NORFOLK, VA— I haven’t got time right now to blog out my Thursday meeting, but I will when I have time. It was incredible, and I appreciated so much all who put me before Father on that day. In the meantime, however, I received this email exchange with one of my overseas friends a few days ago. It was a plea for prayer and some wonderful things God worked out:

I responded: I will be praying, Brother. But it sounds to me like God’s at work in people becoming more real together. That’s a good thing, but it rarely looks that way in the process. Let me know how it all sorts out,

Only a few days later he wrote back:

Community does need a jolt like that once in a while. It is easy for all of us to fall into comfortable patterns and routine and the sharing the journey grows stale. People get bored with body life when it is like that and so often we try to save it by just staying ‘committed.’ I like this approach much better. Simple honesty is where true fellowship incubates. Refreshing those relationships through times like this of open-hearted honesty and genuine concern for each other can be so powerful. It will allow people to continue on the journey together and not just fall into lifeless routines. I love what happened here.

And I love his last sentence. It is about as good a commentary on the first part of Galatians 3 as I’ve ever read. Without people listening and responding to the Spirit’s work in them, community just becomes a charade. How can people share together a journey they are not actually on? If we’re not active followers to begin with, there is nothing to build community on.

If you see this early enough today (May 12) pause a moment and pray for me, if you would.

I arrived last night in Washington, DC to work with the First Amendment Center in crafting some guidelines for public schools to deal with conflicts stemming from sexual orientation issues. They will be bringing together some of the top gay rights advocacy groups and conservative faith groups to see if we can find a way to help school districts deal with this difficult issue.

I never cease to be amazed at the ways in which God works. BridgeBuilders, came into existence 11 years ago all because Sara and I sensed some 21 years ago that he wanted us to put our children and public school and attend with them, looking to be a positive influence as they moved through it. The doors God has opened by that simple act of obedience continue to astound me. This one is no exception. Nor is it exceptional that today I feel as if I’ll be swimming in water that is far over my head and that in every way I am insufficient for the task. But isn’t that where his sufficiency gets to work best?

Of course, there is no guarantee we’ll get to any solutions today, but it amazes me that the conversation is taking place and that God has asked me to be part of it. It would be inappropriate for me to give more details than that, and I may not be able to talk in specific terms about the outcome. But today, I would appreciate your prayers that God’s wisdom and character would find expression in my life today. Thanks.

After this meeting I head downstate to meet with a variety of people. I’ll be at a home group in Haymarket tonight, have breakfast on Friday with the man who presided over Sara and my wedding and who has remained a dear friend and fellow-traveler for over 30 years, and meet with various groupings of believers in Norfolk and Richmond over the weekend. I’ll have to admit I am really looking forward to this weekend as I reconnect with old friends and make new ones.

Our Sixth Webcast of The God Journey has just been posted on our sister website. In “Believers Outside the Box” Wayne and Brad discuss three articles that have appeared in major publications about believers who have left traditional congregations. It is topic we only scratched the surface of, but I’m sure we’ll revisit it more and more. Thanks to all who helped us think through this topic with your contributions through our blogs and comment lines. We are blessed that so many of you listen in to our Webcast and find it a helpful resource to thinking outside the box. If you have questions or subjects you’d like us to address in future shows, please be sure to let us know.

I got the following email the other day from a brother name Hal about my most recent book. He pegs my favorite part of that book and I thought some of you might find our exchange helpful.

I don’t know that I can recommend a book to sort this out. I think we truly sort it out in life listening to Father as we work through our relationships with others. The more we see how our expectations destroy our freedom to love others, and how it turns them into a pawn for our own needs, the more we’ll distrust them. And besides, once we learn to rely on God to meet all our needs, there will be nothing left to ‘expect’ from others. It’s amazing. At the same time, people even become a greater blessing in our lives because God will use them to touch us, but not having our expectations in the way of that doesn’t confuse it.

And I do think it is freedom from all expectations, because we aren’t very good at discerning between our own expectations and God’s. And besides I’m not sure God has expectations of us. He gives us opportunities and allows us to do exactly what is in our heart to do. Genuineness is what is close to God’s heart, not people performing to please others.

I get to live in him today as freely as I am able, and release my brothers and sisters to do the same…

What a crazy week!

For some time Sara and I have felt restless about the home we live in and wondering if God was preparing to move us. This home has served us well as Sara was starting her way working in education and attending night classes for her Master’s degree, but it had some real downsides to it as well. When our daughter and her husband moved further away a few months ago to buy a home closer to the city, and asked us to move closer to them, we wondered if that might be part of it. Sara and Julie both watch out for each other when I am on the road, or Julie’s husband is. We regretted losing that when they moved away. Also, Julie has wanted to help in our office with order fulfillment and other administrative tasks as she cares for her new granddaughter. Hmmmm… But her being 45 minutes away would make that a bit complicated.

On the way to the airport for my flight to Boise a couple of weeks ago, Sara and I talked about moving and though Sara felt it was time to move, I was hopeful we would wait until Fall. Once I get into late June, I don’t have a window in my schedule to work with a move. But we agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to start looking in that area. One of the places we had talked about was the eastside of Moorpark, a more rural section with quiet hillsides and easy freeway access.

Believe it or not on her first trip out Sara found a home she fell in love with. She kept calling me every day telling me more about it. To buy it, though we would have to sell our home quickly and make an offer on the other house. It just didn’t seem possible, but we could give it the old college try.

Tuesday we listed our home. We had eight families through it the next day and sold it exactly what we needed to to purchase the other home. Last night we signed papers on the home Sara found and will move in June 9-11, just before my travel schedule goes nuts! A lot of things still have to come together for this to happen, but as I sit here this morning I am amazed at the Lord’s timing in all of this. Sara even had a job interview with a high school a week and a half ago that is only a few miles from our new home. If she gets that job so close to where we’re planning on moving, I think I’ll faint.

There’s some other real joys of moving in this house. It is on some hills behind the community college with 30 miles of open land behind our house. For an old country boy, I get claustrophobic in the city. I want room to breath and go for long walks. I’ll be closer to the airports I fly from and even have a train that can take me to one of them. It has a bonus room that will make a wonderful office for me and it has a kitchen built for entertaining. There are some wonderful out-of-the-box believers in that area that Sara and I have wanted to walk with more closely. It is also near one of the best and most affordable golf courses in this area that I enjoy playing.

And, it’s less than 10 minutes from our daughter’s house. Before we closed the deal, I made sure I had my son-in-law’s blessing. I told him I thought 45 minutes was about the right distance away for in-laws, and wouldn’t be offended if he didn’t want us too close. He laughed off my concerns telling me they would love to have us closer.

So, if everything works out, we will have sold and bought a home in less than three days and will have ample time to move before the summer begins. Nothing this huge has been quite this simple for us before, but if God had it on his heart to move us this summer, this was about the only way it could be done. It may all fall through for reasons we can’t see yet, but we’re still a bit winded from an incredible set of circumstances this week and hopeful that God has made a way for us when there seemed to be no way.

I’ve been having a bit of conversation with a brother from Maryland about the role of teaching in the reality of the Body of Christ. I thought some of you would appreciate that exchange. Here’s what he first asked:

My Response: In my mind teaching is simply helping people get some truth that will help them live more deeply in Christ. To me it happens as simply as in a conversation with someone else, where the other person may not ever have identified with ‘being taught’, but nonetheless their eyes were open to something that didn’t see before. It can also happen in smaller groups with a more focused ‘sharing’ on the part of someone that others have wanted to hear from. And yes, speaking to large groups who want to hear is also a way to do that.

In my view, however, more people always mean a less effective teaching environment. The best is one-on-one where questions can be asked and answered as a discussion ensues in the real time of the hearer. The least desirable is one-on-thousands where one has to speak to the lowest common denominator. Not that it can’t or should be done, but everyone just needs to know the limitations it imposes. I teach in all of these settings with some regularity and don’t have a problem being in any environment in which Jesus calls me.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t see teaching as a ‘gift’ someone must do and others must hear. I certainly see the ability to communicate God’s truth as a gift, but it is not controlled by the ‘teacher’, but by what the hearers want to hear. In other words, it should be something imposed by the teacher, but sought by the hearers, recognizing the gift or wisdom someone has that will help them in their journeys.

My Response:I love his last paragraph here. Isn’t it amazing how easily our systemic paradigms obliterate the example of Jesus? He didn’t exercise a gift that others needed to listen to. He lived his life and God opened up opportunities with individuals and crowds because they were drawn to what he had to give. He scheduled no regular meetings or studies. He didn’t do a ‘lecture’ series anywhere. The irresistible power of his message and his character drew people to his side. That doesn’t mean scheduled meetings or lecture series are wrong; it’s just that they are not so essential as others might think.

There is great value in the gift of teaching for us all in the body. Just because we don’t ‘need’ to be taught by anyone as Hebrews 8 and I John suggest, doesn’t mean there isn’t great value in learning the lessons of folks that have walked a ways ahead of where we are. It’s just that we must take care not to grow dependent on their experience, but use it to help us draw more closely to him.

I’m back from Idaho and Utah, and had a fabulous time meeting with scores of people from all around that area who are in various stages of sorting out what it means to live as God’s child in the world and relate to the church as a family rather than an institution. The discussions were incredible. I met lots of people who with great passion and courage are following God’s leading rather than making themselves comfortable with the status quo. I love that stuff! And I love watching people live on the edge of their relationship with God and not be lulled into boredom by religious routine.

This really came home with a phone call I had a couple of days ago. I was talking to a friend I’ve known for almost 35 years and one of the first ‘mentors’ I had in helping me see the glories of relational life in God and in real community among the Body of Christ. As we were reminiscing about our days together his voice lowered and he said, “It’s sad to think that my best days were my earliest days.”

I was stunned. And, yes, it was incredibly sad. I wouldn’t say he is unhappy now, but for the past few decades he has been a pastor in a mainline denomination. He does that better than anyone I know. He really has a heart for people and gives himself for their good, rather than making them cogs in his own vision. Nonetheless, I could hear the tiredness in his voice as he paused now only a couple of years from retirement. He had hoped for so much more.

I remember thinking like that as well a decade or so ago as my life got caught up in the day to day demands of religious machinery that seemed to always beckon me away from the deeper callings of my heart. I remember reading 2 Corinthians 3:18 one day, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory…” or as one translation says, “From glory to glory….” I used to joke that this journey seems a lot more like “from pit to pit,” rather than from “glory to glory” and I remember lots of people getting a good chuckle out of that. We used to look at the exuberance of new converts and remember with longing those early days. We used to think, ”Just wait until they mature a bit then they will be as bored with this Christian life as the rest of us.” How sad!

Our earliest days were never meant to be our best days. And I have found they are not. Ten years ago I was on that long, painful slide into numbness that religious routine smothers us with. Thankfully, God drew us out of that and gave us a taste of real life in him and real relationships with brothers and sisters. I wouldn’t trade the experiences of the last year for any one previous. It really is from glory to glory that he changes us. That doesn’t mean every day is blissful, but that we see his hand ever-working even in the pain and sacrifice that his life calls us to. And we see the growing imprint of his nature on ours.

That’s what makes it all worthwhile. Don’t let your spiritual life slowly decline into mere routine or commitment. Pour out your heart to him and let him renew you in the glory of his life and set you on the track that takes you further into his glory every day, instead of further away from it. Don’t let yourself get to the end of your days, pining away for the ‘good old days,’ Rather, let him lead you ever-closer to him so that each day reflects his glory better than those who’ve gone before.

In the last two months, the two major Christian magazines in America (Christianity Today and Charisma) have run three major articles about people who no longer fit into our Sunday (or Saturday) morning congregations. Each of these articles speak negatively of those who have left and advance the notion that it is the duty of every Christian to belong to one of the institutions that call themselves church to be part of the body of Christ. One even points that out while admitting that the structures itself are dead. Here are the articles in case you missed them:

• The Church Why Bother? by Tim Stafford


• When Christians Quit Church by Andy Butcher


• Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons an interview with Eugene Peterson

Interesting… Three articles in two months? It sounds like someone is worried about something. I wonder why that is? Wouldn’t it be helpful to discuss the pros and cons of these articles? That’s exactly what Brad and I plan to do in our next edition of The God Journey, to be taped on Wednesday, May 4. We hope to shed some light on the growing conflict between those who are in the institutions and those who are not and for that we would love some of you to help us out with your thoughts, questions and insights.

• Do you agree or disagree with these articles?


• Are you no longer part of an organized congregation? Why? Have you found your experience with church has increased or decreased by this choice?


• Are you part of a congregation and miss those who have left and wish they’d come back?

If you would, we’d love to include many different voices, and you can record your comments or questions by calling our comment line in the U.S. at (805) 626-4212. You can also contribute by commenting on this blog by clicking on the ‘feedback’ button below.

Our Fifth Webcast of The God Journey has just been posted on our sister website. “A Journey Into Renewal” chronicles one congregation as they sought God’s heart for spiritual renewal. Five years ago this congregation in Sacramento had a building, a staff, a slew of programs and a heart for renewal. Over the last five years in simple acts of obedience they have deconstructed their congregational life. In November they stopped meeting on Sunday mornings. In December the staff voluntarily resigned their salaries, and in January they sold the building. In a story reminiscent of That Lot in Fairlee, they are now learning to live as God’s people in Sacramento and are discovering a renewal they had not imagined. In this special Webcast, Wayne interviews one of the key people in this process, as he relates their journey and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. It’s an incredible story of people on a journey to friend freedom and vitality in their relationship with God and each other.

A newly found Internet sister wrote me the other day about something other believers were pushing her to do. They felt like she should be writing up her story as an encouragement to others. She didn’t feel that was God’s priority for her, but felt a bit selfish in giving herself to her family if others thought there was a ‘greater ministry’ afoot.

I wrote her the following: “I think God unfolds his work to us as we do each day what he puts in our heart to do. Other people suggesting we have a story to write can certainly be a seed God is planting into our heart, but it is not enough motivation to do what he has not made clear with us. I have felt I’ve had clear direction on the books I have undertaken. I see that not as a specific ‘word’ he spoke to me, but a growing conviction over time of what he wanted me to do. Not all of those have worked out like I thought, but I gave time to them as he made the way clear. I’m certain you can trust that. If there comes a time he wants you to tell that story in a more formal way, you’ll know it in your heart. People’s suggestions can be a great seed being planted, or even a confirmation of what he might be speaking to us. But they are not ever to be our sole motivation for something so extensive as this.”

Here is her response:

Isn’t it funny how religion can make us feel guilty even about the things Father asks us to do? I have not read a better description of the power and simplicity of freedom than what she wrote in that last paragraph. If you need a deep breath today to follow what God has put on your heart especially if it crosses the well-intentioned encouragements of good friends, take it. God is able to make his way clear to you as you live each day in him.