I am completely overwhelmed here with more emails, phone calls and business items than I can possibly manage at the moment. Pray for me, please. There are way too many opportunities and needs coming at me at the moment, and I just cannot keep up. There are some opportunities ahead that will decisively affect my [...]

I am reading through the minor prophets these days and found a mind-jarring passage in Zechariah 7. This is God talking, and I’m taking these quotes from THE MESSAGE: When you held days of fasting every fifth and seventh month all these seventy years, were you doing it for me? And when you held feasts, [...]

I’ll let Michele do have my blog today. I got this email after she had read a downloaded version of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore and wrote me this letter. This could be the last post ever on this blog because it speaks my heart as well as anything can: My [...]

When I get home from a trip people always ask me how it went. I never know how to answer that question, because each trip is layered with so many experiences and trying to sum them all up in a word or two is nearly impossible. I think questions like, “What was your most interesting [...]

That may just be the essence of community: I couldn’t let you go through this alone. The first time I heard those words it was a good friend who walked beside me through the most painful experience of my life. We had share some wonderful times together, but then he withdrew for a season from [...]

I loved this email I got from a brother in Germany recently: This whole last week I was listening to your Transition series and now the rest of our group got so interested that we all started to listen to it together. What a blessing! What an eye opener! We too realised that we have [...]

I’m off to Omaha, Nebraska in the morning so I’m going to let Nancy do my blog today. On an email list I host, a young man wrote in recently frustrated that the leadership of the congregation he attends aren’t response if to his doubtful or difficult questions about the effectiveness of their program. He’s [...]

I got this question today. It was sent to me by someone who used the title ‘Apostle and Pastor’ in front of his name. He needed both—in caps! Interesting… How do you reconcile these scriptures in light of your view of fellowship. Matt 28:18-20 Acts 2:42-47 Hebrews 10:25 If it is true that you can [...]

What do you do when your children don’t understand? I often get emails from parents of older children, who do not understand why their parents no longer attend the religious services they made the children attend when they were younger. Some are curious, but I get lots of email from those whose kids are deeply [...]

I love those moments when God pulls back the curtain and I get to see what he has been shifting in my heart. I used to think most change came from hearing a new truth and applying it. I am increasingly discovering that real change comes from a relationship with him that changes the way [...]

This is another one of those email exchanges, that I felt would also be of interest to many others… Someone has either swallowed or is about to swallow the red pill! They wanted to know if I could help! OK, I am in trouble. I discovered you and read two of you books and started [...]

I thought some of you might be interested in this exchange with a brother today from Australia… Quite seriously Wayne I can see your point of being the church no matter where we are or go without being committed to anywhere. But extend that premise to the extreme with no one committed anywhere. The Church [...]

Sorry it has been so long again. My life is pretty crazy at this point. Only had 11 days between a trip to the East Coast and turning around to make my third trip this year into Canada, this one to British Columbia. And it’s been busy since we’re trying to get out a new [...]

I leave for 10-day trip to upstate New York and Pennsylvania tonight. It’s one of those all-nighters! A read-eye is definitely what it is for me, since I don’t sleep well on airplanes. But I am looking forward to joining the folks in Lowville, NY for a second time, and then head down for a [...]

I appreciate the way the Internet allows people to interact with things I write. Others add some great observations to this process. I’ve received some emails since the release of the new BodyLife and its lead article about Friends and Friends of Friends. It’s interesting that these both focused on fear and control as the [...]

I saw this paragraph in an email sent to me today and I loved it: We all feel ready again to be alongside & encourage our brothers & sisters – no matter what their particular preference/understanding is of ‘church’ or ‘mission’ – without feeling intimidated or insecure in our own journey. Our desire now is [...]

I’m sure many of you will recognize these feelings. I received this email over the weekend: We’re at a point in our lives where we are so tired of “doing church” My wife and I were “raised in the Church”—in fact, my Dad used to be a pastor. it provided a good “structure” for us [...]

I thought you’d enjoy this little email exchange because I meet a lot of people that are wrestling with the same unfolding realities that this sister is. I also love how she responded to my comments! The heart can so easily grasp what the mind finds hard to believe. I have no idea where to [...]

Well, I got through Saturday, thanks to a ton of grace and, I’m sure, a lot of prayers and support from people like you. Thank you to everyone who prayed for us and for all the lovely emails and comments that were so encouraging. It has been a most difficult week, especially following my return [...]

I am smack in the middle of one of those moments in time when it seems the air is crystal clear and you get to see further down the road than you get to most days. Here in Ireland with brothers and sisters from all over the world, it is very easy to see how [...]

For our morning readings Sara and I have been reading a book that came recommended to us. “What Jesus Meant” was written by Garry Wills, a Catholic who is Professor of History Emeritus at Northwestern University. I have mixed feelings about the book, but love what we read this morning. Here are some quotes from [...]

Every day this week I started with the intention of writing a post for this blog about Communion and how it can be the focus of our life as a community of Jesus people, but the days have been so filled with the tyranny of the urgent that I haven’t gotten to it yet. Bummer! [...]

I’m back from the heartland. Awesome time with tons of people! I’m so blessed and exhausted. I also got to go to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library in Springfield, Illinois as I pass through. That place is incredible. If you live or go anywhere near there, you might want to plan a trip [...]

I got this email yesterday and it is one I get a lot from people who are trying to rethink the nature of sanctification outside the religious process of setting expectations and trying to coform people to them. I don’t that that’s exactly what this brother was asking, but it does invite that deeper dialog. [...]

I got this question today by email from someone. There’s nothing that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck more than this. But I have heard it taught a lot, especially by insecure men and women that are afraid of losing their supposed authority over people who are growing in freedom: [...]

I got an email today from someone who is struggling to sort out what’s going on in the fellowship she’s been a part of for some time. Suddenly she’s finding that she doesn’t want to sit through all the meetings and finding them an “ugly weight” rather than a joy. But she feels guilty if [...]

Over Christmas we attended a Sunday service where my parents worship. What could go wrong on a Christmas Eve service Right? Man it was ugly. The title of the service the, and I’m not kidding you here, “The Dark Side of Christmas”. I’ve never heard a hell fire and brimstone message on Christmas Eve before [...]

I got some questions the other day from a reader on the role of shepherding in the body. I know others have similar questions to his, so I thought I’d post our exchange here in case it will help other sort through these issues. I was wondering if I could ask your opinion on something [...]

Need a laugh this weekend? Someone just sent me this, and so I’ll include it as the second You Tube video we’ve listed here. This does not have near as much redeeming value as the last one I referred to, but it is an hilarious look at what can happen in a baptistry when somone [...]

I came across this verse in a recent reading of Colossians 4 in The Message: Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out. I love the simple freedom of being in a conversation looking to bring the [...]

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 [...]

Recently I got email from Mary in Chicago about a conversation she had with a friend of hers. I loved the illustrations she provided. I know this can appear a bit condescending if it seems to exalt personal experience over community, but that’s not the context she’s writing in at all. She’s talking about a [...]

I guess this is get-out-in-the-community week. Yesterday I traveled to Pasadena to record a podcast and meet with the folks at The Plain Truth, the former publishing arm of the Worldwide Church of God. They are on an interesting journey of thinking outside the box and they wanted to do an interview with me as [...]

I wrote this column for our local paper on the recent exposure of one of America’s religious leaders and wanted to include it here as well… Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could ask the larger questions inherent in this crisis rather than grabbing the duct tape and sealing up the illusion once again? Last [...]

For those who think we who see Jesus moving in incredible ways beyond the traditional congregational model must have had a ‘really bad church experience’, read this. I got this email last week from someone who is struggling with the system in the midst of great success within it. I disguised a few of the [...]

You’ll either thank me for this, or be deeply concerned that I’ve lept off the cliff of cynicism. I’ve got more than a few friends with a playful sense of humor. A couple of those just uploaded a new website,The Church You Know. It is anchored by some creatively crazy videos that poke fun at [...]

I just returned from a quick trip through the Central Valley of California where I met with six different groups of folks in four days from the Fresno area to Sacramento and back. What a trip! While I was away someone sent me

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been asked on more than one occasion, what they should do in a situation where they have been asked to teach a class at a congregation they attend, when they know the things they want to share would be at odds with those who are asking them to [...]

A few blogs back, I posted a parody of a salvation tract that was sent to me by a friend. It was a bit over the top and I even commented that I knew people who lived it this way, but I doubt they would ever spell it out so clearly. Then I got this [...]

You’ll thank me for this… I have just received a copy of a new book titled When the Church Leaves the Building, written by a friend of mine, David Fredrickson from Sacramento, CA. Some of you have heard me talk of this congregation in Sacramento that over a number of years followed the Lord’s leading [...]