faithrunner

I have officed in Las Colinas for about two years. Before then the B. H. Carroll Theological Institute offices were in downtown Arlington. Living in Plano, I assumed I could never commute on my bike to work. The distance and with city streets 99% of the way, it would be too risky and the traffic would be horrendous at rush hours. Thanks to my friend, Jeff Holder, who cycles to his office frequently, I experienced a relatively safe route to work on my bike; 100% pedaling with no public transit assistance. My ride to the office (minus the ride from my house to where I met Jeff) began at 0500 at my house. I have a Urban500 bike headlight , and it worked well. Only drawback was it has a 1.5 hour rechargeable battery that lasted until daylight but would not be helpful beyond that time limit. Traffic was light (surprise!) until we got close to the Valley View/635 interchange about 0645 or so. But even then Jeff had steered the path through parking lots and less-traveled roads to get m...

WCA REVEAL Survey Cally Parkinson of the Willow Creek Association recently contacted me saying she wanted to write a case study on Legacy Church because they had observed the improvement in our church's spiritual growth through the comparison of our two REVEAL surveys taken in March, 2010 and March, 2012 . I was surprised by the request since we had nothing to compare our progress to except our two survey results. So, we gathered some of our "spiritual growth team" around a conference call with Cally, and we told our story.  Rather than describe the case study, here it is in its entirety. I am thankful to the ministry directors, church leadership team, and two members who made up our spiritual growth team , and to the staff and members who implemented their plan to "help people trust Jesus." --> Legacy Church, Plano, TX Case Study (c) Willow Creek Association, 2012 Picture the nation’s 70 th most populous city—one named, in ...

Markus, Gabriel, Sarah, Russell and me Last Thursday night, January 27, at the invitation of Russell Head, I joined 100+ volunteers with the Collin County Homeless Coalition to make an annual count of the homeless in our county. We gathered at City Hall about 8:00 p.m., and after an hour plus of training and assignments our team headed out with a Plano Police officer to look for those who are categorized as homeless in our city . We carried our survey forms and "care packages" supplied by local Scout troops, non-profits, and churches. It had rained very hard two days previously, and the places where the officer knew people stayed--along railroad tracks, under freeway overpasses, and along the "creeks" that run through town --were empty. We also did not find anyone in the cars parked in store and office parking lots between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. that night. Part of our team did talk to a hotel employee who "knew what we were asking" but d...

Okay, this is an installment for the "runner" part of "faithrunner," so bear with me if you are more interested in the faith side of things. I'll come back to that next week. This week, I want to update where I am in running barefoot or in minimalist shoes. The evolution of footwear in my running continues...(at 58, I don't know how many more renditions there will be :-) I bought my first pair of Vibram five fingers KSOs two years ago this month after hearing Christopher McDougall pitch his book, Born to Run, at the Dallas Cooper Clinic. (You can read of some of my journey in previous posts in this blog.) I bought into the philosophy and technology of barefoot running and took off running in them--never to wear conventional shoes again. (And, I haven't.) What happened, however, was that the concrete of my suburb and the rocky terrain of North Texas only allowed me to go so far in this running footwear . I could only run about a maximum of six ...

 Sunday, June 12, Legacy Church abandoned its usual routine of gathering to worship in music and word to live out our core value , "We are most like Jesus when we serve." ( Mark 10:45 ) We gathered for instructions, prayer, and a song, then headed out to serve. Some groups started earlier that morning. We spread out to serve two homes that were part of Plano's Love Where You Live program, two elementary schools through their PTAs, and the campus of Legacy Church. A group also serve the neighborhood around our campus by prayer walking through the streets and praying for the families there.  It's a risk any time you do this during "regularly scheduled services" on a Sunday morning. You risk guests showing up to check you out (but what better way to demonstrate who you really are), forgetful members who show up not ready to work (they could run home and change and maybe read their weekly eletter and worship guide each week), and people sent by God s...

While some are mourning the demise of denominations , I continue to be excited about the possibilities of no longer needing to keep our sheep within strict doctrinal and liturgical fences. Finally, being the big "C" church is about the sheep and not about the shepherds. Another aspect of the crumbling walls of sectarianism and the reviving and re-forming of the church in America is a renewed focus on serving the communities in which we live and work . Being the church is no longer about gathering members but about empowering missionaries to serve where they live and work and go to school. Cooperation in the larger Body of Christ and attention to the needs of people in our mission field have combined to bring new life to dying fellowships and stagnate churches. Last year, Markus Lloyd, Children's Pastor and Creative Architect at Legacy Church , led us to partner with three other churches in our community to raise money for an endowment to address the needs in our ci...

The first verse of the eleventh chapter of the Letters to the Hebrews essentially says, " To trust God is what gives you the confidence to move toward what God has given you to hope for and the evidence of things God told you he would do but you can not yet see ." ( Hebrews 11:1 ; my interpretation.) When God gives you a picture of a future He has designed, faith (trust) is what gives you the confidence and certainty to start acting to make that happen.  I have been fortunate to experience that kind of trust in God in my own life with Legacy Church and in the lives of a few others who have brought into reality what God gave them the vision to do. I recently participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony of This Side Up! Family Fun Center in Plano, TX . This was one of those " trust God and work like it's real 'til you see it " sort of places. The Mayor, Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors, and family and friends of the center were present. God put on the hea...