Wayne Jacobsen

The Story of Jake

3 Comments / Encouragement /

For a book that was never meant to be a book I am amazed at how the story keeps traveling. So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore started as a website and a story serialized over four and a half years by two of us who wondered what the Apostle John might think of what Jesus’ church had become in the 21st century.  We made it up as we went along to help people think past the pain of the religious games many of us get caught up in and discover what it is to live as his beloved son or daughter alongside others in the world.

I never thought we’d print it, since it has been free on line since the beginning. We printed it only because friends said they would never read it on line.  Hundreds of thousands did, however, and still many also bought the book.  It showed up in Walmart and Costco and a thousand other stores.  I get to hear testimonials all the time about how people found that book and what it helped identify in their own hearts about God’s working.

A few days ago I received this from a man today who has just finished leading a thirteen-week book discussion through So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. Here’s what he wrote:

Well, after going through Jake at least 4 times, plus going through a 13 week study of Jake with our Bible study group, I am finally done with Jake (at least today).  I can’t thank you enough for your efforts in writing this life changing book.  Since first reading The Story of Jake about a year ago my relationship with Father has changed dynamically. The guilt of leaving my church of 25 years and the understanding that Father loves me, even with all my faults, has changed remarkably.  It would take me 30 pages to tell you of all that has happened in the past year, but just know that Father and I are doing GREAT!  I didn’t say perfect, but GREAT!

Thanks, Carl. Dave and I were blessed to hear how much this story helped you on your own journey.

I still love this story and being in it a lot over the past couple of years as it quietly marches toward becoming a feature length film titled, Out of the Game. I’ve had a lot of fun helping to re-tell this story for a different medium and see if it can continue to help people discover life and freedom in him.

 

 

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Do You Have Community?

18 Comments / Phenomenon of the Dones /

By Wayne Jacobsen in a continuing series on The Phenomenon of the Dones.  

The question is as ubiquitous as it is silly: “What Church do you go to?”

It’s almost always the first thing Christians ask each other when they meet and it is the most divisive question in all Christendom. We think identifying the particular tribe of Christian someone belongs to will tell us a lot about them. Are they Calvinist, Catholic, charismatic, Bible thumpers, high church or fundamentalist?

The truth is it tells us very little about people. It is an overly simplistic way to profile people with our stereotypical view of any group while it tells us nothing about them as individuals. It doesn’t tell us how deeply they are connected to Jesus, or whether they are thriving on their spiritual journey or withering away in despair. While the question causes some to swell with pride in their movement, others are apprehensive for the judgment their answer might incur.

For the 31 million Christians in America who are following Jesus though they no longer attend a formal congregation, answering that question is a dilemma. If you say you don’t, many will question the sincerity of your faith convinced that all true Christians belong to a local congregation. They make no room for a vibrant faith and an engaging experience of church life without the institutional map.

Recently someone I was just getting to know as they were feeling me out for some potential collaboration asked me that question. When my answer wasn’t satisfactory he asked a second question, “Do you have a community where you live? I knew he was giving me a chance to redeem myself by assuring him I belonged to some kind of Christian group, even if I wasn’t calling it “a church”.

I wasn’t trying to be difficult. We had just met and he was desperate to find some kind of box for me to fit into that would allow him affirm the validity of my faith. He could only do that if I belonged to a group with a name, a regular (hopefully weekly) meeting, and a specified doctrine.

I didn’t want to mislead him, but I tend to use words like this with intentional precision. I don’t have a community; I have three communities that I explore life in Jesus with locally and even more globally. None of them is an organized group with names and leadership structures. Some think that means they doesn’t count, but they would be wrong. I see community very differently than he did and I knew we weren’t going to get through this on his terminology alone.

“Why don’t you ask me if I have community where I live?” I offered.

That stopped him. He looked quizzically for a second and then asked what I meant. Now we were having the conversation I hoped to have. Yes, I have community, more of it than I had ever experienced in an organized group. None of these have coalesced into a named group or regular routine, but the relationships intersect frequently and among those I am deeply known, have people to love and serve, and am regularly challenged to an ever-deepening engagement with Jesus.

He got the point. People can belong to “a community” without having community. The biggest complaint I hear from people who attend a congregation is that few relationships seem to get beneath the surface of people’s lives. Our culture uses the term ‘community’ for any social group that shares a common interest or structure. When I think of community, however, I don’t think of regular meetings, standardized conduct, or a superintending leadership structure. I think of deep friendships where people are known without pretense and where they share mutual love, encouragement, and service as a normal part of their everyday lives.

It is the innate hunger for these kinds of friendships that is causing people to look beyond our large, tired institutions. Instead of incubating close, personal caring relationships, many foster a conformity-based culture where meeting a set of religious expectations subverts the genuineness out of which community grows. The political realities of running an institution and people going along with those subvert the hope of real community. When you’re pretending to be what you’re not to be loved and accepted, real relationship cannot happen. People don’t know you, they only know who you pretend to be.

Community can’t be manufactured by human programming; it is the fruit of people living authentically and lovingly with an expanding pool of growing friendships that defy age, interests, ethnicity, and societal status. Community is the fruit of people connecting with others beneath the masks we often wear to negotiate society. It’s real concern, real affection, and real honesty inside a growing relationship with Jesus.

You can’t have community with everyone sitting in a large auditorium, nor by working together on the “church program”. It may happen in those settings, but not because of those things; it’s because people connect in growing friendships beyond them—before and after the meetings, in conversations, meals and activities where people can relax and be themselves.

That’s why I prefer the question, “Do you have community?” Are there people around you who know the real you—your hopes and dreams, doubts and fears? Are they willing to struggle with you as you learn to follow Jesus and be open with their own lives as well? Can you freely ask questions, and struggle with the questions of life and faith? Are they people you are delighted to see when they come around?

These are all reflections of real community and few people have such friendships. Most of our human interactions, especially in our shame and desire to control others, undermine that reality. Religious environments often trigger those responses rather than letting people relax into a relationship that’s real they try to force one through pretense.

So how do you find community? This is as true for people who go to an organized gathering as those who do not. Real community has to be found at its source—inside the Trinity itself. Father, Son and Spirit share the most breathtaking dance of community in the universe. Their love for each other is rich and full and because of that they are able to share life, glory, trust, and truth in such an awesome way it is difficult for us to conceive of it in the brokenness of the creation. But we are invited to participate in it. Jesus said that his disciples would come to know that “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20)

Jesus invited us into the relationship the Trinity shares together. As we grow in our awareness of them and learn to love and trust them the same way they trust each other we will begin to experience the wonder of their community. That happens as we learn to rest in their love and watch as they make themselves known in to us. Jesus showed us how that happened as he walked along the road with his disciples or relaxed in Mary and Martha’s home in Bethany.

And as we get increasingly comfortable inside the Divine community we will find ourselves quite naturally sharing it with others. The shame that sabotages our relationships and drives us to pretense and performance will begin to fade away and we’ll find that we are more compassionate for people and freer to care about them. That’s where you find community, not by looking to be loved, but by beginning to love others.

The love we desire from others is the love we first give away even without any expectation of return. God wants his love to envelop people even if they never respond to it. But when they do and are able to reach back in loving ways toward you a friendship is born and it is out of friendship that community begins. And, no, this doesn’t happen quickly. It takes time to get to know people, hear their story and sense that connection that can become a friendship and then the proximity to let that relationship grow. We are too quick to form groups and try to trust each other when many are still so broken that they have no idea how to love. The results can be devastating as people feel used or as competition or gossip take hold.

Some are so broken that they will pretend to love you, as long as they benefit from you. When they no longer do, they will cut you off or even worse betray you to gain a foothold with others. It happened to Jesus too, so we dare not think ourselves immune from it. But don’t let that keep you from exploring the relationships love can build. Just keep on loving the way you are loved by him. In time you’ll find yourself alongside others who also know how to love beyond their own self-interest. Don’t let hurt draw you back into yourself. Evil has a way of fragmenting relationships but his love allows us to overcome the immaturity of others and keep loving them if possible, or move on from them if not.

Our engagement with others need no go any deeper than how safe we are exploring life with them. We are won into friendships; they cannot be imposed on us. And even healthy community will have its ups and downs. We live in a fallen world and our expressions of community will be flawed as well. Don’t expect others to always get it right and don’t put that demand on yourself. There’s a lot of forgiveness and forbearance in any friendship that thrives over time. In real community loving each other is more important than being right or trying to fix others to meet our expectations.

Community is about friendships and it enhances all of life, where we live, work and play. Not all our friends have to be followers of Christ yet. By caring about others and letting them care about you, you provide the fertile ground where sharing the kingdom takes place. If you are graceful with them many will come to know the God you know and then the friendships only deepen.

Community rises out of the friendships God gives you and as you are generous with those friendships a living network of friends and friends of friends will emerge around you. Some may be local, others from further away. The best gift I can give my friends, is to introduce them to others of my friends. That growing network of interconnected friends will overlap with other expressions as a tapestry of God’s church makes herself known in the world.

Having community is a way to live. We have to make time for friendships, space for new people, and learn to love people simply as they are, not how we would like them to be. We are not alone here. It is Jesus job to build the church and the Spirit’s task to show us our place in it. This relational way of engaging his church is a challenge to be sure, but the fruits of doing so are to experience an ever-growing network of friendships that bring wisdom, healing, comfort, and joy to your life in Jesus.

__________________

This is part 13 in a series on The Phenomenon of the Dones by Wayne Jacobsen who is the author of Finding Church and host of a podcast at TheGodJourney.com.  You can read the first half here and subsequent parts below:

If you’d like to subscribe to this blog and receive future posts by email you can sign up at the top of the right-hand column of our home page.

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Keeping Up With the Jacobsens

Lifestream News /

Summer is here and I enjoy the slower pace when I’m not doing as much travel.  My last trip for this spring/summer is to Nashville and Bowling Green next weekend. You can get details here if you want to join us. It’s a short trip next week, and then I get to spend the rest of the summer more locally and with a month in the Sierras for Sara and me.  That will allow me to get some writing done as well as to take some time off with family and friends.  We love hiking with our dogs, swimming them in the lake, boating, and reading together during this time.

It also leads to some interesting connections here.  This Saturday we have a group of eight people coming over from Redlands for the day to kick around what it means to live more relationally in Christ. While we’re in Central California we have time to touch base with people there and there are frequent visitors coming through LA that we see if we can fit it in. Last week we had people stay with us from Switzerland and Wyoming and I love conversations with individuals and smaller groups, especially on my patio, to larger meetings anyway.

But I’m also starting to think and pray about travel for the fall, so if anything is on your heart for getting some people together in your area, during the summer is a good time to let me know.  You don’t have to already have a group. There are few places I travel these days where there aren’t a lot of people who want to connect and one of the joys of doing so is the newfound friendships I leave behind.  Also, we are in the last weeks of taking sign-ups for The God Journey Tour to Israel and Petra.  You can get more information here and if you want to go, please get your reservation in soon. Last time we ran out of room.

For those interested, I was interviewed recently on The Trinity Happy Hour Podcast out of Richmond, VA.  For those that want to hear it, you can find it here. It’s titled, God’s Not Mad at You Part 2.

For the past few years I’ve been able to communicate with many of you who want to stay in touch via your Facebook feeds.  Unfortunately my FB profile, ran out of space for new friends, so I had to convert it to an Author Page and for any who “liked it”, they got those updates  in their newsfeed. But Facebook announced yesterday that they will be cutting back the amount of Page views they put on your newsfeed since people say they prefer to read about family and friends and watch cat videos.  I suspect, however, that since most Pages are commercial entities this curtail free advertising and force companies and celebrities pr machines to pay for it.  We won’t be doing much of that so if you have been following us via FB, you will probably miss some of our updates there with this new policy.

Instead, you can receive all of my blog postings directly through email by entering your email address on the sign-up box at all of these sites:   this blog at Lifestream.org, my podcasts at TheGodJourney.com, and the ongoing conversation at FindingChurch.com). You can also subscribe here for any Lifestream News or Travel Updates when we have something important beyond the blogs.  You can also subscribe to my Twitter feed at @LifestreamWayne.  We’ve never pushed any of these things because I’ve never wanted to have a bunch of “Followers.”  I want people to follow Jesus.  But if we can help encourage you in that process or you just wan to stay connected here for future books and resources those are the ways to do it.

For readers in the northern hemisphere, I hope you have some wonderful opportunities this summer for rest and refreshing. And for those reading on the other side of the equator, I hope your winter is not too harsh and you have some time to steal into the quiet as well and see what Father has on his heart for you.

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The Things God Says

4 Comments / Growing in Trust /

Often I hear people say that God doesn’t speak to them. I never believe it. He’s been whispering his reality into your heart since you first took breath, it’s just that we’ve gotten used to listening to other voices until his fades into the background of our own fears and anxieties. The ubiquitous noise of our culture drown him out and the lies of religion have us looking for an accuser’s voice that we’re not enough, rather than the tenderness of the Abba’s voice.

Learning to quiet the noise and hear his heartbeat again is one of the great joys of this journey. Discovering that some of those thoughts running around your head are not you talking to you, but are addressed to you by someone who loves you more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will. It helps to know what to look for. If you’re looking for accusation, condemnation, and disappointment, you’ll miss him. His are words of endearment, comfort, wisdom, and life! Yes, they may be challenging, but in a way that invites us into a greater reality, not that makes us despise ourselves.

Many have heard him who just haven’t recognized him yet. It may help to know some of the kinds of things God says. Over the years people have told me stories of recognition and freedom that came when they heard him speak to them. I love the things he says to people that are illuminating and liberating at the same time.

Here are a few of the examples I’ve heard:

  • To someone lost in a temptation or addiction, “What are you doing? This isn’t who you are.
  • To someone complaining about difficult circumstances, “You talk to me as if I am your adversary.”
  • To someone drowning in feelings of abandonment, “I wish you knew how much I love you.”
  • To someone with overextended commitments, “I didn’t ask you to do any of this.”
  • To someone being battered by religious leaders, “They are not your shepherds. I’m your shepherd and I will never treat you like that.”
  • Dealing with criticism and judgments of others: “What they think about you doesn’t define you.”
  • To someone finding new freedom not to react out of their flesh, “I really enjoy you this way.”

This little two-minute video illustrates this all so perfectly as comedian Michael, Jr. talks about his baby hearing his voice for the first time. Watch the recognition and the immediate change in his newborn daughter. (Sorry about the ad!) And listen to what he is quite naturally saying to her in her disoriented fears.

If you knew Father was whispering similar things in your heart today, wouldn’t it change everything? “Daddy is right here. Everything will be OK. I love you.”

That’s what he is saying to you, whether you can hear it or not. Be still. Find a quiet place. Listen. Lean into the reality of his love, not the lies of our culture or your religious heritage.

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Leaving the Amish for Freedom in Christ

3 Comments / What I'm Reading /

I was handed this book by its authors during my recent trip to Canada. They came from Montana to join me in Calgary and I had time to hear part of their story of moving out of the Amish culture and finding greater freedom in Christ. I was amazed at the progress they had made in four short years of finding their way out of that system of religious obligation and discovering how much God loved them.

As our conversation ended they handed me a copy of their book:  Plain Faith: A Story of Tragedy, Loss, and Leaving the Amish by Irene and Ora Jay Eash with Tricia Goyer, is  a fascinating read about truth awakening in the human heart and that putting them in conflict with the religious tradition they grew up in. To be honest, I rarely make through all the books people give me when I travel.  I do look them over and try to discern if the Spirit is nudging me to spend more time them.  As I looked over this one I was drawn into a compelling story of a family first going through the darkest of tragedies, and then risking everything they knew to follow the Spirt as he awakened them to a different reality than one they had been raised in. I had no idea what they had really been through until I read it and I came away all the more amazed at how God draws people to himself despite the tremendous odds against it.

This is an amazing story of a multitude of decisions made over years to follow Truth unfolding in their hearts or to keep falling in line with traditions to maintain their relationships with family and with friends they’d known their entire lives. If you want a good picture of what it takes to leave a system of religious obligation and to be judged and excluded for doing so and the story of triumph as they learned to live freely in a larger world with Jesus, this book is for you.  It also exposes how much damage well-intentioned people can cause when they are more true to their traditions than they are to the truth of Christ.  Legalism always turns love into a weapon that forces conformity or withdraws itself. It is a cruel taskmaster on both sides and shows how destructive even good intentions can be when they are based on ignorance of what is true.

And it’s not just the Amish. Every Christian tradition falls into the same trap.  You’ll find your own story here of chasing between a hope growing in your heart and the safer road of pleasing everyone’s expectations. This is a story of hope, stronger than the loss of children, family, and a way of life handed down through generations.

 

 

 

 

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Stupid Teachings About Prayer

42 Comments / Growing in Trust /
 Just when you think bad theology has exhausted itself, it pokes up its ugly head yet again.  This came in an email this week:

(Can you help me with) the faith teaching that goes down the road of “Don’t claim that!” and “Just repeat God’s word over and over.” and “We don’t confess that!” and all the teaching that makes it sound like we’ve got to muster up all this faith and if we speak it enough we’ll somehow have it and all that speaking will change us and give us power.  This has always bothered me – been there, heard the message, ran the other way a long time ago! But as it’s fresh on my mind thanks to some class notes for an upcoming summer study being left out in the copy room at my office. I’ve looked over them and the meter is screaming in the red.

My response:  As far as your question about prayer, I think this stuff is NUTS!  There is now right or wrong way to pray.  Prayer is not a technique or incantation. Our confidence in prayer is not based on what we are saying or not saying, but the One we are communing with as we simply lean in to being vessels to let his love and power flow through us as HE desires.

Then this came form someone else:

I heard someone speaking the other day about praying for the sick.  He mentioned that he had a sister with cancer, and they prayed, but unfortunately, she still passed away.  He then learned a lot about prayer, and different kinds of prayer, and realized they had been praying the “wrong way”.  He had another sister fall ill with terminal cancer, they prayed for her, and half an hour later, she was healed. The question is.  Do you believe there is a wrong way to pray for people?  Or a way that we can pray that guarantees healing?  It kind of goes against what I feel in my heart, but it’s really twisting my brain. Thought I’d see what you think about it! I’ve been in prayer asking God to show me his heart on prayer.

And now he has a book or ministry to sell with this bait that people can finally get the miracle they want from God by using his secret technique.  I hate this kind of teaching, built of an experience that may or may not even be true, but even if it is, it does not prove his premise. Bad teachings about prayer prey on the most vulnerable among us—those with a desperate need and will jump through whatever prayer hoop someone gives them even if there’s less than a 1% chance it will help.  No one wants to be left out of a miracle if there’s just one more thing they can do that will finally get the answer they want from God.

But this kind of teaching doesn’t draw us into true faith at all.  In fact, it disfigures God by making him our tool to manipulate. Do you remember the kids game we used to play where someone asks for something and says, “Please.”  Then, to be mean we said, “Say, ‘Pretty Please.'”  They do that and then we add “Say, ‘Pretty please with sugar on top,'”  and it continues. Unfortunately that’s how some people view God. He would like to help, but will withhold his blessing until they say all the right words, in the right order, with the right amount of “faith.” And when he doesn’t act, they blame themselves and keep desperately seeking for the formula that will compel him to give us our miracle.

Throw all that baloney out. Anything that makes God a miserly Father making us jump through hoops is absurd. If you think God is more inclined to heal a child’s cancer if one million people on Facebook offer a prayer for him than two or three placing that need before him, you have no idea who the God is. If you’re struggling with a need and think there’s a special way to pray that God will have to answer, then you’re using prayer as an incantation not real communion with him.  You will exhaust yourself trying to earn your miracle and in the process only grow more frustrated with God and yourself.

Jesus taught us that all God needs in prayer is a heart that seeks what’s true, a simple expression of our desire, a persistence that allows your trust in the Father’s care to grow, and the passion to see his glory fulfilled above your own convenience . From there he will do whatever is best for you and that may not be to answer your prayer the way you want.  Just remember, he cares more for you than you do yourself and he has plans unfolding that you cannot comprehend. So if your miracle happens, awesome!  If it doesn’t, then assume something greater is going on than you can see, and just keep walking with him through whatever challenge lies before you.  If there’s something more he wants to show you, trust him to do so without your frantic need to find it on your own.

That’s all any of us need to do to live in the unfolding reality of his glory, whether or not things work out the way we want.  We are deeply loved by a generous Father and that’s enough to take us through anything.

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Ignoring Jesus!

11 Comments / Church Life /

If there are words Jesus spoke that we have ignored more in Western Christianity than Matthew 23, I would have no idea what they would be.  Every day in almost every Christian institution we live as if he never said these words or at least didn’t mean them.

Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’

Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. 

Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.  

Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.  (Matthew 23:4-12 The Message)

Can you imagine what the church of Jesus Christ would like like in the world today if we had just followed these incredibly simple instructions? But we didn’t and instead created another religious system that exists as if Jesus was never here and if he didn’t die on a cross to change the entire relationship between shame-based humanity and the Father who loves us. Our institutions today and those who seek to lead them still violate all that Jesus warned the leaders about in his day not to do.

We still package the life of Jesus as a set of rules and expectations and demand people conform. Our so-called religious leaders still fight for celebrity, take the place of priority among the family, and encourage other people to be dependent on them rather than God himself.  We create an endless set of titles to  maintain the illusion that those who want to lead us are not simply brothers and sisters in a growing family.  And our failure to heed Jesus’s words not only horribly disfigures the bride of Christ but it also keeps people from finding the courage and freedom to find their life in him and to follow him as he leads them!

And it isn’t just the fault of those who set themselves up as experts in the life of Jesus, but those who seek out such experts to tell them what to do, rather than to learn to listen to and follow Jesus as he makes himself known to them.

And your expert doesn’t have to be a pastor, it can also be a popular speaker, author, or podcaster.  There are no experts, only brothers and sisters who serve you well only to the degree that they encourage your own relationship with the Father, rather than make you increasingly dependent on themselves. And those who seek the spotlight don’t really have a clue who he is.

Do you realize all that has been twisted in our Christian institutions would unravel if we only followed the simple things Jesus told us to do?

Why don’t we?

 

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The Latest from Lifestream

Behind the Scenes /

Helping People Find a Better Path

As I write this, I’ve just returned from the east coast, in what proved to be an intense but fruitful time. So many people I met on this trip were in the throes of severe crisis, looking for a way to navigate their need with a loving Father alongside. Some had recently lost children to tragic accidents, one was about to lose her child to a congenital medical condition. Others were battling guilt from past religious experiences, or loneliness after no longer feeling connected to the congregations they used to attend.

No, I don’t try to fix all of that in a few hours or a few days, I simply look for a way to walk alongside people at that point in their journey and encourage them down the better road. If grief is isolating them or turning a couple against the other, I look for that path where grief promotes healing and encourage them to go that way way. If they are trying to earn their healing with one more prayer, or pretending to have “faith”, I help them relax and entrust all that to Jesus’ love for them rather than their own effort.

In every uncomfortable situation we stand at a crossroads. One path leads to greater freedom and life, the other to greater pain and destruction. Sometimes people can’t see the path to life and that’s where we can help point it out to them in simple encouragements. It isn’t always easy to see, but it leans toward trusting God to do in us what we could never do for ourselves.

I just put up a new blog today about handling the truth with love, which is part of my continuing series on The Phenomenon of the Dones.  That dovetails with this encouragement quite well. If you haven’t seen it, you can find it here.

Updates

gjwebsite

Come check out the changes at TheGodJourney.com. Now that The Shack movie is all but completed, Brad is back at co-host and we have re-designed the website for easier navigation and an updated look.  For the last issue we rolled out a new website for Lifestream.org. This month we have just completed a re-design of The God Journey.com d our new website this year, come take a look.  Everything I’m doing is easily accessed from the front page.

Join Brad and I in Israel for TheGodJourney Tour. Because the release of The Shack movie conflicted with our Israel dates, we had to move them to earlier in they year. We will now be headed to Israel January 25 through February 4, 2017.  The pre-trip to Petra has moved to January 22-25.  If you’re interested in joining us you can get all the details here. For those interested in the release date of the movie, it is now March 3, 2017.

The movie of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, called Out of the Game, is moving along nicely and stirring up some interest even among Christian filmmakers. We are getting ready to raise the needed capital to go into production. If you’d like to help with this project, either by being an investor in the movie, or through contributions to Lifestream, you will get your chance shortly. Keep an eye on Lifestream.org for details.  (If you’d like to subscriber to the blog, you will receive notifications by email whenever we post news there.

Torrential rains this spring have given us another setback in Kenya with a break out of Typhoid and malaria. Medical teams are in that region now to offer vaccinations and medial attention. If you’d like to help us with this need, you can get more information here.

The on-line book discussion of Wayne’s Finding Church continues in our new forum.  Come join us if you’d like to discover how to embrace the church that Jesus is building in your own corner of the world.

For the readers out there I’ve recommended eight good books this spring that I think many of you would enjoy. If you’re looking for some summer reading, scroll back a couple of months through the blog. You’ll find books on God’s mystery, discussing sexuality with your daughter, on death and tragedy, and even a book on marriage by a family court judge.

Upcoming Travel:  I’ll be in Alberta Canada from June 3-13, and then on it looks like I’ll be in Nashville and Bowling Green, KY on July 7-12, but that isn’t final yet.  Get all the details on Wayne’s Travel Schedule.  If you’d like to know when Wayne is visiting near you be sure and sign up for our mailing list and include your location so we can send you a notice.

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Handling the Truth

11 Comments / Phenomenon of the Dones /

By Wayne Jacobsen Part 12 in a continuing series on The Phenomenon of the Dones.  

When did truth become more important than love?

When I grew up in Christianity I was taught that you had to believe the truth to be saved. Of course loving each other was encouraged, but certainly not with the same passion. So living to doctrine and defending it when challenged was more important than loving others, even though Jesus specifically told us to do the latter. In fact he said our capacity to love would win the world, not our eloquence with the truth.

In fact, truth without love more often destroys people than helps people. Those who explore theology alone and don’t mine the depths of God’s love and character can’t help but be a bit obnoxious. For them it is all about believing the right thing and what they miss is a process of transformation. They are often angry, manipulative and judgmental. On what basis, then, has truth set them free? Are they more gentle, loving, and kind to others who are lost? In my experience? No.

That may be why Jesus and Paul both told us love was more important because they knew that without love people would not be able to discover truth. I’m convinced that truth can travel without love. You speak the truth without it and little good it does. But love can’t travel without the truth. Love always seeks what’s true and then graciously draws people toward the light. We never need to choose love at the expense of truth when we appreciate that love is the most important part of truth and the environment in which people are freest to discover what’s true.

Unfortunately, however, for two thousand years Christians have staked their identity on being right. Battles over doctrine, even down to insignificant minutia, have divided us into innumerable factions, each one believing they have more truth than the others. So that instead of learning to love each other beyond our differences, every difference is a test of who is right and who is wrong. We get sucked into the same game the world plays of having to convince those who disagree with us of how wrong they are.

I see the fallout from that every day in my FaceBook feed, especially as people try to convince their friends that the truth they see is the truth everyone needs to believe. And the more insecure someone is the more they are drawn into the battle over truth instead of learning how to love. We expend far more energy trying to prove someone wrong than we do helping them discover how loved they are.

Often we do it without even thinking. Recently I asked for some input on a book cover design. I got over 300 responses and the majority registered their preference as if it was the only right option. People who didn’t see it the same way were wrong, not just seeing it differently. When we no longer separate preference from fact, we express ourselves in way that is off-putting to others, and closes more doors than it opens.

Nowhere is this more evident today than in the argument about whether or not someone must go to a local congregation to be a Christian. Every one fights for their point of view convinced that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong. One seeks validation of their faith experience, the other demands compliance and both divide the body of Christ not on the basis of Truth, but on personal preference. Much of the angst I’ve seen in those “done” with religious institutions is the need to convince those who meet in those systems that what they are doing is wrong and hurtful, or those inside try to convince those outside that they can’t be part of Jesus’ church without being a committed member of a local institution.

And as I’ve observed over the years, some of those who most ardently defended local congregations when they were leading them are the most damming now that they are on the outside.

If you live by right or wrong, you will condemn others to validate yourself. A lot of that dialog stems from insecurity—people who need the affirmation of others to validate their own conclusions. Both misunderstand the nature of truth and how God wins us into it. Of course this conflict is exacerbated by social media platforms because arrogant, polarizing commentary generates more response than graceful ones. We care more about being right on an issue that we do about being right with each other.

“Truth cannot be compromised,” is the motto of both sides of any conflict and while true enough on the face of it, it doesn’t recognized how much of what we fight for is not truth itself, but only our view of it. How often have you ardently defended something you found out later was based on misunderstanding or misinformation? One of the joys of this journey is discovering that God’s wisdom far exceeds ours on everything and we are constantly growing to understand what’s true and what are only fabrications of our desires. That’s why Jesus wanted us to know that Truth was not the perfect alignment of our doctrinal ducks, but our connection to a Person who is Truth itself. By believing him we believe in all truth, even the parts we don’t know yet, or still have confused.

That’s why one of the telltale signs of someone growing in truth is humility. Knowing they see dimly into God’s reality allows them to hold it lightly and not seek to force it on others.

Their tone expresses that this is the best they see it today, not this is the only way a real child of God can see it. When you hear that kind of language, back away. This is someone who knows doctrine better than they know him. Find those who can discuss difference of opinion graciously, knowing that love, not judgment, is the best way to help people discover truth and that growing in truth has more to do with learning to depend on him rather than amassing intellectual knowledge alone.

None of this is to say, of course, that truth is not important, only that most of our truth isn’t truth with a capital T, but simply our own conclusions based on the comfort it gives us at the time. I’m all for getting our theology straight; I’m not a relativist. I don’t believe everyone gets to decide what’s true. What’s true in the universe is how God designed it to work and created us to live in it. Where we embrace that reality, we get to live freely even in a broken world not immune from its pain, but also not overwhelmed by it. There are only a precious few big-ticket items that provide the basis of life in Christ, and none of them are essential to be loved because love opens the door to truth.

One of Jesus’ most oft-quoted statements is, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” (John 8:32). Mostly those words are misapplied as if he’s referring to the right set of beliefs and is used to justify people forcing their point of view on others. What if, however, he was not only telling us what truth could do, but how to share it with others? It is valuable when it sets people free, and disastrous when it seeks to manipulate people to do what we think best.

The ways of the world are all built on lies—lies about God, about ourselves, about success and failure, about what we value and how we engage others. Believe the lies and you become imprisoned by them in long, slow death spiral. Truth is the bright light that penetrates the darkness. Our tendency is not to run to it, but shield our eyes and stay in the false comfort of those lies. Love is what makes the light inviting instead of repelling.

When I read the Gospels, I am increasingly aware of how careful Jesus was with the truth. The truth is powerful stuff. It can blow up someone’s entire world. That’s a great thing when they are ready for it, but it can be horribly destructive if they are not. That’s why he was so mindful how, when, and to whom he shared truth. He sometimes couched it in stories so people who weren’t ready to receive it wouldn’t understand it.

If you’ve ever tried to convince someone that something is true when they don’t want to hear it you know how impossible it is. When Jesus spoke clearly, he was talking to those who were curious. Even then he didn’t talk about truth as a set of theological concepts to believe, but the truth that allows you to see past the lies that ensnare us and set you free to embrace God’s realty. The only time he confronted people with truth they weren’t ready for was when their actions were doing great damage to others and, even then he wasn’t heard. There’s nothing more glorious than truth that brings freedom and nothing more destructive than beating others up with truth we think they should hear.

Fifteen years ago I was riding in a car with my dad when he asked me a question. “Do you enjoy what you’re doing now?” Five years earlier I had been a pastor of a growing congregation in the central part of California. Through a painful set of circumstances I got separated from that group and he wasn’t sure how content I was with the consulting, writing and traveling. I thought he was really asking if I missed being a pastor.

I thought about it for a moment and realized that I had moved from being a leader of a conformity-based system to a brother alongside people seeking to find their freedom in Christ. “Well, Dad I used to walk around with a set of keys making sure everyone was locked into their cells. For the past five years I’ve been wandering those same hallways but this time unlocking the prisons that hold people captive.”

“That does sound good,” he responded.

It is! And this isn’t about whether people frequent a congregation or not. This is about feeling I had the responsibility to conform people to what I thought was best for them instead of freeing them to live in an affection-based relationship with God and letting him change them. I’ve never regretted that choice. And I’ve seen far more fruit rise from helping them live free than I ever did from trying to get them to believe my conclusions or meet my expectations.

I don’t try to convince anyone of anything anymore. I talk to hungry people about God’s reality as I best understand it. When they are ready for it, they respond in ways that liberates and fulfills. When they aren’t, I measure my words more carefully seeking a way to love them rather than try to set them straight. Only the Spirit can prepare them for the truth he wants to breathe into their lives. The more I try to convince them, the more I push them away from the light I want them to see. Instead I want to treat them in a way that will invite them into the orbit of his love where they will be better prepared to see through their deception and embrace what’s true.

That’s why love is the more excellent way.  Without it, truth won’t find it’s way in the world.

__________________

This is part 11 in a series on The Phenomenon of the Dones by Wayne Jacobsen who is the author of Finding Church and host of a podcast at TheGodJourney.com.  You can read the first half here and subsequent parts below:

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Uhh… You Might Have that Story Wrong

4 Comments / Intimacy /

I guess this meme made the rounds on the Internet but somehow I missed it. It was posted as a blog comment yesterday at The God Journey in our spirited discussion about what salvation really means.

Jesus knocks on the door saying, “Let me in.”

The voice from inside replies, “Why?”

Jesus says, “So I can save you.”

“From what?” asks the voice inside.

“From what I’m going to do to you if you don’t let me in!”

I laughed of ten minutes when I read that. I know that world. I grew up in it and how ridiculous that whole story seems to me now! We need to be saved from Jesus or his irate Father? No we need to be saved from the sin and shame that devour our lives and leave us helpless to our own affectations and appetites.

Salvation is real. He saves us from a world of darkness, fear and torment and brings us into a new creation of light, love, and liberty. That’s a better story because it’s a more accurate story.

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