The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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All That Noise

November 2, 2022 / / 0 Comments

By God’s grace, our GCR Church gave $6,151,300 last Sunday in cash, checks, and pledges to fund our congregational emphasis on transformation and mission – that’s more than two-million-dollars above our goal! The money and pledge cards continue trickling in this week and I’m assuming by the time you’re reading this letter the total might be closer to $6.2-million!

Praise God for his faithfulness and gracious provision! The supreme generosity of our church family means all the Breakthrough initiatives are fully funded. Thank you so much for your deep faith in our Lord, your confidence in our vision, and your commitments to the mission at Golf Course Road.

Allow me to remind all of us that when we give our money to the Lord, when we invest our dollars and dimes in the Kingdom of God, it’s not gone. The tray goes down the pew and your check is in the tray and the tray disappears into a counting room and your check gets deposited with a bank. But it’s not gone.

It’s like a pinball machine. Whatever you give works like a pinball machine.

You know, you’re playing pinball and that little silver ball is moving right down the middle, headed for the bottom, and it looks like it’s lost. The ball is gone. The game goes dark. It’s over.

But then you hit the flipper. That blessed flipper! And the ball pops up and now it’s bouncing and pinging all over the place. It touches off an exciting set of strobe lights over there. It bangs into a bunch of noisemakers over here. It gets a bonus ball and some extra points up there. That ball is just going and going and bouncing and beeping and buzzing and there’s excitement and electricity and energy…!

Almost out of nowhere! How cool!

Because of Breakthrough, some of our folks at GCR put really large sums of money into the plate on Sunday. Because of Breakthrough, some of our people put ten dollars into the plate when they haven’t given money to church in years. Or never.

Your money’s not gone. You’re throwing it into God’s pinball machine and it’s about to come into contact with that flipper. Now you just watch what God’s going to do with it!

Everything you do for God makes a difference. It bounces and pings all over eternity.

Even one cup of cold water given in the name of Jesus makes a lot of noise in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

Breakthrough Sunday!

October 31, 2022 / / 0 Comments

The goal was to give four-million-dollars to jump start our vision and mission at the GCR Church. Four-million-dollars over the next two years would fund our Gospel work with our five local missions partners, adopt three new church plants, send one hundred of our church members on mission trips, remodel our worship center, restructure our adult Bible classes, start twelve new small groups, and host a dozen Christian Practices retreats. The goal was four-million-dollars. We prayerfully and worshipfully expected God to provide four-million-dollars.

Turns out, God thinks we can do more than we think we can.

By the grace of God, the generosity of the GCR Church resulted in an outpouring of more than six-million-dollars yesterday to fund our ambitious vision. The cash and pledges that were offered yesterday totaled more than $6.1-million dollars, and the number is growing by the hour with every check that’s delivered to the church offices today and every pledge that’s made online.

Six-million-dollars!

Yesterday’s Breakthrough results are the culmination of many things: a lot of hard work by a great ministry team, congregational confidence in the leadership of our church and the vision from our God, and the amazing grace of our merciful Lord. Our God is moving among us. God was ready for this church to take this step, he is ready for us to move on this. God’s timing was and is perfect with this in so many ways. I’m convinced he was always going to do this again with Golf Course Road, and I feel blessed by God and privileged by him to be in the middle of it with our church family together. All of us at GCR should feel very favored by the Lord to be in the situation we’re in together.

We are a ten talent church. We’re in the upper tier in the amount of gifts, money, resources, and blessings we have received from our Father. And that comes with serious responsibilities to God and to his mission. He’s given us ten talents, and he expects us to use them. That’s a heavy burden to consider and a tremendous opportunity to undertake with no fear and great faith.

Praise the Lord for days like yesterday and the obvious outpouring of his grace on us. May his will be done in and through his people at GCR just as it is in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

Transformed on Mission

October 26, 2022 / / 0 Comments

When we decide to get involved with what God is doing and the ways God is doing it, he changes us. Our Lord transforms us when we personally engage the mission.

“…to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the Body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” ~Ephesians 4:12-14

Being changed by God into the image of Jesus with ever-increasing glory is a result of increasingly doing for others. Sacrificing and serving others. Philippians 2 says we should pursue the mind of Christ or the attitude of Christ, and ties it directly to considering the needs of others more important than our own. This is Jesus! He said it: “I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life.” That’s the mission. And when you engage, you’ll be changed.

Actually doing ministry, having a mission – not just talking about it, studying it, or agreeing it’s good – changes you. The fastest way to get out of your spiritual rut is to dive head-first into our Lord’s mission.

New experiences challenge our beliefs and assumptions. Ministry, when you’re in over your head, forces you to face your fears and it surprises you with resources and strength from God you didn’t know you had. Hearing the stories first-hand, seeing the places, and meeting the people makes the needs and the opportunities more real. The Scriptures become more alive when you connect them to real ministry. Being on mission pushes us out of our comfort zones and into the places where God is really changing the world. And it’ll change you.

To empty yourself for the mission of Christ like that feels good. You know it feels good to serve others because you’ve done it. And the reason it feels so good is because it’s our God-created and God-ordained purpose. He made us to serve others. And when we do that, we are becoming like Christ. That’s why it’s so powerful. When we serve others, we live better, we worship better, we pray better, we love better – everything’s better. It changes you.

“As each part does its work, we will in all things grow up into Christ.” ~Ephesians 4:16

Peace,

Allan

No Solo Missions

October 24, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Our God is on a mission to save the world. But he has no interest in doing it by himself. God doesn’t do solo missions. He’s not interested in that.

When God decides to tell us how he’s going to restore the world, how he’s going to fix the problem of sin and death, he lets us know clearly that we’re in on it with him. He’s not going to do it alone. He recruits Abraham to join him. “Go to the place I will show you. All the peoples of earth will be blessed through you.”

God calls Moses. “I have come down,” he says, “to rescue my people. But I am sending you to do it.”

God calls Joshua. “I am giving this promised land to the people. But you’re going to lead them and do all the fighting.”

God saves his people Israel out of exile, not for their own sakes, but for the purposes of participating in his global mission:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles (nations), that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” ~Isaiah 49:6

Then God decides to show us in person exactly what he’s doing and how he wants it done by coming here in the flesh and blood of Jesus, so we can see it and understand it. Jesus says, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” Well, what do we see in Jesus? He calls the apostles and recruits the disciples to partner with him in bringing the Kingdom of God to earth. They pray together, “Your Kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And that’s exactly what happens.

Jesus heals the sick because there’s no disease in heaven. He feeds the poor because there’s no hunger in heaven. Jesus raises the dead because there are no cemeteries in heaven. He turns the other cheek because there is no violence in heaven. He eats and drinks with everybody because there are no divisions between people in heaven. That’s the mission. And our God is not doing it solo. On that last night, Christ Jesus sends his disciples out.

“As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.”

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do the same things I’ve been doing. In fact, you’ll do even greater things because I will live inside you.” 

“Remember, you didn’t choose me; I chose you!”

Every one of us is on God’s mission. None of us is exempt. According to Matthew 25, Jesus says on that last day the King is going to judge us according to who was on the mission and who wasn’t. Our God is on a mission to bring the fullness of his eternal Kingdom to this earth. And he refuses to do it by himself.

Peace,

Allan

You Wreck Me

October 20, 2022 / / 2 Comments

Tom Petty was born on this date, October 20, 1950, in Gainesville, Florida. He is one of rock-and-roll’s greatest legends and one of this country’s greatest songwriters. No one can paint a more vivid portrait or tell a more captivating story in just a three-minute song than Tom Petty. His middle name is Earl.

Turn it up.

Fun Club

October 19, 2022 / / 0 Comments

As part of GCR’s “Breakthrough,” our church is partnering with Emerson Elementary School to provide needed resources and support for the teachers, staff, and the 420 students there and their families. We’re planning for our church members to serve as crossing guards and cafeteria aids on campus, to stock and organize the Care Closet, and to staple papers and make copies for the teachers. We’re providing teacher lunches and weekend food packages for the kids. We’re putting together a “Fist Bump Crew” to greet the students as they enter the campus on Monday mornings. And we’re committed to completely renovate their interior courtyard, to provide a beautiful space where kids can eat breakfast or lunch with their parents and where we can read with them through Fun Club.

Fun Club is a program through which an adult or two eats lunch once a week with a group or four or five students and reads to them during the meal. You eat with this small group of kids, you laugh together and bond a little bit, and you read. That’s it.

Our children’s minister, Kristin Rampton, and our oldest daughter, Whitney, are already plugged into Fun Club at Emerson. This picture is of Whitney reading to a small group of second-graders earlier today. Does that warm your heart, or what?

Are you telling me you can’t do something like this once a week? Don’t tell me. Tell Whitney.

Peace,

Allan

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