Page 476 of 497

Well Done, Good & Faithful Servant

November 20, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” ~Revelation 14:13

We just got word here at the Legacy church offices that Stan Stafford, our brand new 100-year-old brother in Christ, has died and has passed from this life to the next to be with our Father forever. What a beautiful, bittersweet day.

Please click here to read my post about Stan and the day he was baptized here back in October, 16 days shy of his 100th birthday.

My every encounter with Stan over the past three or four months was uplifting. I’m so grateful to our Lord for the mercy and grace he showed to Stan and for the way our Father used this gentleman to teach us lessons about that same mercy and love. I’m so glad my mom and dad got to meet Stan three weeks ago. I’m grateful for the way the Smiths and the Jennings loved Stan and took care of him and met his needs. And I pray that our Father will send more Stans our way and that we’ll seek out more people exactly like Stan to bring to our Savior.

As I was walking back up the center aisle during the last song this past Sunday morning, Stan shook my hand from his wheelchair parked next to the sound booth at the back of our worship center. He smiled and said, “Great job.” I should have said the same thing to him. Great job.

Allan

Satan's Ally: The Church

November 20, 2007 / Allan / 1 Comment

“…fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.” ~Screwtape

While writing to encourage his nephew / apprentice Wormwood in C. S. Lewis’ masterpiece, senior tempter Screwtape observes that many converts to Christianity have been reclaimed for hell. He tries to downplay the significance of Wormwood’s human “patient,” the one he’s charged with getting to hell, becoming a Christian by pointing out that, “One of our great allies at present is the Church itself.”

“Do not misunderstand me,” Screwtape explains. “I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as with an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.”

Satan and his devils prey on our continual confusion between appearance and reality. We sometimes view the Church based on purely physical terms: does it have a steeple, how many members, what’s their contribution, do they have a praise team, are they friendly, were the restrooms clean, is it well lit, is there enough parking, do they have a program for singles? And we view people in the Church the same way: what is she wearing, why did he say that, he didn’t say ‘hi’ to me, she’s been divorced, he never smiles, they don’t discipline their kids, they don’t come to Bible class.

I suppose it’s quite obvious how the devils in hell, intent on separating us from our God, could see the Church as a great ally. How we view and judge the Church sometimes completely contradicts, and therefore undermines, what are our true beliefs about the Church. We know the Church is God’s elect. But when we fuss and argue and split over insignificant issues and ideas, when we treat each other worse than we treat strangers at the store, we can’t help but see the Church as worldly and ordinary. Nothing special. We know that men and women are created in the image of God and made to live for eternity. Forever. But when we see an old man or a sick woman, or when we notice deformities or other frailties, or when we focus on our own aches and pains, we all begin to seem very temporary. The one we sit next to in our Church assembly, to us, may seem weak and silly. To Satan and his devils, that same person is known in hell as a “great warrior” in the Kingdom of God. But we don’t see it.

If we’re not careful, that constant confusion between appearance and reality can kill us. Judging the Church and God’s people in the Church based on outward physical appearance and not invisible unseen reality plays right into the devil’s hands.

Peace,

Allan

Favorite Day

November 19, 2007 / Allan / 1 Comment

Sunday is still my favorite day of the week.

I had to actually think about that three weeks ago when Carrie-Anne and I filled out a personal inventory / survey in the Young Families class here at Legacy. One of the questions in the “just getting to know you” section that included queries about favorite colors, books, vacation spots, etc., was “What is your favorite day of the week?” And I put Sunday. One of the other questions was “Employer, City” and I wrote “God, Heaven.” But Sunday really is my favorite day of the week because it’s the one day I get to spend with a thousand different Christian believers all in one building at one time. And, to me, that, just as much if not more than anything else, speaks to the power of our God. It testifies to the miracle of our Savior. It’s amazing to me that so many of us, from different backgrounds and different mindsets and worldviews and opinions and beliefs and customs and traditions and circumstances can be brought together as family in one place to submit to each other and love each and serve each other in the name of Jesus. Amazing.

God creates us, brings us together, and sustains us to be family. And it can be really messy.

As we make the move here at Legacy from a church that does small groups to a Small Groups Church, we talk all the time about how we don’t believe for a second that Small Groups is going to solve all our problems. If anything, it’s going to create a whole new set of problems. When a thousand people make the decision to get intimately involved in each other’s lives, it gets messy. None of us is perfect. We’ve all got our baggage and issues and viewpoints and struggles and faults. It won’t be easy.

Eugene Peterson—by now, you know, one of my favorite authors—writes about the church as a messy community in his book The Jesus Way.

“Community is intricate and complex. Living in community as a people of God is inherently messy. A congregation consists of people of various moods, ideas, needs, experiences, gifts and injuries, desires and disappointments, blessings and losses, intelligence and stupidity, living in proximity and in respect for one another, and believingly in worship of God. It is not easy and it is not simple. Not every situation can be anticipated. Novel combinations of circumstances take us by surprise. No community worth its salt has ever existed very long without attending painstakingly to particular conditions.”

All of this is true. And it’s never more true than when we all get together on Sundays. Despite our differences, we unite together in the blood of Jesus to worship our Father and love each other and serve each other.

Sunday is still my favorite day of the week because I get to see all of it up close. I stand in the back of the worship center during that closing song and benediction and look out over all my brothers and sisters and I’m moved at what God is able to do with his children. How does this continue to happen? I see the faces and the families while I’m preaching, recognizing my brothers and sisters who are hurting, rejoicing, worried, rebelling, working, arguing, and healing. How is that God keeps this thing together? It’s incredible to me.

Every Sunday is a roller coaster for me. A different roller coaster every week. I know every Sunday morning that there will be ups and downs and dangerous turns and even a couple of loops. But the ride is a little different every time. The good and the bad, the rejoicing and the mourning, the praise and the complaints, an exhilerating acceleration I didn’t expect, a gut-wrenching turn I didn’t see coming, all of us in the same car, all in the family of God. Every Sunday.

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9-1. How do you argue with that? 9-1. It speaks for itself. And it doesn’t matter who they’ve beaten or how small or large the margin of victory. 9-1 is what it is. It says the Cowboys are a very good football team. And there’s no other way to see it. Even if their pass defense is ranked 24th in the league. Even if Andre Gurod makes every shotgun snap a wild adventure. Even if Flozell Adams moves early like he’s got some kind of false start incentive clause in his contract. Even if Tony Romo throws sidearm. Even if Roy Williams couldn’t cover you on a post route. Even if their number one receiver is a proven ticking time bomb of a quarterback killer and a lockerroom cancer. Even if they don’t have a solid number one running back. 9-1 speaks for itself.

In a league in which it’s extremely difficult to win, the Cowboys keep winning. It’s very impressive. Things bounce their way. They make big plays when they have to. They make up for their mistakes. Their mutual confidence in their coaches and in each other is rare. They really, truly believe they can get to the Super Bowl and win it, regardless of whether they meet the Patriots or the Colts or the ’78 Steelers.

Yesterday’s win over the ‘Skins was impressive. Romo struggled. The secondary got lit up. Nobody appeared to be in sync. Coaches seemed a little confused. Play-calling was suspect.

And they won. They beat a division rival that was desperate for a win, much more desperate than the Cowboys were. Washington needed that game. But the Cowboys wouldn’t let them have it. Very impressive.

I just wish it could have been anybody — ANYBODY — other than Terrell Owens with the four scores.

Peace,

Allan

Go Ye Means Stay!

November 16, 2007 / Allan / 2 Comments

I don’t normally read all my favorite blogs every single day. Usually, once a week, I sit down for an hour or so and go through all of them and catch up. Jim Gardner’s blog is packed with insights and usually forces me to look something up in the Bible or in a book on my shelf or somewhere else on line. His blog takes me a while. With Jimmy Mitchell it only takes about three minutes since he only writes about once a month. (I miss you, Jimmy!) Our Youth Minister here at Legacy, Jason Brown, is only in his first month of full-time blogging. But he’s tackling some deep issues and asking some fairly heady questions. His takes me a while, too.

His Wednesday post on missions and mission trips meshed perfectly with my post from yesterday regarding the Rosemont effort in southwest Fort Worth. We had both gone to that kickoff and informational meeting together. So it’s no surprise that our thoughts were focused on the same things.

Our thoughts center on the concept of seeing our own neighborhoods, our own zip codes, as huge mission fields for the Kingdom. The idea of seeing the people all around us as the lost souls that they are, no more and no less important than the lost souls in Africa and South America. Jason’s specific questions deal with the practice of youth mission trips. Why spend all the time and money traveling outside the state or even the country when there’s just as much, if not more, work to be done right across the street?

Here’s what I commented on his blog late last night:

“I was visiting with some brothers and sisters Wednesday about the wonderful work the Rosemont Church of Christ is doing in southwest Fort Worth. They’ve donated their entire campus, all their buildings, and the land it sits on to Continent of Great Cities to plant a huge Spanish-speaking congregation in the middle of what is a huge Hispanic population base in DFW. The discussion turned to our own outreach effort at which point one of our spiritual leaders said, “We don’t have any poor people anywhere near our building. And nobody like that will ever drive to our church.”

That grieves me.

Attitudes and talk like that are nothing less than a writing off of precious people made in the image of our Father. The truth is there are plenty of low-income and/or Spanish-speaking people a stone throw’s away from our building. But we don’t think they’ll fit in. So we don’t even try. And we actively seek to discourage anyone else from trying.

What makes us think that God plants us here, blesses us here, provides for us here, and saves us here — right here in the middle of hundreds of thousands of lost souls — in order to take the Gospel somewhere else?

What makes us think it’s commendable to spend a week or two overseas preaching the Word while we ignore or, worse, write off all our neighbors right here in our own city? What gives us the gall?

I know your post already asks all these same questions. They are real. They are urgent. And they do demand answers.

I think you’re clearly on to something when you speak about our comfort zones. Evangelism is messy. We’d rather create a mess somewhere else and leave, I think, than make one in our own kitchen and have to live with it.”

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It’s sad, very sad, that Major League Baseball’s All-Time Home Run Champion is Barry Bonds.* He’s a lying cheat. But besides that, the holder of the sport’s most sacred record will spend time in federal prison and will never be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Here’s how awful it is: I think it’s the only thing in the world that could ever cause me to root for Alex Rodriguez to keep hitting homers. That shows you how awful the Bonds* thing is. Go Pay-Rod!

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Cowboys-Redskins. The Beautiful Harvey Martin tossing a funeral wreath into the visitors lockerroom at Texas Stadium following a Dallas win over Washington. Diron Talbert calling Roger Staubach a dirty name across the line of scrimmage. George Allen accusing the Cowboys of spying on the Redskins practices with a helicopter. Staubach leaping into the arms of Ron Springs after that game-winning pass to Tony Hill clinched the division in Staubach’s last-ever regular season game. Doomsday versus The Hogs.

Jimmy Johnson’s first Cowboys team getting their only win of the season on the road at RFK—without Aikman. Clint Longley’s mad Thanksgiving Day bomb that sealed his “victory of the uncluttered mind.” Larry Cole’s TD returns. The Texas Stadium crowd singing Happy Birthday to Joe Theisman the night he threw five picks in a blowout loss on the date of his birth. Billy Kilmer. Art Monk. Drew Pearson. Chris Hanberger. Joe Gibbs. Too Tall. Everson Walls. The 1982 NFC Championship Game. Michael Downs and Dennis Thurman breaking up the Smurfs celebration in the Cowboys end zone.

Sunday afternoon will be special. All Cowboys-Redskins games are.

Peace,

Allan

Rosemont Stepping Out Big Time!

November 15, 2007 / Allan / 1 Comment

How about a one thousand member Spanish-speaking congregation in south Fort Worth?

The Rosemont Church of Christ, established in south Fort Worth back in 1952, has donated all of its building, every bit of it, lock, stock, and barrel, and everything inside to Continent of Great Cities to plant a brand new Spanish-speaking congregation. There are over 100,000 Spanish-speaking people within a four-mile radius of that building, which is also right across the street from Rosemont Park. And Continent of Great Cities is raising a spanish-speaking mission team right now to begin work there in January. Their plan is to make the Rosemont plant a pilot program that will be implemented in the cities of our country with the highest Spanish-speaking populations. Los Angeles is the top city. But our DFW area is the second, with over 30% of our population of Hispanic origin.

Praise God for the vision of the Rosemont leaders and the folks at Continent of Great Cities. What a wonderful concept: reaching out as missionaries to the people in our own neighborhoods!

We live in a mission field. You know that. And I’m glad to see others recognizing that and doing something about it. Something big. May our Lord bless their efforts. May he give us his vision so we can see things and people and situations the way he sees them. May we rejoice in the things that bring God joy. May we mourn in the things that grieve God. And may many, many of his children be reconciled to him through the love and care of the Christians in the Rosemont area.

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***Legacy Construction Update***

It’s been a while since I posted pictures. (Click on each picture for the full size.) And there’s been a whole lot of activity lately. The exciting thing this week has been the installation of the steel support columns in the new worship center. And look at the size of these steel trusses. They’re all over the place.

The Youth & Benevolence Center is also coming along quite rapidly. Most of the exterior walls are up and the inside work is progressing quickly.

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“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” ~Romans 13:8-10

Peace,

Allan

Home Sweet Home

November 14, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

“…you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.” ~Ephesians 2:19

It was announced yesterday by the NFL that the number one selling player’s jersey for the first two-and-a-half months of the football season belongs to Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. Nationally, Romo’s replica jersey is outselling LaDanian Tomlinson, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning. That’s initially surprising to me. But when I consider that the Cowboys — overall, the top selling team in NFL merchandise since April — have always been one of the more popular sports franchises in the country and the Cowboys’ best players have always been among the individual top sellers, it makes perfect sense. Plus, Romo’s such a great kid with such a great story. He’s come from nowhere (in football circles, Eastern Illinois is nowhere). He’s had to work hard for everything he has. He makes gutsy plays. And he’s always smiling. What’s not to like?

And the better the Cowboys’ record, the higher the sales. The Cowboys are always in the top ten among NFL teams in merchandise sales. But just two years ago, they had dropped to sixth. Now they’re back to number one, no doubt due to their 8-1 start.

All of us feel a human need to belong to something, to be a part of some group. We get our identity, in large part, from the groups to which we belong. And that something or some group should be successful and popular. The human drive to identify with someone or some group or some cause — even if it’s only a sports team — is enormous. So we buy the jerseys. We refer to our teams as “us.” These identifications make us feel important. We have a need to belong, to have some sense of fitting in the world. And from that sense of belonging, we have the confidence and ability to relate and accomplish things. Our own families, of course, are foundational in giving us a true sense of belonging.

And the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 that we do belong. Christ has brought us home to God. We live in God’s house as members of his family. And at the same time, we are a house in which God lives. We belong with God and are involved in what he is doing. The other people in this same house are family with us. This home defines us. Christ gives us a place in his world. And from that sense of belonging we grow in our abilities to relate to others and accomplish great things for the Kingdom. Ephesians 2 tells us to remember where home is, remember where family is: We are at home with our God.

And our Christian life flows from there.

The church, as a family of faith, ought to feel like a family. Family members care for each other, are committed to each other, confront each other, protect each other, and sustain each other. That same sense of family should shape our worship. Worship should not be like a production we watch. It should have the free and comfortable feeling of being involved in a family experience, joining together to communicate with each other and with our Father. No one should be allowed to feel like an outsider in the church. Everyone needs to know they belong.

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There’s nothing quite like hockey people.

From the players and coaches and GMs down to the trainers and water boys, you’ll never find nicer people anywhere in sports. Hockey people are by far the most accomodating, the friendliest, the most down-to-earth in all of sports. I’m convinced it has a whole lot to do with my theory based on the relationship between job hazards and pay and the way athletes treat other people. I’ll share that with you some other time. The point is that I really hate to see Hicks fire Doug Armstrong.

Maybe he needed to go. The Stars are obviously missing something. Being bounced out of the first round of the playoffs three consecutive years puts the pressure on. But the mediocre start this season along with the two or three total meltdowns we’ve already seen makes it so much worse. I just know that Doug was/is the most open, available, friendly, honest GM I’ve every worked with. He could be clear across the country, in a crowded airport, in-between planes, and still answer my phone call. He could be on Central Expressway or stuck in traffic between Dallas and Frisco and he’d still return my call. That was great and always made my job so much easier. But better than that were the times we’d visit in-between periods up in the AAC pressbox. I don’t have a ton of hockey knowledge. And he knew it. But I don’t think he ever got frustrated with me. He always answered my questions and explained things to me. And he always asked about my girls.

I’m not sure Brett Hull’s the guy to take his place. Hulley’s another one of those hockey players, like most all of them, who are just as down to earth as you and me. I love his candor and his wit. His talent, during his heyday, was unmatched. He owns the signature moment in Stars history—even if his foot was in the crease. I do know Hull will provide the media with many more volatile sound bites than the guarded and laid-back Armstrong ever did. And that’ll be interesting and fun. But this move by Hicks has all the marks of desperation. This is a huge gamble. It’s either going to pay off huge or it’ll be a complete disaster. I don’t know what to compare it to.

I just feel bad for Doug Armstrong today.

Peace,

Allan

The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

Page 476 of 497

Well Done, Good & Faithful Servant

Satan's Ally: The Church

Favorite Day

Go Ye Means Stay!

Rosemont Stepping Out Big Time!

Home Sweet Home

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