AllanStanglin.com
My new dream, my new life’s hope, is that the Pittsburgh Steelers win two or three of the next three or four Super Bowls with Mike McCarthy. Please! Please!
I think if the Steelers just make it to an AFC Championship Game, it’ll be enough to pull a lot of Cowboys fans over to the light.
Can I get a Terrible Towel on Amazon?
Peace,
Allan
We made the decision to open the doors Sunday morning and hold a worship service at GCR Church. It was snowing, the roads were icy, and the temperatures were in the teens; it was a winter weather situation we don’t get into that much in Midland, maybe only once every four or five years. Several Midland churches cancelled their services on Friday. As Friday turned into Saturday, even more churches posted their announcements that they were canceling their worship gatherings.
The restaurants were open. The grocery stores and retail outlets were open. The movie theaters and Costco and Bass Pro Shop were open. The club teams were all going forward with their basketball practices.
It seems to me that if two-thirds of the town is open, the church should not be closed.
We are ordained by God and charged by our community of faith to administer the sacraments of Word and Table every Lord’s Day. If 500 people show up to worship, it’s great. And if only five people show up, it’s still really great. God still meets us. God still transforms us. We are still in his presence, gathered together in the name of Jesus and by the power of his Spirit. Why would we cancel?
I know the rub. In situations like this, all the people younger than me who have no problem navigating the weather conditions will stay home, and all the people older than me who shouldn’t be out in this stuff will go to church. So, the thinking goes, we have to cancel so the older people don’t hurt themselves.
I’ve never known what to do with that. I’m open to suggestions.
I was at the building early Sunday morning, but not before Tim and Justin. They were here at 6:00am, shoveling the snow and ice and blowing dry the south and east sidewalks, preparing the way to church.
I called Carrie-Anne from the building at 9:00am. “Do you want me to come pick y’all up?” She replied, “Who am I? Your grandmother?! I know how to drive on this stuff!” I think I offended her. I love her for that.
The later it got in the week and the more buildup we heard from our local Midland media and saw on everybody’s Facebook posts about how terrible it was going to be, I was convinced that everyone had already made up their minds about whether or not they were going to attend church. I began getting the texts on Wednesday. “What are the chances we cancel church Sunday?” I responded, “Almost zero.” It felt like people had already decided. I started telling people by Thursday that even if it’s sunny and 40-degrees on Sunday, we’ll still have fewer than 100 people here.
Does that mean we should cancel?
Doesn’t cancelling church when most of the town is open and most of our congregation is eating out and going to practice and buying groceries send a message that church isn’t as important as we say it is? No, we are going to open the doors and greet one another warmly and hear the Word and eat and drink the communion meal; we’re going to sing praise to the Lord and hug each other and pray together and be reminded that we are redeemed children of God, that we belong to him and to one another, and that this is our primary identity and purpose.
More than 70 people showed up. Younger and older and lots of in-between. I even met a couple of visitors. We all huddled together down front, closer together, not spread out. Cory made a couple of jokes about the “Frozen Chosen” and we launched into the singing. We heard the Word of God from Philippians 2. I told some stories about God’s mission and how giving yourself to God’s mission changes us. I was able to make eye contact with every person in the room. We ate and drank the meal together. Richard gave us some news about the budget (Can you believe we come to church on a day like today and it’s Budget Sunday?!?). And we sang some more. And, afterwards, everybody hung out in the Worship Center talking and visiting, laughing and catching up with their brothers and sisters in Christ.
It was sweet. It was intimate. It was special.
We had our monthly 4 Midland lunch today. Me and my great friends, these pastor partners who knew we had church on Sunday when they didn’t. As soon as I sat down, Steve asked me, “Well, how many showed up?”
“The Lord showed up,” I replied. “And he was awesome.”
Peace,
Allan
We were in Tulsa this weekend for the Baby Blessing ceremony at the Jenks Church where our daughter Valerie and her family worship and serve. Elliott and Samuel are six-months-old, the perfect age to steal the show at a baby blessing. And they did. We were listening as the parents of all the babies born in that congregation over the past year made vows to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of our Lord, we affirmed our own promises to help these parents raise their children in Christ, but everybody was distracted by the cuteness of our twin grandsons.
Or was that just me?
I don’t know, man, they’re super cute.
David’s parents and his sister, Claire, were there from Virginia to really add to the fun of the long weekend together. There was a massive yard work project, big meals, football watching, and packing up the tubs of clothes the boys have already outgrown. But mainly we spent our time holding and playing with and loving Elliott and Sam. Elliott is taking steps now in his walker. Kinda. They’re both eating really well from jars now, and beginning to experiment with drinking from cups. They laugh and shriek at each other and are figuring out how to get their way. Elliott didn’t mind the lemon slice I had him try at Hideaway Pizza. Sammy hated it. We thought Elliott said “ma-ma” one time. He didn’t. But it was close.
I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of looking at those boys from way across a crowded room and watching them light up with recognition through those big eyes and wide-open smiles. How can I describe something like that? It’s crazy.
If you don’t have any, you should get some grandkids. It’s really awesome.
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The fastest way to get out of a spiritual rut is to dive head-first into a mission.
Having the mind of Christ, being transformed into the image of Jesus with ever-increasing glory, means increasingly doing for others. It means sacrificing and serving others. Philippians 2 says your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, and describes that attitude as considering others better than yourself and looking not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 1 Corinthians 10 tells us to seek the good of many. Romans 15 instructs us to please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.
Actually doing some ministry like that–not just talking about it or studying it or agreeing that it’s good–changes us.
When we risk going to new places, meeting new people, trying new activities, the uneasiness creates some space for change. New experiences challenge our beliefs and assumptions. Ministry when you’re in over your head forces you to face your fears and surprises you with resources and strength from God that 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 urgent and real. The Scriptures become more alive when you connect them to real ministry. It pushes you out of the comfort and theory of rhetoric and into the places where God is changing the world. To empty yourself for God’s mission like that feels good.
You know it feels good. Because you’ve done it before. And the reason it feels so good and refreshing and real is because it is your God-ordained purpose. He made you to put others first. When you do that, you are being more Christ-like. 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!
Living your life on mission means more people in our world will be blessed. And more of us will be changed.
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Derrell Havins, a gentle man of deep faith and a dear friend in Amarillo, finished his race this afternoon. And he ran well. Very well.
I love Derrell because he first loved me. I count Derrell among the greatest sources of encouragement I had during our ten years of ministry at the Central Church of Christ. He’d start all of our conversations with a smart-aleck comment about my tie or my hair or something I had said in a sermon, and then move immediately into an encouraging word. He told me on multiple occasions to never stop preaching. He told me to never let up. He told me to keep speaking the truth, even when it was difficult. And sometimes it was.
He and his loving wife, Nola, took us out for burgers at Buns Over Texas and catfish at that all-you-can-eat place in Umbarger. They were a fixture at Central’s annual Family Camp. And his smile–I never saw Derrell frown, unless he was faking something.
I love Derrell because he loved our daughters. He and Nola doted on our girls constantly, telling them how pretty they are, how talented they are, how important they are. They hugged all three of our girls every Sunday. Valerie and Carley always referred to Nola and Derrell as “our favorite old people.” Derrell stood on the stage in that old Central chapel in the summer of 2020 as I walked Valerie down the aisle at her wedding. He’s the one who asked who was giving away this beautiful young lady in marriage. Valerie was blown away. Astonished. She had no idea Derrell would be up there. I remember when the doors opened and she took one step into the aisle and saw Derrell, she turned to me and said, “Oh, my word! It’s Derrell!” And started crying.
I’m typing through tears as I’m writing this right now. Remembering what Derrell would say every time we ate lunch together at the Burger Bar on Polk Street. He would order the Monte Cristo. Every time. And he would say, “Don’t tell Nola.” Every time.
After Nola died suddenly in March 2015, Derrell’s encouragement to me became a one-track stuck record. He ordered me to tell Carrie-Anne how much I love her. Every time we spoke, and at least a couple of times every Sunday, Derrell would insist. “Promise me,” he would say, “that tonight you’ll tell her. Tell Carrie-Anne you love her. Again.”
So, tonight, in honor of Derrell and Nola and their 57 years of marriage that truly reflect the glory of God and serve as a powerful testimony to our Lord’s love for his people, tell your wife tonight how much you love her and how much she blesses your life. Tell your husband how much he means to you and how you can’t imagine living without him.
God bless all the Havins and Vaughans in Amarillo tonight, and all the people who love Derrell so much. Rest in peace, Derrell. May our faithful God receive you into his loving arms.
Peace,
Allan
“The closer we draw to the Church, the closer Christ draws to us.” ~ Kenneth B
I’m still posting some excerpts from this past Sunday’s sermon on how we are transformed more into the image of Jesus in and through the local church. I am also sharing some lines from the excellent article I found Monday–a few days too late!–written by Kenneth B on Substack about the same topic. You can read his outstanding piece here.
The main point of Sunday’s sermon is that the differences we have with one another in our churches are precisely the areas where our Father shapes us into his image. It’s in those differences and disappointments that the Spirit changes us to more consistently think like God and more regularly and predictably act like Jesus. We have different ideas, different preferences, different buttons and triggers–there’s never going to be anything we all agree on together within our churches.
And that’s okay.
If we had to agree with everybody in our churches on everything, Carrie-Anne and I would be at two different churches.
If unity means uniformity, a bunch of us are going to have stop thinking. Nobody wants that.
God’s people are messy in community. But I think that’s the point.
“You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people, and members of God’s household… In him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” ~ Ephesians 2:19-22
“In fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” ~ 1 Corinthians 12:18
I believe that every man, woman, and child in your church is there because God placed them there. You are a part of your congregation for a reason: God’s reason. We need each other if God’s going to work in us and through us the way he intends. Our mindset must be: We are together in this church because of what God is doing in Christ. If that’s the mindset, then we commit to one another. We vow to make it work.
We were watching a TV show a couple of weeks ago in which two of the characters work together, and they’re dating. They’re in a relationship. He did something at work she didn’t like, something that messed up what she was trying to accomplish, and it made her angry. So she broke up with him. It’s over. And he said, “So, that’s how it is? You don’t get your way and you sever the relationship? You’re going to be a sad and lonely woman.”
Some people leave their church when they don’t get their way. They just leave because something’s not going the way they want.
No! That misses the whole point of Christian community! It’s a family, it’s like a marriage. You work it out. You don’t leave. You work through it. And it’s hard and it’s painful and sometimes it’s disappointing and sometimes it hurts. But this is precisely what leads to spiritual growth. This is what facilitates increased Christ-likeness. You don’t treat your church like you treat your car or your shampoo. Your mindset is: I am all in with these people in this place because God has put me here and he’s doing something.
“In Christ, we, who are many, form one body. And each member belongs to all the others.” ~ Romans 12:5
We belong together in our church communities. And it’s in your church community where God’s grace transforms you. Being together all the time with people you don’t necessarily agree with, worshiping and serving together, living and dying together with people you didn’t choose, forces us to grow in Christ-likeness.
Love one another. Build one another up. Encourage one another. Honor one another. Be in harmony with one another. Pray for one another. Be devoted to one another. Instruct one another. Greet one another. Accept one another. Serve one another. Be patient with one another. Be kind and compassionate to one another. Submit to one another. Forgive one another. These biblical commands can only be obeyed in community. We can only follow our Lord’s instructions if we’re together, if we really belong to each other. And when we do these things, by God’s grace, when we commit to this way of being together in Christian community, we’ll find that we are more consistently thinking like God and more regularly and predictably acting like Jesus.
This is how God works. And where.
I’ll end today with this paragraph from the Kenneth B article. Again, I urge you to read the whole thing here.
“A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is real, but it is not solitary. It is lived through the Church. You do not discover Christ by escaping the community, but by joining it. You do not grow closer to God by seeking exceptional moments, but by entering the ordinary pattern of worship, repentance, fasting, and love that has formed saints for two thousand years… We meet him as members of his Body. We are saved together, healed together, shaped together, and restored together. Even our most personal experiences of grace arise from the shared life of the Church, it’s sacraments, its Scriptures, its prayers, its elders, its martyrs, and its saints… In the ancient world, to speak of knowing Christ personally was to speak of being united to his Body, standing shoulder to shoulder with the community he founded, and learning from the people who had already learned to pray, to repent, to love, and to die with hope.”
Peace,
Allan
I paid off a Cowboys debt today. I bet Myles back in August that the Cowboys would not get seven wins this year. Myles is a squirrely 13-year-old kid in our youth group and the son of the wonderful Brandon and Ashlee. He and I share a love for Whataburger, the Texas Longhorns, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and our Lord Jesus. But that’s about the extent of what we have in common. He loves the Cowboys. Poor kid.
Our wagers are always for lunch at Whataburger. Loser buys. Including the vanilla and strawberry shakes. So, I picked up Myles from school today. And his friend, Nolan. I’m not sure how I got roped into buying his lunch, too. I don’t know this kid. Why am I buying his lunch?
When’s the last time you shared a meal with a teenager from your church? I’d suggest doing it soon. It’s awesome.
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A lot of people have this idea that the church is a volunteer organization; that every person in the church makes his or her own decision to belong or not; like we each experience a personal relationship with Christ, and then we join a church that promotes my individual spiritual health. This way, people join the church or leave the church based on whether they feel like their needs are being met or not.
No. Our knowledge of God–understanding who God is and what he is doing–re-shapes the way we think about Christian community, the way we view church. Church is God’s work, not ours. Not yours and not mine.
“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light… Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” ~ 1 Peter 2:9-10
Earlier in 1 Peter 2, the apostle writes that you–this is the plural form of the word, you all, or, as I like to say, y’all–are chosen by God and precious. You (y’all) are being built into a spiritual house. You are not building it; you are being built by God. Belonging to a community of faith is not your choice, it is God’s decision. It’s God’s work.
“God has called you (y’all) into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” ~1 Corinthians 1:9
“Brothers and sisters, think of what you (y’all) were when you were called.” ~1 Corinthians 1:26
“It is because of God that you (y’all) are in Christ Jesus.” ~1 Corinthians 1:30
In the Bible, whenever the Gospel is preached, wherever the power of what God has done and is doing in Christ Jesus is proclaimed, these communities of faith just pop up. The churches in the Bible are defined ONLY by their acceptance of the Good News and their commitment to Christ and to one another. Jews and Gentiles together. Rich and poor together. Free people and slaves together. Men and women, tax collectors and Zealots, national citizens and foreigners together. Young and old, fugitives and business leaders together.
You and I don’t CHOOSE to belong to group like that. We would NEVER choose that. Putting a church together is what God does.
Peace,
Allan
The great Drew Pearson is 75 today. The OG 88. Walk around today with a little bit of a chip on your shoulder in his honor. Try to use the phrase “Hail Mary” at least a couple of times. And just point to the crowd knowingly. Don’t spike it.
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I’m not a hundred-percent sure what to do with Substack. It feels like social media, to which I am fundamentally opposed. But some of the best writers I know personally are writing there regularly. So, I’m reading Jim Martin and Daniel Harris and Carrie McKean. Then Steve Schorr, my brother and partner in the Gospel at First Presbyterian, turned me on to the Disarming Leviathan guys. And now I have come across Kenneth B.
I do not know who Kenneth B. is. He is an orthodox Christian. That’s it. Maybe that’s all I need to know. He has written an excellent piece on the Church and our understandings of Church as the Body of Christ. Or, better said, our gross misunderstandings. And it is the best article on Church as the transforming community of faith I have read in a long time.
He writes about people a little younger than me, people in their 40s and 50s maybe, and how they were raised to view Christianity as a personal relationship with Jesus, faith as an emotional experience, and the Church as functioning to produce that experience.
“The idea that church existed to form a people rather than to stimulate an individual was unimaginable to us. Church was treated like a spiritual energy drink. You consumed it for a jolt of religious feeling, and if you stopped feeling the jolt, you changed flavors… Looking back, I realize that what I was handed was not the faith of the apostles, but a very late cultural invention.”
I just preached yesterday about how God’s Holy Spirit transforms us in Christian community, how our commitments to Christ and to his people–people we would never choose, people we don’t agree with, people we may not even like–form us more and more into his holy image. I only wish I had read Kenneth B’s article before I had preached. I think I might have just read the whole thing to everybody and called it good. This is excellent stuff.
“Because the entire structure was built around individual experience, religious feeling became the engine and the evidence of faith. A good church was one that gave you an experience. A bad church was one that did not. Piety was defined by how deeply a song moved you, how intensely a sermon pierced your conscience, how often you felt the Spirit goosebump the back of your neck. If you prayed and felt nothing, the prayer was thought to have failed. If you worshiped and felt nothing, the worship was considered dead.”
Please read this whole article. It’s right here. Click right here. Read it twice. I think I’m going to write about it in sections this week, along with excerpts from yesterday’s sermon.
“Consider how the early Christians spoke. They did not describe salvation as me and Jesus but as us in Christ. Baptism did not place you in a private booth with God. It plunged you into a people. The Eucharist did not symbolize an internal feeling. It joined your life with every believer at the table.”
Okay. It’s really good. Check it out. Then come back tomorrow.
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The boys are six months old. They are both rolling over consistently and sleeping on their bellies. Elliott is starting to hold his own bottle, here and there. Sam is watching Elliott intensely and hollering at him when he feels ignored. They are the two coolest little kids on the planet and they will be center stage at the annual Baby Dedication Service at the Jenks Church this Sunday. We will be on the front row. Cheering and laughing and praising God for his grace in the gift of these guys who fill us with so much joy.
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I had an incredible weekend in Dallas with some of the people I absolutely love the most. Three of the four Horsemen had lunch together at Dan’s house Friday. I snuck in a box of Swiss Cake Rolls and Zebra Cakes–don’t tell Debbie–and we laughed together and talked about all that God is doing in our lives. The Parkinson’s keeps Dan-O mostly confined to his bedroom now, but his Spirit has never known any bounds. He is as full of joy and encouragement as I’ve ever seen him. I thank God for Dan and for his continuous encouragement to me. He sees things in me I never did. Still does. He speaks them into existence, to our Lord and to me, sometimes at the same time.
Friday night, my sister Rhonda and I drove to Oak Cliff to take our Aunt Louann to dinner at the historic Norma’s Cafe. I knew we were going to make for a very loud party, so I made sure we sat in a booth in the very back corner of the restaurant. I think we still scared away some of the patrons. Oh, my word, we shared memories and Stanglin stories, we puzzled over unanswered questions and deep family mysteries, we sang songs (hard to explain), and laughed at everything. And we did it all way too loud.
At one point, the couple in the booth behind Louann got up to leave and looked at us with huge grins on their faces. They laughed and said, “Y’all have some really interesting stories!” I apologized and they assured us it was fine, they were entertained. They could tell we were having fun and that made it fun for them. As they walked away, Louann yelled at me, “WHAT DID THEY SAY?” So I told her. And Louann responded, “DO YOU THINK THEY HEARD US?!” And I yelled back, “I DON’T KNOW! DO YOU THINK THEY HEARD US?!”
Then Saturday morning, Rhonda and I met at the Saturn Road Church of Christ in Garland for Coach Richmond’s funeral. Coach Larry Richmond was my high school football coach at Dallas Christian. He was a history and health teacher and, for a couple of years in an emergency situation, our tennis coach. And we all loved him deeply. There were about 20 of us at the service who played for Coach Richmond, and we took pictures together and swapped a lot of football stories in the foyer, at the reception, and for about three hours at the On the Border at Saturn Road and Northwest Highway.
That crazy last drive and the Savage Fake that beat Metro Christian. The 4th quarter meltdown in that playoff game at Bishop Lynch. Cowboy drills. Sideline tackle drills. Uphill forties. Dean Stewart’s grades that were questionable for the Trinity game and kept him out of the First Baptist game. The Greenhill bell. Crack-backing on Greg Lybrand in practice and fearing for my life every day after until he graduated. A certain peanut butter incident after a week of two-a-days at football camp. The Bomb Squad. Ground Control. Coach T’s “Major Tom” towel. All the nicknames. Pearhead’s intense running. Godoy’s speed and the physical way he went after a football. Dumb Adkins’ toughness and leadership. Coach Lisle.
As I drove to Midland after that long lunch, my head aching from laughing too hard for too long, and Rhonda drove home to Edmond, we talked on the phone with each other for almost an hour and a half. Psycho-analyzing all of it. Reviewing feelings and reactions. Remembering people who weren’t there. Reminding of something funny or unexpected that was done or said.
I came away from the weekend overflowing with gratitude to God for all the amazingly wonderful people he has placed in my life. My whole life. Coach Richmond was MY coach! So was Coach Lisle! I had both of them! And Coach A and Coach T and Coach Savage and Coach Smith and Coach Shack. How was I so blessed? Jason Reeves is MY friend. So is Dan and Kevin and Robby John! Todd Adkins was MY teammate and running buddy in high school and MY roommate in college. I also went to high school and was friends with Mark Cawyer and Randy Hill and Michelle Peoples and Jeff Majors and Stephen Fitzhugh and Kyle Douthit! How? Rhonda Kingsley is MY sister! Completely undeserved! Totally lucky! Deeply and richly blessed by God!
Don’t wait until next week. Tell the people you love that you love them.
Peace,
Allan
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