Last weekend Sara and I spent four days with a wonderful group of believers around Youngstown, Ohio. That’s them above at or Saturday night barbeque. They are two years on a journey of discovering relational life together. They gather weekly in various homes to share God’s life and also have a Wednesday night Bible study [...]
I have been reading Richard John Neuhaus’ Death on a Friday Afternoon about the seven statements Jesus made on the cross. I was so encouraged by his perspective on what is to live in the real world. Here he tells us how easily we mistake the real world where God dwells for the false world that [...]
This was too good to pass up! Shortly after I posted the latest blog, a friend from New Zealand sent me this quote from one of John’s books: This reminds me of something from one of John’s books, the guy who said “I used to have a problem – I couldn’t hear God. Now I [...]
Over the last few days I keep thinking of one more tidbit from our conversation with John and Mary Beaumont in Christchurch, New Zealand. This has really been an encouragement to me as I’m freshly evaluating some of the things I feel like God is doing in my own life right now. John said that [...]
I attended a local consultation over the last two days regarding community transformation. The promotional material said it was “a roundtable gathering of Christian leaders looking at church outside the walls.” I didn’t really expect them to mean it. But one of the questions we sorted through on the first day was, “What is the [...]
Except for the stupid spam proliferating on the Internet like rats, nothing more fun than opening my email every day. Here are two back-to-back emails that I opened this afternoon. I get many emails like the first one. There is great angst out there about how organized religion thwarts people’s attempts to know the living [...]
[Stuart and George, I appreciated what you both added to this to clarify my remarks. Thanks!] Lucy, Obviously you’ve seen people deeply hurt by the religious sytems of our day. As have most of us who hang out here. I am so sorry for that, and sorry someone wasn’t around to provide the help her [...]
One of the few lists I subscribe to on the Internet is the Daily Dig, from the Bruderhof communities. It offers a thought-provoking quote every day and most of them are incredible. I got this one a few days ago. I know it is an old illustration, but one worth repeating. One day as a [...]
Sara and I are home from New Zealand after two incredible weeks traveling throughout the country and meeting with brothers and sisters. (Oh yes, Sara got to see penguins too!) If you haven’t read the blogs of our conversations and the incredible story of a group of in Fairlie, you might want to read up [...]
We are finally back in the states, catching up on book orders and email and trying to get over a severe case of jet lag. On our last day in New Zealand, we headed back into Christchurch to spend some brief moments with John and Mary Beaumont. They filled in a few wonderful details of [...]
Let me tell you an incredible story! Fairlie is a small farming village in the center of New Zealand’s South Island. For the last two years I had heard about some believers whom God led to give up the religious structure they had become part of to live as the body of Christ together in [...]
One last bit from my conversation in Christchurch with Sara, John and Mary Beaumont, and David and Nina Rice: We need young people to get to know God as a consuming fire that captures the whole of their being and instills in them a passion for him that takes them far beyond anything we’ve ever [...]
More from my conversation in Christchurch with Sara, John and Mary Beaumont, and David and Nina Rice: We have a mistaken notion of how the Christian life begins. It doesn’t begin when we say a sinner’s prayer, but when we give our lives to him and begin the marvelous journey of learning to trust him [...]
More from my conversation in Christchurch with Sara, John and Mary Beaumont, and David and Nina Rice: It could be argued that those who file into buildings on Sunday morning and only meet, live and fellowship with a select group of God’s people are the ones who violate the spirit of in Hebrews’ admonition to [...]
More from my conversation in Christchurch with Sara, John and Mary Beaumont, and David and Nina Rice: Quoting a cricket commentator he heard some time ago, “Some people drink deeply of the water of life. Others just gargle. “ Let’s be drinkers.
We spent the weekend with John and Mary Beaumont, two native Kiwi’s who have traveled the world encouraging brothers and sisters to live deeply in the life of Christ and are now settling down back at home in their senior years. It has been an amazing time sharing lessons from the journey and celebrating the [...]
At left you’ll see the Thursday evening sunset we witnessed on a beach west of Wellington. Since then we have journeyed south, first by Ferry across the Cook Straight through a giant pod of dolphins to the South Island. From there we drove by car across some amazing countryside and then along the coastline down [...]
We’ve moved south over the past few days from Auckland into Wellington. (That’s Sara and I at left standing on an overlook above Wellington Harbor.) We traveled through the volcanic regions of the North Island stopping to see a few geysers and volcanoes as well as fitting with people who are living this marvelous journey [...]