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Glory In The Church

December 29, 2010 / / 3 Comments

“To him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen!” ~Ephesians 3:21

We spent all of 2010 here at Legacy camped out in God’s self-description in Exodus 34:5-7. Moses tells God, “I want to see your face. Show me your glory.” And God responds by telling Moses, “I’ll show you my glory. I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you.” And God reveals himself to his servant. He declares his name, his eternal qualities, his divine characteristics to Moses. We learn in Exodus 34 that God is compassionate. Gracious. Patient. Loving. Faithful. Forgiving. Holy.

Scripture tells us we are to reflect that same glory of God. As we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ, we are to increasingly reflect that glory of God, with the same glory that comes from the Father. We are to be compassionate. Gracious. Patient. Loving. Faithful. Forgiving. Holy.

On the last Sunday of 2010, I wanted us to consider what it means, what it looks like, to reflect the glory of God in his Church. What does it mean for God’s Church, this family at Legacy, to embody these eternal qualities of our Father? In preparation for this final Sunday, I asked our congregation about four weeks ago to send me their photos. I wanted them to send me pictures of God’s glory. How do you see the compassion of God? How is his faithfulness communicated to you? Where do you experience God’s great love?

I received 146 pictures from more than 70 of our members. Pictures of sunsets and babies, mountains and baptisms, grandmas and Give Away Day. And we shared the pictures with one another during communion.

 

Koinonia. Communion. Sharing. Partnership. Community.

What better place than at our Lord’s Table to share these testimonies to our God’s great grace and love? As we ate the bread and drank the cup, we rejoiced together in God’s great salvation as manifest in pictures of God using Legacy to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and lift up the fallen. Pictures of the empty tomb followed pictures of our quilting ladies. Pictures of Jesus as the Great Shepherd were mixed in with pictures of our families reading the Bible together. Images of missionaries and sunflowers, vast oceans and VBS chaos, congregations in Vietnam and Ukraine and our own small groups singing at local nursing homes. Pictures of Al & Marie Grant, whose 70-year marriage reflects the uncompromising love God has for his people. A picture of Quincy, who is a constant witness to the glory of our God. A picture of DeAnn’s new back door, installed by her brothers and sisters at Legacy. DeAnn sent the photo to me, explaining that it daily reminds her of “the love that has been shown to me and my girls over the last few months. Not only have they repaired our home, but in doing so have begun to repair our hearts. That is God’s glory! I am blessed!”

                                  

Sunday at Legacy we combined the table imperatives of “recognize the body” and “do this in remembrance of me” in a powerful way. We saw Christ in each other on Sunday. We gave honor to what God is doing for and among his people. We explored what it means to be a “body.” And we recognized our God in Christ as the gracious force behind those faithful blessings.

Our table time should be the most important time of our Sunday gatherings. It should get the most attention. It should serve as the climax of our assemblies.

Sunday at Legacy, it was.

Peace,

Allan

To Us A Child Is Born

December 25, 2010 / / 0 Comments

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” ~Isaiah 9:6

Yeah, yeah, God is with us. I know he lives with us. But only metaphorically, right? God is with us in a spiritual kind of way, a mental or psychological way. There’s no way God can actually live with us on earth. I mean, God is perfectly perfect. Infinite. Transcendent. Holy. Divine. Eternal. Wholly other. The barriers of time and space and divinity are too great. God can’t actually live with us here. After all, we are human. And sinful. Finite. Physical beings with physical limitations and shortcomings. God with us isn’t really real.

Isaiah 9 says “Wrong!”

It says God came to us. It says the Incarnation of our great God is a real, physical, historical fact. God left the glory in heaven to come to us.

Now that would be a very horrible thing if God were a monster. If God were bent on destroying us or desired to torture us, his coming to us would be a terrifying thing.

But our God loves us. He is a loving God. He desires communion with us. He wants to be family with us. He calls us his children and wants us to call him our Father. He loves us so much that he determined a long time ago to do whatever it takes to get us out of the dark and into his eternal Kingdom of Light. Even leaving heaven. Even putting on our flesh and taking on our great burdens of suffering and sin and shame.

To save us.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” ~Isaiah 9:2

I pray that you have a great Christmas with your family and friends. I pray that you are blessed today with peace and good will. And I pray that you give thanks today for the incomprehensible gift of God’s coming to us in humility, in the form of a helpless newborn baby, to rescue us.

Merry Christmas,

Allan

Hallelujah!

December 21, 2010 / / 1 Comment

There were over a hundred of us on the stage at the end of Sunday’s worship assembly. Young and old. Men and women. Great singers and mediocre singers. The confident and the panicked. Friends and family and complete strangers. It was quite a collection of saints.

And we sang the Hallelujah Chorus.

Charlotte Greeson led us. And we followed as best we could. We only had two 45-minute rehearsals. The practice times were short and hurried and intense. Charlotte was tough, but full of grace. She was strict, but so loving. She was hardest on the tenors. And we deserved it. Good night, we deserved it. After Wednesday’s practice, one of the tenors suggested that Charlotte could rip you apart and make you like it. I was reminded of what Tom Landry famously said to his mid-60s Cowboys: I make you do what you don’t want to do so you will become what you want to become.

Paul Dennis read the prophesy from Isaiah 9. “To us a child is born, to us a son is given.” Steven Johnson followed up with the Christ hymn from Philippians 2. “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!” And I wondered if we tenors would all hit that opening F-sharp. At the same time.

I still don’t know if we did or not. But, man, whatever happened during those four minutes was really incredible.

There were smiles and hugs and tears and laughter. A wide range of emotions felt and experienced. God was given glory and honor. And his people were encouraged. One lady near the back of our worship center commented afterward that the whole church was inspired by this use of our God-given talents. A much younger boy reportedly told his mom, “That was pretty good for old people.” One lady who took the backstage ramps with her walker to join us for the song wiped back tears as she exclaimed that, at her age and in her health, she wasn’t sure she would ever have had another chance to sing the Hallelujah Chorus in that way with a large choir and an audience. She was blessed. I was blessed. We were all blessed.

Music is a powerful thing. It moves us. It lifts us. It sustains us. And sometimes it transcends us.

Here’s the link to the YouTube video of Legacy’s Hallelujah Chorus.

Thank you Charlotte Greeson and Mary Hollingsworth for a Sunday worship assembly we’ll never forget. Thank you to the leadership of the Legacy church that allows and even encourages us to find new ways to express our faith and praise. And thank you to all who sang and all who encouraged.

Peace,

Allan

Daniel’s Innocence

December 16, 2010 / / 1 Comment

I’ve missed something in the story of Daniel and the Lions Den. I know about the praying three times a day toward Jerusalem, the King’s edict outlawing that practice, Daniel’s insistence on obeying God rather than man, his execution sentence, and the angel of God that shut the mouths of the killer cats. I know all that. What I’ve missed all these years is Daniel’s over-the-top integrity in every single facet of his life. I’ve missed his uncompromising character that controls every aspect, reigns over every compartment and category of his existence.

Daniel is so good, so loyal, so successful that King Darius is planning to make him second in command. Daniel’s peers become upset and look for ways to discredit their rival.

“The administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.” ~Daniel 6:4

They’re looking for a scandal. They’re searching for some dirt. Something. Anything. They’re desperate. They want his job. They’re jealous. They deserve it more than he. They’re afraid. Daniel knows where all the bodies are buried. They’re digging through his trash. They’re talking to all his neighbors. They’re stalking him, trailing him, studying him, trying to discover his one vice, his fatal flaw.

“Finally these men said, ‘We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.'” ~Daniel 6:5

You ever noticed that before?

Can people say that about me? Would people who know you say that about you?

“We will never find any basis for charges against this man unless it has something to do with the law of his God.”

If someone were looking to find fault with you, how hard would they have to look? Could they check the “history” on your computer browser, the menu on your DVR, the text messages on your phone and still say there’s no fault here? What if they interviewed your spouse, had lunch with your co-workers, talked to your kids? Would the report be good? What if they had access to your emails? What if they sat in the back seat as you drove home from work? Let’s say they followed you around for a month and analyzed every word that came out of your mouth, recorded your every action, wrote down your every move. Would the enemies looking so hard to find fault with you finally slam their pencils down in frustration and hurl their recording devices through the window and shout in frustration, “There’s nothing wrong with this person! Unless we can make loving God and loving others illegal, we’ve got nothing on this guy!”

I’m afraid on some days the men trailing me would be done before lunch. It wouldn’t take long.

I pray that, by God’s grace and the transforming power of his Spirit, I’m getting better.

You, too?

Peace,

Allan

This Is Not God’s Way

December 15, 2010 / / 5 Comments

Winston Churchill told a story about a little boy who was playing on a pier and tumbled over into the water. The boy couldn’t swim and began to cry out for help. A soldier working at a nearby dock heard the desperate screams and dove into the sea. This brave young man swam out to the child, put him on his back, and brought him safely back to shore and into the loving and nurturing arms of the cheering crowd. The next day, the little boy’s mother came back to the docks looking for the courageous soldier. When the pier workers pointed her toward her child’s rescuer, she walked right up to him and asked, “Young man, are you the one who saved my little boy?”

The soldier stood up. His chest began to swell and a smile broke out on his face as he answered her, “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

The woman leaned in and looked right into his eyes, “Where’s his cap?!?”

We preachers and ministers and elders and other church staff believe we are called by God. We believe we are charged by God to do the things we do in the name of his Son. It’s a high calling. It’s a noble vocation. It’s not a nine-to-five gig. It’s an all-consuming passion that compels us to preach and teach and pray and serve.

So when we answer that call from our Lord and move into the ministry, we all believe we’re entering a holy, God-sanctified realm. But the reality for most of us is that we’ve entered a system, a man-created and human-perpetuated system that grinds up and spits out preachers and elders. Broken preachers and elders are all around us. A lot of them are still working. A lot of them are not. Burned out. Trashed. Used. Abused. Walked all over. Stomped on. Chewed up and spit out like the gunk on the floor of a major league dugout.

The expectations we place on preachers and elders, the ways we treat them, the things we say to them and about them — behind their backs and even to their faces! — the things we demand of them, the attitudes of ownership and entitlement that guide our interactions with them, none of that is from God. We’ve been a part of this sick system for so long, we think it’s God’s way. But it’s not. It’s the human way. It’s the world’s way. The way we generally treat preachers and elders is not God’s way.

The reason wives and families of ministers and elders resent the church, the reason so many of our best and strongest and most faithful men refuse to serve when the church calls, the reason so few of our most gifted young people are interested in the call to preach and minister is that they all know they’re not entering into a holy partnership with God and his people as much as they’re entering into a life-sucking, soul-robbing, energy-draining system.

It’s not supposed to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way.

It needs to change. We can do better. And we should.

The call from our God is for us to live in mutually-encouraging relationships in Christ. We are to “fan into flame” the gifts from God we see in our preachers and elders, not explode all over them with soaking wet, white fire extinguisher foam.

We are all holy people, set apart by our God to serve his holy purposes. Our interactions with one another should also be holy. They should encourage and inspire, not discourage and depress. We should express gratitude, not attitude. Instead of arguing and complaining and criticizing, our words and actions toward those who serve us should be motivated by the Spirit who lives inside us, the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. And no system.

Peace,

Allan

Thank You, Cliff Lee

December 14, 2010 / / 0 Comments

So, Lee signs with the Phillies for less money and years than the Yankees and Rangers were offering. It’s OK. It really is. Texas did not lose the free-agent jewel to the Evil Empire. Today the Rangers are still better than the Yankees. And Lee’s surprise move reminds us that, sometimes, it can be about more than just the dollar signs. Excellent.

Look, we knew in July that Lee was only a rent-a-player. We had no expectations that he would be here in 2011. It was out of the realm of possibility. It wasn’t even worth talking about. The only reason any of us believed he might even possibly consider re-signing in Arlington is because he did help take Texas to the World Series.

The fact that he did that is enough to be thankful for. There’s no whining or crying today over losing Lee. None. Only gratitude. Only thanksgiving. Only appreciation.

Jamey Newberg says it best in his daily column:

Thanks, Cliff.

Thanks for the four greatest sports months of my life.  Thanks for the greatness, the dominant precision, the artistry.  The way you pitched, the way you competed.  The occasional transcendence. Thanks for October 6.  And for October 12, and the Don Draper cool of that march toward Bengie Molina and everything that happened in the three hours that led up to it. Thanks for October 18.  Man, thank you for that. 

Thanks for doing your part to make a playoff team a World Series team.  Maybe more than once.

Sure do appreciate you not signing with New York.  A lot.

I wasn’t surprised when I read last night that you called Jon Daniels yourself to tell him you were signing with Philadelphia.  I was entertained that you had your agent call Brian Cashman to deliver the same message.

I wanted you back in Texas, but the years and dollars that the bidding had gone to scared me.  Still wanted you here, but when the offers got as crazy as they did, I found myself more preoccupied with you not ending up with the Yankees.

Emotionally, it does stink that Texas reportedly offered the most lucrative contract and that, despite every indication that Lee loved his Texas teammates and despite proximity and lifestyle and tax laws and the strength and promise of the team around him and December hunts with Tommy Hunter while everyone else was on the edge of their Winter Meetings seats, it wasn’t enough.

But unemotionally?  (And sorta emotionally?)  I don’t blame Lee at all, and really I’m not all that torn up.  The biggest sports moments in my lifetime have been adrenaline rushes and kicks in the gut.  This one was really different, has an oddly surprising calm to it.  Hearing that Lee chose Philadelphia, that Lee didn’t choose Texas and didn’t choose New York, struck me as good news.  I would have never expected that reaction (and, despite the fear over the financial commitment, would have never had the same reaction if he chose pinstripes).

I’m not trying to rationalize this.  I realized two days ago, as we’ve talked about, that it was starting to feel more important to me to see the Yankees not get Lee than for Texas to sign him to what many of us – and I bet some of the Rangers’ decision-makers – knew deep down was a bad baseball contract.  I’m content with this, until we see what the Rangers do next.

Whoever Plan B is, will he be as good as Lee?  Probably not, but we’ll see.  Some think Greinke, in particular, will produce more over the next five years than Lee.  Far more unknowns with Greinke, though. Will Plan B leave Texas more money to address other needs, now or in July?  Yes. Will Plan B come off the books himself in two years, maybe three?  If so, then we go get the next young ace.

I love Cliff Lee.  There’s never been a pitcher quite like him in Texas, and there’s never been a season in Texas anything like 2010, which without Lee would have ended sooner.  The Rangers’ opportunistic move to get Lee in July, and his part in the four months that followed to give us that season, will stand forever among the greatest rewards I’ve had as a sports fan.  Forever. For that, Cliff, no matter what happens from here on out for you or for Texas, let me just say, once again:

Thank you.

Ditto,

Allan

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