at the Astrodome, win or lose. It was standing room only. Nearly a hundred thousand people with their Luv Ya Blue! signs stomping their feet and cheering their team that had come a couple of plays short of their first ever Super Bowl. Bum Phillips took the stage, leaned in to the microphone, and said, “Last year we knocked on the door, this year we beat on the door, next year we’re going to kick the #@!%&* in!”

And, yeah, I was hooked. I’ve always loved those old Houston Oilers who never quite got it done, but had a whole lot of fun trying.

Bum Phillips died over the weekend at 90-years-old at his ranch in Goliad. Under-appreciated for the innovations he brought to the game, maybe a bit caricatured by his over-sized hats and personality to match. I’ll say about Bum Phillips what he once said about Earl Campbell: “I don’t know if he’s in a class by himself; but I know when the class meets, it don’t take long to call roll.”

Peace,

Allan

Even the Sparrow Has Found a Home

October 17, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young — a place near your altar,
O Lord Almighty, my King and my God!” ~Psalm 84:1-3

For the Israelites of old, the temple in Jerusalem represented both the physical and spiritual dwelling place of God. The temple is where God lived; it was his throne and his footstool; it’s where his people gathered to meet with him in worship and praise, in sacrifice and service. If one wanted to experience the presence of God, if one wanted to be near to God, he or she went to the temple. Of course, everybody wants to be near to God. Everybody wants to be in his presence. So everybody goes to the temple. Even the birds of the air make their nests in the temple eaves, they lay their eggs and hatch their little bird babies as close to the altar as they can get. Everybody wants to be near to God.

And God is in his holy temple.

Our understanding today is that God, by his Holy Spirit, actually dwells inside each one of us as his dear children and disciples of his Christ. We, the Church, are the temple of God. His presence is within us. And I would never attempt to equate our church building here at 1401 South Monroe with the temple in Jerusalem. The differences are at once obvious and numerous and beyond enormous. But when God’s people come together in his presence, in the name of his Son, and by the power of his Spirit, he does meet with us in a special way. He is present with us together on Sundays in our church buildings in ways that he is not present with us otherwise. There is something unique happening. We can’t put our finger on it, we have a difficult time defining it; but we know.

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength, till each appears before his God.” ~Psalm 84:5-7

I imagine that God is the one who gathers us together on Sunday mornings. I imagine he blesses his people as they iron their shirts, as they match their socks, as they feed the kids, as they search for their Bibles and the car keys during that hurried early morning hour. He is the one who calls and gathers and blesses. People don’t come to the church building because the preacher called. They don’t gather because the elders or their friends brought them here. It’s God. God calls us to gather as his community of faith and worship him. And as we drive down I-40 and negotiate Washington Street with all of its lights, as we arrive from north, south, east, and west Amarillo and beyond, as we pull into our parking spot, God is preparing us. He’s reminding us. He’s getting us ready to experience his presence in powerful ways we haven’t since the Sunday before.

“Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” ~Psalm 84:10

This church building at 1401 South Monroe is a place where God’s people do regularly experience his presence in profound ways. We discussed this together as a staff earlier this week. After reading and praying through Psalm 84, each of us named two or three places — physical places — around here where we encounter God’s presence. During baptisms on a Sunday morning. Praying with newly baptized believers behind the baptistry. At funerals. During the congregational singing. During the sharing of communion. While watching kind brothers and sisters helping one another up and down stairs, opening doors for each other, cleaning up somebody else’s spill. While spontaneous prayer circles break out in the worship center. In our youth group’s Huddles and Muddles. When we do anything in the old chapel. Walking by Mark’s office while he ministers to a broken young man or a woman who’s lost all hope. Listening to the children laugh at Kid’s University downstairs.

Our God lives here at 1401 South Monroe. Yes, I know, he dwells inside each one of us in powerful and mysterious ways. The ways our God lives with us and in us today is a marvelous fulfillment of his eternal covenant promises. It’s more than any of us could have possibly imagined. It’s so wondrous that even “angels long to look.” It’s so much better now — indescribably better — than when God’s presence was only experienced at the temple. But that doesn’t discount in any way the fact that our God, yes, does indeed live here in our church building, too. Yes, he does.

Where and when in your church building do you really, really, really feel the presence of our God?

See you Sunday,

Allan

Singing Out Loud

October 10, 2013 / / 2 Comments

“Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together!” ~Psalm 34:3

One of the many blessings I enjoy as a preacher is the introduction of new authors and ideas to me by members of our church. At least a couple of times a week someone will email me a link to an article that has touched them in a particular way or recommend a book they believe I might really enjoy. I love it. These kinds of things work to broaden my own vision and horizons, they usually give me good things to think about (or “borrow” for a sermon or Bible class), and they always give me another glimpse into the heart and soul of the brother or sister doing the recommending.

Recently, I was directed by a fellow Central-ite to the blog of Jennifer Gerhardt, a preacher’s wife who lives in Round Rock. I was linked specifically to a post titled “One Reason You Should Sing Out at Church.” My great love of congregational singing compelled me to click on the link immediately. My passion for deep Christian community compelled me to pass it on to you.

Here’s the link. But don’t click it yet.

Gerhardt describes an outdoor screening of the Wizard of Oz in which her family and the crowd joined together to sing “We’re off to see the wizard…” to illustrate what happens when we all sing together in worship:

“When people, different in color and taste, personality and position, sing together on a Sunday morning, when they sing-speak the same words in the same second, lifting high the name of the same Savior, they agree and affirm and commingle. When I sing and you sing, we’re saying to one another, in small part, ‘I’m with you.’

When we sing together in worship, we belong.”

Gerhardt goes on to observe that approximately 5,400 species of animals sing: humpback whales, dolphins, gibbons, bats, tree frogs, and all the birds. But of all the animals that sing, apparently not one of them lives on the ground. Every single animal that sings live in the trees or in the ocean. Researchers are convinced that the reason lies in the fact that singing requires security. Singing makes an animal’s presence known both to friends and foes. Tree canopies and ocean depths tend to be more secure than the firm surface of the ground. Animals who live in trees or under water feel safe enough to sing.

There’s only one exception in nature to this rule. Humans.

“Most of us don’t sing in front of strangers. We sing with people we love. People who won’t insult us or embarrass us or stare at us or surreptitiously film us and put the footage on youTube. Singing with others is an act of trust.

When we don’t sing, it often springs from an unwillingness to be vulnerable. That’s what excuses like ‘I’m not good at it’ and ‘I don’t feel comfortable’ boil down to.”

The interesting thing is that being vulnerable is the risk one has to take in order to make any kind of connection with anybody. You’re not going to connect with a person or a group if you don’t open yourself up. It just won’t work. It’s ironic, really, that a lot of us won’t sing because we don’t want to stick out and be separated from the group. But playing it safe like this actually works against us: we wind up not connecting, not belonging. If you want to connect, one of the best things you can do is open up your mouth and let it fly with some serious out-loud singing!

Lots of people don’t sing at church. Maybe you don’t. Man, you’re missing out on a whole lot more than you think. Thank you, Jennifer, for reminding us how vital congregational singing is to unity and connection in the Lord’s Body. And thank you, Suzanne, for the link.

You can click it now.

Peace,

Allan

 

Never Individual

October 9, 2013 / / 0 Comments

The prayer requests come in every day, almost every hour. By email and phone, by text and twitter, face-to-face in the church parking lot and here in my study. We receive prayers of praise and thanksgiving, petitions born of sorrow and pain, requests for us to do battle on their behalf with the principalities and powers. I’m reminded today as I update my own personal prayer list that every time we pray, we do it together.

Prayer is always personal. But it is never individual.

When we pray, we are part of a great congregation whether we see them or feel them or hear them or not. We are not alone when we pray, even when there is no one else in the room. We pray for others who do not know we are praying for them. Others are praying for us, although we don’t know it.

Yes, prayer is a deeply personal language. But it is also inherently inter-relational. It is the language of God’s Church.

Peace,

Allan

Around the Table: Part 4

October 8, 2013 / / 2 Comments

Have you ever wondered how the Church’s practice of the Lord’s Supper actually began? There’s no right or wrong answer to the question; the Scriptures don’t give us a time and a place or a lined-out history of communion practice among members of the early Church. But think about that just for a second. I believe the New Testament is full of communion references. I think we see Lord’s Supper practices both assumed and described in lots of places other than the obvious ones in 1 Corinthians and Acts. But how did it begin? Who organized the orchestrated the first official Lord’s Supper?

Consider that on Resurrection Day — Easter Sunday, the actual day of Christ’s coming back to life and walking out of that garden tomb — Jesus appears to his disciples and eats a meal with them. It’s the first time they see the risen Lord. At dinner time. Sunday night. And he joins them and eats with them. At dinner time. On Resurrection Day. Sunday night.

On Resurrection Day, Jesus sees his disciples for the first time and eats with them: “Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating” (Mark 16:14), “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence” (Luke 24:41-43), and “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together…” (John 20:19)

These disciples experienced the real presence of the resurrected Christ at meal time on Sunday: “Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating” (Mark 16:14), “Jesus himself stood among them” (Luke 24:36), “Jesus came and stood among them” (John 20:19).

These disciples experienced the realities of the risen Lord at this Sunday evening supper; their eyes were opened and they understood. In Mark’s account, Jesus rebukes his disciples for not believing he’s been raised. But he speaks to them at the meal, he commands and commissions them to preach the good news, and they are empowered to preach “everywhere.” Luke tells us that the disciples look at the wounds in Jesus’ hands and feet during this dinner, they touch the Lord and eat with him, and they confirm that he is indeed not a spirit or a ghost. “Then he opened their minds so they could understand…” (Luke 24:45). Jesus teaches them at the table, commands and commissions them, empowers and reassures them. In the fourth Gospel, after seeing his hands and his side, the disciples “were overjoyed when they saw the Lord” (John 20:20). A very similar Resurrection Day meal experience occurred with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke24:13-35).

Remember, too, that Thomas was not there for that first post-resurrection meal with the Lord. He missed small groups that night. But he heard about what had happened (John 20:24) and made sure he was present for that next Sunday night (John 20:26). Thomas was there early for that next Sunday gathering. The Cowboys were down by four with six minutes to play, but Thomas still got there early. He pulled up to the driveway at 5:45, ready to go. And, sure enough, as the disciples were eating their meal on that second Sunday, the Lord showed up (John 20:26) and revealed himself to Thomas in the same ways he had opened the eyes of the other disciples the Sunday night before.

So, my question is this: What do you think happened on that third Sunday?

Again, there’s no right or wrong answer. There’s nothing in the Scriptures to tell us what happened on that next Sunday night. But my assumption is that the disciples got together for a meal, expecting to see Jesus. Again. Expecting to eat with Jesus. Again. Anticipating another wonderful dinner with their risen Lord with all the food and drink, fellowship and communion, teachings and commissionings that go with it. And it only makes sense that these dinners would continue every Sunday night with the hope of seeing the Christ. It makes sense that, early on, most disciples had heard the amazing stories about that Resurrection Day meals; they each knew somebody or knew of somebody who had eaten with Jesus on a Sunday after his resurrection. So those Sunday dinners became a very natural way to remember the Lord, to anticipate the Lord’s coming, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

If this is true — nobody has been able to convince me otherwise; in fact, nobody’s even tried — this makes the Lord’s Supper of the early Church a resurrection meal, not a funeral meal. It’s a meal that remembers his resurrection, not his death. It’s a meal that celebrates eternal life, not one that memorializes a temporary demise. Most scholars agree:

“It appears likely that the idea of the Resurrection of Christ was associated, in the minds of the disciples, with the recollection of one or more meals taken with their Master during the period from Easter to Pentecost. And when later these same disciples met to eat together, the recollection of the other meals during which the Risen One appeared to them for the first time must naturally have been very vivid to them. We can now understand why the Christian community in the Apostolic Age celebrated its meals ‘with joy.’ The certainty of the resurrection was the essential religious motive of the primitive Lord’s Supper.” ~Oscar Cullmann, Essays on the Lord’s Supper, 1958.

“The first day of the week, as resurrection day and as the day that Jesus ate with his disciples, became designated as the day when disciples would gather weekly to break bread together.” ~John Mark Hicks, Come to the Table, 2002.

“By eating and drinking with the disciples between Easter and the Ascension, Jesus demonstrates at least three things: he has been raised bodily; he resumes full communion with people who have forsaken him and despaired of the salvation they hoped he would bring; and he equips them to be trustworthy witnesses to his resurrection and to new life, to the life that he has brought to sinners such as they are.” ~Markus Barth, Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper, 1988.

“The promise of Luke 22:16, 18 is fulfilled: Jesus is risen; he is alive and now abides with his people. Therefore, we come to the table in joy, because Jesus is risen. Nowhere is this joy celebrated more appropriately than when believers have fellowship at a meal. Throughout Luke and Acts, meals function as an expression of the joy of the Kingdom of God, where the Lordship of Jesus shines forth in clarity.” ~Allan McNicol, Preparing for the Lord’s Supper, 2007.

We share the Lord’s Supper on Sundays, not Fridays. At the table, our risen Lord joins us and eats with us as we celebrate his resurrection, not his death. We eat and drink with one another and with the Christ with gladness and joy, not sadness and grief. Sunday is resurrection day and the Lord’s Supper is a resurrection meal.

Now, how do we better practice this?

Peace,

Allan

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