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Elijah's Ministry of Deed

July 18, 2007 / Allan / 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.

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

Peace,

Allan

The Ministry of Reconciliation

July 17, 2007 / Allan / 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 Texas 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 / Allan / 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. Baugh 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-America 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 / Allan / 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. “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 Blount, 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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Happy Friday the 13th.

Go do something crazy today.

Allan

Who's in Charge?

July 12, 2007 / Allan / 1 Comment

What a culturally stupid question that must have been to ask in the first century Roman Empire. Can you imagine? Who’s in charge? What do you mean who’s in charge?

Put yourself in Ephesus or Pergamum or Smyrna or any of the seven churches to whom John addressed the Revelation. As disciples of Christ, you meet in each other’s homes, huddled up in the back somewhere, whispering your songs, if you sing any at all, and speaking in hushed tones the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Outide the front door you can clearly hear the footsteps of the Roman soldiers marching down the paved street. Maybe even the sound of chariots as they roll by, pulled by the Emperor’s horses. And you hold your breath until they pass.

On the island of Patmos John watches every single day as the Empire’s trade ships pass by right in front of him, loaded with what the rulers of the world buy and sell—“cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men.”

Who’s in charge? Caesar or Christ? Is it the Emperor or the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

What a stupid question. The Roman Empire’s in charge! The Emperor holds the ultimate power. The Empire is all powerful and almighty. It’s everywhere. It controls every facet of everyday life. It cannot be escaped. The Empire owns and runs everything!

That’s the human perspective. And it’s easy to understand why and how that thought would prevail under those conditions at that time. And it’s just as easy, I think, to have that same view today living in America. We’re surrounded by American culture. Who’s in charge? Technology and democracy and entertainment and consumerism and nationalism and marketing and big business; divorce and abuse and murder and rape and burglary and road rage and terrorism and cancer and death; poverty and homosexuality and violence and racism and lying and cheating and selfishness. Who’s in charge? Our culture, which is inescapable? Taking us over? Or our Christ, who sometimes seems oblivious or powerless against the evil in our world, or sometimes even absent?

A culturally stupid question.

The wonderful book of Revelation, the Apocolypse of our Lord Jesus Christ, gives first century Christians living under the tyranny of the Roman Empire and 21st century Christians living under the oppression of American culture the divine perspective on reality. Our human and worldly perspective is blown away by God’s perspective. Revelation gives us an encouraging, faith-building glimpse of the way God sees things, the way they really are. That the Lamb, Jesus the Christ, the Resurrected One rules!

Gary Pence is doing a marvelous job teaching the Revelation in our Wednesday night Bible class. Somehow he manages to teach the entire book every week, and still progress chapter by chapter. And I’m struck every week by the unmistakable message that Jesus is Lord. None of the powers or authorities of this world matter in the big picture. The truth is that the Christ destroys all of it.

“Now have come the salvation and the power and the Kingdom of our God,
     and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers,
     who accuses them before our God day and night,
     has been hurled down.
They overcame him
     by the blood of the Lamb
     and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
     as to shrink from death.
Therefore rejoice you heavens
     and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
     because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
     because he knows that his time is short.”    Revelation 12:10-12

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The sleepy little towns of Johnson City / Stonewall, just 14 miles south of Marble Falls, will be busy for the rest of the week and weekend honoring a Texas legend. Lady Bird Johnson was a Texas icon, the first lady who changed the image of the first lady. She loved her native Texas and gave her life to preserving its natural beauty. Full of grace and kindness, she exemplified everything we want our politicians’ wives to be. It’s difficult, especially if you’ve lived anywhere in Central Texas for any period of time, to look at a beautiful field of Bluebonnets and not think of Lady Bird. There’s a great Dallas Morning News story on her life and legacy right here.

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There are only 49 more days until football season. And #49 in the countdown is another Texas icon. The great Tom Landry. Landry wore #33 as the Texas Longhorns team captain in 1947 -48. But he was #49 with the New York Giants as a defensive back / punter during his short NFL playing career from 1949-55. When he retired, Landry became the Giants’ defensive coordinator, serving alongside offensive coordinator Vince Lombardi. No wonder nobody can remember that Jim Lee Howell was the head coach during those days. Can you imagine playing for both Landry and Lombardi on the same team? And neither one was the head coach?

It was in New York where Landry invented the Flex Defense, which he took to Dallas when he became the head coach of the expansion Cowboys in 1960. 29 years later “the man in the funny hat,” as Roger Staubach called him, had led Dallas to five Super Bowls, two World Championships, two more NFL championship games, ten NFC championship games, 20-consecutive winning seasons (still an NFL record), and 18 playoff appearances. He’s the third winningest coach in NFL history. And every single coach that’s followed him at Valley Ranch, the six different men Jerry Wayne’s shuffled in and out of there in just 19 years, has paled in comparison to Landry’s success and character.

Landry was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August 1990. Carrie-Anne and I had been married for less than a year when we loaded up the ice chest with ham sandwiches and drove the pickup to Canton, Ohio to see the ceremony. We were dirt poor and only ate out one time during that five day trip. It was months before either one of us could eat another ham sandwich. Since we had eloped in Las Vegas and I had to be at work in Pampa the next day, I always tell C-A, jokingly, that the trip to the Hall of Fame eight months later was our honeymoon.

Landry flew 30 missions with the Air Force during World War II. The high school football field in Mission, Texas is named after him. And if Jerry Wayne doesn’t name the new stadium in Arlington after him (he won’t), he’s a fool.

Tom Landry, for a thousand reasons, is the best to ever wear #49.

Peace,

Allan

Being a Spiritual Director

July 11, 2007 / Allan / 2 Comments

Eugene Peterson’s third and final angle in Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity is spiritual direction—the preacher fulfilling his role as a spiritual director, giving spiritual direction to the people God brings to him every day. Peterson describes it as “teaching people to pray, helping them discern the presence of grace in events and feelings, affirming the presence of God at the very heart of life, sharing a search for light through a dark passage in the pilgrimage, guiding the formation of a self-understanding that is biblically spiritual instead of merely psychological or sociological.”

We preachers probably do it much more than we realize because we don’t really give this part of our ministries a name. But we’d probably do even more of it if we weren’t so tightly scheduled or so intently involved in completing the current project. We would do it more consistently and more skillfully if we realized how much more important it is than anyone ever tells us.

Spiritual direction means “taking seriously, with a disciplined attention and imagination, what others take casually.” Like “pray for me” is usually a fairly casual remark. But a preacher who takes his role as spiritual director seriously gives that remark his full attention. It’s paying serious attention to every single person and every single situation and seeing it all as eternal, not ephemeral. The perspective is that everything that happens is essential, not accidental. Our natural tendency, I think, is to pay very special attention to the big things, the “things that matter.” I’ll spend an entire week working on the sermons and the worship services. Those things, done in front of a thousand people every Sunday, dominate my daily thoughts. I’ll practice it. I’ll pray about it. I’ll study it and worry over it. I’ll give it my full attention. But being a spiritual director means giving that same attention and concentration and intensity to EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY.

Again, Peterson says if we can cultivate an attitude of awe and go into every encounter with every person prepared to marvel at what God is doing in that person’s life, this becomes a very natural thing.

“This face before me, its loveliness scored with stress, is in the image of God. This fidgety and slouching body that I’m looking at is a temple of the Holy Ghost. This awkward, slightly asymmetrical assemblage of legs and arms, ears and mouth, is part of the body of Christ. Am I ready to be amazed at what God hath wrought, or am I industriously absorbed in pigeon-holing my observations? Why is it that the minute a person sits down in front of me…I so quickly abandon my basic orientation and the texts that I have pondered and preached and taught for all these years and take up with half-digested slogans and formulae that I pick out of the air of contemporania?”

I’m trying so hard to see God and God’s work in every single person I meet and in every conversation I have. As I’m visiting with people, I try to focus on the fact that God has been working in this person’s life since he or she was born. And the circumstances this person finds himself in now is, again, God at work. God has plans for this person. God is bringing some purpose long in process to fulfillment right now.

My tendency, when anyone steps into my study, is to try to fill that person’s head with all the stuff in my head. But as a spiritual director, I have to understand that it’s not heads involved here, it’s hearts. It’s lives. My focus should be, “What has God been doing with this person before he or she showed up in my study?” God has been at work with this person since birth. Everything that has taken place in this life has in some way or another taken place in the context of creation and salvation. Everything. All of it. And I have to apply that same urgency and intensity to every situation.

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If baseball has to award home field advantage in the World Series in some contrived, trumped up publicity stunt, do it with the in-season interleague games, not the All-Star Game. The All-Star Game has very little, if anything, to do with the way a regular season game or a playoff game is managed or played. Very little. How in the world is it that Rangers shortstop Michael Young didn’t even make an appearance in last night’s classic? Has the reigning All-Star Game MVP ever been forced to watch the entire game, all nine innings, from the dugout rail? How does that happen? Evan Grant’s game re-cap in the Star Telegram contains a beautiful line: “if that wasn’t enough, Young had to stand next to — and act like he was listening to — Alex Rodriguez in the game’s final innings. Talk about punishment.”

Ever since Bud Selig began using the outcome of the All Star Game to determine home field advantage in the World Series, it’s been Texas Rangers who’ve played dramatic and critical roles in giving it to the AL. Hank Blalock that first year, Soriano, and Young. But last night, Mike didn’t even get a chance. Still, former Rangers pitchers Chris Young and Francisco Cordero, both on the NL squad, did give up homers to AL hitters last night. So that Rangers streak of All-Star irony continues.

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50 days until football season. And like yesterday’s #51, today’s #50 in the countdown is a hands-down no-brainer. Just like yesterday’s, today’s player is a middle-linebacker for the Chicago Bears. But unlike yesterday’s, today’s is a Texan all the way through. Mike Singletary was born in Houston, played his college football at Baylor (where he wore #63), and then spent his 12 year NFL career with the Bears. What an amazing defense those Bears (Da Bears!) had in the ’80s! And Singletary quarterbacked it.

He was the number one or number two top tackler on the Bears every season he played. He went to ten straight Pro Bowls and was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year twice (’85 & ’88). And you have to remember those eyes!

Intense. Wide open. Scanning the entire field and taking in every nuance of the offensive formation, the shifts, the motion, the signals, everything in a matter of three or four seconds. The Bears had the great Walter Payton in those days. But it was the defense that shut down opponents and took them to the franchise’s only Super Bowl victory in 1985. They beat the Cowboys that year 44-0. And Dallas won their division that season.

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Look at these two sweeties!

Camryn Pope invited Carley last night to Cinderella at the Bass Concert Hall in downtown Ft. Worth. They had a ball! And Carley was home before midnight.

Peace,

Allan

The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

Page 492 of 497

Elijah's Ministry of Deed

The Ministry of Reconciliation

The Way of Life

The Wrong Question

Who's in Charge?

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