The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Let Your Light Shine

May 6, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Had a blast at last night’s banquet in honor of our 20 Legacy seniors whose lives are all about to be changed dramatically in the coming weeks. The tradition here is that the elders and ministers and their wives serve the seniors and their parents. Chris Courtney charged them with holding fast to the faith. In a cool candle ceremony, Jim McDoniel charged them to let their lights “shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” A slide show that featured each of the graduating seniors. And then a trip up to the almost-finished youth center to sing The Lord Bless You and Keep You.” What a fantastic night. May our God bless our seniors with peace and protection. And may his will be done in their lives as it is in Heaven.

SrBanquet  TableOne  TableTwo

 I’m off to Waco for my monthly meeting with the other central Texas area ministers down there. Today we’re meeting at the Crestview church building for our study and prayer time and then moving on for lunch at the World Cup Cafe. After that, we’re meeting with Dr. Jimmy Dorrell, the director of Mission Waco and pastor of the Church Under the Bridge (featured in Christianity Today a couple of years ago). Jimmy decided a little over 20 years ago to move into the roughest part of Waco and attempt to be salt and light there. He’s taking us on a tour today and talking with us about ministry to the poor. And I’m really looking forward to it.

Then, auditions tonight for VBS. It’s quite the production.

Have a great day. Let your light shine.

Peace,

Allan

Impress Them On Your Children

May 5, 2008 / / 2 Comments

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” ~Deuteronomy 6:6-7

 ImpressThemOnYourChildrenSometimes I hear myself thinking / saying / observing / complaining that the kids are always right in the middle of everything. And a quick glance through Scripture shows me that’s exactly where God puts them. Throughout the Bible, the children are never on the edges; they’re not peripheral participants in the community of faith. They are critical components. They are integral to God’s plan for his people.

In Exodus 10:1-2 God explains why he’s bringing the plagues on the Egyptians: “that you may know that I am the Lord” and “that you may tell your children and grandchildren.”

God explains the Passover ritual in Exodus 12 and instructs in v.26: “when your children ask you ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them…”

In Exodus 13 God is describing the feasts surrounding the ceremony of the consecration of the first born male. “Tell your son,” God says in v.8, “I do this because of what the Lord did for me.” Six verses later God repeats the familiar formula: “When your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him…”

The whole book of Deuteronomy is like this. “Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” (4:9) “…teach them to their children.” (4:10) “…you, your children, and their children after them may fear the Lord your God.” (6:2) “When your son asks you ‘What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees, and laws the Lord our God has commanded you? tell him…” (6:20) “Choose life so that you and your children may live.” (30:19)

And even into Joshua at the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land, the pattern continues. God commands the stones to be stacked as a memorial and instructs the people in Joshua 4:6, “When your children ask you ‘What do these stones mean? tell them…”

                                    Impress them on your children.

Over and over again, God provides the ceremony and the ritual and the memorial as a way for parents and grandparents to facilitate the sharing of the stories with the children and grandchildren. It’s not an accident. It’s the divine design. In the middle of this ceremony when your children ask you… In the middle of this ritual when your children ask you… When they see that pile of rocks… Tell them the story. Tell them your story. Tell them your story in light of, and as a part of, the larger story of salvation from the Lord our God.

It’s important that we tell our salvation stories to our kids. And our rituals and our ceremonies are the God-ordained times to do that. Just like the Passover and the Consecration Feasts and the standing stones were intended by God as a venue for this passing on of the stories and the faith, our communion time together on Sundays around our Lord’s table is the perfect time to tell these stories.

And we don’t take full advantage of that time to do what our God intends for us to do.

Those mysterious communion trays with the crackers and those tiny little cups pass right by in front of our kids and we don’t talk about it. And if they want to talk about it, we hush them. “Shhhh! It’s the Lord’s Supper!” So over time, our children have learned to observe the Lord’s Supper the same way their parents do: heads down, eyes closed, not making eye contact with anybody, and certainly not talking to anybody. And during communion our kids keep their heads down, coloring or drawing or reading or sleeping, while the trays and the bread and the cup and THE STORY pass right by them!

We talked about this yesterday during our sermon here at Legacy. We acknowledged that, while our kids may catch bits and pieces from the pulpit about the meaning of our weekly ritual, they may never have actually heard if from us, in story form, as it relates to our salvation on purely personal levels. So yesterday we took a small step in changing that. We asked our parents and grandparents and all the adults in our assembly to, during the Lord’s Supper, share their story with their children or with the child sitting in front of them or behind them or across the aisle.

And it was wonderful.

Communion was truly communion here at Legacy yesterday. Interaction. Sharing. Koinonia. Fellowship.

Carrie-Anne and I huddled with our girls as we ate the bread and drank the cup. We shared how the meal reminds us of how God saved us by the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. We talked about how the cup reminds us that the blood of Jesus continually washes away our sins and keeps us holy and righteous in God’s eyes, even though we’re sinful and weak and selfish and do stupid things and hurt people. And we told them how thankful we are that God does that for us and that he also does that for them.

And we had that same kind of thing happening all over our worship center. Parents and grandparents and little children. Two and three generations of families in some cases. Across seats and across aisles. Prayers and hugs and stories and tears and smiles and pats on the back and hands held.

                                        Impress them on your children.

There are times in our corporate assemblies for personal reflection and introspection and quiet thought. There are times to put our heads down. Communion time with God’s family around his table is not one of those times. Especially when we’re surrounded by hundreds of little children who need to be told the stories.

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StarsWin!I’m not apologizing any more. It’s a fact and it can’t be denied. I’m not going to shy away from it anymore. I’ve hedged and explained before. But I’m through hiding. Overtime playoff hockey in the NHL is better than football.

Morrow’sGameWinnerBrenden Morrow finally put the biscuit in the basket 9:03 into the 4th overtime period to put the Stars into the Western Conference Finals for the first time in eight years.

What an amazing game. What a fantastic series. Four overtime games in this second-round series. Five games decided by one goal. 117 shots on goal last night. The two goalies, Marty Turko and Evgeni TurkoNabokov, were unyielding, refusing to flinch. Turko was Belfour-esque last night, stopping a Stars record 61 shots. He looked so much like Eddie the Eagle of old, standing on his head to make save after save after save, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Turko show up on my TV this summer being released from the city jail wearing a FuBu shirt. He was that good. Quite a display of “substantial net-minding,” according to Strangis. Razor admitted last night (or was it this morning?) to “running out of superlatives” to describe the two goalies.

The greatest thing about overtime playoff hockey is that it really is the only true sudden death in sports. Forget baseball Morrow&ModanoCelebratewhere the home team always gets the last at bat. Forget basketball with its timed extra period. Even football, which calls its overtime “sudden death,” generally ends with a field goal that you see coming for at least four or five minutes. In hockey, “sudden death” comes swiftly and unexpectedly. In the blink of an eye. It’s so wonderful.

Another wonderful thing about overtime hockey is that the referees totally swallow their whistles. You could murder a guy at center ice and leave him there — they could Zamboni around the guy for two intermissions — and you won’t get a penalty. They don’t want these important postseason games, especially the elimination games, to be determined on a power play. Although, last night’s (this morning’s) was. Brian Campbell’s tripping of Loui Eriksson was egregious enough to be whistled. And Morrow pushed the puck through on the ensuing power play at 1:24 this morning.

TurcoFlipperIt’s the 8th longest game in NHL history, the third longest in Stars history. I was at the longest Stars game ever, in 2003, when Dallas lost in five overtimes to the Ducks. And I was reminded again last night about what makes overtime playoff hockey the greatest event in sports. The desperation. The tension. The drama. The dread. The hope. Having absolutely no idea, no inkling at all, how it’s going to end.

On to Detroit for Game One of the Western Conference Finals Thursday.

Go Stars.

Allan

Feeding The Kids

May 2, 2008 / / 0 Comments

“…bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
  ~Ephesians 6:4

AllTheKidsThe verb Paul uses that is translated “bring them up” doesn’t do justice to the notion of nurture and care the apostle intended. “Bring them up” doesn’t communicate the loving and intimate relationship that’s a critical part of raising our kids. He uses the exact same verb earlier regarding the relationship between husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:29. And there it’s translated “feed.” “No one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the Church.”

The command is to nurture our children.

The idea is to feed them in the ways of the Lord.

Holy Scripture explicitly places a high value on our children; a value that should not be taken lightly. And the clear commands from the Law of Moses to the Letters of the Apostles to teach our children cannot be relegated to back-burner status. And the job can’t be left for someone else to do. Our children are not to be merely tolerated, but cared for and instructed about life in Christ Jesus.

If stewardship is the proper management of assets, Christian stewardship should focus first of all on nurturing our children. We don’t have any asset more valuable than our kids.

“Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.” ~Psalm 127:3

Game5ToniteGo Stars!

Allan

Sixteen Rules

May 1, 2008 / / 3 Comments

In studying this week for Sunday’s sermon on the value of our children and the divine ordinance to teach our children and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, I’ve come across a list of Sixteen Rules written by Susannah Wesley over 200 years ago. Susannah Wesley was the mother of 19 children, including the great John and Charles Wesley. She made it a point to openly dedicate each of her children to God, to whom they do actually belong. And she parented all her children by these Sixteen Rules. As I review her rules, I’m struck at once by the antiquated nature of the guidelines and, at the same time, the deep, eternal truths in them. Each of the rules has a big-picture world view behind it, a lasting set of life time values within it, and a future vision of godly living ahead of it. Reflecting on these rules individually and as a whole has shown me where Carrie-Anne and I are doing pretty well with our three girls and some other areas we should probably work on.

I also can’t help but notice that over half these rules could be—should be—applied broadly and forcefully to children and adults in our churches.

1)  Eating between meals not allowed.

2)  As children they are to be in bed by eight p.m.

3)  They are required to take medicine without complaining.

4)  Subdue self-will in a child, and thus work together with God to save the child’s soul.

5)  Teach a child to pray as soon as he can speak.

6)  Require all to be still during Family Worship.

7)  Give them nothing that they cry for, and only that which they ask for politely.

8)  To prevent lying, punish no fault which is first confessed and repented of.

9)  Never allow a sinful act to go unpunished.

10) Never punish a child twice for a single offense.

11) Commend and reward good behavior.

12) Any attempt to please, even if poorly performed, should be commended.

13) Preserve property rights, even in smallest matters.

14) Strictly observe all promises.

15) Require no daughter to work before she can read well.

16) Teach children to fear the rod.

Upon further reflection, Jerry Wayne could probably stand to enforce these among most of his players in the Cowboys locker room, too.

Peace,

Allan

Sweet Hour of Prayer

April 30, 2008 / / 0 Comments

“Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” ~Ephesians 6:18

Were your ears burning between 9:00 and 10:00 Friday night April 18?

SweetHourOfPrayerA couple of weekends ago all of the elders and ministers here at Legacy spent about 24 hours together at a retreat center down in Glenrose. Most of Saturday was spent in sharing our dreams and our goals for the body of believers at Legacy. What do we want to do for the rest of this year and next? What is God ultimately doing with us? Where do we see things in five or even ten years from now? We spent some time talking about vision and thought processes. The day was filled with much open discussion relating to relationships between elders and ministers and within the leadership team.

I’ve been thrilled since Day One to be Legacy’s preacher. I’ve said before, I don’t feel led or guided by God to this place as much as I feel pushed by God to this place. I’m affirmed every week by our Father that he is doing amazing things with us and through us in our part of his Kingdom. But I’ve never been more confident and more thrilled to be a part of this congregation than I was during this retreat.

And it had more to do with what happened Friday night than with what happened Saturday.

As great as Saturday was—I plan to share much more of that with you later this week—Friday’s experience was even better. Because we prayed. We prayed long. We prayed hard. We prayed together. We prayed for each other. And we prayed for every single man, woman, and child in the Legacy church family.

We split up into groups of two and three, ministers and elders, and prayed together for about an hour. A pictorial directory had been desecrated; sacrificed for our prayer time. We were each given a couple of sheets out of the directory with all the names and all the pictures of all our brothers and sisters in Christ. And then we went off to each others’ rooms to pray.

I wound up in my room with Bob Robertson and Don Savage and the names and pictures of almost 170 Legacy members. And after we each prayed for each other, we turned our attention to our church family.

And I love praying this way.

Looking at the faces and lifting the names to God in prayer, I was reminded of 1) how much I’m blessed to know so many of these great people and 2) how so many of our people are struggling with their own issues and problems.

Carrie-Anne and I spent a lot of time between August ’06 and June ’07  praying that God would bless our daughters with great friends here at Legacy. And four or five times in that room Friday night, those families popped up on my list. These answers to prayer, these moms and dads and sweet, precious girls that God has put in our paths; what a blessing! Other men and women who have especially encouraged me since we’ve been here popped up on my sheet; men and women who go out of their way to compliment me and push me and challenge me and keep me focused and on track. What a blessing! And I praise God for these wonderful people and for the opportunities we share together in the Kingdom. And over and over again, men and women and families who are struggling with serious health issues, financial concerns, and ruptured relationships popped up on my list. I’m encouraged by their perseverence in those struggles and their faith in the face of hardships. And what a blessing to intercede for them to our Father in prayer!

There’s something very, very special about praying like this. Praying like this creates permanent bonds between the people you’re praying with and the people you’re praying for. I see Don and Bob differently now after hearing them pour out their hearts and their souls to God in prayer. You learn more about people by praying with them for one hour than you can ever learn in a lifetime of singing together or going to ball games together. Spend one hour with a couple of people in deep, earnest prayer, and I think it’s impossible not to love them more.

There was a ten-month window between the day Legacy hired me and the day I actually began my full-time work here as the preacher. I was still finishing up school down in Austin and only got up here once a month. So the first thing I did was ask the church here to provide a pictorial directory and ask everyone in the church family to write their prayer requests next to their families names and pictures. They mailed the directory to us and Carrie-Anne and I spent those next ten months praying over those names and pictures. We spent ten months with our God, talking to him about those in this church who had lost loved ones, those who were battling cancer, those who were facing important job decisions. Some people are surprised at how well we know everyone’s names here. And I always tell them, I prayed for you for ten months. I was bonding with you for ten months and you didn’t even know it.

In 1895, E. M. Bounds wrote, “Prayer does not prepare us for greater works, it is the greater work.”

Sometime this summer we’re going to organize a 24 Hours of Prayer here at Legacy like we’ve done in Mesquite and Marble Falls. Men of our congregation will sign up in one-hour shifts and pray in groups of four and five over thousands of prayer requests from our church family and our community. It might be the most powerful thing you’ll ever do with a Christian brother.

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Whitney and I had the talk yesterday afternoon. She understands about Josh Howard. She gets it. We’re going to go together one day next week and get her a Dirk jersey. Lucky for me all Mavericks gear is now half price.

StarsLogoGo Stars!

Allan

Josh Howard's Killing Me

April 29, 2008 / / 2 Comments

“I am not a role model.” ~Charles Barkley

So, I’m driving home Friday afternoon from our monthly Four Horsemen lunch in Dallas. I had intended to spend the time listening to a couple of lectureship sermons on CD. But the CDs were blank; probably a glitch in the reproduction process. So I was stuck listening to Michael Irvin’s daily show on ESPN Radio.

JoshHowardDallas Mavericks forward Josh Howard was a guest on the show, there to talk about his team’s 0-2 deficit to New Orleans and to promote his summer kids basketball camp. And to their credit Irvin and his co-host, Kevin Kiley, went straight to a Dallas Morning News article by Brad Townsend that reported Howard’s admission of recreational use of marijuana. In that article, Howard is quoted as saying, “What can I say? If you can do it and it’s not affecting your everyday life, why stop?”

And I’m stunned as I listen to Howard talk about his marijuana use. You can read a transcript of the radio interview here. About his regular off-season marijuana use, Howard says, “That’s my personal choice, that’s my personal opinion.” He calls himself a mature adult and claims that Mavs owner Mark Cuban and coach Avery Johnson haven’t talked to him about it because they recognize him as an adult and able to handle his own business without hurting the team. “That’s me,” he says. “That’s what I’m going to do when I’m by myself and my personal time.”

According to Josh, the only thing he needs to worry about is getting suspended by the NBA for failing a drug test. So as long as he only smokes during the offseason, when the league doesn’t test its players, it’s OK. He repeatedly answers Irvin’s and Kiley’s questions with variations on this theme of “I’m not going to put myself in no kind of position to fail.”

The real question though, the one that matters, isn’t about how it affects his basketball skills or whether or not he’ll be caught by an NBA drug test. The real question centers on Josh Howard’s willfully and unashamedly breaking state and federal laws. That’s the one I kept waiting to be asked.

And they finally did.

Kiley finally asked Howard toward the end of the interview, “Does it not bother you that this is against the law?”

And Howard didn’t understand the question. His “What???” response revealed that he was unclear of the concept of law outside his NBA world and professional athlete and superstar entertainer environment. Kiley explained the illegalities of “the purchase and use of marijuana in the United States of America.” And Howard responded, again, with, “I’m not going to put myself in the kind of position to fail.”

He has no idea he’s held to any kind of standards or laws outside his own realm of basketball and the Mavericks. And if he is, he doesn’t care.

One more thing from the interview: Howard’s comments regarding his summer camp. Irvin asked him about the parents of these 7-18-year-old boys and girls who are being asked to send their children to Howard’s camp. Isn’t he concerned about what they think about his open use of marijuana?

“You know, if parents trust me enough to know that I’m out here telling the truth and not sitting up here lying, like everybody else is, I think they’ll give me the opportunity to help their kids out, you know what I mean?…I want these kids to see there’s an athlete out there that really cares about them, no matter what his situation is. He really cares about the community and the kids.”

And then Irvin asks the natural follow-up, “What do you tell a kid when he comes up to you and asks you is it OK to smoke marijuana?”

“I’m going to let him know, you know, personally it’s not for you to do it. But I can’t hold your hand, all I can do is tell you right and wrong. At the end of the day, the kid’s going to make a decision off what he wants to do. That’s what I had to do. That’s what my brother had to do and all my friends had to do. Like they say, you can lead the horse to the lake, but you’re not going to make them drink. I can tell them everything they need to know.”

Now, I’ve written all that to say this: we got Whitney a Josh Howard jersey for Christmas. She loves it and she wears it all the time.

What am I supposed to do?

If you’re angry at Josh Howard’s comments or you’re upset or disappointed or if you think it would be crazy for any parent in his right mind to allow his own child to attend this summer camp so Howard could “tell you right and wrong,” be careful. If you drive faster than the posted speed limits, as Nathan said to David, “Thou art the man.” If you fudge a tad on your tax return or if you lie about your child’s age to circumvent the MySpace rules to set up your kid’s account, “Thou art the man.” You are Josh Howard. But I’d rather talk about that tomorrow.

Today, I need to know what to do about Whitney’s jersey.

My inclination is to buy her a Dirk jersey and make the trade with her, telling her that Josh is breaking the law and he thinks it’s OK to break the law and he thinks he doesn’t need to obey the law and so it’s not a good idea to wear his jersey as a symbol of your respect for him. Of course, some will say that Dirk’s no role-model either with his drunken off-season escapades in Europe and Greenville Avenue. But, while what Dirk does is wrong and not what I want Whitney to admire or emulate, he’s not breaking the law. And if he is, he’s not flaunting it or openly saying that he’s above it.

I’ve tried to be careful about the jerseys and posters Whitney hangs up and wears. I’ve tried to steer her toward the “good guys” in sports. I thought Josh Howard was safe. Maybe 90% of the professional athletes out there do think they’re above the law. Maybe 90% of them live their lives that way. Maybe we should burn Whitney’s Tony Romo jersey and tear down her Mike Modano poster and trash her Michael Young bobblehead. I don’t think so. Her role models are her mom and me and her grandparents and her church family and her teachers at school. We tell her all the time that we enjoy watching sports for the skills of the athletes and the drama of the games and nothing more. She knows that most of them are not worth imitating.

But I can’t let her wear the Howard jersey anymore, can I?

What would you do? How are you handling this story and this situation with your own kids who are Mavs fans?

Unless somebody can come up with a better plan, I’m trading jerseys with her. But I don’t think I’ll have time to do it before the Mavs are eliminated and she turns her full attention to the Stars. And that gives me a little bit of a cushion.

Peace,

Allan

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