We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence is truly one of the most amazing documents ever penned by humankind. To think that 56 men from 13 colonies with all the differences between them could come together and agree to sign their names to a statement that could have most likely resulted in all of them being executed for treason by the British Crown is almost unthinkable in our day.

The words they published are so commonplace now, we forget how much they truly pushed the historic envelope of human dealings and in fact, how much they still do. The defining paradigm of culture prior to 1776 was the divine right of kings. Those who had by money and power vanquished more helpless people divided the world into haves and have-nots—royalty and serfs. Your station in life was mostly determined by birth.

The idea that all of us are created equal on the planet was virtually unknown, and certainly not even believed by the men who signed that Declaration. By “all men”, they only meant those who were white, Anglo-Saxon, male, Protestant landowners. Even in ensuing decades they never considered their ideals to the native Americans they lied to and pillaged, the slaves many of them owned and exploited, or the women they claimed to love.

Yet, our understanding of all of us being created equal in the eyes of God is a close to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the way he treated people as any other summary statement. He offered to everyone without reservation the same love and light be they exposed sinner, Pharisee, king or Roman governor. This gospel was for every person, with no distinction, no favoritism, no lording over another human being. And that reality is still finding its way into human culture even at the beginning of the 21st Century.

At least in government the divine right of royalty is succumbing to the forces of freedom almost all over the world. Except for some figurehead monarchies in Europe and some Middle Eastern and South American dictators, the notion that some people are born to privilege and leadership has largely been discredited in the world. Interestingly enough the only place the royalty/serf distinction still carries any weight is in the clergy/laity disparity in our religious institutions. And in some older (and newer) incarnations the clergy even have the audacity to dress and act like royalty. How sad is that?

Isn’t it interesting that in most significant cultural shifts recognizing the equality of people, the impetus has rarely come from those who most claim to understand Jesus’ message or his example? It shows how little they do. Freedom is an easy term to throw around conceptually, but its real power doesn’t describe a governmental form, but a understanding of people that invites us to treat them differently. Every human being merits the same respect and opportunity as any other. When we lose sight of that, we can excuse our calloused and cold lives toward the needs of others.

So, actually July 4 is one of my favorite holidays not so much for the country it began, but for the revolution of thought it represented. For the first time in human history statesmen recognized what Jesus said in Matthew 23. “You have one Father and you all brothers and sisters.” That’s the way to live. That’s how Jesus shapes us in his reality. It is true of everyone around you. No one deserves to lord over another, and no one deserves to suffer at the hands of those more powerful.

And that is not yet true, even in America. There are a class of Americans—government leaders, the rich, and celebrities in the arts—who consider themselves above the rest of us and above the rules of respect that govern a free society. It has never been more evident than the last few decades where people of privilege and power reassert their control over the culture. How many powerful politicians have been exposed as moral frauds? How quickly did our Congress and presidents crawl into bed with the fortune hunters on Wall Street who were willing to secure their fortunes by looting the trust of common folks.

The economic disaster we’re in was not the result of an economic downturn. It was completely manufactured by dishonest men and women who thought they could benefit at their fellow-citizens’ expense. Our government has done anything to restrain that and simply threw more money at them and loot our grandchildren’s futures as well. This is not freedom. It is the tyranny of the wealthy over the powerless who have no lobby in Washington, no ability to buy the influence they they think they deserve. And instead of calling them on the carpet for betraying the public trust, most people only look to find their ladder to power and influence as well, willing to walk over anyone to get their piece of the pie.

When I see the celebrity adulation in this country, whether it be of American Idol singers, famous authors or even in moments like the death of Michael Jackson, I realize that we still have our own version of royalty in America. No, it’s not the divine right of kings, but the idolatry of fame. When I saw people enraptured in the presence of someone they think famous as they seek to live vicariously through the life of another, it only affirms how sick our culture is. To think someone is a better human being because they sing well, play sports well, or write well flies in the face of the Gospel itself. We have royalty now because we create it ourselves an ungodly heritage of a media and culture fascinated by fame and seeking it themselves, instead of dismantling its illusion at every opportunity.

All men and women are created equal. The words roll of the tongue with ease, but the reality is much more difficult to embrace. We are all the same in Father’s eyes and everyone who crosses our path on a given day is as significant as the next. Each has a story to tell, a life to share, and a hope to encourage.

Lose sight of that and you’ve lost sight of the most blessed truth of the American revolution.

Ahh… the growth curve! I hate the growth curve! But then growth doesn’t happen without, physically or computerally!

Thank you.

When people begin to see through the illusions of organized religion, many have the tendency to through out all structures, thinking they are inherently evil. Are they? Some feedback from Wayne and Brad’s podcast on George Barna’s Revolution and some listener questions regarding structure and associations give them an opportunity to sort through this issue, considering where structures can be a blessing by helping to facilitate Gods’ working, and where they supplant it and distract people from the simple joy of living out of their relationship with Jesus.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

As Wayne and Brad respond to a recent flood of reader comments and letters, they wander into a discussion about the challenge of living in Jesus without having all the details figured out or having the results of our circumstances guaranteed. Our safety is not found in our plans being fulfilled but in our growing friendship with Jesus. When our confidence is vested in him alone we will be able to navigate the ruggedness and uncertainty of the journey with his wisdom and grace.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

Here’s how I responded to him: This journey can be complicated some times, can’t it? I’m sorry you’ve gotten sidetracked again somehow, but anyone on this journey knows what that is like. Yes, it seems we make great headway for a season, then find ourselves marooned again on our own self-pleasure and wonder what it is all about.

The letter you read is not a momentary catharsis. I am in touch with the man who wrote it and some wonderful things are going on in his life that I’m certain will bear fruit years down the line. But I guess time will tell us for sure. One thing I know is that this growing in Christ often has times of fits and starts and distractions and falls and the people who find freedom and fruitfulness are the ones who keep getting back up, going to God accepting his forgiveness and drawing near 40 times a day if need be.

It seems guilt might be overriding you in failure. It makes you feel bad for a while, then lets you up and then slaps you down again. That’s pretty consistent. Somehow God needs to make it real for you that he is your partner in sorting out this bondage, not your critic and judge waiting for you to get it right. Invite him in, even at the moment of failure and let him do what he needs to do in you to set you free.

He’s really good at this; we are not. He just wants you to get to the end of yourself, so you won’t keep trying to do what only he can do. I don’t know anything more encouraging than that!!!!

You go, Bro! This is what the journey is like at times. Discouragement only ensures the cycle. Receiving his affection at the place of our brokenness is what breaks it. I’m praying for the latter in your case…

I loved what he wrote back:

Someone had just shared how difficult it was for them to find fellowship with people on this journey and asked others where they were finding fellowship. Here’s what Lynette wrote:

All fellowship flows from the Son. Learn to live in him and you are in fellowship with every member of his body all around the world. That’s the reality of this kingdom. And Jesus is able to connect you with those he needs you you at any given moment and can do that in a variety of ways. We participate in that best when we’re resting in our relationship with him, and miss it most when we’re anxiously trying to make it happen ourselves.

This email came from a brother in Ghana in a response to my Jake Colsen site:

I’m sure your prayers would be appreciated for both of these groups of brothers and sisters…

Is there a revolution afoot in the body of Christ. George Barna seems to think so and in his latest book, Revolution, he describes a large and growing group of committed Christians who have given up on the traditional congregational model of Christianity. And instead of calling this an unhealthy trend that needs to be reversed, he embraces it as a movement that will in the next 20 years radically alter what we call church. Wayne and Brad examine the contents and conclusions of his book, recognizing both the encouragement it can provide for those thinking outside the box, and the dangers it offers to reorganize something in human terms, that only God can accomplish.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

Those of us who live in the developed west have such a skewed view of the world and its reality. I find lists like this to be extremely helpful in seeing things more the way God does, than our own national interests ever let us do.

If you could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be:

• 57 Asians


• 21 Europeans


• 14 from the Western Hemisphere


• 8 African


• 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.


• 80 would live in substandard housing


• 70 would be unable to read


• 50 would suffer from malnutrition


• 1 would be near death


• 1 would be near birth


• 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education


• 1 would own a computer

One of the things that astounded me while touring the Apartheid Museum in South Africa was how 20% of the population could actively discriminate and oppress the other 80% in their own land. They had all the wealth, health care and benefits while people across the street had virtually nothing.

Look at these statistics again. How is that not true now of those of us who have adequate (dare we say abundant) housing, education and health care? How would God have us live financially in a world so devastated by need and where resources are distributed so unfairly? What are our responsibilities help others who do not have the advantages we do? Surely our world is horribly out of synch with the heart of the Creator, and what a great day it will be when he comes to set right all that has tormented the people he loves.

I know this is an uncomfortable perspective for us (see yesterday’s blog), but sometimes that’s good exactly what will bring us perspective. I don’t share it to provoke guilt, which would be worthless anyway. But in view of all that the Scriptures teach about looking out for the poor and oppressed, this might be a perspective we desperately need as we pray and listen to Father’s heart and see how he would have us to live in the world with generosity toward others.

As I read that this morning, I thought back through the Gospels and how many people came face to face with the light of God in the glory of the Son. some embraced that light and all it would reveal in them. Others stole back into the shadows not willing to see God for who he really is, nor to comprehend his work in them. The Pharisees refused to answer Jesus’ question about John’s authority because they were unwilling to face the anger of the crowd. Yet, Zaccheus embraced it even when his thievery would be clear to all.

Isn’t it incredibly odd that we find more comfort in the dark, where our illusions can live, rather than love the light and whatever it might reveal? I even think many theological arguments are ways to spin the darkness rather than come face to face with God. But when this God is your loving father, there is nothing left to fear, even our temptations and failures.

The test of discipleship is not how much we can keep up with all the disciplines nor all that we think we can do for God. The real test of discipleship is loving the light enough to keep crawling into it against our inclination to retreat back into the fake safety of the darkness.

They couldn’t resist! Brad and Wayne had so much feedback from their previous podcast on being involved with children outside the box, that they wanted to share some of it with you and continue the dialog. As you will see, this is not just an issue for parents, but for all of Father’s family. Responding to children as a vital part of our lives and our engagement with the body will not only enrich them, but ourselves as well.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

I thought that was a great question, so I took a stab at an answer. Maybe you’ll find it of interest and help answer it for your life as well. Here’s how I answered Chris:

How would you answer that question? What do you do to “keep up with your life in him”? You can add your thoughts to the comment section below. You’ll never know how your insights might really encourage someone else.

The lead article is called “Tree Town” and is a bit of a different article than we normally do in this publication, but I think it makes some essential points for people who want to live deeply in the life of Christ. The second article, “Breaking Free” is a first-hand look at someone freshly breaking free from the bondage of religious thinking and beginning to find real freedom in their relationship with God as Father. Some of you may have already seen this on the blog or heard our podcast about it, but I thought some of those folks who might have missed it, would find it as encouraging as many of you have. If you’d like to give us any feedback on this issue that others might enjoy as well, please feel free to use the feedback section here.

There are also some other goodies there for you to enjoy, including some life-changing letters from some of our readiers and a look at some of the new resources we’ll have available here in the near future. Blessings on you all.

It’s an interesting book in terms of the demographic trends he identifies and certainly some will use it to try to fuel an anti-institutional ‘movement,’ and you all know how I feel about movements. This book will give validation to those looking beyond traditional congregations to live out their passion for Jesus, and that may be a positive thing for many. He debunks some sacred myths in Christendom:

Here are some other quotes I liked, even though his term Revolutionaries leaves me more than a bit unsettled, especially when he capitalizes it. It appeals to the wrong motivations in people, that Jesus needs to free us from if we’re ever going to be a reflection of his in the world.

And this:

And this:

And this:

But I am not in agreement with all of his assessments and conclusions. Though he talks some about the importance of intimate relationship with God, he is far more focused on what Christians should be doing. We’ll get into some of that on the podcast later this week. You can see a summary of the book at his website, or you can order the book from Amazon.com. If you have comments, questions or observations you’d like us to interact with on our podcast later this week on this topic, please leave them on the The God Journey Blog.

The body of a woman whose one, quiet act of defiance sparked the civil rights movement in the United States will lie in repose in the Capitol Rotunda. This high honor has been almost exclusively reserved for government officials and military leaders. She will be the first woman to ever do so and only the second African American.

I was elated to read that in the paper this morning. Here was a common person who never set out to be a hero. One afternoon in 1955, weary from her job as a seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man who wanted. The segregation laws at the time required blacks to yield their seats to any white person standing and move to the back of the bus. She simply refused. “The real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long.” For her simple protest she was jailed and fined $14.00. That sparked a boycott of the bus system in Montgomery Alabama that lasted for more than year and that launched the modern civil rights movement that brought greater equality in our country across racial lines.

What a great reminder of the avalanche of events that can come from one common person’s passion for justice and their willingness to risk themselves in doing so! Mostly people just quietly go along even when they know something isn’t right. I admire Rosa Parks for standing up to the status quo by remaining in her seat that day. Now she looks like a hero. I can’t imagine what she looked like then. Surely most of the whites would have turned on her for breaking the law and delaying their bus ride home. The bus driver probably screamed at her, and even some of the blacks might have called to her to just move and not make any trouble.

But she wouldn’t be denied. She paid for it then. But in doing so she opened a door of freedom that others have streamed through with joy. It’s not easy being the one to expose the king’s nakedness, but a little bit of truth goes a long way.

Our culture rarely honors those who truly deserve it. On Sunday and Monday this week we’ll get it exactly right. A 42-year old common woman, wearied of the abuse her people suffered, did what was in her heart to do and helped transform a nation. Hopefully her example will inspire many of us to go and do likewise!

Most people who find themselves bored with the Sunday morning production, often keep going because they feel it is important for their children. How will their children survive spiritually without Sunday schools and youth groups? In the latest podcast Wayne and Brad examine children unplugged from organized religion. The question might now be how can they survive without it, but will they ever thrive within it? Young children and older teens alike are finding that thinking outside the box can be a wide open door to let them experience the life of Jesus with even greater reality and engagement.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

I’ve also been busy helping the local police department bring a diverse array of service providers together who want to provide a relational connection for those kids in gang neighborhoods who want to stay gang-free. That’s been a bit of work as well! So, now you know the rest of the story…

But I had an awesome time on Vancouver Island with a whole lot of different folks. Over the weekend we met with a wonderful group of people who are sorting out how to live free in Christ. They started with a lot of issues about leadership, meetings, and the like, but we soon got lost in the wonder of living in the immense affection of our Father and seeing how naturally that lives out in our lives with other people. That stuff is way too much fun.

Yesterday I got a letter from a sister in Canada, describing their journey. Her observations and questions are ones I hear a lot, so I thought you might enjoy another look over my shoulder at this email exchange…

Here was my response: To your questions, YES! YES! YES! This is all very normal. Decompressing from our religious ways of seeing God is a process and, yes, sometimes it seems really, really quiet. But obviously your heart desires him and he is gently inviting you into a fresh discovery of how to walk with him beyond all the religious rituals. It’s not that prayer isn’t important, or reading the Scriptures, but God wants them to be part of our life in him, not a substitute for it. So the ongoing conversation with him through the day is a real blessing to him, as is shutting down all the religious noise so that he can begin to show you how to simply live in him no matter what you’re doing on any given day.

And you may not find there’s a different ‘turn’ coming up at all, but a growing life in him that takes you on in ever-increasing tastes of his life and pleasure…

You go, girl! Keep living just the way he puts it on your heart, and not trying to meet the expectations of others, or even your own expectations from the past. This is a life worth savoring!

Join us for a trip to the land down under as we offer another in our continuing series of interviews with people all over the world who are living this journey with great freedom and joy. Wayne interviews Kevin Smith of Lancefield, Victoria in Australia as he shares the lessons a group of believers have experienced over the past 20 years of living as a relational community of God’s people. “Kevin has been an older brother to me in this journey and has encouraged me and confirmed so many of the things God has put on my heart over the ten years we’ve been friends and brothers.” says Wayne. As Kevin shares their story and the transitions Jesus took them through, he touches on our growing trust in Father’s care, their freedom from institutional expectations, the community it has spawned, and its effect on their children.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

Then, today I got this:

I hope that encourages you who think you have to DO something to make fellowship happen. You only need to be responsive to him. He has more stuff going on than we can conceive, and he is really good at what he does. So, relax! Listen to him and follow him and in his time he will set you in his family just as he desires…

Well I’m off to Canada tomorrow and 5 days hanging out with some believers on Vancouver Island…

Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled Koinonia Cultivators has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

Wayne and Brad follow-up last week’s podcast on Koinonia Killers by responding to some of the comments and concerns that were sent in after the show. It gives them a chance to focus on those things that lead to deeper fellowship and greater life in him and how we can love those who we are not always drawn to easily. It’s really about unlocking the treasure God has put in all of us and which sin and shame have twisted and distorted.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

Isn’t this incredible? It’s a great record of what it looks like when religious thinking gives way to relational life in Christ!

In this edition Brad and I discuss koinonia killers. Christian fellowship isn’t rocket science. People passionate about Jesus who get near each other find themselves sharing his life without much work at all… unless something gets in the way. And believe us, things can get in the way. We call those koinonia killers and Brad and Wayne not only discuss the kinds of things people can do that sabotage, even unwittingly, but also what others can do to turn those moments into doorways of growth instead of barriers to body life.

On a personal note, today is Sara’s birthday, so we’re celebrating that. The fires in Southern Cal are unbelievable and many have called to make sure we’re out of harm’s way. The big one is about 10 miles from us but moving away. We had one behind our development yesterday, but a quick response got it out in two hours. In addition to the podcast, I put up a new chapter in the Jake saga.

First thing tomorrow morning I head to Visalia, California to do a staff and elders retreat for a Mennonite fellowship there and then speak at their weekend services. Yes, this is a strange invitation for me, but I’m excited for the hungers I hear coming from those folks, and to be reacquainted with many of my friends from that region.

I can say this, however, I wonder if God is doing something in your heart and you keep trying to think it through with your head. Let me encourage you to simply do what God is putting on your heart. If it is to stay and serve IN SPITE of all that seems screwed up to you there, do that. If it’s to not support what you don’t support, then feel free to move out and see what Father might have for you. Don’t think that God will give you all the answers before you follow. You may have no idea where fellowship will come from if you leave, but is that reason enough to stay with something you find so painful? Some people do spend some lonely years before they find connections with others. Some find it right away. I can’t tell you what it will be for you. And I certainly don’t encourage people to a private shell. I think community is a crucial part of living in this family and I do know that Jesus is big enough to place us in the family exactly as he desires. And sometimes I think he finds great value in having us be alone with him for awhile to get some of the religious thinking out of us before linking up again with others.

I can’t tell you how things might sort out, but I don’t think it is helpful for any of us to try to figure that out in advance. We’re usually wrong about our speculations anyway. I’d encourage you to simply sit down with your wife and ask God to make clear to you what he’s asking of you right now and just do it. Don’t make those leaders villains to justify that. You don’t have to think of yourself more right than them. You just need to be faithful to what God puts in your heart. Feel free to make some mistakes in sorting that out. And go for it! Trust him to fit everything together in his way.

In times like this, be absolutely honest when people ask why you’re doing what you’re doing, but do it as graciously and lovingly as you can muster. That’s how we all grow up, when we are each ‘speaking the truth in love to each other.’

It seems all the heretical movements that sprung up in the 2nd and 3rd centuries had one thing in common. They denied the divine nature of Christ. To combat this, those who fought for orthodoxy crafted their creeds and confessions by embellishing the divine nature of Christ. Though it affirmed him as “man of very man”, its emphasis was on “God of very God”. In time the emphasis on his human nature almost vanished and his humanity was only considered for the brief time he actually lived in the flesh, but was thought of in his current state as the exalted King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

He went on to say that we are wired in such a way that we need a human mediator to usher us into the presence of God. When we lost our sense of the humanity of Jesus, it was natural for us to want to place someone between God and us. The priests and clergy took on that role as a mediator between God and man and people were content to let them do that. Then he looked at me and smiled, “And don’t think you Charismatics get a pass on this. Your dependence on pastoral, apostolic, and prophetic people reflects that same reality.”

I didn’t fight him. I understood exactly what he was saying and saw in my own past how I believed Jesus was a man when he was here, but have always seen him more today as the King of Kings, than my older brother. He still lives on as fully God and fully human, as the firstborn of the new creation. This has had some profound effect in my own personal relationship with Jesus. While I still embrace him as the High King seated at the right hand of God the Father, I am also seeing him there as my older brother and the only mediator I or anyone else will ever need.

It has begun to work some wonderful changes in my heart. It doesn’t diminish his deity at all, but defines it in a more awesome way. It makes me even re-think what we call the Parable of the Prodigal son. What if the older brother in that parable would have been Jesus instead of the religious junkie he was? How would Jesus have acted differently in going out to his brother and letting him know that there is still room in Father’s house for him? Amazing stuff!

Don’t let those things, however, rob you from the substance of this book, which strikes to the heart of what koinonia is—a conversation with other brothers and sisters that helps them see beyond themselves and grasp the reality of who God is and how he is drawing them to himself. If you really want to sort out how to have conversations that inspire people in this incredible journey, this is a must read!

Sara and I are reading it together now. Let me give you a quote from what we read this morning, and I’ll entice you with some more in days ahead…

All the homes on our current street are situated toward the back yards. We do not even have a window that faces the front yard from downstairs. Most people come home from work, pull into their garages and roll down the doors and you never see them again. That combined with my travel has made it difficult to get to know our neighbors other than the one couple who lives next door.

Lately, I’ve been praying about God making connections with our neighbors. I know the longer you live somewhere the more awkward it is to meet people for the first time. Yesterday afternoon I got some of the answers to that. While watching football with my family, we had a couple of pieces of furniture out on the driveway that we wanted to sell. One of our neighbors came by to buy one of the items so I helped move it into his home and that opened a door to get to know that family. I found out one of the renters there wanted the couch we had for sale, but couldn’t afford it. We ended up giving it to her.

Also a single grad student from next door accidentally locked herself out of her house with her keys and cell phone inside. She came over to use our phone. Unable to reach her roommates, she was going to walk a couple of miles to where one of her roommates was working. Sara offered to drive her but unfortunately no one was there. She came back and we told her she was welcome to hang out with us until one of her roommates returned. She stayed almost four hours with us, watching football and enjoying our hospitality. We got to know her really well.

I don’t know what kinds of doors these encounters will open, but I’m just really blessed that in the normal course of a relaxed Sunday God would open doors to two of the households on our street. All it took from us was a willingness to get involved, do what we can to help others, and extend some graciousness along the way. There’s no telling where those relationships might go or how else God might open doors on this street. More to come, I hope!

For those of you who haven’t visited our sister website at The God Journey and listen in to one of our podcasts, now is an excellent time to check it out. If you have been a regular, you won’t want to miss this one. This is one of the most compelling stories I’ve run into on this journey.

Meet Stefan Vosloo and through him some wonderful brothers and sisters in South Africa. He was a pastor of a growing Vineyard church in Ladysmith before the hunger of that congregation for real relationship with God sent them on an amazing journey. God began to touch five things in their life together to move them from an old covenant religion to New Testament reality: priest, Sabbath, temple, sacrifice and tithing. His work in them and their response to him forever changed their life together. Wayne shares with Brad an interview he did with Stefan during his trip to South Africa last month. The process they went through and the life they have found in him together will encourage your own journey. Just click on the ‘podcast’ button below to stream it.

On that note, I came across a quote by CS Lewis this morning that is worth some contemplation: He wrote about how religion distorts things:

Of course, the ‘first thing’ he is talking about is our relationship with God and the ‘second things’ are any other good thing we desire. As I read that I thought of an email exchange I had in the last few days that illustrates this. A young woman from Cincinnati wrote me a few days ago:

My response to her: “I wish I did. You sound like a wonderful person on a great, though sometimes-painful journey. Unfortunately I don’t know of any believers gathering this way in the Cincinnati area, but I have no doubt God does. And he will connect you to them when all is ready. Until then, I applaud your attempts to look however you can, ask questions, seek out referrals. But in the end, how God connects you and when he does will be more up to his plans than your wants. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Someday you may just hear some folks talking about Jesus in a way that captures your heart. Then find out what they’re about…

“Until then, just enjoy him and let him refresh you as his daughter… I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

Then I got this back from her last night:

Don’t you just love her response? If we put first things first—our living in Him, he will take care of second things, which is how we fit in his body wherever we live. Until we get that order right we will continue to search and search for just the right group of people and always find ourselves disappointed. But when we put our relationship with him first then no matter who he asks us to walk alongside at any given time, we’ll be incredibly blessed!

I arrived here not ever having met the folks that invited me. We had corresponded a bit on the ‘net, but that was all. But in the plans to come up here, many others emailed me to find out where I was going to be and expressed surprise that there were others in the Flathead Valley thinking outside the box. God is definitely stirring a large number of people in this area and freeing them from religious boxes that have distracted them from knowing him.

What a weekend! We did nonstop yakking from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening sharing this incredible journey, affirming the things God’s been teaching his people and celebrating our unity in Christ. A couple of things really stand out from the time this weekend.

First, Father has already been speaking into our hearts the things he wants us to know. For many people here the things I shared weren’t brand new to them, but there were many ‘Ah! Hah!” moments where people recognized that the voice that had been whispering similar things to them all along, but they hadn’t really thought it was God’s voice because it ran so counter to the religious things they’d been taught all their lives. That is so fun! What God is doing to draw people to himself today is a work of the Spirit in the hearts of those who long for him, it is not a movement initiated or controlled by any author, speaker or organization. Leaving people freer to follow the Shepherd’s voice is the greatest joy of doing what I do.

Second, God is preparing people all around us to live more fully in his life. We may not know them yet, or know what God is doing in them, but it is easy to see how easy it would be for God to connect a few dots and we would see how incredibly whole and healthy his family is in the world. When people get together who are on the journey of knowing God more deeply and being transformed in his image, fellowship is so easy and so inspiring. I love the connections that happen in an area simply because people who’ve found their way to my website, get to meet others who live near them who hunger for similar things. Many who thought they were all alone in their passions, find they are not and that there are others around them with whom they can connect.

And as I was finishing this, Eugene Peterson returned my phone call of yesterday. He lives near here and we had met years ago at a small writer’s retreat that Leadership Journal hosted near Chicago. There were only a dozen of us that got to know each other over four days. Even so, I was shocked he remembered me. I just wanted to bless him and tell him how much I have appreciated his translation of the Scriptures and his other writings. Even though we are a few miles apart in how we view the Church, we are kindred spirits in the Father we love and the journey we have walked to live in him more deeply. He’s as genuine a human being as I have ever met and it was icing on the cake to have a chance to reconnect with him today.

I’ve got a few more folks to visit with today and then have a late afternoon departure to head home. I get in pretty late tonight, but there is nothing like the trip home! I always love getting home to Sara and those crazy pups of ours!

Though most of you know I hate the word models when used of life in Father’s family, I think he gets it mostly right here. Perhaps a better word would be that we’ll see new expressions of local church life as we listen to the Head not try to design a better a better mousetrap to stuff people into. In fact, those new expressions are already covering the world. I’ve seen many of them in places throughout the world. But they happen not where people are looking for a way to do ‘church’, but where they are seeking to live deeply in relationship to Jesus and finding ways to care for each other as a family. Their emphasis is not on meetings and starting some ‘thing’, but on following him as the source of all life an connecting with others as God gives opportunity. Then he will make clear how to share that life together in a way that stimulates each other spiritually and makes his life available to the world around us.

Our latest edition of The God Journeyentitled ’Out of the Church’ Christians? has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

A recent letter by New Zealander Andrew Strom has caused a bit of a stir by many who are thinking outside the box of organized religion. He addresses what he calls out-of-the-church Christians, which we think is a bit of an oxymoron. How can a Christian be outside the church? His observations and accusations provide a springboard to discuss life outside the box and give us each an opportunity to reflect on our own personal journey and how it is sorting out in our lives. Wayne and Brad examine this letter along with many who added their comments to our earlier blog.

My response: No one who knows God and how he works would ever ask you NOT to follow your heart as you seek him. This man sounds like a real manipulator and has no power to hold you to a commitment you have since reconsidered. While we should never treat our word lightly, when we have made a commitment we realize to be in error, we are free to retract it and follow what God has put on your heart. Not taking a ministry position is like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend. It only takes one vote not two. If it is not on your heart, follow God wherever he leads you.

My response: You have to realize that most religious institutions are about fitting in and going along. That’s what gains approval. Conversely, people who don’t do what they are told are often ‘punished’ by distance and exclusion. People will accuse them of being independent and rebellious. That’s what makes environments like this so destructive. Friendships only work as long as people are committed to the same task. It is really very sad. And your pastor’s ‘devastation’ is just another tool to manipulate you, like a young child pouting when they don’t get their way. Don’t think you have to satiate that attitude.

My response: You’re right! Others may exclude you, but that might also change in the future. Sometimes the people, who most punish us for getting out, are secretly hoping we’ll find life and grace outside. It is likely they are miserable too, but feel they have to stay in there. Don’t feel you have to convince or prove anything to anyone. Just do quietly and gracefully what God has asked you to do, keeping your heart open to all, but never forcing yourself on them. In time you will come to know who your real friends are there, and what others God might bring into your life.

And the moral of the story is simple: Follow the Lamb wherever he leads you. If he asks you to stay where you are, stay! If he is calling you out to know him in a deeper way, then go. But do not do what you do to gain the approval of friends or those who think themselves leaders, which will only lead to confusion and emptiness. Jesus can be trusted! That’s the great truth religion must obscure. You need us! You must follow us! You will whither up and die without us. Not true. Jesus can be trusted. He can gather his flock and lead them to safe pasture. (Ezekiel 34).

My heart breaks for the brothers and sisters who only know the Christian life as a series of rituals or a battle to live by certain ethics. That’s the old covenant cloaking itself in new covenant terms. This life in Christ is so much better than fulfilling obligations and trying to live by the rules. It is an invitation into a relationship with him that shapes every day that we live and our lives to look like him in the world. Why would we settle for anything less?

Having just returned from six days in Washington State, I saw this contrast in so many places—people living in the reality of relationship and people living in the shadow of rituals and behavior. And this was a strange trip for me stateside. The first three days I spent with a leadership team of a seeker-sensitive congregation. This is not a usual venue for me, but I met some incredible people who are seeing beyond the programs to hunger for a full and free life in Jesus, both with him and in relationships to others. I talked about barriers to authentic relationships both with God and with each other. One man came up to me afterward and said, “I know I don’t look like it, but I feel 40 lbs lighter after this weekend.”

Then I spent the last three days with people who are living outside traditional congregational structures. Some were thriving in the freedom of this life in Christ, while others were just beginning to see the freedom beyond the religious bondage they have been captive to for so many years. (We even had a few who were still well embedded into religious ways of thinking and so filled with ambition and agenda that it was tough having a normal conversation with them. Hopefully we planted some seeds there too!)

I was even asked questions like “Is it OK to mow the lawn on the Sabbath?” (Absolutely as long as your conscience is free to! In the New Covenant the Sabbath is a life of rest in Father from our own labors, and the freedom to walk in his, rather than a day for rule-keeping!) And, “If I don’t submit to what my pastor is saying, am I stretching out my hand against God’s anointed?” (Absolutely not! The New Testament could never have conceived of a pastor-person like we have today as the center of body life. Nor did they affirm anyone who would ask people to violate their conscience in deference to their supposed leadership. Leaders help people follow Jesus, not stand in their way as they do it.)

The freshness of hunger and meeting more of those willing to take great risks to pursue the call to life that God has put within them always inspires me. On the last night I got to check in with some folks I’ve met before and to see how some of them have grown in greater freedom, evident even on their countenances, was also a real joy. You could literally see the life of Jesus that had liberated them. That’s the joy of this covenant. Rituals and behaviors are a cheap substitute indeed for the life that really is life!

Someone I know also recommended Mennonite Disaster Service. You can donate on-line and here’s what they said about these people as they arrived to help after Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida a few years ago:

May God make himself known in incredible ways in the face of such horrible tragedy. May he sustain those who suffer in the aftermath of this hurricane and give wisdom and courage to all those who are able to help in this time.

It amazes me how much strength and joy we can draw from a simple word of encouragement. Maybe that’s why the author of Hebrews told us to look for ways to encourage one another daily. Is there someone in your life who has had a profound impact on your own journey? Have you taken the time recently to tell them how much they have meant to you? You’ll never know how much they might gain from your simple words of affirmation from you. Why don’t you take some time and give them a call or write them an email today and let them know how Jesus has used them to touch and encourage you?

Now it is home for two days and then I go again, but this time Sara goes with me, as do daughter Julie and granddaughter Aimee, so that will be fun. And I also understand the family will be over tonight. That’s why I love Flydays… I love getting back to those whom my heart loves so much. I wonder if dying some day will be like that. Just another Flyday to be near those my heart has loved so much. That would bee cool! Blessings on you all.

Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled Religion’s Antidote has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

Why do passionate disciples of the Living God continue to get caught in the system of religious obligation? Because they have not understood that God has satisfied in himself all that he would ever require of us to have full and complete access to his presence. He did that in the cross of Jesus Christ, and if we understood the power of the cross, we would never fall victim again to the manipulations and appeals of religious obligation. In their latest podcast Brad and Wayne discuss what happened at the cross and how it frees us from the bondage of religion so that we can live together as Father’s family.

In the morning, I am off to Seattle and a weekend retreat there with a group from a nontraditional fellowship and then some time in the Tacoma and Port Orchard area with some old friends and some new ones…

Here’s a question I got from Chris today:

Here was my response: Wanting people to respond rightly isn’t a problem. Demanding that they do, or treating them with disappointment when they don’t, is the problem. External conformity is never God’s goal anyway, but inner transformation that grows out of their relationship with him.

In that vain, all we have to do is love people! Take an interest in them. Serve them where you can, but never pushing our agenda on them. Servants never push anyway. They always are responding to what others are doing or desiring. I am having so much fun just loving people in their space and time, not thinking I love them by getting them to do what I think is best. It makes relationships so much more real and genuine and takes all the exploitation and manipulation out of it.

I hope that helps. That’s the way Jesus treats you after all. He loves you where you are. He invites you to better things if you’ll come, but he doesn’t badger you at every moment with his expectations or reject you when you disappoint him. Watching him do that with us, is the best tool to learning how to do it with others. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have wonderful desires for us. He does. But he realizes we can only experience them when we freely choose to come, not when we’re manipulated into it.

Another letter I got recently from Aida, might be helpful here as well:

Religion teaches us that we belong to the family by making a confession of faith, saying a sinner’s prayer or observing the right obligations. Jesus says that membership in the family is a reality for those that do God’s will. Now that makes sense! It also explains why attempts at body life with some people can be so difficult.

You can’t experience real fellowship in this family with those who only claim to be followers of Christ, who are not actually following him. They might think they are, but in fact they are only doing what they do to satisfy their guilt or fulfill their spiritual aspirations. Trying to walk in fellowship with people like that is just impossible. It can also be exhausting. I don’t know about you but I find the most exhausting people to be around are those who are pushing some agenda—especially if they think it is for God.

Ultimately real body life isn’t rocket science. It’s the simplest thing in the world. When people come near each other who are looking to live by what Father wants, not what they want, fellowship is immediate, thrilling and life-changing. It’s not some thing we have to work at, but to enjoy. I can get off of airplanes and meet strangers at airports and find myself within a few moments enjoying the reality of Father’s family. That tells me I’ve found people who are seeking to do what God wants.

Yes, I know a religious mindset could pervert this into thinking we have to judge whether or not others are doing God’s will. How would we do that? It is not our place to judge others, but to love whomever God allows to cross our paths. With some that will lead to incredible fellowship. With others it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. I don’t think I’m bright enough to account for the difference, but I do feel free to stop ‘working at’ fellowship. When it’s there, it’s there. When it’s not, no amount of work will change that reality.

And please don’t turn ‘doing God’s will’ into some perfectionist standard that seeks to earn our place in his life. It’s not our performance here that counts, but the desire of our hearts and our willingness to follow. Look at Jesus’ own disciples. They misunderstood a lot, argued with him, and even exhibited some fleshy motives at times. But they were learning to live in the Father’s desires. It doesn’t matter if you’re just at the starting line of that process, or far down the road. If you have a heart for Father’s will and look to follow him each day as best you see him, that is what Jesus is talking about. Those people experience the reality and joy of his family!