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Tell Them How Much The Lord Has Done For You

June 25, 2008 / / 0 Comments

“Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” ~Mark 5:19

WhistleBlowerI’ve been convinced for a while now that the reason we are not particularly evangelistic is that we’ve tried to convert people to the Church instead of to Jesus. We think people should be taught how to be members of the Church instead of being taught how to be followers of the Christ. And we’re so bogged down with all the rules and regulations and details of the faith that our story has become so complicated—DISTORTED—that we’re too afraid to tell it.

I can’t talk to my neighbor about Jesus or about my faith. What if he asks me a question I can’t answer? What is our church’s stand on this issue or that? What are we saying now about that topic that’s a little different from we were saying about it ten years ago? What are the reasons again we do or don’t do these certain things differently from everyone else? How do those Scriptures work that get me from Point A to Point B in those arguments we’re always having? I can’t remember all that. I might get something wrong.

So we don’t evangelize. We’ve made it so complicated—you can be a Christian, but I have to teach you how to be the right kind of Christian—that we’d rather not bother. Better to keep my mouth shut than to risk not knowing all the right arguments.

Terry Rush has articulated these thoughts so much better in his blog post from yesterday:

Loaded down with multiple and conflicting proof-texts while being well-warned of all those many false prophets, our people have become convinced we will not remember how it goes and most likely will get it wrong if we dare try. Therefore, the general population of the church lives frozen and mute; unable to move with confidence to extend their faith to another. We have concluded that refusing to share the life in Christ with others is a better option than taking a stab at sharing and getting it fouled up.

Please click here to read Terry’s wonderful little article on this problem. (His portrait of Barney Fife as the church cop who nervously paces with his whistle and badge, looking to bust somebody for getting part of the arguments wrong is classic.) And be encouraged to forget all the anxieties of the arguments and the details and just share with people what our God through Jesus is doing with you.

Peace,

Allan

Pray For Hank & Janet

June 24, 2008 / / 12 Comments

“O Lord, the God who saves me,
day and night I cry out before you.
May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.
~Psalm 88:1-2

Please take a moment right now to lift up a prayer to our Father for some dear friends of mine, Hank & Janet Lewis. I just learned last night that their 18-year-old daughter, Jade, was killed in a car wreck Thursday evening.

Hank & Janet and their sweet family live in Smithwick, just a few miles east of Marble Falls, where Hank owns a construction company. The little church in Smithwick doesn’t have much of a youth group, so Jade and a couple of her buddies came to our congregation in Marble Falls most every Sunday night and Wednesday. As the default youth minister there for a little over six-months in ’05, I got to know Jade by teaching her in Bible classes and worshiping with her at devotionals. We took her to WinterFest. She was in our home. A beautiful and talented young lady with big dreams.

Jade’sTheOneInTheMiddle-MizpeRamonI didn’t meet Hank and Janet until January ’07 when we all spent two weeks together in Israel. Through friends they had at Austin Grad and the Brentwood Church in Austin, they had arranged to take Jade with them on our trip. Jade was the youngest in our group of 25. Janet was the sweetest. Hank was the funniest.

I fell in love with this couple, this family. Huge hearts. Giant faith. Generous spirit. Hank and I wound up working in the HammerinHankAtTamarsame corner of the 10th century B.C. fortress in Tamar during the archaeological portion of our tour. And we began calling him Hammerin’ Hank because of the relentless way he attacked the nine layers of 4,000-year-old dirt with his pick. There was no quit in Hank. He worked harder than all of us.

And he played just as hard. If I live to be a hundred I’ll never forget Hank picking up boulders the size of small cars and tossing them over the 600-foot cliffs at Mizpe Ramon and hollering with delight as we watched them tumble almost out of sight. You could hear him laughing and screaming a mile away. He was acting like a ten-year-old boy. And we fed off that.

Janet’sTheOneOnTheRightJanet’s penchant for beautiful scarves almost caused an international incident at the Israeli-Jordan border. We had to negotiate with machine-gun-toting soldiers to secure her passage.

And Jade was the adventurous one. We lost her on a couple of ocassions, once for a little over an hour, when she hiked ahead of our group and took a wrong trail.

In May of ’07, just two days before we moved from Marble Falls to Legacy, Hank and I shared a two-hour breakfast at the Bluebonnet Cafe. And we talked about preaching and construction and faith and hope and raising daughters. We talked about God’s Church and the eternal scope of his Kingdom. And we prayed for each other.

And I just found out last night that Jade is gone.

My heart is broken today. But nothing like theirs.

I just got off the phone with Hank. He’s hurting. But his faith is strong. He encouraged me more than I encouraged him. He’s prayed for years that our God would keep his daughter safe. And he and Janet realize that Jade is now in the safest place she could possibly be. There’s nowhere safer than in our Father’s arms.

Please pray for Hank and Janet today. Pray for their other children, Caitlin and Keenan, and the two kids they just adopted a few months ago from Ethiopia. (I told you they have big hearts.) Ask our God to comfort them with his peace and love. They are wonderful Christian brothers and sisters who are, right now, going through a deep, deep valley. The visitation is this evening. The funeral is tomorrow. Please pray for them.

TheWholeGroupAtScorpionPass-Hank&JadeRightInTheMiddleAnd hug your kids a couple of extra times today.

Peace,

Allan

It Is Good

June 23, 2008 / / 1 Comment

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” ~Romans 8:28

Our God ordains not only the ends, but the means. He uses all of it, everything that happens to us, for his purposes.

Nothing touches our lives that is not under the control and direction of our loving heavenly Father. Everything we do and say, everything people do to us or say about us, every experience we will ever have—all of it is providentially used by our God for our good.

Our problem is that we generally see what’s good for us differently from the way God sees what’s good for us.

As he works in our lives, and in the circumstances of our lives, God’s intent is to build Christian character, to conform us into the image of his Son, and to prepare us for final glory. So what he promises in Romans 8:28, then, is not that every difficult experience will lead to something good in this life. The “good” God has in mind may involve the next life entirely.

Regardless, we enter every day, we welcome every situation, we endure every circumstance with great anticipation, knowing that our God is intimately involved and working in our best interests.

We wait eagerly, Paul says, for “our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” That’s the “good” God’s working in you and me.

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We went to a rock and roll wedding Saturday night. I don’t know what else to call it. When the bridesmaids walk down the aisle to Grand Funk Railroad’s “Some Kind of Wonderful” and the bride enters to the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love,” that’s a rock and roll wedding.

Ashley(Moore)GrayAshley, you were beautiful. Warren, love that girl just like Christ loves his Church. And may our Father bless you both richly with long lives of faithful service to him and his people.

Chris and Liz, the wedding was fantastic. We had a blast. We miss so much praying with y’all in parking lots, watching Cowboys and Stars games at your house, worshipping our God with you in Mesquite and Tulsa, and laughing together about everything. Jeremy, your song blew us away. It was a perfect evening. We love y’all.

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RabbitBunnyInSkimmerWe have a little baby cottontail living in our yard. At least one. Maybe there’s a mom and dad and a bunch of little bunnies, I don’t know. But Thursday afternoon one of them decided to cool off by jumping in our pool and hanging out in the shade of the skimmer. He sat there in the skimmer from before noon until I dragged him out with a net at almost 6:00. Carley wants to cage him and keep him. She’s already named him Chestnut or something.

Peace,

Allan

The Delightful Word

June 19, 2008 / / 3 Comments

“The Bible tells us not how we should talk with God but what he says to us; not how we find the way to him, but how he has sought and found the way to us; not the right relation in which we must place ourselves in him, but the covenant which he has made with all who are Abraham’s spiritual children and which he has sealed once for all in Jesus Christ. It is this which is within the Bible. The Word of God is within the Bible.” ~Karl Barth

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” ~Psalm 119:103

WordOfGodAfter Oasis last night I visited for about an hour here in my study with some folks who wanted some more information about Legacy. We talked about spiritual formation and children’s education and Small Groups and new buildings and worship styles and evangelism. And we did our very best to stay off that A-B Line of thinking and talking. And right in the middle of our conversation, one man looked right at me and said, “You know what I really like about Legacy? I love how much Scripture is read here.”

Me, too.

Sadly, the holy Word of God isn’t read publicly anymore in too many churches. I cringe as I write those words. And I hate to believe that it’s true. But it is.

While I was in school at Austin Grad I served as a roaming visiting preacher, trying to get my feet wet, trying to gain some experience, trying very hard not to embarrass myself or the poor person who had invited me to speak. Inevitably, someone from the church would call me a few days in advance of my visit and ask for a Scripture reading. And on more than a few occasions, the kind person on the other line would balk at my suggestion.

“That seems too long,” the person would say. “Can we shorten that a little?”

“It’s six verses!” I’d reply. “Ideally, I’d like to have the whole chapter read.”

In too many churches the only time Scripture is read is right before the sermon, generally just one or two verses, usually by a pre-teen or teenager who’s not looked at the passage until the moment he’s standing before the holy assembly of God’s people.

I’m delighted that, here at Legacy, we uphold the Word of God and give it the prominence it deserves in our Christian assemblies. The Word is read publicly in big, meaty chunks. The Word opens our assemblies. It closes our assemblies. It’s read at the Table. It’s read by our elders and ministers. It’s read by the entire congregation in unison. It’s read by our young children and our older men.

And there’s a reason for that. Actually, there are many reasons for that.

The Bible is an instrument of God’s holy communication. God acts through his Word. He speaks through his Word. God is his Word. The Bible is not a book of man’s thoughts about God and the actions of God; the Bible is God’s intimate actions and thoughts about and regarding man. The Word of God creates and sustains life. The Word transforms us into his image. It gets inside us and shapes us. It molds us and moves us. It’s the vehicle by which God reveals himself to man. It saves. It’s the standard by which we’ll be judged. But the Word of God is not a threat or a burden. It’s a delight. It’s our hope and our joy. It’s our protection against temptation and sin. We live by the Word of God. Without the Word of God, we live in famine.

And so we read it here at Legacy. All the time.

And I was very glad last night when my new friend noticed.

Peace,

Allan

Passionate Prayer

June 18, 2008 / / 3 Comments

“So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.” ~Acts 12:5

PassionatePrayerWe know we’re supposed to pray. So we do. But sometimes we get lazy with it. We don’t always pay attention to what we’re saying and why. In 1916, in his book The Soul of Prayer, P. T. Forsyth wrote the reason our churches don’t know how to pray is “the slipshod kind of prayer they hear from us in public worship; it is often but journalese sent heavenwards or phrase-making to carry on.”

If we really believe that God is who the Bible says he is; if we really believe that he is the almighty true and living God, the powerful creator and sustainer of heaven and earth; if we really believe this God is personal with us and not only hears our prayers but faithfully answers them; if we really believe that, then every one of our prayers will be filled with passion.

Not eloquence. Not etiquette. Not posture and syntax and order. Our prayers will be characterized by passion.

If we believe it.

E. M. Bounds, from an essay he wrote in 1895:

“The more praying there is in the world the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil everywhere. Prayer is not a fitful short-lived thing. It is no voice crying unheard and unheeded in silence. It is a voice which goes into God’s ear, and it lives as long as God’s ear is open to holy pleas, as long as God’s heart is alive to holy things.

God shapes the world by prayer.

The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on his great work upon earth. The great throes and mighty convulsions on earth are the results of these prayers. Earth is changed, revolutionized, angels move on more powerful, more rapid wing, and God’s policy is shaped as the prayers are more numerous, more efficient.

It is true that the mightiest successes that come to God’s cause are created and carried on by prayer. The days of God’s activity and power are when God’s Church comes into its mightiest inheritance of mightiest faith and mightiest prayer. God’s conquering days are when the saints have given themselves to mightiest prayer. When God’s house on earth is a house of prayer, then God’s house in heaven is busy and all potent in its plans and movements, then his earthly armies are clothed with the triumphs and spoils of victory and his enemies defeated on every hand.”

That’s power. And if we believe it, our prayers will reflect it. Our prayers won’t be little. They’ll be huge. And passionate.

Abraham pleading for Sodom. Jacob wrestling at midnight. Moses fasting and praying for God’s people in the wilderness. Hannah intoxicated with sorrow. David heartbroken with grief and remorse. Huge, passionate prayers. Jesus overcome with loud cries and tears in the garden. Elijah exploding with confidence on Mount Carmel. Paul courageously petitioning on behalf of the new churches.

When we understand the God of our Scriptures, when we see things the way he sees things, then our prayers will be marked by passion. When we couple the greatness of God with the sinfulness of creation and when we understand both of these truths, then we understand what it is God really wants and what he’s doing. And we very boldly and courageously and passionately pray for it.

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PierceMVPI can root for a guy like Paul Pierce. He fought and trained and worked and played his guts out for ten seasons, mostly pathetic losing seasons, in Boston. And for all ten of those season he vowed to do whatever he could to bring a title to Boston. He never said a negative word about the franchise or his teammates. He begged the team and the fans to stick with him. He promised to win a championship there.

DocRiversI can cheer for a guy like Doc Rivers who, up until two months ago had never won a playoff series as a coach and, one year ago, was this close to being fired. He begged Danny Ainge and the Boston front office to stick with him. He promised to do everything he could to win the title.

Doesn’t the NBA championship, clinched last night by the Celtics in a rout of the Lakers, mean a whole lot more to Pierce and Rivers than it does to Kevin Garnett?

It’s hard for me to pull for a guy who plays 12 years in Minnesota, the last four or five griping and whining about how lousy his team is and how they’re never going to win, and then demands to be shipped somewhere else where he wins the championship.

To me, Pierce and Rivers embody the commitment and loyalty and team-first principles we love about sports while FranTarkentonGarnett represents the self-serving team-jumping ring-chasing we hate. Is there no room in sports anymore for an Archie Manning or Fran Tarkenton?

Garnett embarrassed his new team and his new city when, immediately after the game with a dozen live national cameras and microphones in his face, he could only muster primal screams and long multi-syallabic curse words. A string of ’em. If not for ABC’s eight-second delay, the broadcast would have been rated R. Nice. When Garnett finally found his limited vocabulary, it went something like this. “I got mine! I got mine!”

He looked into the camera and shouted, “What are you gonna say now? I got mine! I’m legit! I’m certified! What are you gonna say now?”

And then he went Joe Namath on ABC sideline reporter Michelle Tafoya, “You look good, girl!”

PaulPierce&RiversPierce and Rivers couldn’t stop thanking each other. “Thank you for sticking with me,” they told each other over and over again.

I love that. Dedication. Commitment. Loyalty. Values that should and will be more and more appreciated in sports, if only because it’s increasingly rare.

Peace,

Allan

Jumping Off The Line: Part Two

June 17, 2008 / / 2 Comments

A young man (anybody younger than me is young) came into my study here last week to ask me some questions about Legacy. This man is going through the final stages of a horrible divorce. He’s lived out in West Texas for several years but is now moving back to DFW. He was born and reared in Dallas. And as he’s shopping for a church here in North Tarrant County, he asks me this question:

“Where is Legacy compared to ___ ___ Church of Christ and ___ ___ Church of Christ?”

And he named two congregations in Dallas, one known throughout our fellowship as being “progressive” or “liberal” and the other labled as “traditional” or “conservative.”

Where is Legacy on that line? Where are you?

Of course, it reminded me of that A-B Line we’re all trying to eradicate from our thinking and our conversations, this linear way of thinking and talking that does our church families and the Kingdom of God much harm. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. (You can read it again by clicking here.) And I told this man in my office, “I’m not going to have the conversation this way.”

When we use words like “conservative” or “progressive” or “liberal” or “traditional” we’re really just describing people’s opinions. And discussions that focus on these words and concepts and the issues they invite inevitably turn into political battles for power instead of spiritual searches for the truth.

The truth is nowhere to be found on that line.

Henri Nouwen, in his book In the Name of Jesus, addresses church leaders on the dangers of this type of thinking:

“Christian leaders cannot simply be persons who have well-informed opinions about the burning issues of our time. Their leadership must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus, and they need to find there the source for their words, advice, and guidance.

Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject. But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.”

I explained the A-B Line way of thinking to this young man in my study and he caught on very quickly. He seemed to appreciate my desires to jump off that line in our considerations and conversations to focus on the sanctification and salvation of the souls here at Legacy and the lost in our immediate community. He fell in love with the concept of being guided by the Word of God and his Holy Spirit instead of outside forces such as other churches and that constantly-moving “middle of the road.”

It’s really easy to show people the flaws in the way we think and talk about church and the benefits of the alternative “C” way of doing things. It’s a piece of cake to do that in one-on-one discussions. But how do we communicate this to the entire church body? How do we get everybody to jump off the line? It’s such a radical idea, and so opposite of the way we’ve always thought and talked, I’m afraid teaching this in classrooms or preaching it on Sunday would make things worse instead of better.

Is it even possible to get an entire church body to jump off the A-B Line? How do we do it?

Peace,

Allan

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