The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Oligopistos

May 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Our youngest daughter, Carley, is quite the artist. She’s always drawing, always creating on the computer, always painting and coloring. And she loves to read. She’s insatiable. Voracious. She’s the kid who won’t put her book down while she walks from the couch to the kitchen to get a glass of water. She walks and reads. She packs a book for every four-minute trip to Wal-Mart or seven-minute ride to church.

And, she’s very talented. Of course. Duh.

Now I’ve been blown away by a poem Carley wrote for a 5th grade contest at Green Valley Elementary. She read it last night at their poetry recital in front of over a hundred students and parents. And, yeah, it’s very good.

Faith will spread through hearts and minds;
Oh, a feeling so divine.
It lifts you up to higher ground,
saving you from yourself.
Though hope is gone and love is dead,
faith still lives on strong.
So walk with pride, but do not test;
come from the shadows and from the dark;
let this feeling fill your heart.
Come with me; keep your eyes on the prize;
walk on water; fly above.
But come with me, oligopistos,
ye of little faith.

That’s right. My eleven-year-old daughter incorporating some New Testament greek into her fifth grade poem. What could possibly make her preacher daddy more proud? If she ever finds a word that rhymes with homothumadon, look out!

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The trash-talking started long before the Mavericks had completed their historic sweep of the Lakers. My sister, Rhonda, who lives in OKC with her basketball freak husband and kids, began texting Whitney and me with predictions of doom for Dallas if they were to meet their beloved Thunder in the conference finals. Once the Mavs beat LA, I started it back up again with, “Would you rather your Thunder beat Memphis in seven games and get swept by Dallas, or lose to the Grizzlies and avoid the humiliation?”

Rhonda and Geoff were in the arena up there in January when the Mavs beat the Thunder in a regular season game in OKC. And they took exception to the way Jason Terry celebrated and, in their words, taunted the crowd. So I get this picture from Geoff on Sunday:

Oh, yeah. It’s on. I’m a little concerned about Kidd and J. J. Barea because the Mavs are facing a young athletic set of guards for the first time all postseason. And there’s no way Dallas will have the same open looks at three-pointers that they got against the older, worn-out, slow to rotate Lakers’ front court. In the end, though, OKC doesn’t have an answer for Dirk. And Tyson Chandler ought to get about five blocks per game. Kevin Durant may average 30-points in this series. And this may very well be his coming out party. But the Mavs will prevail. It just won’t be easy. Dallas in six.

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We hauled the girls out to the Dallas Arboretum on Saturday to take in the beauty of White Rock Lake and all the blooms of spring. We also wanted to check out my great friend Kevin Henrichson’s Little Mermaid castle. Kevin’s architectural firm, GHA, designed and constructed the grand-prize winning castle last February as part of the Dallas Blooms exhibits. And it’ll remain on display there with the other fairy tale castles at the Arboretum through the remainder of 2011.

The castle was nice and all, Kevin, but, honestly, I’m much more interested in your other major design and construction project. Please hurry up and get that In-N-Out location built on Precinct Line!

Peace,

Allan

Renew Them In Our Day

May 11, 2011 / / 0 Comments

“Lord, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known.” ~Habakkuk 3:2

I’m still learning how to pray. I read the psalms and I read the prayers of the prophets and I realize I have such a long way to go. In order to pray with the mind of Christ, I must pray the will of the Father. But during my moments of most honest reflection, I admit, I’m usually praying for the will of the preacher.

Habakkuk prays that God’s deeds, not his own deeds or desires, might be renewed. Usually, I’m sorry to say, I’m talking to God about some specific project or idea or initiative and asking him to renew my work. I’m cruising along preaching and ministering and administrating and doing what a good preacher in a good church is supposed to do and everything’s great. But as soon as somebody bumps the table, as soon as there’s a little mess, suddenly prayer becomes very, very important to me. Now I’m really alert to prayer and the deep need for prayer and my intense dependence on prayer.

And I beg God to renew my work. God, fix my preaching. Lord, help our Small Groups. God, would you please revive my Bible class? Lord, build my ministry back up. If I’m not careful, my interest is really on what I’m building and not really on what God may actually want. It’s humbling to admit, and a tough lesson to learn, that quite possibly God’s not nearly as interested in my little stacks of programs and sermons as I am.

God, renew your deeds. Revive your work.

Do a new work, Lord. Don’t just refurbish or clean up what I’m doing. God, create something brand new here, something I haven’t even thought about. Do something I would never dream of, Lord. For your purposes. To your eternal glory, God. May your will be done in my preaching, not mine. May your will be done at Legacy, not mine. Lord, may your will be done in our Small Groups, in our elders’ meetings, and in this community, just like it is in heaven.

Renew your deeds, God. Not mine.

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I’ve added a new link to the list there on the right. This is a blog I read regularly and have been meaning to include on my site for quite a while. I’ve just not taken the time.

John Mark Hicks’ blog, John Mark Hicks Ministries, is a wonderful source for Restoration and Church of Christ history and perspective. John Mark’s is a prophetic voice, speaking God’s Word into the culture and into our churches with spirit and truth. And, as regular readers to my blog know, I’m a huge fan of his research and writings on the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and our corporate worship assemblies. His trilogy of books on those three “sacraments” are among the best written on the topics in decades. “Come to the Table” is arguably the greatest work on communion ever produced by a C of C scholar. OK, I know. All that sounds a little over the top. Sorry. Hicks is good. You’ll like his blog.

Peace,

Allan

People People

May 10, 2011 / / 0 Comments

My Jesus is a people person. He absolutely loves a crowd.

Yeah, there were times when our Lord went alone into the desert or climbed a mountain to pray. But it’s much more typical in the Gospels for Jesus to be interacting with people. The eyewitnesses paint a picture of Jesus constantly mixing it up with the multitudes, meeting strangers on the road, hanging out with family and friends. Mostly Jesus is known for eating and drinking with gusto in the homes of sinners and saints, with the prostitutes and the Pharisees, men and women, Gentiles and Jews.

Praying with people. Worshiping with people. Walking with people. Fishing with people. Teaching and debating with people. Laughing and crying with people.

Jesus was a supremely social, communal person. Whatever it was that the Father called the Son to do, he had no interest in doing it by himself. Just a casual glance at Jesus is enough to tell us today that we are fully living as God-created humans, not in our solitude and isolation, but in our relationships and connections with others.

We are people people.

We need God, yes. And we so desperately need one another. You can’t do this faith solo.

Peace,

Allan

Ordering Jesus Around

May 9, 2011 / / 2 Comments

The royal official in John 4 orders Jesus to do what he wants. He commands Jesus. This ruler has a sick son, a son who is dying in Capernaum, and he tells Jesus, “Come down before my child dies.” He’s ordering Jesus. He’s telling Jesus what to do.

And Jesus complies.

Ah, see, you didn’t think it was going this way, did you?

This royal official is a man of means and a man of power. This man is well connected. He’s got pull. This man spends most of every day ordering people around. And when he finds out there’s a healer out there who can take care of his boy, he rushes to command Jesus to do just that.

And Jesus agrees. He does it. Boom! Right there on the spot. The boy is healed immediately.

The royal official had no idea who Jesus really was. He didn’t know. He had completely misunderstood Jesus’ mission, his purpose for living on earth. Jesus was a man who could meet the ruler’s immediate and personal needs. This person was only thinking of himself and his family.

And it seems that Jesus was OK with that.

Please know that people are going to come to you, also, to command you and order you around to meet their own felt needs. People are going to misunderstand you and your mission. They’re not going to care a whole lot about your call to ministry or your obligations to our Lord and the big picture concerns of his Kingdom. Your Kingdom priorities and your Kingdom goals won’t matter to some of the people who will direct you to do what they want you to do no matter what. Sometimes people will approach you in order to use you; they will come to you intent on exploiting you so they can continue living their comfortable lives.

Our job, as I understand it, is to show them the love of Christ and share with them his compassion. We’re called by our Savior to give these people his blessings and his mercy and grace. We offer to them out of the abundance of what we’ve been given by God. Jesus loves people. And his greatest desire is to help them, to take care of them, even when they come to him to misuse him.

This is not a call to promote unhealthiness or immaturity in God’s Church. Sometimes the people who have been disciples of Jesus the longest are the very ones who will exploit you and your ministry in their own selfish interests and for their own self-serving purposes. Catering to them is not what I’m talking about.

The story at the end of John 4 is about compassion and the love of Jesus for those who don’t know any better. Jesus took orders from a guy who didn’t even know who he was. I suppose I can, too.

Peace,

Allan

Happy Mother’s Day

May 6, 2011 / / 0 Comments

“God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.”  ~Old Jewish Proverb

On a literal level, we certainly disagree with the proverb. God is most definitely everywhere. But in a symbolic sense, I dearly love what the proverb proclaims. For we do see our God in our mothers.

When our mothers cook for us our favorite meals, sew the patch in the knee of our blue jeans, and slip us the cash for the movie, they are reflecting the provision of our God who always meets the needs of his children.

When our mothers hold us closely through the thunderstorm, watch us as we cross the street, and insist on meeting all our friends, they are mimicking the protection we’re promised by our Father.

When they wipe away the tears and apply the band aids and force the cough medicine down our throats, they are shadowing our God, the Comforter and Healer.

Our mothers love us unconditionally, despite the messes we make and the trouble we cause. Even when we don’t listen and we don’t behave, mom’s love never wanes. She disciplines us when we stray from the path. She forgives us when we wreck her carpet or her drapes. And she encourages us to be everything our God has created us to be.

Our mothers teach us right from wrong. They listen inexhaustibly. They rejoice in our success. And our setbacks cause their hearts to break. They know what we’re going to say before we say it. Our mothers brag about us to their friends and they defend us to our peers. They believe in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves. They lead us from in front and they push us from behind.

And there’s nothing that could ever separate us from their love. Ever.

Yes, our God is everywhere. But so too, it seems, are our mothers.

There’s another old proverb out there that says an ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. I’m not touching that one.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Beat LA!

Allan

Baptism Sirens

May 5, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I’ve got an idea. No, no, this is a good idea. Really. This isn’t like pre-wallpapered sheetrock or cell phones. This is really a good idea.

What about baptism sirens?

Yes, baptism sirens. Why don’t we install baptism sirens throughout our church building? I think we should do this immediately.

A sweet young lady from our community, a junior at Richland High School who’s been coming to Legacy with her friends for a few months now and studying with Jason and a couple of others, confessed Jesus as Lord last night and put on our Savior in baptism. Sarah was added to God’s eternal Kingdom. Sarah was saved last night, forgiven of all her sins. God’s Spirit began living in Sarah immediately. She was transformed right before our eyes!

And while there were many of us who made it to the worship center to participate in Sarah’s baptism and congratulate her and pray with her and meet her parents, there were many more people out in the hallways. There were dozens of us in the gym and in the parking lots, hanging out in the atrium and in the kitchen. Not everybody knows when a baptism is happening. Not everybody gets the news every time.

Baptism sirens would change that. Can you imagine? The sirens go off throughout the building, inside and outside. A loud voice booms over the church intercom, “Attention, please! God Almighty is delivering another person from sin and death! God is acting on his Word and being faithful to his promises! That thing we teach and preach and dedicate our lives to and rest our hopes in is actually happening right now! Would all confessing Christians please make their way to the worship center. Thank you.”

The world needs to stop when someone is being baptized. When a person is baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, we need to drop everything and give it the complete and undivided attention it deserves. A baptism is the sure sign of God’s grace. It’s proof of his forgiveness. It stands for his mercy and love. It testifies to his present and continuing action among his people in the world. It’s God right there in front of us, saving somebody, defeating Satan, stealing another soul from hell, giving another person eternal life, fulfilling his promises for all time. Right there in front of us!

Why would we miss it? Why would we pass up an opportunity to personally participate in a sin-forgiving, life-bestowing, history-altering, cosmic event? Why would we eschew the chance the hug these new babes in Christ, to cheer them, to pat them on the back, to show them by our presence and our actions that what they’re doing — No! What God is doing! — is just as important as we claim it is?

It must be because not everybody hears the announcement. There can be no other reason. We don’t get the information to all the people.

Baptism sirens would fix that.

Peace,

Allan

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