The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Take Two

July 19, 2007 / / 1 Comment

The officer from the Crime Scene unit of the N. Richland Hills PD is here at the building right now collecting fingerprints from the glass in Suzanne’s office, from the cabinet behind Josslyn’s desk, and from the doors and desks in mine and Jason’s offices.  We’ve learned over the past few hours that the deductible on the insurance is $5,000. And the two computers and my door will bring the total to just under $3,000. So this is all coming directly out of the church’s pocket.

And I’m the preacher.

So I’m supposed to have something really wise to say. I’m supposed to have a profound thought or two on all of this. Eugene Peterson would expect me to use this opportunity to provide spiritual direction. And I’ve been coming up empty all day.

I know I’ve already forgiven the person(s). Goodness knows I’ve done much worse things in my life than what happened here overnight. And my God has forgiven me. So, in light of that, I’ve already forgiven whomever smashed my door and grabbed my computer. Whomever took Brittany’s computer and the cash from Jason’s office and went through his mission trip envelopes, they are already forgiven by me.

I just keep asking myself “why?” I can’t imagine taking the risk for whatever two laptops will bring at a pawn shop. I can’t imagine going into the church building, where God’s people meet together to worship him and minister to each other, a sanctuary, a holy place, consecrated to our Lord and his purposes in his Kingdom, and smashing doors and stealing computers. And the police keep saying, and the evidence all around us keeps pointing, to this being an inside deal. It’s one of our own.

I’m very grateful for the rest of the staff here who have already forgiven the person(s), too. We’re sick about it. But we realize that whomever did this is probably really hurting, starving for love and attention, searching to find his place in a broken world. And that’s what makes me sad. If it really is someone from our own church family, if it really is a brother or a sister of mine, it’s somebody I love who is hurting. And I hate that. I would gladly have just handed them the two or three hundred dollars they felt they needed. I’m praying for them and I’m confident that God is going to use this situation, because of how we’re trying to handle it, to work something good in that person’s life.

Give me another hour or so and I’ll unveil #42 in the countdown to football season. I haven’t forgotten.

Peace,

Allan

We Was Robbed!

July 19, 2007 / / 1 Comment

Happy birthday, Dad.

John Edward is 65 years old today. And I spent time last night gathering a bunch of photos to honor him today on the blog. OfficeDoorBut that’s all been disrupted. I walked into the church building at 7:30 this morning and found that the glass door to my office had been smashed with a hammer and my laptop computer gone. Jason’s office was also open and our youth intern, Brittany’s, laptop computer is gone, along with some Prayer Wristband cash that was in a jar on the counter.

Sickening.

Whoever it is only wanted the laptop computers. Nothing else was taken in the whole building. Ours were the only two offices that had laptops. And ours were the only two offices disturbed. They obviously knew what they were doing, where the items they coveted were located, and how to get to them quickly. They knew the exact drawer in Jason’s office where he keeps the mission trip money and had the envelopes scattered on top of his desk. They went through the sliding glass window to Suzanne’s office to get keys out of her desk. She didn’t have a key to my door. So they used a hammer.

The good news is that the NRH police officer who spent two hours with us this morning is sending the city’s crime lab out here in a couple of hours to collect the fingerprints on the glass and the desktops and the doorknobs and a tray of magic markers on Jason’s desk that was moved. There’s evidence scattered all over the place. And they’ll be collecting it and processing it soon.

But that’s also the bad news. The officer, and we in the office, feel more than certain it’s an inside job. All the clues point directly to someone who has intimate knowledge of the layout of the offices — what’s where and how to get it.

I’d much rather it be someone from outside the church. I can’t stand to think it’s probably one of my brothers and / or sisters in Christ who has done this to us.

I’ve only lost the stuff I’ve written and done since we’ve moved here. Everything else that was on my computer I still have saved on a thumb drive at the house. Sunday’s sermon was saved elsewhere. I’ve lost a few pictures of the kids and the house, some emails regarding small group ministry, and some of the bulletin articles I’ve written. Not a huge deal. Just an inconvenience and a nuisance.

The worst part is thinking it’s a member of our church family.

I almost hope we don’t find out.

Peace,

Allan

Elijah's Ministry of Deed

July 18, 2007 / / 0 Comments

While I’m counting down the days to football season (43, by the way) most everyone else in the church is counting down the days until our Vacation Bible School (4). And I’m getting excited about it, too. The two-story stage is now finished and the nearly 30 cast members of the musical have been up here rehearsing every night for weeks. Everything’s almost completely decorated. And the energy in the air is unmistakable. We’re expecting over 900 here for the Family Kickoff and dinner Sunday evening. And then three evenings of study and performance centered on the life of Elijah for children of every age and adults! I’m even preaching Sunday morning on the very first mention we have of Elijah in Scripture: his pronouncement of divine judgment on Ahab and Jezebel in 1 Kings 17. I toyed with the idea of wearing camel skin and a leather belt. For about two seconds.

It’s odd to me that, as great as Elijah is, he didn’t say a whole lot. We don’t have too many of his words recorded in Scripture. He’s mentioned more times by New Testament writers than any other prophet. His influence and importance as a man of God and a critical player in God’s salvation plans is unquestioned. But I’m not sure he did a whole lot of preaching. If he did, we don’t have it. What we have are a few short sentences from just five or six episodes of his ministry.

Consider that initial mention of Elijah. He comes out of nowhere, lands on the front steps of Ahab’s palace, announces a drought and a famine, and then disappears for three-and-a-half years. He’s gone just as quickly as he came. After just one sentence. When he reappears, it’s just for a day. Three more times he reappears in history, but each time it is just for a day. And doesn’t do a whole lot of talking.

He lets his actions speak for him and his God. He declares himself in 1 Kings 17:1 as a servant of God, standing before the God of Israel as his slave, and that’s enough.

It reminds me of Joe Malone. As our preacher at Pleasant Grove when I was a kid he used to recite a poem ocassionally that spoke to a minister’s life outside the pulpit. The poem ended with the line “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one anyday.”

It’s been said that, in preaching, the thing of least importance is the sermon.

The truth is that a lot of people have learned to tune our sermons out. They know full well that words are cheap and that emotion can be simulated. They wonder how much of our discourse we really believe and practice ourselves. And they look to our lives outside the pulpit for the answer.

Unfortunately, we’ve all known preachers who “slash the throats of their sermons by their lives.”

“Nothing influences others so much as character. Few people are capable of reasoning, and fewer still like the trouble of it; and besides, men have hearts as well as heads. Hence, consistency, reality, ever-present principle, shining through the person in whom they dwell, and making themselves perceptible, have more weight than many arguments, than much preaching.”  ~ Heygate, from “Ember Hours”

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Quick update on postdiluvian Marble Falls: I spoke to Greg Neill yesterday and he tells me that 15 of the 17 families in the church who were impacted by the floods of three weeks ago are, for the most part, back in their homes. Please keep the Jamars and the Montgomerys in your thoughts and prayers, as they are still displaced and facing some very tough decisions in the coming days. As with most everyone there who didn’t have flood insurance, their homes were nowhere near the 100-year flood plain. I’m happy to report that the Marble Falls Church has received almost ten thousand dollars from other congregations to help those brothers and sisters, one thousand of that from us at Legacy. They’re not finished with it yet. But the focus has now turned more to cleaning and repairing the town.

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There are only 43 more days until football season begins August 30 with eleven college games and the SEC tilt between LSU and Mississippi State that night on ESPN. And today’s #43 is Dallas Cowboys great Don Perkins. As a three-time all conference running back at New Mexico, Tex Schramm and Tom Landry signed him to a personal services contract before the Cowboys franchise even existed. But it didn’t start out that well.DonPerkins

Perkins almost got cut on the first day of that very first ever Cowboys training camp, in July 1960 in Forest Grove, Oregon. Perkins had reported to camp 20 pounds overweight thanks to an offseason program of, as he says today, biscuits and gravy. And Landry opened up his camp with that now famous Landry Mile. It was actually a mile and a quarter and Landry had every single player run it on the first day of camp for 29 years. And Perkins couldn’t even finish it. He fell down several times and then quit. The Landry Mile was designed to weed out those with no pride or determination. But because they had so few good players on that first roster they gave Perkins another chance. And he broke his foot. Perkins had to sit out that awful inaugural season of 1960 and wasn’t able to play until ’61. But he was definitely worth the wait.

Perkins was the NFL Rookie of the Year that season and finished in the top ten in the league in rushing every single one of his eight years with the Cowboys. He’s still the #3 all time leading rusher in Cowboys history behind Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett and #6 in all-purpose yards. Perkins literally carried the Cowboys from a winless expansion team to two straight NFL Championship Games. And when the Cowboys unveiled the famed Ring of Honor, Perkins was the second honoree to be inducted behind Hall of Famer Bob Lilly.

Cliff “Captain Crash” Harris gets a sentimental honorable mention. But Don Perkins is the best to ever wear #43.

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TroyDunganIs it weird to be sad about a weatherman retiring? After 31 years at Channel 8 in Dallas, Troy Dungan and his goofy bow ties are calling it quits. He had just arrived when my 4th grade class at Dallas Christian took a field trip to WFAA downtown to visit Troy. And we all decorated bow ties in recognition of his signature accessory as our nametags. Troy judged our nametags and declared mine third best behind Kristi Warmann and somebody else I can’t recall. Anway, my dad went with us as a sponsor and took his weather records to show Troy. (There’s not enough time in the day or space on our server to tell you about my dad and weather.) And Troy was kind enough and gracious enough to listen to my dad talk about his charts and records that he became our family favorite. Troy even recruited my dad and my aunt as his first weather-watchers — my dad in Pleasant Grove and my aunt in North Dallas. And dad stayed with him until they moved to Liberty City in 2000. It was not unusual for dad to have one of us call Troy at Channel 8 to report our rainfall amounts at the house or for Troy to call us if something really big was happening in the Grove. And we always thought that was cool. I remember C-A and I running into Troy and his family at the El Chico in Waco one Sunday afternoon and he recalled each one of us by name and asked about everybody. He’s always just as nice and friendly in person as he seems to be on air. Delkus and Fields and everybody else on Channel 8 seem so fake and cheesy compared to Troy. And I hate it that he’s leaving.

I know it makes me old. But does it make me weird?

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HomeSweetHomeFinally got the Texas flag up on the house. Finally feels, and looks, like home.

Peace,

Allan

The Ministry of Reconciliation

July 17, 2007 / / 1 Comment

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God.”  ~2 Corinthians 5:17-20

If Christian ministry is a continuation and an extension of what God began long ago, his mighty acts in history to reconcile the world to himself, then our ministry in his church should be a ministry that focuses on reconciliation.

We were made in the image of God, perfect beings in a perfect world. Man is God’s greatest creation and he longs to be reunited with us in perfection, the way it was in the very beginning. So while we were powerless, dead in our sins, enemies of God, he sent his only Son as a sacrifice to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. God is a God of reconciliation. His love in redeeming us is without cause, without merit, without limit, and without end.

And exhibiting those same ideas of redemption is at the core of Christian ministry. God wants husbands and wives to be together. He wants children reunited with their parents. He wants churches to stay in step. He desires unity among his people.

And that same unity should be evident within our own individual lives, between our brains and our bodies, our thinking and our doing. His will is that there should be no inconsistencies, no incongruence, no deviation. Our words and actions should reflect the impact his saving love and grace has had on us. Our ministry should seek to restore that kind of peace to shattered lives and broken relationships with the ultimate goal of complete reconciliation to the Father.

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There are 44 more days until the beginning of football season. And #44 in the countdown is the only Heisman Trophy winner to ever play for Bear Bryant and, I think, the only JohnDavidCrowTexas A&M Aggie on my list. John David Crow was a consensus All-America halfback / linebacker for Bryant’s Aggies in the ’50s. He actually edged out Alex Karras, believe it or not, for the Heisman in 1957. And he was undoubtedly the greatest Aggies football player ever.

Ever.

He only played in seven games his senior season because of a knee injury. But in his three years at College Station, the Aggies went 24-5-2. He was a two-time All Southwest Conference selection and even served as the Texas A&M Athletics Director from 1988-1993. He was drafted #1 by the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals in ’58 and spent eleven years with the Cards and 49ers, making it to four Pro Bowls and even winning the NFL rushing title in 1960.

He’s in the College Football Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. And he edges out Donnie Anderson, John Riggens, and Kyle Rote as the best #44 to ever play the game.

Peace,

Allan

The Way of Life

July 16, 2007 / / 0 Comments

“Life is not to be played with; tremendous issues depend on the manner in which it is conducted. Religion is no mere topic of abstract speculation for learned leisure, no empty toy for idle sentiment; it is of vast practical moment, for it deals with the choice of the greatest possible alternatives — life and death.”  ~ W. F. Adeney, 1950

 I was so glad to be invited to teach Jack Roseberry’s Bible class yesterday morning on Jeremiah 21. What a wonderful group of older and wiser Christian brothers and sisters! And what a rich passage of Scripture! 

Jeremiah 21 contains God’s answers to King Zedekiah’s request for information about whether or not God will deliver Judah from the Babylonians the same way he had delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. The connection is unmistakable. The prophet uses the exact same language in the response as is found throughout the Exodus narrative that had forever identified God’s people. Zedekiah asks if God will perform “niplaot,” mighty works, the same word that is used throughout the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy to describe how God delivered his people from slavery. Read Exodus chapters 3-6 and notice how many times God uses “I” in describing the salvation acts — I will, I am, I have, etc., — and see how Jeremiah uses them in his response. What a powerful message that must have been to the people living in Jerusalem, especially to the King and his court, that the very God who delivers his people with mighty works, with an “outstretched hand and a mighty arm,” will use that outstretched hand and mighty arm to perform those mighty works against his people! What a shocking realization! What a complete turning of the tables!

The city is going down. The monarchy is going down. The priests and prophets who had become an abomination before the Lord are going down. But the people don’t have to go down with “this city.” The people are given a choice.

“I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death. Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine, or plague. But whoever goes out and surrenders to the Babylonians who are besieging you will live” (Jeremiah 21:8-9).

The Hebrew word for “goes out” is yatsa, the same word used in the Exodus and Deuteronomy stories for “exodus.” The irony is that instead of going out of the bondage of Egypt to find life in Israel, they must leave the slavery of Israel to find life and freedom in the bondage of Babylon. It’s backwards.

The way of life is always backwards.

Lose your life for my sake and I’ll find it. Throw away your life and I’ll give it to you. Be last and I’ll make you first. Suffer and serve and sacrifice and I’ll give you eternal glory.

God tells his people in Jeremiah 21, just like Moses told the people in Deuteronomy 30 and Jesus told the people in Matthew 7, there are two paths. You can stay in “this city,” this world, with all of its trappings and pleasures and influences, and be led to death. Or you can leave “this city,” this world, this culture, this way of looking at things and this way of believing, and submit completely to God, and be led to eternal life.

The same choice is ours every day. As Moses said, “choose life.”

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It’s a little quieter in the Stanglin house today. Whitney and Valerie are at Three Mountain for a week of summer church camp with Jason and Lance and a whole bunch of Legacy 3rd – 8th graders. So it’s just us and the Bear. Carley, undoubtedly our most sensitive child, was already feeling lonely last night. She gets along with Whitney and Valerie equally well. And she’s already counting down the hours until they return Friday.

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45 days until football season begins. And #45 in our countdown is probably the greatest quarterback in the history of the Southwest Conference: TCU’s Slingin’ Sammy Baugh. SlinginSammyBaughBaugh was THE passing pioneer who truly revolutionized the game. A two-time All-America with the Frogs from 1934-1936, he made passing glamorous. Nobody passed the football until Baugh. Before him, passing was only a last ditch effort on 3rd and 16, down by two scores, in the 4th Quarter. It was never part of a serious gameplan. But Baugh was so good at it and so successful — TCU won the National Championship in 1935 with a 12-1 record (the lone loss was to SMU in the only game Baugh missed that year with injury) — that everyone else in the nation began imitating it.

Baugh was the Washington Redskins’ #1 pick in 1937. And when he retired in 1952, he held every single NFL passing record. All of them. Single season. Single game. Career. Every single record. He was, and still is, the best punter in NFL history with a career 45.1 yards per kick average. As a two-way player in 1943, Baugh led the NFL in passing, punting, and interceptions as a defensive back.

Baugh is in the College Football Hall of Fame, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame. He was born in Temple, Texas in 1914 and, at 93 years of age, he’s still going strong at his ranch in Rotan.

A couple of years ago I had scheduled a telephone interview with Sammy during a talk show. My producer, Eric Gray, got Sammy on the phone at his house during the commercial break, and when I punched him up on the air, the only thing I could hear was The Who’s “Don’t Get Fooled Again.” I could barely hear Baugh in the background. Barely. We were completely unable to communicate. It was like he was speaking over his own “hold” button. It was definitely on his end. I kept asking him about The Who. And he kept responding with “Who?!?”

It was like a horrible Abbot and Costello routine. And Eric made sure it wound up as the number one moment on my show during our year end top ten moments countdown. I still listen to that segment today, every now and then, and I laugh so hard I cry.

Two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffen deserves a high honorable mention. But every single quarterback who’s ever had any success in the college and / or pro game owes everything to Slingin’ Sammy Baugh.

Getting caught up from the weekend, #46 is the very first ever black consensus All-RooseveltLeaksAmerica and the first black superstar at Texas. Roosevelt Leaks finished third in the Heisman voting as a Longhorns running back in 1973, the same year he was the MVP of the SWC. That year Leaks rushed for 342 yards at SMU — a Longhorns road record that still stands — despite fumbling four times! He led UT in all purpose yards his junior and senior seasons. He had two 200 yards games. And he played for nine years in the NFL with the Colts and Bills. Leaks was born in Brenham, Texas. He’s in the UT Hall of Honor and the College Football Hall of Fame. And he currently works in Austin as a home appraiser.

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One more week of reading your Bible out loud. I’m anxious to hear next week how that’s impacted your study of Scripture and your listening to our God.

Peace,

Allan

The Wrong Question

July 13, 2007 / / 2 Comments

If preachers today are seen as filling the role of a prophet — speaking a Word from the Lord, on behalf of the Lord, to the Lord’s people — then the preacher’s message has to be counter-cultural. Every Old Testament prophet spoke against the culture of the day and called God’s people to reject the culture and embrace the Lord. The teachings of Jesus and the apostles, all of Paul’s teachings, go completely against culture. And the message is just as relevant today as it was in the first century AD or the third century BC. But can I preach that way every Sunday and still keep the job?

In the prophet Micah’s day, in Judah, God’s people were very well off. They were wealthy. Rich. And their houses and food and bank accounts and their lifestyles dominated what they thought about, talked about, and what they did. Buying more land, building bigger houses, taking longer vacations, putting more money in the bank is what drove God’s people. The next-door-neighbor didn’t matter. The needy family across the street didn’t matter. And the Lord called them on it.

When he confronts them in the opening verses of Micah 6, the people respond in v.8 with a typical, I think, 21st century response: “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?”

God’s upset. And their first conclusion was, “How can we improve our worship?” More sacrifices? More oil? Does he want my first born? Should we consider Wednesday nights?

“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?”

Let me suggest to you that’s the wrong question. The right question is, how do I live in a relationship with God? How do I love people out of my love for God? God tells them very plainly that if their daily lives don’t reflect justice and mercy and humility and love and service to their fellow man, he doesn’t even want their worship!

I’m afraid we put much more emphasis on the 75-minutes we spend at church on Sunday mornings than we do on the other 6-4/5 days of the week. In fact, I know we do. We devise elaborate worship theologies and, not only bind them on each other, but on other churches. We view others categorically, we judge other people and other churches based on what they do and how they do their 75-minutes.

You can close your eyes during every prayer, you can keep your hands in your lap during every song, you can look up every scripture during the sermon, and you can read Matthew 27 quietly to yourself during communion. None of it matters if you lied to your boss on Friday and plan on lying to him again on Monday. You can clap and raise your hands to contemporary songs led by a praise team, get down literally on your knees during the prayers, and read responsive psalms, it’s not doing you or God any good if you’re cheating your customers or ignoring the poor.

OK. That’s enough. You get the point. This is what I’m preaching during our 75-minutes Sunday — the critical and unmistakable connection between our daily ethics and our worship of our God. It’s been on my mind all week. And now hopefully you’ll chew on it for a couple of days before Sunday.

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I spoke with Bill Podsednik yesterday and he told me that ground will officially be broken by actual construction crews (not by elders & preachers or four-year-olds with plastic spades) either Monday or Tuesday this next week! Before we meet for Bible classes Wednesday evening there will be tractors and dirt movers and dump trucks and orange cones and mud and slop and all kinds of mess all over the west side of our building! Praise God! May we continue to seek his guidance. And may he use our efforts to grow the Kingdom in our part of his world.

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Dell Herod has asked me to remind you that the Fort Worth City Band will play an “Old-Time Band Concert” here at Legacy at 7:00 next Friday night, July 27, to benefit the Legacy Medical Missionary Fund. Dell has the tickets and all the information.

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There are 48 more days until football season (only nine more days until VBS, Kipi!) and the best ever #48 is Daryl Johnston. Moose“The Moose” was the Dallas Cowboys #2 pick in 1989 as an All-America fullback out of Syracuse. And he changed the way the position was played in the NFL. Before Johnston played in Dallas, the NFL had never named a fullback to the Pro Bowl. It was kind of a throwaway position, so they just named two starting tailbacks. But Johnston’s value as Emmitt Smith’s lead blocker and Troy Aikman’s pass protector and even a receiver out of the backfield caused the league to change its policy. Johnston was the first ever fullback named to the Pro Bowl in 1993. And he represented the NFC in Hawaii the following year, too.

Johnston helped lead the Cowboys to four NFC title games in the ’90s, and those three Super Bowl titles. He scored 22 TDs in his eleven year career, caught 294 passes, and played in 149 consecutive games. Brandon “Babe” Laufenberg takes credit all the time for giving Johnston his “Moose” nickname. And I’ve never heard anybody deny it. Right now, Johnston is one of the more enjoyable color analysts on NFL TV broadcasts with Dick Stockton on Fox.

And we’ll get tomorrow’s #47 out of the way since I generally don’t blog on Saturdays. Bald Mel MelBlountBlount, longtime cornerback for the Steelers, (I wanted to choose Dexter Clinkscale, but I just couldn’t justify it) also changed the way his position was played. Blount, out of Southern University in 1970, was the first big, strong, physical corner to really man up and rough up wideouts. He might be the very best bump-and-run cover corner ever. He did have to routinely guard Lynn Swann and John Stallworth in practice. He was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1975 (amazing as a CB), won four Super Bowls, and went to five Pro Bowls. Despite his physical play, Blount was extremely durable, playing in 200 of a possible 201 games during his career.

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Friday13thHappy Friday the 13th.

Go do something crazy today.

Allan

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