In a comment on my blog about Christian Magazines, Eric left a comment thinking I’d been a bit rough on the industry and painted with too broad a brush. I thought his comments had some validity, so I want to try to clarify that previous blog here:

Eric, Thanks for writing. I love you’re perspective and your heart. Maybe you’re right. It was a bit tough.

I certainly do not believe nor mean to intimate that folks who work for Christian magazines are evil. But this piece was not directed at individuals who work in the industry, but at the industry as a whole and how groupthink can make the subobjective of making a profit more important than helping people discover the truth of God’s work on the earth. I tried to make it clear that they don’t see it that way, and as you say are doing what they think best to spread the kingdom.

But isn’t that what is scary about it? When I was a pastor I was deeply convinced that by building my institution, I was buildilng the kingdom. My passion for God was the same then, but the groupthink of the institutional enviornment took those passions and twisted them into manipulating people with guilt and commitment, saying what would not offend even if it wasn’t quite the truth and thinking the success of the institution was more important than the growth of individuals. When the subobjective of buildling an institution replaces the key objective of living loved and loving, horrible things can happen by well-intentioned people. I wasn’t writing about anything I haven’t also experienced firsthand. And yes, that is a confession.

I wrote the original blog because of the number of people that thought I could influence Charisma to give more weight to those thinking outside the box. I know the futility of that given their readership. I don’t know the editor there at all, though I have tried to write him on a number of occasions and have never had him respond. I have LOVED a lot of his editorials that challenge religious ways of thinking. I’ve often wondered how he stays there given the overall humanistic and materialistic feel of the magazine and those it covers. I stopped reading it years ago because it beckoned the wrong motives in me.

That said, I do think there is a huge difference between people reading what I write because it resonates with them, and me writing what I write to draw the largest audience I can. Very different. Pleasing people is not a trap I hope to fall into yet again. I’ve been in that pit way too many times before. It’s muddy at the bottom and the sides are steep and slippery. There’s no way out without a firm and loving hand from above!

I received this today from a brother I’ve been corresponding with in Switzerland who is translating the Jake Colsen book, So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore into French.

Hi Wayne,

I just want you to know that I finished translating Jake Colsen. It’s in the “2nd reading” process now, somebody is correcting it, and I’m looking now to find somebody who could edit it. So please pray with us in this process.

Silvio

So, please pray. And if anyone out there can edit French, please get in touch with me and I’ll direct you to this project. I’m blessed by the people who are helping get this out to other nationalities in their own language. I’ve also reached agreement with a German publisher that will be translating and publishing the Jake book and He Loves Me into German. Cool!

I’ve had a lot of email in recent days about some comments I made to a reporter that recently ended up in the current issue of Charisma magazine. People seemed to think I must have been misquoted. When I finally saw the article I was relieved to know that the reporter basically got my words right. I love relational expressions of God’s life among people whether they meet in a home, a building or a tree! It is Jesus and his presence that matters not the locality. I’m not a banner waver for the so-called ‘house church movement’ and see many of those who are exhibit some of the same attributes of building their own kingdoms that we in other franchises of church life. I honestly think Jesus is tired of it all.

I have also talked to people who were upset with an editorial in that issue that says some disparaging things about people that don’t attend sanctioned Sunday morning events that have ‘church’ printed on the marquee out front or the bulletin they hand you when you walk in. I don’t know, I haven’t read it yet. Some want to start a letter-writing campaign to help the editors ‘see the light.’ I chuckle at the notion. By all means write. I often write to editors to at least give them another perspective, but I don’t ever expect it to change the nature of the magazine. That isn’t going to happen because entrenched Christian magazines are not primarily serving the kingdom, they are serving their business plan. And their business plan is to stay in business by increasing their market share and if they can sneak a bit of truth in while doing that, so much the better.

What many people seem to misunderstand is that Christian magazines are most concerned with printing the truth of God’s heart and light in the world. That is one of the most deceptive things about them. Don’t get me wrong, that’s what most publishers THINK they are doing, but when you get behind the inner workings of a magazine today, you discover how much they serve the bottom line by serving up articles that their readers WANT to read. It’s the fulfillment of 2 Tim 4, actually, where people “gather around themselves those who will say what their itching ears want to hear.”

Even if some of the editors thought various expressions outside of organized religion were valid expressions today, they couldn’t say it outright. They would have to couch it in deniable words so as not to tick off their readership. How many people into relational life do you think subscribe to Charisma? I don’t. It’s a fluff piece of celebrity worship for the charismatic renewal. People who know God and how he works wouldn’t spend a lot of time trying to find God’s truth there. That’s not to say it doesn’t show up there once in a while, but it has a high noise to signal ratio. Way too high for me.

What they can do is run an article about house church that isn’t totally negative, but to keep their readers they preach the old, ‘gotta go to church’ rules so they won’t think their editors have gone daft. It’s a game. That’s why disgruntled letters make little difference. They can run them on the ‘letters’ page to let those people think they have a voice, but it will not affect their direction as a magazine. They are not looking for truth, but to keep their jobs and keep their readership. Cynical, you say? Nope. That’s business.

I’ve written articles for magazines, that editors have told me they truly love, but cannot print. “Even though I love what you’ve written here and think it is the truth, I cannot print it in this magazine without 20% of our readers canceling their subscriptions in anger. If 20% cancel their subscriptions our entire market plan goes belly up and we won’t print another issue.†That’s how it works. See it for what it is. Enjoy the truth that slips through, but don’t live under the illusion that these editors are the gatekeepers of truth for the family. They cannot afford to be, even if they did have that kind of wisdom. All the major magazines even use focus groups now to find out just what their readers want to hear so they can serve it up to them month after month whether or not it is helpful to God’s work in the world…

Crazy? Probably. But Paul told us the day would come. Lo and behold, we’re smack dab in the middle of it. It’s quite a ride. That’s why can you keep your eyes on him and don’t freak out when people miss the truth because of their vested interest. Just keep living it, one day at a time and loving one person at a time. That is the way God works in the world. That’s more powerful than any editorial in any Christian magazine…

Truly!

As I wrote earlier Sara and I are reading through The Christ of the Mount by E. Stanley Jones while she gets ready to leave for work in the morning. This book is a classic study through the Beatitudes, especially how the blend together in our lives to demonstrate God’s life to the world. Here he deals with the third beatitude, the meek. But he postulates that it is a convergence of the first two—the renunciated life of the poor in spirit, and willingness to enter into other people’s pain as those who mourn.

As hydrogen and oxygen, two diverse elements, coming together produce an entirely new product, water, so the spirit of renunciation and the spirit of service coming together in a man make a new being, the most formidable being on earth-the terrible meek.

They are terrible in that they want nothing, and hence cannot be tempted or bought, and in that they are willing to go any lengths for others because they feel so deeply. Christ standing before Pilate is a picture of the Terrible Meek. He could not be bought or bullied, for he wanted nothing—nothing except to give his life for the very men who were crucifying him. Here is the supreme strength—it possesses itself, hence possesses the earth. It is so strong, so patient, so fit to survive that it inherits the earth.

No one gives the earth to those who have this terrible meekness; they come into it as their natural right, they inherit it because they have the blood of God in their veins.

On an unrelated note, I leave tomorrow for a week in the midwest. I’ll be in Windsor, Canada over the weekend with a Messianic fellowship that wants to sort out the freedom of relationship from the bondage of religion. Should be interesting. Then I’ll hang out in Detroit on Sunday night and Monday. On Tuesday I fly to Des Moines, Iowa to help a school district there deal with some harassment issues as part of my BridgeBuilders work. This is a tough trip to pack for!

I know! I know! I have been way too busy of late and some travel as well as work on a manuscript has left me woefully behind in emails and updating my various websites. It turns out I’m going to be a literary agent for awhile in my spare time, and perhaps be involved with a screenplay and movie production. All of this, because a few days after Christmas last year an unpublished manuscript arrived unannounced an unexpected in my inbox.

That is not unusual. Lots of people send me manuscripts and articles to read and I try to give as much time to them as I can and get some feedback to the authors. So I printed off a few pages to do that when I found myself on the ride of a lifetime. This book captured me in the first few pages and wouldn’t let me go until I finished it. At its end it left me in tears for over twenty minutes overwhelmed by the immensity of a Father’s love in his broken universe. And I didn’t even cry at the end of Ol’ Yeller!

The book is called The Shack and the gist of the story is this: In the midst of Mackenzie Phillips’ great sadness, he accepts a disturbing invitation to return to the shack, the scene of his 6 year-old daughters grizzly murder four years previous. There, he is confronted by a middle-aged black woman claiming to be God and thus begins an incredible weekend that turns his world upside-down.

The book was written by someone I’d only met a year previous. Frankly, this is one of the most absorbing depictions of God in his universe I have ever read. It is clever, colorful, witty, powerful and full of insights about the God I know. And it wasn’t even written specifically for believers! Though believers will find it engaging even as it challenges some of their religious constructs, The Shack will also hold great interest for nonreligious people. It wrestles in a most creative way with the universal question: Where is God in a world filled with unspeakable pain and loss? In that vein, this book and its edgy story will have incredible crossover potential. It has inspired my own journey and I find myself wishing every person I know had already read this book so we could talk about it.

Unfortunately I can’t put a copy in your hands today. I wish I could. This is one of those special books that comes along rarely in a lifetime. The author was raised among cannibals in West Papua, suffered great loss as a young adult and has overcome a host of inner struggles to live a fulfilled life in Christ now into his 50’s. As I got excited about this book, so did a couple of filmmaker friends of mine and we’ve put together a small team that is working with the author to ready the manuscript for publication, seek out a world-class publisher to get it in print, and turn it into a screenplay for a feature-length movie for general release at a budget of $15 million.

This is definitely a journey for me into uncharted waters, but I felt strongly enough about this book to help it find its way into our culture. It presents God in a way that our world rarely sees and rings with authenticity and overwhelming joy. It will help you in your own struggles to sort out God’s love in the midst of inexplicable suffering.

Already God has opened the door to put this manuscript in the hands of some major publishers and has opened conversations with others who may invest in the movie production. I would appreciate your prayers as this process unfolds. I also have no idea who is reading this blog and thought it might be worth asking if any of you have an in to a major publishers of general interest fiction, either Christian or secular. If so, I’d appreciate you helping me make that connection. Though I have many contacts in the publishing industry because of my own writings, there may be other connections God wants to make.

And if anyone has an extra $15 million lying around and would like to invest in an astounding production of this film, we would love to hear from you to.

Today Sara and i are celebrating 31 years of marriage. Amazing! As we sat and reflected on that this morning, we were so grateful that God has given us a way to let everything that has happened, good and bad, in the last 31 years draw us closer to each other instead of driving us apart. Today we are better friends than we’ve ever been. We’re partners in each other’s journey at every level and I don’t know anyone I’d rather spend time with than Sara—whether we’re in intense prayer, laughing our bellies to soreness, hanging out with good friends or sorting out some question one of us needs resolve.

She truly is the love of my life, my best friend and most endearing sister in Christ. We have all kinds of private jokes between us no one else shares. Her laughter makes me light up. I love the way she lives her life, loves our kids and treats people around her. I can’t believe the joy Father has led us to together and look forward to whatever lies ahead together.

Tonight we’re not even together, and it isn’t due to my travels. Sara has an awards dinner tonight at the Reagan Presidential Library for some of her seniors. But as I write this I can’t stop smiling. Whether we’re together or apart, she is my joy, and I know she’ll always come home!

I know marriage doesn’t sort out this way for everyone, and it makes us sad when we find couples who haven’t learned how to cling to each other, even in their differences and learn to rely on him together. Sara and I have been through some painful times. There was even a season of pain, I wasn’t sure our marriage would survive. What we enjoy now is the fruit of a lifetime shared and I do think there is a way for every couple, if they will explore it TOGETHER, to find their way into the absolute joy and bliss God had in mind when he made a man and a woman and put them in his garden together. Don’t give up! It’s worth sorting out with Father, and with your spouse!

I read this little prayer on the podcast last week and Lindsay asked me to post it on the blog. I realize this can be a slap in the face to someone in great pain, but for folks on the other side of it, it is a powerful affirmation of what God does in his people. Only as we lose our agenda to put our lives together the way we think best, can we enjoy Father in the midst of our trials and tragedies…

This ‘blessing’ was prayed over Henri Nouwen by his spiritual mentor:

May all your expectations be frustrated.
May all your plans be thwarted.
May all your desires be withered into nothingness.
That you may experience the powerlessness and the poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

I love the term ‘relational’ when it speaks of how we live this walk. To me, it means to live out of relationships—the first one with the community of Father, Son and Spirit, and then to share that experience of community with people in our lives.

I notice the term, however, is now being by people to describe house church, small groups, or even large congregations that set to be more focused on relationships. People even write me telling me they want to be more relational so they are going to start a small group in their home.

Living relationally is not about whether or not you go to a specific group. Living relationally means you recognize that God is a God of relationships and works through our relationship with him and our relationships with others. Those who are relational make room in their lives for relationships. They get to know their colleagues at work, their neighbors down the street and find time to encourage other believes, whether they are or are not on a similar journey. And when they find brothers and sisters who share their passion and hunger for the kingdom they take time to let those relationships grow, whether it is through face-to-face contact if that is possible, or even on discussion boards and email if it isn’t.

Being relational is an active lifestyle, looking to engage relationships, even at the most rudimentary level to anyone that cross their path. It may only be a greeting in passing at an airport, or a conversation in the grocery store line, but it says that people are important to Father and to me and I’m going to make room in my lives for others, and watch what God does with the relationships he gives me…

Don’t go this alone, or wait quietly in your home for fellowship to break out. Just live each day open-handed and gracious to everyone you can, without any agenda, and watch what God will do through you to bless others, and through others to encourage you.

As I wrote earlier Sara and I are reading through The Christ of the Mount by E. Stanley Jones while she gets ready to leave for work in the morning. This book is a classic study through the beatitudes. Writing about the first two beatitudes he wrote:

The end of human life will be either the finished egotist or the perfect lover. The first beatitude is the end of the egotist, the second is the beginning of the lover. It is the nature of love to insinuate itself into the sorrows and sins of others.

Wow! That feels like a slap of a two by four upside the head. I’m not sure we get to perfection on either of those two extremes, but I like his point nonetheless. Living in the love of the Father, will continually call you outside of yourself to love others in the same way you’ve been loved. If we don’t learn to live in the Father’s love, then or lives grow increasingly ego-centered and narcissistic. We may try to make it look loving, but all we do is manipulate people and situations around us to get what we want.

Certainly living to ourselves will produce the egotist, but interestingly enough so will our service of religion. Religion still puts the focus on our selves, even when we’re trying to produce for God. In the end we still become an egotist instead of a lover. I want to learn that lover part more every day and embrace Jesus purpose for my life each day, rather than trying to fulfill my own agenda, no matter how convinced I may be that it comes from him.

Travel the next few weeks will take me to Sacramento this weekend, and then over Memorial Day weekend to the Detroit area in Windsor, Ontario. From there I’m going to make a quick stop in Iowa to help a school district sort through an anti-harassment policy near Des Moines. I’ll be there May 30 and 31. After that it’s Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and then Sara and I hope to take a vacation into the Pacific Northwest… But only, if the Lord wills…