This is a refreshingly honest look at Sunday morning religious gatherings. You can read the whole thing at Patrolmag.com or click on the picture above.

I realize this isn’t true for everyone, but does this guy ever nail it. Someone sent me a link to this article today and I thought I’d like to share it with you. Don’t read it as church bashing. It isn’t. It’s an honest look at the dysfunctionality of looking at the church as theater instead of a real-life engagement with other people who are seeking to live loved and transformed in the life of Jesus.

And, yes, I do struggle with his terminology. The church is not boring! The church of Jesus in the world is the most wonderful of realities. Religion is boring. Religious services are boring. And I find it incredibly sad that this is all some people think of when they hear the word church.

But he does describe the church accurately in the article, those involved in incredible conversations with other fellow-travelers in a variety of venues. I just spent two weeks in South Africa with the church and came away inspired, encouraged and awed by the amazing work of God in the world. I just spent last night with part of the church around our dining room table, laughing, sharing and holding each other before Jesus. And that’s great stuff.

I got this email today and thought others would find an interest in the answer as well.

I am hooked. I read you book “So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore” and it resonated with me on a very deep level. You see I have been searching for the real Christianity for a long time. I even went to bible college and got a theology degree to try to get my life to where I thought it should be if I was really to be a real Christian. All to no avail. I am still searching but what you have here is really tugging me to where I know I need to be. I have some questions however which I hope you can help me with.

How does the counting the cost – and self denial – and divine discipline fit with the idea of the patient God who is understanding of our weaknesses and willing to walk with us through our journey? I think I am starting to understand but every now and then I get confused. Anyway hoping to begin to
live the life that is described in the word rather than this lifeless facsimile.

Your question confuses me a bit, because I see plenty of room inside the Lord’s compassion for us to count the cost, and deny ourselves as we follow him. The denial comes in the following, I guess. Jesus asks me to do some incredible costly things. By following him, I often have to deny what Wayne wants to do. But he has lovingly won me into that space. Look how much time Jesus invested in the disciples, loving them through their selfishness and ignorances, and then challenging them to self-denial as the expression of relationship-borne obedience. Denial is not the way we gain him. Denial is the tool we need to live in his will instead of our own. Religion sets up a list of rules and expectations and then gets us to think that our achieving those is self-denial. It is not. It is only performance by another name. It is our effort trying to gain God’s favor. Simply, that doesn’t work.

So I guess religious performance sees self-denial and counting the cost as a way to gain the relationship. I don’t. The relationship is a gift and God will be incredibly loving and patient helping us be won to his love for us. But as we grow in him, we will often face the choice of doing what God wants or being tyrannized by what we want. Will God be patient with us even if we choose our own selfish pursuits? I find he does. But we will miss out on some aspect of his unfolding purpose in us and a deepening relationship by doing so. You see, I don’t understand people who claim that they love God and that simply means they want him to bless whatever they want to do.

Knowing him means you want to engage who he is and what he is doing. He has the best ideas about everything, and he wants to walk me through the unfolding adventure of life with his light and love. That is often incredibly costly. I’ve made huge decisions suspecting that the consequence just might be incredibly hurtful and harmful, rather than a huge blessing. I do that because I’m nuts about him and the things he asks me to be involved in, even if most of the people I lay down my life for may take advantage of that generosity, or even abuse it for their own self-satisfaction. That’s the cost and that’s denial.

Jesus’ warnings are fair game for us. If you’re going to live by your own convenience, you’ll miss out on the greatest joys of his unfolding kingdom in your life, which will challenge you to go where you’re not comfortable, love even when it means people will take advantage of you, and give even when it isn’t appreciated. That is how Jesus lived and told us we are blessed when people lie about us, exclude us or speak evil of us, because that is how he was treated. No, that isn’t always fun in the moment, but the depths of relationship that takes us to in him, are well worth the journey. As Paul said, “momentary, light afflictions work in us an eternal weight of glory.”

It’s all about his glory, not our personal comfort!

As I was getting dressed this morning the news was playing in the background that included a story about last night’s Country Music Association Awards. One of the things that absolutely confounds me is our celebrity culture’s infatuation with itself. I know it is in part it is driven by the publishers, agents and producers to keep their products in the marketplace. These award shows are the way to give further shelf-life to books, records and movies already in the marketplace.

But it is more than that. I’ve brushed shoulders enough with many celebrities to note their constant fascination with themselves and their expanding circle of famous friends. Watching video clips of them fawning all over each other made me shake my head in sorrow this morning. They are so delighted with their own success they have no idea how out of touch with real life and real people they actually are.

That may be painting with a broad brush, and I do hope there are some genuine souls among the celebrities of our day, but my experience tells me otherwise. And I’m not saying that celebrities are bad people, but rather that our celebrity culture damages people in ways we don’t get to see. What amazes me is how much fascination our world has with these celebrities. Look at any magazine rack, or entertainment show. It is all about exalting other humans with admiration, most of which you wouldn’t be friends with if you had the chance.

Two thoughts came to mind this morning while watching this. Why are so many people driven to live in that space? I can’t tell you how many interactions I have in year’s time with people who are driven to be the next big author, musician, actor, or movie-maker? Some want it for ‘Godly’ reasons, or so they say, but I don’t think they have any idea what celebrity will do to them. I know precious few who fly at that level that stay grounded in reality and appreciation for the people who they knew before it happened.

I read an interview this weekend with American actor Robert De Niro. He talked about how rich and famous people only surround themselves with others who only tell them what they want to hear and who give them permission to indulge their own selfishness because they have earned it. Sad, isn’t it? Believe me, there is no amount of money that makes it worth living in that space. Celebrity culture is a lie at its very core.

That was even more clear to me during my time in Australia. Most of my time there was spent with brothers and sisters on the journey of learning to live loved who saw me just as another brother on a journey. But I also did some media interviews and had some interactions with people who put me on the author pedestal for my own books, or for my work on The Shack. They are groupies, enamored with fame more than they are the Father I write about. Those conversations are less enjoyable to me and far less fruitful. One driver I had for an interview even apologized to me for even mentioning someone else’s book in my presence. When I expressed dismay that he would think to apologize for that, he told me that he knew how much famous people wanted to be the center of attention.

So my second thought in hearing this news clip this morning was this: The best thing about celebrity is that it makes you irrelevant to the people who matter. People enamored with celebrity have little else going on in their lives. People who are really grounded in the life of God aren’t impressed with celebrity. They don’t put people on pedestals, and aren’t too interested in those who are. They look for people to walk alongside them knowing we are all flesh and blood with the same human experiences, hopes and fears as anyone else. As I have often said the people I know who live most alive and free in Jesus are unknown except to the friends and family that live in their corner of the world.

Whenever we are tricked into the lie that there are people above us, or beneath us, we have lost the truth and the reality that Jesus invited us into. That’s why James warned the followers of Jesus:

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong? (James 1:1-7)

Give honor to whom honor is due.

Today is Veteran’s Day in the United States, where we honor those who have served in the military in defense of freedom and against those who would do great harm in the world. I want to pause today on this blog to do exactly that. Though our military has not always been used by our political leaders for the purest of purposes, I’m grateful that is the narrow exception not the rule. My own father took up arms as an 18 year-old fresh out of high school to help defeat Nazism’s spread over Europe in World War II. He grew up on a vineyard in central California, and was wounded by a mortar shell fragment in a vineyard in northeast France, just miles from the German border.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be exchange gunfire with another terrified 18 year-old on the other side of the battle. I can’t imagine what these young men and women face in the brutality of war, the death of comrades, and being separated from loved ones in far-off countries for extended periods of time. But I am grateful for those who have taken up the call and served this country in the defense of freedom in the world.

His war experiences shaped my dad in ways that have borne fruit through the whole of his life. He has not been afraid to stand up in the face of injustice or to confront those who do harm to others. He has lived with a heart to serve others in any way he could help them and with an integrity of word and honesty that I’ve seen in far too few.

For him and all others who have served (or are serving today) our country with distinction and honor, I am deeply grateful for your sacrifice, your courage and your conviction. May God bless you today and pour out his grace upon you.

What a journey, what a discovery!

I got this email the other day from a life that Jesus is transforming in a wonderful way. It really touched me and I knew it would encourage so many others who feel as if they believe a reality in their head, that their heart has not embraced. I hope her story opens the door for many others to recognize the ways in which God has already expressed his love to you, even if you might have missed that at the time, and how to recognize ways in which he’s making love known today:

My name is Melissa and I’m from Oklahoma I met you when you came to Oklahoma a few months back. I have found your podcast and books most helpful in this journey that I have been on, which started about 2 years ago. That would be the journey out of religion and into relationship. Also, The Shack had a profound impact on me, but not in the happy emotional good way. My first response once I had finished it was feeling very jealous. I knew that this was a fiction story, and this hadn’t actually happened, but I knew that God ‘could’ do this for real if He wanted to.

He could come to me in some sort of physical way and spend time with me they way He did the guy in The Shack. It was through all of these different things, podcasts, books, experiences, etc that I realized that what I was really searching for was God’s love. I have been working my whole life on trying to make myself lovable to God, and my head was starting to understand that I already am deeply loved by God, and that NOTHING could change that, but my heart had a VERY hard time grasping that. I found myself asking what many of your readers and listeners ask themselves… how can I make myself “get” that? I wanna make myself feel unconditionally loved by God. I know from listening to you and talking to others that I’m not going to be able to “make” that happen.

So, I’ve found myself here, in the place where my head knows the truth about God’s love towards me, his affection, his favor, and slowly but surely, my heart is starting to get it too. I most certainly can say that there are days where I know it inside and out, and there are days where I don’t. But Praise God there are actually days where I do! That’s a big leap from never feeling it at all. During all this searching, and grumbling to God how I was jealous of those who have had a very supernatural kind of experience with Him, and how I desperately wanted that too… guess what happened?! God brought back to my memory something that happened to me many many years ago…. and I had forgotten about it until recently. As soon as I started rethinking the story, I suddenly realized that He HAD done that for me, and at the time my heart just didn’t get it. WOW…. I couldn’t believe it. I had my own ‘shack’ type moment with God, and am just now realizing it. Here’s that story….

Once upon a time there was a teenage girl named Melissa. She spent most of her life trying to earn God’s affection. Her view of God made her think that her mere existence alone wasn’t enough for God, she would have to do the right amount of Bible Study, Prayer, Church Attendance, and all around general kindness to be able to come close to the heart of God.

One day however, God did something very strange. It was back in the year 1997… Melissa had a close friend, and they had gotten in a little disagreement, and weren’t speaking to each other. Naturally, Melissa felt like this was completely unacceptable to God, to not perfectly get along with someone, and knew that God was probably mad at her for not living in complete harmony with a friend.

After school she went to the mall. She was on the way out the door, passing by the food court on her way…and an elderly man at a nearby table stopped her. “Hello there,” he said. She smiled and waved at him and said “Hello”. He kept looking at her as if he had something else to say… so she slowed down and he asked her, “Where are you from?” and she said, “well, I live here in Lawton, but I spent most of my life in Ohio.”

Now, Ohio was very very important to teenage Melissa. Growing up there her whole life, she struggled in the early years to make friends, but around age 15 finally started getting attention from the more popular crowd, and was starting to have more friends and aquaintances. When someone is working really hard for affection, popularity is a wonderful feeling. Melissa was starting to feel like she fit in somewhere! However, in 1995 Melissa’s parents got a divorce, and her mother decided she wanted to move back to Oklahoma where she was from so she could have the support of her family. I’m sure you could imagine how well that went over with Melissa. She was, hm…. how do I say it… unwilling to move. She thought about trying to live with her Dad, but of the two parents, he was the one she was most uncomfortable around. Deep in her heart, she knew there was more to this than just deciding who to live with. She knew that God was asking her to take a huge leap of faith and trust him and move with her mom. Through a lot of anger at God, tears, and feelings of losing everything, she did move. And I imagine you can guess what ended up being the best thing that ever happened to her… but that’s another story for another time…back to this one…

The elderly man looked at Melissa and said, “Ohio, huh? That’s the buckeye state isn’t it?” “Yes it is!” Melissa replied, thrilled to come across someone who knew about Ohio. And he said, “Well, do you have a buckeye?” And Melissa said, “No, I wanted to get one before I left, but I didn’t get the chance.” (they weren’t in season when she moved in the summer). The man reached into his jacket pocket and held something in his hand. “Well, here you go!” he said, as he held out his hand to Melissa. Melissa put out her hand, and into it he dropped- a buckeye. Melissa stood there with her mouth hanging open…she coudn’t believe it! A buckeye, a real buckeye! “THANK YOU!” she told the man, smiling from ear to ear. He smiled and said, “your welcome.” And Melissa walked away, still in shock.

Melissa looked at the buckeye and tried to wrap her mind around what just happened. What are the odds that a man in Lawton Oklahoma would be in the mall as a girl from Ohio who just happened to really miss Ohio would walk by and stop her, and ask her about Ohio, and just happen to have a buckeye in his hand, which is the one souvenier from Ohio that she didn’t get before she left?

Later that night, while still pondering this, she wondered… was that an angel? Or maybe just a regular human being, a divine nobody who God had asked to help him out? Why on earth would God want to be nice to Melissa while she is in the midst of a disagreement with a friend, and hasn’t done anything spectacular for God lately? What was God trying to tell her?

It would be years later, the year 2009 to be exact before she would be able to answer those questions. Now, grown-up Melissa realizes that all of that ‘doing’ to earn God’s affection really got her nowhere with God. You can’t earn what you already have. She now knows that her existence alone is enough for a God, a heavenly Father that loves her very much. And through good times and bad, wrong choices and right, loves her all the same…. that buckeye said that and so much more. Maybe it was also a ‘thank you’ for giving up the life she wanted in Ohio and taking the life that God gave her in Oklahoma, the life that led her to her soulmate husband, her beautiful children, wonderful friends, and would be the exact path to this new journey she is on where she gets to see God for who he really is, and how he really feels about Melissa, and where the buckeye makes sense.

I just wanted to share my story with you, Wayne, because you are part of the journey that helped this event in my life make sense to me. Thank you for sharing God’s love with me. I mean, REALLY sharing God’s LOVE with me. I grew up hearing all about it, but now, I’m starting to ‘get’ it. Thank you.

Wow! I love the ways God makes himself known, even if it takes a few years for us to grasp what was going on.

What if you took God’s claim of being love itself (I John 4:16) and held him to his own definition of love (I Corinthians 13)? Fireworks, that’s what! You might find out that the God you’ve come to believe in isn’t love at all.

But he is! That’s what Darin Hufford discovers in his new book, The Misunderstood God that has just been released by the publishing company I helped get started, WindblownMedia book. This is a complete re-crafting of an earlier book Darin had written called The God’s Honest Truth. Though I enjoyed the content of the original book, I didn’t think it was put together in the best way to reach all the people that would be touched by reading it.

Over the last year we helped Darin take that book a part and rebuild it in a way that more people could benefit from its powerful message. In humorous and compelling stories, Darin shows how religion has disfigured the God of the Bible, giving him a personality that has more in common with the devil, than it does the Father of all love. He holds God to his own definition of love in I Corinthians 13 to show us that he is the very definition of love itself and as we come to appreciate that, we’ll find greater grace and freedom to live in his life.

I’m excited to see this book take fresh wing. If you have a heart to understand God’s essential nature, you might check out this book. It could transform how you view God and how you recognize his fingerprints in your life. And if you want to hear Darin talk about his own book, give a listen to the two recent podcasts we did with Darin at The God Journey:

• The Misunderstood God
• Living Freely in God’s Love

Though I have enjoyed the lighter email traffic I’ve had over the last couple of weeks, I’ve just found out that many emails sent to me during that time either bounced back as undeliverable or got hung up in queue and were not delivered. I certainly apologize for any inconvenience this has meant for you. My email address is still the same. If you haven’t gotten a response from me, you are welcome to re-send your email. At this point I am still trying to respond to every email sent to me, so if you didn’t get a response you might assume I missed your email.

A panoramic view at the Tala Game Reserve near Durban

Sara and I have been home three days now and this has been my fastest recovery from an international trip. I have slept well through the nights and seem to be back on Pacific Standard Time.

Many have asked how our time went there and I’m going to post some of my reflections from this trip. Sara and I wandered across the breadth of South Africa meeting brothers and sisters from all over the spiritual map. Many of them I had met on a previous trip four years earlier, but we also met so many new ones to meet as well. What I loved throughout all the places we visited was the fresh and unbridled hunger to know the Father, Son, and Spirit and the passion to learn how to follow them in the simplicity of their daily lives.

What encouraged me most on this trip was seeing the progress that people had made in their own spiritual journeys since I was in South Africa four years ago. Nothing brings greater joy to my heart than seeing in practical ways the transformation God works in hearts who follow him. What frustrated me most about the old religion I used to observe is that no one seemed to change. Come back two years later and people were still in the same place, faithfully performing their religious rituals, but without a transforming relationship with Jesus. I loved seeing how he had moved people further down the journey since I was last in South Africa.

I also saw great progress in the culture as a whole. South Africa is in the midst of an unfathomable transition. Those who held power over the last 150 years of the region’s history have paid a huge price to expand opportunity and share power with all the people’s of South Africa. It has not been easy, but I constantly marveled at the hopeful and gracious attitude of those who have given up so much to find a fairer way forward for those who have so little. It is still a work in progress, and great tensions still exist in working all that out, but overall I find people working hard to get it right.

And I loved the hunger we saw in new people we met. We met some wonderful brothers and sisters, some just starting out on this journey and others who’ve been on it for years, not knowing there were others with similar hungers. Many been reading some of my books and listening to The God Journey podcasts and we’re finding increasing freedom from the rigidity of religion to embrace a real and enduring relationship with the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We had some incredible discussions and conversations, some of which we were able to record and will make available at a future date when I can work through all of that.

From Pretoria we journeyed down to a three-day retreat in the Drakensberg, a majestic mountain range. Here over 100 believers gathered for the weekend. Then we went to Pietermaritzburg for an evening where we met in former prison now being converted to a community care center. The next morning we left for Durban, stopping at the Tala Game Reserve where we took the picture above and those below. Such amazing wildlife in Africa!

Three zebras out for lunch, and a rhino getting his share as well.

Then it was on to Durban to see the AIDs outreach that our friend Penny Dugan of New Jerusalem Ministries is facilitating in that region. We have been long-time supporters of this work and I have done lots of training for them in helping people to live loved. It has a wonderful place in our hearts and is shining the light of Jesus in a very dark corner of the world where the need is overwhelming. Their primary mission is to reach out to those infected with AIDs and provide care for the, but they also reach out to all kinds of needs to the people in that township and critical needs for food and medical care among so many of them. They also care for widows and orphans who have no where else to turn.

The Ukukhanya Life Care Centre that Sara and I have been involved with in the township of Ntzuma opened while we were there. The team there has converted an abandoned building into a care center to help with those living with AIDs and meet other needs in the township.


The township of Ntzuma, 500,000 people, 47% HIV positive. Numerous children here have no parents because they have already died from AIDs.


One of the staff puts the finishing touches on one of the newly refurbished rooms.

If you are looking for a place to share some of your abundance in the world with those who have so little, please give this place your consideration. The money is put to great use not only in South Africa but in the development of an AIDs care center near Wichita, KS as well. They have an amazing gift to reach into this area with the grace and light of Jesus.

Then it was on to our final weekend in the Cape Town area, where we met with three different groupings of believers over three days to share the journey and encourage people to follow that which Father had already put in their hearts. Cape Town is a beautiful area with overwhelming views and incredible people.

Wayne sharing the journey with brothers and sisters that packed into a home in West Somerset near Cape Town on our final day.


Sara and I at the end of the trip, windblown at Cape Point where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans converge.

All in all this was an incredible trip. Our hearts were knit with many people in that area who are learning to live loved and to love others. We were graciously received and cared for throughout our stay. We pray that God will continue to shine his light into their hearts and show many more people how to live in the fullness of his life and freedom.

Day 4 of our stay in South Africa and we’re finally getting our heads in the right time zone. Sara and I will be leaving Johannesburg this morning and head down to Ladysmith, where a retreat is gathering of believers from around South Africa. I love having multiple days together with the same people because the conversations get richer and richer and people get more relaxed with us and each other.

Sara and I visited Constitutional Hill last night, which has the prisons from the old apartheid regime and the new Constitutional Court that protects the rights and dignity of all South Africans now. Interesting juxtaposition, with the promise of the future set right in the horrors of the past. It was done intentionally as a reminder of the inhumanity people can do to each other all in the name of grabbing power and security for themselves. Sobering and enlightening!

We had a delightful meeting with some hungry hearts in Pretoria last night. I loved their hunger and the courage of their journey to discover how to live loved and not just conform to the religious rituals they were raised in. How I wish we’d had more than just two hours to be together. I would have enjoyed knowing many of them so better and hearing their stories of life and freedom, but that is all we had this trip.

Sara and I have arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa and are now trying to get our heads to find the same time zone as our bodies. We’re staying at the home of a dear couple I stayed with last time I was here, and got to touch base with some old friends last night, and some new friends as well.

I really don’t know who Chris Rice is and haven’t read any of his books, but someone sent be a blog of his this morning shortly after I arrived in South Africa that I want to pass it on to you. It’s especially poignant for me since I’m currently dealing with some broken relationships of my own with a couple of dear brothers who have been a significant part of my journey. The attempts I’ve made to get together and risk relational reconciliation have been spurned. That’s probably why this article touched me so.

I just don’t understand those who so easily walk away from relationships when they grow uncomfortable or difficult, instead of working through those whatever issue might exist to a greater grace and freedom. This article expresses so well God’s desire to make our relationships with others more important than ‘being right,’ and gave me focus for my own life and prayers today. I hope it is an encouragement to you as well.

And I know we’ve already missed Chris’ Grace Day for 2009, but couldn’t every day be Grace Day?

Celebrating “Grace Day”: From Trying Harder and Doing More to a Culture of Grace

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful” — Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being

Twelve years ago yesterday, I was born again … again. After 17 years of intense church-based racial justice and reconciliation ministry in Mississippi, my gospel had largely become a matter of trying harder and doing more. And things I held dear began to fall apart.

At the same time that my African-American colleague Spencer Perkins and I were traveling the nation preaching about reconciliation, we could hardly sit at the same dinner table together at home, where our families shared daily life in an intentional Christian community called Antioch. Our long friendship and ministry partnership was on the verge of breaking up. We each held tightly to our “lists”—“you did this to me,” “well you did that to me.” The final straw was when I shared that my wife and I were considering leaving the Antioch community. Spencer blew up, accusing me of being a deserter to the cause….

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