The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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That All of Them May Be One

August 11, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“…that all of them may be one, Father… that the world may believe.” ~John 17:21

Jesus concludes his beautiful prayer on that last night with his followers by asking our God to unite all future believers, to unite his Church of future disciples, with the same unity that’s shared between the Father and Son. This harmony for which our Lord prays is explicitly explained as a critical component in evangelism. To Jesus and to the Kingdom of God, Christian unity is a big deal.

“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me.” ~John 17:23

This unity, however, is not something for which we must work. Christian unity is not a thing we create or foster or manufacture. We don’t plan for and structure for Christian unity. We can’t do anything to cause it. It’s a gracious gift from God. Christian unity is already the eternal reality. It’s just a matter of whether we recognize it or not. It’s a matter of whether we choose to live into it or not.

“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.” ~John 17:22

Today, we celebrate our unity with all Christians everywhere, particularly our commonality with our brothers and sisters at First Baptist, First Presbyterian, and Polk Street Methodist. Today, we practice that unity by cooperating with these churches as one big Christian family to offer supplies for our downtown area elementary schools. Today, we experience our unity with all believers throughout the ages at the meal around our Lord’s table. Then tonight we gather at Southwest Church of Christ to praise our God together in the spirit of unity we share within our own faith tradition.

May our God be glorified as together we live into and through his abundant gifts of unity, grace, and peace.

Allan

School Supplies “4 Amarillo”

August 8, 2013 / / 2 Comments

“…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe… May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me.” ~John 17:20-23

We believe that it is God’s will that all his children, all disciples of his Son, be reconciled. We think God’s great desire is for all Christians to be brought together as a powerful witness to the world of his love and peace. Praise God for the ecumenical spirit of the Central Church of Christ toward our brothers and sisters in other Christian churches in our city! Thank the Lord for the willingness here — the eagerness! — to unite with other Christ-followers for the sake of our city.

Our first “4 Amarillo” effort with the other downtown churches is underway. Together with First Baptist, First Presbyterian, and Polk Street Methodist, we are collecting and delivering school supplies to four of our neighborhood elementary schools. We’re bringing the pencils and notebooks and binders to our respective worship assemblies this coming Sunday. Then we’re putting all the supplies together at Polk Street on Thursday to sort and sack them for delivery to our schools the following week. The plan is to deliver the supplies to the teachers at Bivins, Sunrise, San Jacinto, and Margaret Wills; cater breakfast for the teachers and staff; and then pray for them and with them before we leave.

This “4 Amarillo” thing we’re doing is a whole lot bigger than just boxes of Crayons and Scotch tape. This is so much more than providing Ziploc baggies and composition books for teachers to make available to the kids in our church neighborhood who can’t afford them. This is also very much about Christian evangelism. It’s about expressing the Gospel in ways that will convict our world of the power and love of God. Our partnership with these other churches is an outward expression of the eternal reality that, in Christ Jesus, we have all been perfectly united. It’s the same blood of our Savior that courses through our spiritual veins and our spiritual bodies. It’s the same Holy Spirit who indwells all those who confess Jesus as Lord. We are one in Christ.

And it’s this unity that will prove to the city of Amarillo that Jesus really is who he says he is and who we say he is. Our unflinching dedication to love and defend all our Christian brothers and sisters who claim Christ as Lord and have submitted to that lordship will astonish the world. Our cooperation together as one group of disciples for the sake of the children in Amarillo will force our world to acknowledge that Jesus really does offer something different, something this world could never accomplish on its own.

“4 Amarillo” is about our four churches breaking down the walls, putting aside the differences, to unite for the sake of our city. We believe this partnership between denominations will be a powerful witness to our city that Jesus really is the Prince of Peace, that he really does possess the will and the power to reconcile and unite.

Please join us in this first official endeavor. Join us in prayer, in collecting school supplies, in packing bags, in blessing our city for the sake of Christ, for his purposes, to his eternal glory and praise.

Peace,

Allan

The Time Has Come!

July 30, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” ~John 17:1

Jesus begins his prayer in John 17 with the words, “The time has come.” And, of course, we know he’s talking about his death. The time has come for Jesus to die, and that’s going to bring glory to God. We wouldn’t think death and glory belong together. We would think death and glory are opposites. We see glory as brightness, not night. We view glory in terms of celebrity, not mockery. Glory to us is fortune and fame, health and wealth, not suffering and death.

Jesus prays that he will be glorified and that, in turn, so will God. Just a few hours later, that prayer is answered. Jesus is dead.

The scandal of our religion is that our King reigns from a cross. Jesus does not destroy all evil and save the world through the exercise of power and control; he does it with supreme humility and selfless sacrifice. He dies. The disciples in the room with his this night will die similar deaths. Those deaths all brought glory to God. Death and dying is our salvation. Death and dying is glory.

We don’t come to the cross of Christ to worship his death or to remember the grisly details of that day. We come to the cross — we’re actually drawn to the cross — to see what it looks like for us to die. People say Jesus died so we don’t have to. No, that’s not right. Jesus died to show us how to. Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ!” He tells the Corinthians, “I die every day!” He tells us in Colossians 3, “You died and your life is now hidden with Christ!”

God’s Church does not exist to serve itself. It’s not even intended to serve Christ. The Church is established to serve like Christ. To serve with Christ. To serve as Christ. We are instruments of God’s reconciliation of the world through Jesus, so we die every day in order to make the Word of God’s salvation fully known (Colossians 1:24-25). Dying with Jesus reflects our sense of unity with the Son of God. We have been buried with Christ, raised together with Christ, and been given brand new life together in Christ. As the body of Christ, we have a corporate personality. And that personality should be one of daily dying with Jesus for the sake of the world and to the glory of God!

The biggest problem with God’s Church in today’s context is our cowardly retreat from the high demands of the Christian faith. We run from it. We try to hide from it in our church buildings and Bible classes, in our carefully-orchestrated worship services and efficiently-run programs. Chesterton says — and I love this — “Christianity has not been tried and found difficult; it’s been found difficult and never really tried.”

Our setting today is no different from when Jesus was praying with those disciples after that last meal. It’s the same for us today as it was when Paul was writing his letters. The Church of God needs inspiring heroes; we need great daring and risk-taking; we need monumental sacrifice. The time has come for us to die. To die to our own dreams and desires. To die to our own grabs for money and power and control. To die to our own obsessions with recreation and politics and home improvement. To die to our addictions to entertainment and technology and consumerism. The time has come for disciples of the holy Messiah to die.

There’s a small child in your church, there’s a teenager in your neighborhood, who will come alive if you’ll only die for him. There’s an older woman on your street who will be re-born if you’ll just die for her. There’s a divorced dad in your office — you’ll see him in the morning! — who will be filled with resurrection hope if you’ll die for him. There’s a depressed immigrant, an unemployed neighbor, a suicidal senior, a confused girl, a sick soul, an abused woman, a guy on probation, a hungry child, an overworked mom — there are people you know who will live, really live, if you’ll just decide to die.

Peace,

Allan

The Work We’ve Been Given To Do

July 29, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” ~John 17:1

Jesus begins his very public prayer at the end of that last meal with his disciples acknowledging that the time for him to die, to glorify the Father in a selfless act of unconditional love, was at hand. The hour had come. It was here. It was time. The prayer is certainly set in and around the context of his impending death. But for a brief moment at the beginning of this prayer, Jesus allowed himself room to reflect for a moment on his brief earthly life and ministry.

“I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. I have revealed you…”

Jesus always told people if you had seen him, you had seen the Father. If you knew Jesus, you knew the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Yes, Jesus revealed God to the world. Jesus reveals God’s glory. Jesus allows us to see God. Jesus allows us to experience God. Jesus’ compassion shows us God’s compassion. Jesus’ mercy shows us God’s mercy. Jesus’ gentleness shows us God’s gentleness. Jesus’ intolerance for religious people who judge others and think they’re better than everybody else shows us God’s holy intolerance for religious arrogance and pride. Jesus’ love and forgiveness shows us God’s great love and forgiveness. Revealing God — this was a large part of the work God had given Jesus to do.

And, to borrow the powerful language from Christ’s prayer, the time has come for the Church of God to do the work God has given us to do. The time has come for us to reveal our God to the world. If we don’t, who will?

This world is full of cops and lawyers and judges and juries who accuse and prosecute and punish. The time has come for God’s people to be the ones who forgive. The world is full of writers and broadcasters and politicians who spread hate and fear in order to divide and conquer. The time has come for Christ’s followers to be the ones who spread love and hope in order to reconcile and restore. The world is full of soldiers and generals and armies and kings who take and kill in the name of country and security. The time has come for Christ’s Church to be the ones who give life, who give resources, who give of themselves, who give and give and give in the name of the One who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The time has come for us to complete the work we’ve been given to do, to reveal the love and grace of Almighty God to a world that does not know him. If we don’t, who will?

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I’m not playing “Taps” for the Rangers just yet. It’s not completely over. But this team is on life support. They’re barely breathing. The family’s been called in. The grandkids are gathering photos for the slide show. It’s not looking good.

The Rangers have lost four straight and nine of their past eleven games. They have been shut out — zero runs! — in three of their past four games. The Rangers haven’t scored a run in 21 straight innings. They have scored three runs or fewer in twelve of their past fifteen games and hit .177 with runners in scoring position during this same fifteen game stretch, including yesterday’s 0-3 showing in Cleveland. As of this very moment, Texas is six games back of Oakland in the AL West and fourth in the Wild Card standings. Worse than that, yesterday marked the 30th consecutive day the Rangers have not made up ground in the division. They’ve gone a full month now either staying put or losing ground to the A’s.

Yikes!

I’m still convinced that Nelson Cruz will be suspended this coming weekend, probably Friday, for the remainder of the season. So now the Rangers need at least two or three brand new bats, not just one or two. I was hopeful that the Garza signing would spark something in these guys. No, it hasn’t. And I’m afraid Ron Washington’s 45-minute closed door team meeting after yesterday’s embarrassing effort won’t do it either.

We’ll know for certain this time next Monday whether to pull the plug on this team. Texas plays the Angels in a three-game set in Arlington beginning tonight and then go head-to-head with the A’s in Oakland this coming weekend. So, come Monday, we’ll know.

It’s been three or four years since Cowboys pre-season football was more interesting than watching the Rangers.

Crud.

Allan

God Bless Junior and Patricia

July 24, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Our church family at Central has been so blessed to spend this month with our beloved missionaries in Brasilia, Junior and Patricia Lira. The Liras are on a working sabbatical (oxymoron, I know) here in the States and have used three weeks of it here in Amarillo with us before heading up to Tulsa this weekend. I think they’ve eaten Tex-Mex at least once a day since they arrived here. And they’ve received approximately 11,700 hugs and twice that many well wishes and kind words of encouragement.

The entire missions committee and our families gathered at Stanglin Manor on Monday for grilled fajitas and an extended time of prayer for Junior and Patricia, for the Kingdom work in Brazil, and for our relationship together in Christ. After sharing a massive meal, we listened intently as these two co-workers with God talked with us about their triumphs and their defeats, about their good times and bad in Brasilia. Church work is hard; I believe foreign missions work is exponentially harder. And our hearts became one with theirs as they discussed some of those struggles.

I found myself reminding them that, for ministers, at the end of every single day there’s always several more things you could have done. Congregational ministry never stops. When 5:00 rolls around, you’ve never done enough. No matter how efficient or productive your day has been, there’s always one more phone call you could have made, one more card you could have written, one more thing you could have read, another meeting you could have attended, one more something somewhere that would have strengthened or encouraged or otherwise blessed somebody. There’s always something else. Always. So, I told Junior, just go home! Patricia said, “Yes! Early!”

They both work so hard. And they inspire us. They are both so energetic, so enthusiastic, so visibly full of God’s Holy Spirit, and want nothing more than to be used by God for his eternal purposes. They challenge us with their lives of service to our Father’s Kingdom.

The highlight of the evening was getting Junior and Patricia in the middle of our living room and then surrounding them, on our knees before our holy God, laying hands on them and thanking the Lord and asking him to pour out his richest blessings on them. To listen and participate with these great men and women as they opened up their hearts to God and to one another was really the highlight of my week.

Until we got together for a dinner with the praise team last night at Michael and Connie’s and sang for more than an hour with Junior and Patricia. I’m not sure how Carrie-Anne and I got invited, but we’re so grateful. Singing songs of praise to our God in English and in Portuguese was an undeniable testimony to the power of his Spirit and the vitality of his Church. We laughed together as Dick and Lisa traded friendly barbs, we worked hard together to harmonize with Prentis, we sniffed tears of joy away as we sang It Is Well, and we stood together to sing The Lord Bless You and Keep You. After all seven “amens” we hugged and began all over again expressing our great admiration for and best wishes to Junior and Patricia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a marvelous three weeks with these two great servants of our Lord. May our God bless them with strength and endurance, with energy and confidence, as they serve his Kingdom in South America. And may our God bless his people at Central to sacrifice and serve here in Amarillo in the selfless and joyful manner of Junior and Patricia.

Peace,

Allan

Now What?

July 23, 2013 / / 3 Comments

Matt Garza is a Texas Ranger. He’s no Cliff Lee. He doesn’t automatically result in a division crown for the Rangers as the Lee trade did in 2010. Yes, he’s a solid number two or three guy behind Darvish and the Dutch Oven. Yes, he’s probably good for eight or nine wins and a dozen or more quality outings over the last ten weeks. But I don’t know if he’s enough. The return of Matt Harrison to anything near his pitching prowess of a year ago is iffy at best. We’re talking about a back injury here, as unpredictable for a pitcher as it is for a golfer. Who knows? As for Ogando, I guess we’ll know a little more tonight. Can we really count on him? And, I’m not certain we’re ever going to see Neftali Feliz again. Those national writers who are still picking Texas to eventually overcome the A’s to win the West are basing that on Ogando and Harrison and Feliz each making strong returns. Seems shaky to me…

The real problem with the Rangers this year, as awful as the pitching’s been the past three weeks, is the offense. To replace Hamilton and Young, the Rangers went with a couple of oft-injured old-timers and now they’re paying for it. Lance Berkman is gone and A.J.’s looking really tired. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Manny Ramirez get called up before the week’s over to take some hacks with the Rangers. I mean, at this point, they’ve got to try something. The fact that it’s going to be Manny tells you all you need to know about the level of desperation right now in Arlington.

If that’s not bad enough, yesterday’s plea deal between MLB and Ryan Braun means Nellie Cruz could be gone for the year within a matter of days. It all depends on how much evidence they have on him, whether Selig views Nellie as a first-time offender, and if they’ll wait until there are 50 games left in the season to announce a suspension. That would be in about two weeks. Manny being Manny is not enough for this struggling offense. Manny would have to be Manny and Cal and Babe Ruth.

It’s pretty bleak right now. I’m not feeling good about things. The past month has reminded me a lot of last September. They’re flat and lethargic, beat up and old, lackadaisical and just kinda going through the motions.

Beltre and Elvis are the only ones I can really get excited about right now. Maybe Texas will trade for Rios or another power hitter this week. Maybe the acquisition of Garza wakes the whole team up and they start playing like they’re capable. Right now, though, it’s Beltre and Elvis. Those two bulldogs play hard on every pitch, at the plate and in the field, and they’re a lot of fun to watch. Always have been. In honor of those two and in an effort to cheer myself up, I present this hilarious video of these two best friends.

Peace,

Allan

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