I had a great time in Washington State last weekend. I spent my entire time west of Puget Sound on the Olympic Peninsula, some of it in Port Orchard and some of it around Port Angeles. A few of us even took an afternoon hike on Saturday through the rain forest to the falls pictured at left. We gathered every night and often talked through the day with people on various stages of the journey—many of them wanting a greater reality in Jesus and a richer body life with others.

We talked about so many things, from helping people get focused on Jesus instead of various ‘church’ models to encouraging people to walk in his freedom rather than the expectations and demands of even well-meaning Christians around them who think our dependence is on an institution rather than on Christ. Some people really struggled with things we shared, others embraced them with open hearts knowing that we were only giving voice to things God was already teaching them. I love when that happens.

As I was reading in I Peter 4 this morning in The Message I came across some passages that speak to that directly. Unfortunately we normally only apply them to people in the world:

Then further down that chapter:

It’s easy to see these passages as only applicable to those caught up in the rebellious ways of the world, but Jesus also lived this out with people who were caught up in the demanding ways of religion. When the religionists of his day chided him for not fitting into their ways or respecting their authority, he was not swayed. He followed his Father’s voice rather than the jealous cries of his threatened countrymen. One of the hardest hurdles for any of us schooled in religion to get past is no longer to seek the approval of others. People caught up in religion use approval to manipulate people. If you conform to their ways they shower acceptance on you. But if you don’t they heap blame and accusations on you hoping to scare you back into the fold.

Peter wanted his readers to remember that it is God that we and our detractors give account to, not each other. If we are following him we will no longer be manipulated by those voices that seek to lure us back into religious obligation or reject our spirituality because it doesn’t conform to their expectations. I love Peter’s reminder in that as well. If you’re suffering the rejection of others because you’re following Christ, then consider yourself fortunate. If, however, you are rejected because you are arrogant, bitter or destructive, then that’s a different matter entirely. Don’t glory in the trouble caused by self, but that which is caused by your life in Jesus and that rejection will only become another tool in his hands to make you more like him.

I know how scary and painful it can be to risk friendships like that, but it is the only way to follow him and in the end you’ll also get to find out who your true friends really are. Real friends will support your passion for Jesus even if they don’t understand the way he’s leading you. To live in his fullness we have to follow him instead of playing to the crowd—whether that’s those caught up in the world, or those held captive by religion.

I don’t often comment on political events in this forum, but there’s something I’ve noticed in my recent travels that has disturbed me deeply. Admittedly my experiences overseas are limited, but I have noticed a significant shift in how America is perceived overseas, and this from believers among our closest allies. Where I used to hear warm appreciation for what America stood for and passionate support for our struggle against terrorism, I now hear the suspicion that we care only for ourselves and will walk over anyone to get what we want.

It’s almost embarrassing to travel as an American in the world these days. Our foreign policy in the last few years has conveyed an arrogance that alienates even our friends.
President Bush ran for office promising a new humility in American foreign policy. “Let us not dominate others with our power,” he said in 1999. “Let us have an American foreign policy that reflects American character — the modesty of true strength, the humility of real greatness. This will be the spirit of my administration.” During the October 200 debate he said the US was attemptiong too much abroad. “If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us. If we’re a humble nation but strong, they’ll welcome us.”

The campaign rhetoric said he got that but his actions since have demonstrated that he does not. His policies only foster American self-interest without taking into consideration the needs and desires of other nations. Watch the language he uses to communicate with other countries. He talks down to them as a parent would scold a wayward child and in doing so only fosters resentment instead of cooperation.

When you can drop a cruise missile on a specific desk, through a specific window on a specific floor of a high-rise, you do not have to bluster your way around the world. There is no longer an evil empire to play good cop against and if we don’t walk wisely and humbly before the rest of the world we could easily become the common enemy as the last bully on the block.

Even though I receive countless emails from the latest Christian author or singer to come out the Oval Office professing how humble a man our president is, I no longer believe it. I used to chalk it up to his Texas bravado but am now convinced that our President cannot speak humbly before the world, because he really thinks our society superior, he believes our interests are the only ones that matter, and he despises those who don’t see things his way.

It appears now that President Bush’s commitment to war in Iraq was based on faulty intelligence. When we were being told to trust this administration because they knew more than they could tell us, it turns out they knew even less than they let on. Here’s where a bit of owning up would go a long way to dispel the notion of arrogance. But instead of admitting our mistake, he continues to defend it and even speaks about freeing Iraq with an evangelistic zeal, citing America’s divine mission to spread freedom throughout the world. It is scary if not also a bit oxymoronic to think of spreading freedom by military conquest. You cannot force people to embrace freedom and cannot give it to people who will not take it for themselves. The quest for freedom must rise from within a culture. When our founding fathers drafted the Declaration of Independence they put their very lives and fortunes on the line to gain what no one else could give them.

If countries in the Islamic world find freedom it’s because the progressive elements within in them will rise up and reject the tyranny of violence, brutality and control that keep them captive. They will speak out clearly and loudly even at great personal risk and only then will they know freedom from the terrorists and clerics that hold them captive. That said, we now have a great responsibility to support our troops in the most difficult of circumstances and do all we can to rebuild Iraq into a functioning society, if that is possible. We have to recognize that military power alone will never win this war if our rhetoric and policies only encourage others to take the place of those terrorists we kill or capture. For that we need the help of other nations around the world and to do that we’ll have to treat them as partners not as children.

If more Americans traveled abroad we might recognize our own arrogance better. Even as I write this I know many of my American friends will not appreciate what I’m writing (though I meet an increasing number who are uncomfortable with Bush’s language) and those overseas will. Americans are too often the loudest voices in the airports and talk to people of other nations as if we are experts on everything. We still measure temperature by Fahrenheit when everyone else uses Celsius and we are the only nation that hosts ‘World Championships’ without inviting the rest of the world to compete. We consume way too much of the world’s resources and only demonstrate greater greed for more. Even the entertainment we export glorifies our decadence in the name of profit. And sadly our culture treats the loss of American life as more tragic than the loss of any other.

In the minds of others these things are starting to outweigh our generosity that has helped suffering people the world over, our courage that has put our young men and women in harm’s way to rescue others from invasion and our creativity that has provided technology and resources for the world. If we don’t learn how to bend over backwards to play fairly alongside the other nations of the earth we cannot blame them if they join together against us as the mighty Goliath that needs to be knocked down a peg.

Humility is not weaknesses. The term is derived from the concept of controlled strength and pictures a warhorse at rest. Only the insecure and fearful have to boast and bluster. Those who are truly strong and confident can sit at ease until that strength is needed. They can act with resolve, but also compassion, earning people’s respect instead of their disdain. The war on terror will never be won by military might alone if we don’t also disarm the desperation and anger that feeds their army.

It is time for us to do some deep soul-searching in America sort out how we are being perceived in the world. If we cannot fund a more humble and gracious voice to the rest of the world we’ll find ourselves increasingly isolated. No matter what our military power can accomplish it will only succeed in further alienating our friends and inspiring further hatred in our enemies.

Over the last few weeks I’ve found an old chorus running around my head. Part of it says,

A new issue of our flagship publication, BodyLife, was posted on May 10, 2004. The lead article is entitled The Shepherd’s Call. Because this is a bit different, I’m creating this space on the blog for others to comment on the article. I’m not necessarily looking for a string of compliments here like, “Great article”. I’m looking for a place for people to interact with its content, whether positive or negative and I’ll join that conversation with my own thoughts when I can. Just hit the ‘feedback’ button to read other people’s comments or add your own.

I got the following question as a follow up to my recent post on simple church and thought you’d be interested in the conversation that followed:

My response:

He responded:

Me again:

I just returned yesterday from Sacramento after a five day trip to visit with believers in the area and encourage what God is doing in them. My son, Andrew, was able to go with me on this trip to check out a potential move to that area. What a weekend we had sharing God’s life together, meeting new friends and reconnecting with others who’ve been together before!

I spent most of my time in the Elk Grove area. A number of young couples and singles living in that area have found themselves spilling out of various religious institutions and are finding life together in various kinds of house church groupings. The fellowship they share together and the connections they maintain between groups has really encouraged them to live the journey. Many of these had been trained for vocational congregational leadership and been trained for it. Hungering for greater reality than they could find in the institutions they were a part of, they have risked so much to follow Jesus in more relational expressions of body life and other vocations.

On Sunday I spent some time with a large group from North Highlands which has been decentralizing their institution over the last five years and learning to live relationally in God and with each other. This was my fifth time among them and it is always fun to connect with such dear friends. I always look forward to reconnecting because I enjoy so much the journey they are on and the risks they’ve taken to follow the Lamb wherever he leads them.

We also had some others from the Bay Area and from the mountains above Sacramento come over to join us as well. Some of those people I’d corresponded with on the net and have talked to by phone but never met. (One of them is my blog guru who has taught me the joys of blogging. He and his wife are from South Africa and I had a great time getting to know them.) It is great to see God drawing people to himself in our day and the kind of hungers he has placed on their heart. For hours each day and often long into the night, we talked about how we shake free of religious thinking so that we can live freely in God’s life. I loved the hunger I saw for genuine relationship and the price they were willing to pay to find God’s life and freedom. It is so enriching to spend time with people who focused on growing in relationship with God and other believers and not trying to build an institution for themselves.

I want to thank each of them for opening their hearts so wide to my son and me and letting us peek in on their life for a few days. I have no doubt they are well in the master’s hands and that he is leading them spacious pastures and the cool, clean water of his refreshing.

Sometimes it is easy to miss the forest for the trees.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately with people that are really excited about ‘Simple Church.’ I’d be excited about it too if it weren’t capitalized. I’m all for simple church life. But ‘Simple Church’ is a way of doing church in homes with built-in organizational expectations and many come with networking machinery attached. This is the latest incarnation of relational church models that have unfolded in the past two decades—Cell, House, Organic, and now Simple. I’m concerned that once we get our eyes on models for replicating some form of what we call church, we get our eyes off of Jesus and miss what he would do to connect us with others both local and distant.

I got this note from a brother last week:

Here’s my response:

Real church life begins when we recognize that no human effort can build his church. That’s his job. He asked us to go and proclaim the gospel and make disciples—which is helping people get the journey of living in him—and the church of Jesus Christ will spring up all around us. I’m sure this is more than you bargained for, and unfortunately I know that most people need to go this ‘network’ direction as a way of seeing through all man’s systems to try to replicate church.  But if I can save you that detour, I think you’ll be grateful.

Surprisingly enough a few days later I got a call from this brother. His response was fabulous. He said that as they were forming this ‘network’ he kept feeling unsettled about how they were going about it. We talked for almost an hour about recognizing how God works rather than pushing him into our boxes. I loved his openness and honesty with me and willingness to take a fresh look at the direction they were headed to see if God might have something even more free and more fruitful.

One of the first crises people face who live institutional gatherings, is to replicate something that fulfills the same obligation. We think we need it to survive spiritually and it certainly makes us more acceptable to friends in institutions that think we’re backsliding if we’re not involved in something we can call a church. But when we grab for a model to give us security, we risk missing out once again on the reality of the Body of Christ as she exists in the world. When we impose human models on God’s working, we lose out on the unique expressions of body life that would arise from people who just learn to love believers around them and to look for ways to encourage them to live more deeply in Jesus. Once you’ve tasted of that you know it defies every model we would seek to impose on her, and only results in dividing up Christ’s body once again.

Interestingly enough, the next day I got an email from someone who lives in my city and who just returned from a Simple Church conference. He was looking for a home church in Oxnard. I told him that I hang out with a group of believers in the area who are learning to share life together and that he was welcome to join us. I warned him that he wouldn’t find us to be banner-waving ‘house’ church folks, though, but simply people learning to love Jesus and finding ways to love each other in the process. If something more formal than that emerged in the future, we were OK with that, but hadn’t felt led that way at the moment. But we are studying Galatians right now on Tuesday evenings and he was sure welcome to join us.

He didn’t. He was looking for a specific package we didn’t offer, and in doing so he missed the opportunity right in front of him.

I got this from a young visitor to my website last week. Don’t you just love how God draws people to himself and shows them the empty facades of religion?

Thank you for building such an uplifting and helpful website! I’m 21 years old, and have thus far left two religious communities, both of which were steeped in religious tradition and falsehood. I was raised in a movement that taught that this group consisted of the only heaven-bound people on the planet.  After the youth group discovered that I had visited places of other denominations at my own leisure, I suffered backbiting from the youth and the leaders. Then, I left there and became a member of a religion program founded by a denomination. Once again, I was the odd one out because I would not accept Hinduism, Islam, Shamanism, Buddhism, etc. as valid ways to God.  I left there, and when I tried to contact some people who were still in the program, I received no response. In spite of all I’ve observed and experienced, I’m thrilled to know that there are people who desire authentic Christian fellowship. I’m glad to know that people are willing to look through the facade of religion, do away with the false concept of church, and begin to actually be the family of God! Thanks for acting in godly discernment.

My response: What a joy to hear from you, and please forgive how long it has taken me to get back to you.  Sometimes my schedule is not my own.  Actually, my schedule is never my own.  But I do enjoy hearing from people on the journey especially young ones who refuse to settle for status quo religious life and are willing to move on in the journey seeking for the authentic Christian fellowship God has placed in their heart. Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to find, but Father knows where you are and who he wants to link you to so that you can live more freely in him and share that with others who have a similar hunger.  

I’ll pray God make those connections for you, in his time and in his way. But don’t ever lose your hunger for the purity and simplicity of being devoted to Christ.
 

The last two weeks have really been a joy. It was great to get home and reconnect with family and finding out I’m going to be grandpa around Thanksgiving time next year. Sara and I also got to take a two-day trip up the California coast to visit some old friends. Aren’t old friends the best? Even though we’d not seen this couple for a long time, we had walked together through some pretty painful places and held on to God together. Relationships centered in Jesus never fade with time. You can get back together even after months or years and pick up the conversation as if no time had ever passed. That’s not true of all relationships, however. Those that remain unreconciled through past hurts or manipulation stay damaged just as long. I’ve still got some like that I pray God heals in time.

Then it was back to Oxnard where we had guests from Colorado, people I’ve only recently met. But what a joy to share new-found relationships as well. We were only together 24 hours but talked almost nonstop through that time. We talked a lot about what is coming to be known as ‘simple church’ and how easy it is for us to be captured by names and models, and miss out on living dependent upon Jesus.

Then over the weekend I was with a group of believers that live in the Las Vegas area. This was the third time I’d crossed paths with them in the last year. They are on a marvelous journey moving from institutional mindsets of the body of Christ, to learning to live freely as God’s people together. That transition is never easy. We’ve been schooled to think so religiously about ‘gatherings’ of the body, that they often seem forced and artificial. Learning how to let them be organic again and still be filled with the life of Jesus can be disorienting.

One of the things Jesus shared with us when we were together is never to think that the middle of a chapter is the end of the story. We tend to do that. So many people lose their bearings in times of transition and run back to the false security of what is familiar, instead of following on past their insecurities into a new spacious place of the Lord’s working. Times of transition can be painful and we often don’t see the fruit of it right away. If we can remember that we’re in a process and that God’s fruit will take time to mature, we will be able to relax more easily and see God’s work through to its end.

That’s probably a good lesson for all of us.

[Originally posed on Lifestream site on April 9, 2004]

A few interesting circumstances fell together during my last day in Ireland that made God’s life a bit more real to me. I woke up on the on my 12th morning since I had left Sara and immediately found myself focused on my return home the following day and the joy of seeing her again and catching up. With eager anticipation I thought of her picking me up at the airport, driving home and spending an evening together after my long absence.

Later that day a brother pulled me aside to tell me how much he had appreciated the latest article in BodyLife, Living in Two Worlds, which concerns how we can live more freely in this present age by keeping our eyes on the reality of eternity.

As I got some time alone later, the juxtaposition of those two events really struck me. I thought about my anticipation of being with Sara the next day and how much more real that seemed to me than someday being face to face with the Father of all and the Son who redeemed us. It was a bit of a reality check. If we only knew what was waiting for us when we finally shed this mortal, corruptible natures and came into the full glory of our inheritance as God’s children, we would have no uncertainty about our mortality.

I know I don’t fully get that yet. If I did I would anticipate his appearing with even greater eagerness than I did my return to Sara. That doesn’t mean I have to be excited about the trip. I don’t relish eleven-hour airplane flights, nor, one would expect, the actual mechanism of dying. But for the joy set before me I endured the one to get home, and will one day endure the other so that I can be with him forever in the freedom and joy of his redemption.

And having such a hope does not make us worthless in the days we have here. In fact, it works just the opposite. My excitement at getting home to Sara made my last day all that much more fun. It allowed me to give myself fully to those we engaged that day knowing this was the last chance on this trip to participate in God’s life together. Isn’t that a great way to live each day—making the most of every opportunity, treasuring every joy while we wait in eager anticipation for the one our souls love most of all!