It’s a Him Not An It!

Care to read over my shoulder again? I got this today and I just love emails like this one. Nothing excites me more than seeing Jesus bring this kind of freedom into someone’s heart.

God’s timing is awesome. I have listened to the audio version of the Jake Colsen book a couple of times now driving back and forth between work and home. I cannot even begin to describe how accurate that book is, at least for me. Especially the chapters dealing with “house church”. I am Jake Colsen!!

I had left the institutional approach for a better pattern of church. It was a rather rational decision. IC wasn’t working, so I must be getting something wrong. I needed to be more like the early church. But, I was missing the most important thing. I was focusing on an “it” rather than “Him”. Thanks for helping me sort this out.

I did an interview yesterday with a Canadian Christian TV show, and we found ourselves on this theme a lot as well. This is one of those places in my life, I never saw coming. I spent 20 years trying to find the perfect ‘it’ that would contain Jesus and his life. I never found it and was finlly won over to the idea that Jesus did lot leave us with a system to perpetuate the church, but with his Spirit who would let us live deeply in his life…

Is there any other way to really live?

6 Responses to It’s a Him Not An It! »»


Comments

  1. Comment by kent | 2006/12/09 at 18:09:38

    I believe it is the only way to live Wayne.

  2. Comment by Peter | 2006/12/10 at 01:50:48

    I had a similar mind-blowing experience yesterday morning while reading Isaiah 55. I read the chapter to get the context of Is 55:10 which is commonly used to encourage the use of scripture in witnessing (My word will not return without accomplishing the purpose for which I sent it). I know I\’ve done my part spewing out scripture like magic spells hoping they would accomplish His purpose. Well, this time when I read it I noticed it has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God. Read the entire chapter and it reads like a love letter to us — and it is prophetic of Jesus. This has nothing to do with us witnessing. That is an abused application. This is God speaking here. And Who is the Word? Its a Him, not an it! You know who He is from John 1; and in John 17:4 Jesus, the Word, proclaims He has accomplished the purpose for which the Father sent Him. John 17:4 is the answer to Isaiah 55:10. It\’s the completion of the prophesy and it\’s all been done for us. Now that is truely mind-expanding.

  3. Comment by dwellceller | 2006/12/10 at 06:14:33

    Some good words there Wayne.

    Although i left the IC a few years ago and don’t see myself going back there, i cannot become the thing i was trying to get away from – ie – i didn’t like the ‘Us and Them’ thing of IC, but i can easliy fall into that outside of the IC by referring to ‘Us and Them’ in the opposite way. The bottom line is that it’s all about Him – Jesus – more so than the form or structure. Having said that i still have got a lot out of some very good books by people like Frank Viola – eg Rethinking the Wineskin, Who is you covering and Pagan Christianity, but just don’t quite agree with him that the right structure will ‘fix’ everything.

  4. Comment by Kevin | 2006/12/10 at 10:13:56

    Good comments dwellceller. If we start the Us/Them approach we’re just focusing again on what’s not real. Jesus is the focus whether one is inside what is a typical IC today in the US, or a small house church underground in China, or no “church” in the traditional form at all.

  5. Comment by Mike Rea | 2006/12/11 at 08:20:43

    Amen and Amen!
    I spent the first couple of years of my journey out of the traditional church so focused on house church that I had become more religious than ever in the past.

    In the past couple of years I have come to realize that no container, no matter how effective it is in preserving and pouring the water, has ever quenched someone’s thirst.

  6. Comment by Wayne | 2006/12/14 at 17:16:17

    For those who are wondering what Canadian Station, the show I am on is broadcast on The Miracle Channel (miraclechannel.ca) at 3:30 PM mountain time on Fridays and at 4 PM mountain time on Saturdays. It can be streamed live from their website. My interview won’t air until sometime in January. I’ll keep you posted as I know.


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