First Review of Beyond Sundays

4 Comments / Beyond Sundays /

Mike Edwards who blogs at What God May Really Be Like, just posted a review of my new book as a blog comment on my previous post.  I thought those who might miss it there would be interested.

Book Review:  Beyond Sundays

by Mike Edwards

Wayne Jacobsen’s book He Loves Me was a gamechanger in confirming what I thought God was really like versus organized religion’s version. Beyond Sundays can be a similar book for many who sense something isn’t quite right about organized or institutional religion when to comes to God. Wayne’s book confirms that you are not alone but in the company of millions.

This book is for you if you are or have been a churchgoer but discouraged about the ways and message, but you have no desire to leave the faith. This book can also be for those you have never attended church but have a desire or sense a need to have more of a connection with their Creator. You may be right that organized religion has gotten some things wrong.

The style of the book is a definite plus. Each chapter is brief though packed full of food for thought to consider and run with. No extra fluff here! Chapter titles like Why Are People Leaving, Your Attendance Is Not Required, Help When You’re Done, Have We Overplayed The Sermon Card, etc. are packed full of affirmations and insights. Chapter 7 will guide you if you are leaving a church and not sure of next steps.

Wayne provides many biblical insights that you may not always hear in church. Have you been guilted by Hebrews 10:24-25 that you are being judged by God for not attending church regularly?  Wayne explains it not about attending church necessarily but finding bests environments to encourage and be encouraged by others in your faith journey.

Wayne can speak from experience having been a pastor and one whose journey with God over at least the past 20 years has not involved being an active participate in an institutional church. He has traveled the world and has relationships with those who have left traditional congregations but not God.

One also appreciates that the author avoids being judgmental. He doesn’t condemn those who are best encouraged by attending church; he only advocates respecting one’s freedom to discern environments God guides them to grow in their faith. I believe those who have left the church may find their story in Beyond Sundays and be greatly encouraged. You may relate to the many reasons Wayne provides as to why millions have left the church but not God.

Imagine if millions of God seekers or followers respected and celebrated different ways to pursue a relationship with God. As Wayne asks and says: Who is right? Neither. Not a bad marriage tip as well. Wayne challenges us to stop with the language as if there are “innies and outies.”

Wayne Jacobsen’s Beyond Sundays is a voice of reason. What would a caring person or God tell us if organized religion or institutional church didn’t fit their need in their journey with God? I have a hunch Wayne would tell you to relax. Trust and have faith that God is capable and will guide you. None of us need a go-between with God. You are free to follow God as God guides. The challenge after reading this book is if others can handle your new guilt-free freedom but cut them some slack. We all have been judgmental at some time in our lives.

Thanks, Mike. That’s what I hoped people would gain from this book. If you’re  a blogger or podcaster and would like to have an advance pdf review copy of Beyond Sundays, please write me to request one. And if you haven’t heard it yet, I did an hour-long radio interview with a friend in Charlotte last week.

If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy yet, you can still do so in the next few days and get our $2.00 pre-publication discount. Just order as many copies as you want here.  The e-book should also get out later this week. Just found out that Amazon.com is listing the Kindle version.  I suspect Barnes and Noble and other outlets will be soon.

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Beyond Sundays Releases This Week

6 Comments / Behind the Scenes /

As I’m finishing up in North Carolina and prepare to head home tomorrow, we have just heard that we will have copies of Beyond Sundays in hand by this Wednesday. We will begin shipping pre-orders as soon as we get them.  If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy yet, you can still do so in the next few days and get our $2.00 pre-publication discount. Just order as many copies as you want here.  The e-book should follow later this week. We’ll post the links when its available at all your favorite e-book outlets.

It is my hope that this book helps the body of Christ be less tribal and open to all the ways that God moves in people and the variety of expressions by which his church takes shape in the world. If we cared more about whether or not someone is finding their life in Jesus rather than where they are (or aren’t) at 10:00 Sunday morning we’d be free to celebrate what God is doing to unify his bride, rather than judging each other for our differences.

Friday morning I did my first extensive interview about Beyond Sundays on the Vince Coakley show on WBT Charlotte. That’s Vince and I above sharing a meal together afterwards. He did a great job getting to the heart of the book. If you missed that interview you can listen to it here:

On another note, I’ve had the most amazing time the last two weeks traveling to Jacksonville, FL and then up through North Carolina from Raleigh to Charlotte. One of the real themes of this trip is the number of people I’ve met, of all ages, who are standing just on the cusp of a new journey outside of religious obligation and  performance and discovering what it means to live in the affection of a gracious Father. Yes, it is disorienting and it may well drive your friends and family crazy, but you were created to know the Father, not to try to impress him with how good you can be.

Living in his love is not the reward of a life well-lived, but the starting gate for the adventure of a lifetime where love slowly but surely wins us into his reality, life, and freedom. And it’s yours for the asking.  Asking him, of course, not me!

 

 

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Beyond Sundays Hits the Airwaves

3 Comments / Behind the Scenes /

Friday morning I will be discussing the release of my newest book with Vince Coakley on his radio show in the Greenville/Charlotte area. If you want to listen in you can do so here through the website. We will go live from 11:05 Eastern Standard Time, 8:05 Pacific.  I always look forward to my lively chats with Vince and his audience.

Beyond Sundays is being finalized at the printers now. We should have them early next week, well ahead of our February 8 release date. We will ship the books just as soon as we have them on hand. The e-book should debut shortly thereafter as well. We’ll provide all the links here, though you can go ahead now and pre-order the printed copy for a $2.00 discount.

I’ll also be hanging out in the Charlotte area for the weekend if you’re nearby and want to join us.  Get details here.

 

 

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Worthy of His Disappointment?

7 Comments / Encouragement /

It was a short exchange, but hopefully a fruitful one. A man had written me about the hope of getting together some time. In his email he expressed some thoughts about a previous blog that gave me pause.

When you ask the question, “Are you worthy of Love?”, I had to think about it.

Until Papa wagged “her” finger (in THE SHACK) and said, “I am especially fond of that one”, I would have said that God was disappointed with me… He did die for me, so mentally, I get the gist of John 3:16. (But) I am worthy of his disappointment. (Emphasis mine.)

My response: I’m not sure how you meant, “…worthy of his disappointment.” For God to be disappointed he would have to have expectations of you that you could meet by your own strength. And yet he knows we were “helpless” in sin.

Wouldn’t it be great to know that God was never disappointed in you? Of course, he’s been disappointed in choices you’ve made and things you’ve done, just as you have been with your girls. But never disappointed in YOU as his child.

That’s the key, I think….

Then he wrote back:

Your email gave me reason to pause and think.

My comment about being “…worthy of his disappointment” comes from being raised that we are basically bad in the sight of God… From that “programming” I realize that it is my expectation to disappoint him.

Being helpless in my sin is such a different way of thinking.

While it would be GREAT to know that God was never disappointed in me, I have to get that to my heart. Mentally I can get that I am loved, not a disappointment, etc. I think that mental knowing causes obligation, where really knowing in your heart causes peace and rest and a returned affection.

So what really caused me to think was that I HAVE been disappointed in my girls as people… NOT just in the choices they made. My religious upbringing caused the expectation that you could not “sin” if you just tried hard enough. Therefore if you do, then you “meant to”…

I am this same way with the few relationships in my life that have gone sideways. I have a relationship where a church friend lied to me to get me to join him in work. Then he continued to lie, cheat, and steal from me. I had higher expectations of him, so I hold him responsible and I am VERY disappointed with him as a person. Forgiveness is very hard here. I have a similar issue with (a relative). She isn’t a nice person to me. Again, I realize that I have higher expectations of her. I don’t think of either of them as being “helpless in their sin”, but mean people who purposefully hurt me. I AM very dissapointed in them… not their actions.

Over the past several years of thinking what it means to live loved, I really do see other people differently than I used to. Maybe I just realized that I have different expectations of them. I have started to apply this to my daughters. It may need to extend further.

This is a great journey to explore for him, for his daughters, and for everyone else around him. Religion has pounded into our heads for so long that we are a constant disappointment to God. He is offended and angry with our sins and mistakes. Only Jesus’ death made us bearable to him. But none of that is true. God sees us as powerless against the brokenness of this age and the brokenness of our own souls.

The process of healing and freedom begins when we realize we are a treasure to God. Our failures don’t make us a stench in his nostrils, but the victims of a tragic fall, even more endearing because of the darkness of our struggle. That’s why he came to rescue us, not so that he could love us, but because he already did.

I know some see that as making an excuse for sin, as if God doesn’t care. Oh, he cares. He sees the destruction of sin in each of us individually and in the larger human experience. He abhors the pain and suffering we cause each other by our self-indulgent ways and the unintentional fruit of our coping mechanisms. But he also knows the only way out is to return to his love. People who are loved well by the Father will find increasing freedom from sin’s tentacles and become a reflection of his love and healing in the world toward others.

If God is disappointed in YOU, then you have to find your way out. If he was never disappointed in you, then you have a Father to run to and a process to engage that will set you increasingly free to live as the beloved son or daughter of a gracious Father, because that’s exactly who you are!

So in your listening to the breath of the Spirit today, see if you hear something like, “I know you’ve been through some rough waters and made some hurtful choices.  I am disappointed for the pain it has caused you and others, but I have never been disappointed in you as my child. I’ve held you in my heart every day, waiting for you to turn and embrace my love.”

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Weaponized Love

11 Comments / Encouragement /

No, you can’t really!  The title above should be the oxymoron of all oxymorons.

There’s nothing about real love that can be made into a weapon. But that doesn’t keep people from trying, especially scared parents and religious people.

They turn their twisted view of love into a weapon. When you’ve done enough, especially the things they think you should do, they will love you. When you don’t, they will not only withhold affection from you, they’ll resort to whatever means they have at their disposal to get you to change. They’ll give you the cold shoulder or disapproving glance. They will gossip about you with other family members. That will rant and rave until you conform to their desires. They will should all over you thinking that increasing levels of obnoxiousness will endear you to their point of view.

Sadly, sometimes it even works. Some people would rather give in to the manipulations of those they care about, than continue to endure their contempt or disdain. But even when people meet those expectations, love doesn’t grow. Resentment does. Feeling forced into change is not really change, and the never feel loved by doing so. They just get the money off of their backs.

That’s because true love cannot be weaponized. Why do religious people do it? Because they have been taught God does. He loves us all, sure, but he only gives his love to those who have earned it. If you think that’s true, you will do all you can to get in his good graces. And, when he doesn’t respond the way you think he should, you can still blame yourself for not having done “enough” to qualify for his love. It’s a horribly frustrating place to live and it will wear you out trying to do so. That’s why those people turn it on others thinking they are doing God a favor.

But God’s love cannot be weaponized. It’s never the incentive to change; it is the environment in which healing happens. Every sin and broken place in our lives is caused by us living as if we are not loved by the Creator. But we are! Deliciously! Extravagantly! Overwhelmingly. We just don’t know it.

He never uses his love as a reward because it is always there for us. It doesn’t rise and fall with our performance. We can ignore it, even reject it, but we’ll be no less loved. He knows that his love is the starting place to follow him out of the darkness and into his light and freedom.

So, don’t think someone is loving you when they are manipulating you to do what they think is best to earn their affection. That’s not love, at least not God’s kind. And don’t tell someone you love them when you withhold your affection to get them to do what you want. Neither express the reality of his love and will only confuse people with what love really is.

God’s love can’t be used as a weapon; it is a reality that pulsates through the universe. You are deeply loved by the God who created you, no matter how lost you feel. If you don’t know that, ask him to show you.  Oh, and stop trying to earn it; it will only confuse you, too.

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A Conversation We Desperately Need

12 Comments / Behind the Scenes /

We are in the final stages of publishing Beyond Sundays, and have set the release date as February 8, 2018. This is my newest title, adapted from a series of blog articles about the phenomenon of the “Dones”, those who have given up on institutional Christianity not to forsake the way of Jesus, but in hopes of finding a more vital and authentic faith beyond it.

What are we to make of this trend and how will it impact Christianity in the Western world? Some view it as threatening its future, while others see hope in re-centering the faith once delivered to the saints. Unfortunately there is much animosity and simplistic judgments between these groups that only fractures the bride he loves so much. Literally for Christ’s sake, we need to find a way to converse about these things in love and in a way that recognizes all the ways God is at work in our world.

This book is an appeal for the all those who seek to follow Christ to be less focused on on where others are or aren’t on Sunday morning at 10:00 and more aware of what it is to engage a vital relationship with God, and to share his love freely with others.

The book is 176 pages long and we will print copies in paperback for $11.99 and in e-book for $5.99. However, you can get our pre-order special for only $10.00.  Please be advised that if you order other products from Lifestream in the same order, all products will ship together when this book is available. If you want them sooner, please order those other products separately.

If you’d like a review copy for an article you want to write about it, please contact me for a free review copy.

We hope to have copies on hand during the first week of February and will ship them just as soon as we get them in hand. An e-book will also be available through all major outlets around the same time. We will announce that in the blog when they are ready.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Preface

In the last few decades, sixty-five million Americans who once regularly attended a local congregation no longer do. About thirty-five million of those no longer self-identify as Christian, but over thirty-one million still do. This last group has been tagged “The Dones”: those who still seek to follow Jesus and find real community, but who have given up hope that the local congregation is still relevant to their journey.

What do we make of this phenomenon? Does it threaten the future of God’s work in our world, or does it create new opportunities for God to make himself known, even if it challenges our hopes or preconceptions?

I have spent my life in both places. I grew up in a traditional congregation and pastored in two of them for over twenty years. For the past twenty-three, however, I’ve spent more time outside with those who no longer participate in a Sunday (or Saturday) morning institution. I see the animosity between the two camps, and I yearn for the day when we can have a healing dialog consistent with the prayer of Jesus that we would all be one. Nothing, he said, would demonstrate his reality better to the world than the love his people share together.

It’s a conversation we desperately need, and not just between various factions of Christianity. I hope this book can seed that conversation between friends and families in communities throughout the world. Whether you attend a local church or whether you don’t, responding to this phenomenon will have repercussions for generations to come. We can continue to treat each other with suspicion and judgment that further fracture our Father’s family, or we can celebrate all the ways he works to bring people to himself and transform them in his love.

Additionally, I hope this book encourages those who have lost their mooring in institutional Christianity and yet still hunger for a relationship with God and real community with others. The failures of organized religion do not discount God’s reality or your opportunity to get to know him. I want to help you navigate a life of growing faith and impact in the world beyond the institutional borders that may have harmed you.

This is a propitious moment in Christian history, and all the more so as the world darkens around us. May we all respond in a way that allows the glory of the Lord to arise out of the love of his people, and by doing so, proclaim to the world that our God is real and worthy to be followed.

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I Believe In a Redeemer

7 Comments / Encouragement /

A good friend sent me this story the other day….

At the time he was manager of the campus radio station at Oral Roberts University and a seminar speaker on campus in the late 1960s. One of the best sermons he ever heard happened one morning in chapel from Campus Chaplain, Tommy Tyson:

Brother Tyson got up and read from 1 Cor. 1:30-31. “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

Then he said this: “I do not believe in redemption, I do not believe in healing, I do not believe in deliverance, I do not believe in salvation.”

As he said his the student body and faculty present gasped. He let a few moments pass before finishing, “Here’s what I believe. I believe in a Redeemer, a Healer, a Deliverer, a Savior and much, much more!”

Never settle for theologies apart from the person of Jesus Christ! Wayne, I never forgot that moment.

I love that!

It gave me goose bumps to read it.

Whenever we separate the Gospel from our relationship to the Living Christ, we are left with empty doctrine, true though it be! The purpose of the Incarnation was not to start a Christian religion with finely-tuned doctrine and rituals, but to unveil a mystery—”Christ in you, the hope of glory!”

Get to know him and watch his glory unfold. Don’t settle for substitutes.

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Truth Has Its Time

20 Comments / Encouragement /

Among those things I know now, that I wish I’d known when I was twenty-two and fresh out of college with my Bible degree, is that you cannot convince someone that something is true if they are not ready to hear of it.

Somehow I got the idea that “ministry” was about knowing the truth and convincing others to believe it, too.There were two problems with that. Much of the “truth” I had then, didn’t turn out to be so true at all. And, all of the time spent trying to argue people into my ideas, even those that turned out to be true, were as fruitless as trying to get my grapevines to produce grapes in February.

Truth has its time, and as I look back over my life at the start of a new year, I have a deep appreciation for the trajectory of revelation and transformation in the human heart. These are not things we control, but I love watching how the Holy Spirit begins to unravel our false ideas from the inside and prepare us for those moments when the Truth clarifies in our heart and we find ourselves able to take a step forward in embracing his love or finding a way to share it with others. I’ve had a lot of joy over the past few years watching this process in my own life as well as watching it in others as well.

I was reminded of this by a recent email I received:

I have just finished listening to Finding Church for the 4th time yesterday in the past 2 months (I have a long drive to work!)

  • 30 years ago the old me would have thought it weird.
  • 20 years ago I would have tried to understand what you were saying.
  • 10 years ago I would have wished it was true.
  • 8 years ago I would have not thought it clear enough as I looked for the 10 steps.
  • But now I see.  It is just by loving the one in front of you and seeing how God touches them through the interaction. It is learning that you are loved and sharing that love with others.

I laughed when I read it. Thirty years ago I probably would have declared those ideas heresy. Twenty years ago I would have been intrigued with the hope, but thought them too idealistic to work. Ten years ago, I was already seeing that reality live out in my life and the lives of others around me and my view of his church was changing. Today, I can’t think of the church any other way and with that has come a deep appreciation for the church Jesus is building in the world in spite of all that we humans have done to craft her in our own image. And when I think about ten years from now, my heart leaps with the anticipation of what I might yet learn about him and his work in the world.

Truth has its time. We don’t so much learn it in a classroom as it unfolds in us out of our growing relationship to God. Growth and transformation are a process that takes time. It would be nice to recognize truth out of the clear blue and just embrace it, but it rarely works that way. Mostly truth works its way into our heart over time as God wins us more deeply into his affection for us. Maybe that’s what Jesus had in mind when he told the disciples he would send them Another Comforter and he would guide them into all truth. He even admitted to them that he had so many more things to teach them but that they weren’t ready for them yet. I love how Jesus had a sense of the unfolding reality of truth in our hearts. He didn’t confront them with truth and demand they make a choice, but he opened the door to truth to see who was ready to walk through.

If I’d known that forty years ago, my heart would have been softer in the hands of the Master. I would have been far more gentler with people who didn’t see what I hoped they would see. I would have spent far less time trying to argue people into my view of truth. And, I would have trusted the Spirit to guide me better when others were trying to convince me of things they thought were true that didn’t yet make sense to me.

I would have taken all that energy I used to try and convince others and to let him teach me to walk in the truth I had already been given. And, I would have spent far more time encouraging others who were already hungry for the truth, rather than trying to convince others of it who weren’t yet ready and couldn’t yet see it.

In short, seeing the Spirit as the convincer of people, and I their friend has allowed me to be more relaxed in God’s process, not only in my heart, but with others around me as well. It is far more fruitful to help people into the truth they are seeking, rather than to badger them into what they are resisting. Believe me!

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Are You Worthy of Love? 

8 Comments / Encouragement /

If you gave this question serous consideration, we probably need to talk.

The saddest words I hear from people are those that wonder if they are worthy of God’s love. That question is predicated on the biggest lie to find it’s way into God’s creation—that love can be earned.

It can’t.

Nothing disproves that lie better than the coming of Christ into our world that we celebrate at this Christmas season. He didn’t come to redeem people the Father was disgusted with, but those he loved. Even on the night Christ was born, the shepherds heard the angels proclaim, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

Pleased?  Really? With all the brokenness in the world? Sin was rampant, Humanity was ever at war with itself and his own people were under Roman captivity and lost in their legalism. How could God be pleased with humankind?

Luke certainly didn’t mean God was pleased with the brokenness in his creation, but that he was pleased with humanity in spite of it. God’s love is not so fickle as to come and go based on how good we are. Love is love, even at our most broken, no less than you would have for your children. Our struggle in the darkness only endears us to him as his compassion seeks to rescue and redeem us.

We are all worthy of love because of the place we hold in Father’s heart. No failure, or broken place changes that. The prodigal son was loved as much when he was wasting his father’s money as he was when he returned home. It’s just that he wasn’t living in that love. He didn’t believe it and though he thought he had good evidence for his conclusion, they were based on the lie. Even when he returns home he considers himself  “not worthy” to be called a son.

But he was worthy simply because of the value he held in his father’s heart. The joy of the Gospel is not in getting God to love us, but to relax into the reality of the love he already has for us. Those who grew up abused or neglected have a hard time embracing that. The rejection of their parents seemed proof that they were so flawed as to be unworthy of love. But that is just part of the lie.

Those who grow up in religious settings, who think their performance can endear them to God, fall victim to the same lie. You can’t earn what you already have. You are loved, no less today than when the Father conceived you in his heart before you were born.

That’s the Gospel. Believe it or not, the Creator of the universe is your loving Father. You have the choice to run to that love and embrace it, or hide outside of it as long as you want. Love offers a door; it doesn’t force it’s way.

He loves you as much as any other person on the planet. For those who don’t know that in the deepest part of your soul, Sara and I are praying that Father will reveal that to you and you will find the freedom to joyfully embrace how deeply he delights in you. That’s where this journey of faith truly begins.

And what a Christmas miracle that is!

Notes For the New Year:

Wayne’s Latest Book Is Almost Here

Beyond Sundays, Wayne’s newest book, will be available early in 2018. It will cost $12.00 and we’ll begin taking pre-orders in early January.  It will also be available by e-book as soon as we can get that done.

This is an adaptation of blogs postings Wayne has written over the last year about the current dilemma of people leaving the traditional congregation and the opportunity it affords for the whole church to celebrate all the ways that Father is at work among his people and how he is preparing the bride for the return of his Son.

 

Travel Dates for Early in 2018

  • Jacksonville, FL- January 18
  • Raleigh, NC – January 19-22
  • Greensboro, NC – January 23-24
  • Charlotte, NC – January 25-29
  • Phoenix, AZ- February
  • Abilene, Tx – March 22-25

If you’re in these areas and still want to plan something, we do have some available time. Or if you just want to join us, please see our Travel Page, where details will be posted when we have them. If you’d like to be notified when I’m coming to your area you can sign up on our email list and include your address.

Kenya Update

Thanks to the generosity of so many of you, we have given just under $200,000 this year to the people in Kenya with orphan children and to help the people in Pokot establish a sustainable future. We put in two agricultural projects so they can grow their own food, and have helped with hospital staff, medicine, food, education and micro-finance loans to help create enterprise. Get more information here.

Staying Up With Lifestream

If you did not receive this by email yesterday or today, then you re not signed up for our blog or our mailing list. If you’d like to be, you can do so here. Include your address details if you want to receive Travel Updates when I’m planning a trip to your area. If you’re not signed up to get my blogs or the podcasts straight to your inbox, you can go to those home pages and submit your email address in the appropriate are.

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A Jake around Every Corner?

8 Comments / Church Life /

Sometimes, somewhere beyond the cosmos, our Father must look over at Jesus and with a big smile on his face say, “Watch this…”

This might be one of those times.

I’ve had an email correspondence over the last few days with a woman in Australia that has brought more than a few smiles to my heart. I love how the Spirit works, especially when we’re a bit clueless to what he is doing. This is the story she shared with me, pieced together from a few emails.  I love how the Spirit just keeps knitting his family together even in very unexpected ways.

I first bought your book So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore for my eldest son of six children when he was not wanting to go to church as a late teenager. I gave it to him to encourage him back into the fold, without actually even looking through the book to see what it was about.

He read it and said “Mum, did you even read this book? I don’t think it says what you thought it might say.”

So, I read it for myself, and laughed, and thought you were a bit misled. Fast forward a few years and I was in a totally different place in my relationship with God and re-read it after some friends had just read it and loved it. Then I “got” it. My youngest three (by now teenagers) were not wanting to go to church anymore as well.

For a whole bunch of reasons, including considering my children – we left the institution ourselves. I said to the pastor at the time “I fear for my children if I stay and I fear for my children if I go” My fear was that if I stayed, they would just think this is what Christianity looked like and eventually reject it altogether as too boring.  I knew there was so much more. My fear in leaving was the unknown, and the worry that we were making a big mistake that would have consequences in my children’s lives. They were being homeschooled and church was a source of socialisation. But it was a lonely place for them even in the midst of church  and for me too) as there were really no other young people there for friendship anyway. It certainly has been an interesting journey and this is by far the short version. It has not been a mistake.

In May last year, my husband and I were taking a trip with some friends to the centre of Australia and had to take a huge detour because of floods. This meant we called in on some acquaintances who run an art gallery and they sent us on our way with CDs of your Transitions teaching. My, the lengths God goes to sometimes! My husband doesn’t normally listen to CD’s but because we were travelling long distances, he had nothing better to do. The teaching really spoke to him in a life changing way. I keep listening to them over and over – so much good stuff in there and I just want to absorb it all into my spirit. I have since passed them on to someone else.

I would never have imagined myself in the place I am in now. I have grown up going to church every week and we have always been very involved and busy with the various programs. But that was another aspect of  us leaving – in many ways I felt like I had hidden myself from the world in the church. I was so busy with the church, I didn’t have time or energy to invest anywhere else. I gradually got myself out of all the rosters and then joined the local soccer club committee as my children have all played over the last 20 years, and my youngest son still plays. I considered that I had spent so many years serving God in the church, now I was serving Him outside of the church and it gave me an opportunity to get to know and  love some other people in the community. A friend once asked me, who gets to benefit from your gifting if you are in church?  Interestingly, I feel like I’m actually using my spiritual gifts as the secretary there.

We attended a wedding last weekend and a friend of the bride was asked to share a short address during the wedding. As I listened to him speak about the most important thing the bride and groom, and all of us, need is to know how loved we are by our Father God and to then just love others. I recognised a fellow pilgrim on the journey. I had never met this man before but my husband and I were able to sit with him and his wife during the reception. I began to sus him out and when he confessed that he”actually doesn’t attend church anymore”, I said ‘welcome to the club”. When I asked him for his story, he just said “Well, you know Jake don’t you?”  Indeed I do!

My husband said later, “We just keep running into these people…”  God is definitely up to something!

The journey continues but thank you so much for allowing God to take you on the journey and then share it with others.

Do you hear the click of his knitting needles as the Spirit brings Jesus’ church together in the world?

A Jake around Every Corner? Read More »

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