I continue to be blessed and amazed by the early feedback from many reading Finding Church.  Thanks for letting me know how this book has impacted you.  Today we have revamped our FindingChurch.com website to help support this growing conversation, both for those inside out and outside of congregational settings.  I’ll be blogging over there from time to time, as well as blogging here.  If you want to keep up with that conversation, you might bookmark that page, or subscribe to the email updates from there.  I want to get back to blogging here about people who are on a journey learning to live inside the reality of Father’s affection and share that freely with others. 

Since we are publishing this book ourselves, the only place you can order the hard copy right now is through Lifestream.org and Amazon.com.  However, over the last couple of days the e-book is now available from Kindle, iBooks, Nook, and most other e-book outlets.  We do have books here available at bulk discount in quantities of 12 or a carton of 46.   And, please, if you are ordering from overseas, email our office for a shipping quote.  The calculator on the website adds exorbitant pricing.  

FindingChurch.com provides tools, links and encouragement to help expand the conversation on the web.  There are ideas and images there you can post on your website as well as ideas about sharing the book in your circle of friendships if you want to do so.  We also have a new Facebook page to help facilitate that conversatio and you can “like it” if you want to follow the conversation there.  I’m not sure how long we’ll host these additional resources.  It will depend on how well they work and how much time I have for it, but I am excited.  

This is today’s post at FindingChurch.com.  I will include some posts in both places while people are still getting used to following this conversation in both locations:   

When a friend of mine was reading an advance copy of Finding Church, he told me the phrase that kept coming to his mind was “an exhilaration of the heart.”  With every turn of the page he would find his own hopes for a church more real than he had yet known could be in the world.  That’s one of the best comments I’d had on this book.  We’ve let our human institutions co-opt the word “church” for so long, that we define it based on how well they are doing, instead of looking for the church whose builder is Jesus and transcends all the institutions we know.  She is all he promised she would be and as we begin to see her, I hope it exhilarates all our hearts.

Then, last week while I was in Ohio, I got this email from someone who had just started reading it:

Oh Wayne, the words fail.  Great doesn’t even come close.  Even while I am reading your new book I am thinking the thrill is very hard to communicate—the thrill and the freedom.  Sometimes its just too much and I think my heart will literally explode.

I hope that’s a good thing!  His church is that amazing, “a bride without spot or wrinkle”, “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way”,”the temple in which God dwells by his Spirit”.

What could be more exhilarating than that?

Yes, I know I’m just back from Kentucky and Ohio, but in a couple of weeks I’ll be off again to South Texas on October 31 and staying in the area until November 9.  I spend the first weekend in the Houston area, the week in San Antonio, and the second weekend in Corpus Christi.  If you’re nearby and want to join us, please contact my host at any of those locations and they can give you all the details for our get-togethers.   See my Travel Page for more information.

I continue to find that the best part of these trips is not the meetings themselves, though I realize they are very helpful to talk about issues on this journey in broad strokes and give people an opportunity to meet others in their area who are crazy enough to attend one of these things. What I love is the personal connections and conversations that open up just because we’re together.  

Here are just a few of those meaningful conversations from my last trip:

An old friend with a conscience strong enough to walk away from an incredible offer to be the senior pastor of a group, because he couldn’t live with what the job would turn him into.  

• A couple learning to separate approval from affection when as they just discovered her daughter was moving in with her boyfriend.  
• A former worship leader feeling her destiny might have been lost when her marriage blew apart, when she really was just beginnning to live it out in an awesomely new way. 
• Encouraged a passionate business man as we got together to record an interview about Finding Church on Encouraging Others in Christ Podcast.    
• A man with a passion to help others experience the life of his church, just opening to the idea that it isn’t something we can achieve by a set structure, but something we recognize God building by the way we live alongside others.    
• A young mother undone by the revelation that God wanted to build a relationship with her much more than she wanted to with him.  
• A seminary class discovering that his church is a whole lot bigger than the institutions to which we’ve consigned it. 
• A group of people in Southern Ohio, who found each other one evening around a campfire and an environment safe enough to share their hurts and struggles. 
• Too many people coming out of abusive environments when headship is placed in a human being other than Jesus.  
• And many people disovering how to put the “play” back into their life with God and not take everyhing so seriously.  Why wouldn’t he enjoy that aspect of our relationship as much as we enjoy the playful moments in ours?

Those are just the ones I can name off the top of my jet-lagged head this afternoon.  More than the meetings I go to, I enjoy being in life with people and see how God makes himself known.  Now I’m excited to experience some of that at home before heading out again and see what we can find in Texas!  

I awake this morning to finish my time in Lexington, KY and head to Cincinnati, OH, for an all-too-brief one day visit.  But this was a late add-on.  I’d intended to go straight to Millersburg, OH today, but God opened some doors in Cincinnati and the people in Millersburg were generous enough to give up one of their days so I could hang out in Cincinnati.  I am very much looking forward to the connections there.  

This is my second time in Lexington and what I appreciate is how much deeper the conversations go with those I met the first time around about a year ago.  It seems when I arrive somewhere for the first time the conversations seem to revolve around issues about theology, church, and Scriptural understandings.  Only later do the conversations turn to life—how people are sorting out their own journey and how they are engaging God in doing so.  Yes, I’ve been with lots of new people this trip, too, but the conversations that have come with those I met previous are a delight.  I enjoy seeing growth in people’s lives as well as fleshing out their story more.

These four days have been a whirlwind.  We started out with day-long open event for whomever wanted to join us and we used the building of a local congregation and some of their people joined in.  Over the days that followed I have been with old friends from my college days, shared for a few hours about marriage with a group of young marrieds at an Alliance fellowship, shared with a seminary class about Finding Church and The Shack, helped a good friend with a novel he’s writing about the civil war, spent some time with an Army Ranger who has just returned from Afghanistan, a young wife whose thirteen-year old sister just passed away in a tragic accident, and three other gatherings with people as well as numerous other lunches and dinners with various people who’ve wanted to hang out together.  I’ve been in so many different conversations the past few days that have enriched my life, and hopefully theirs.  

Yesterday afternoon I met with a judge and some of the young men he meets with weekly at the local Panera.  It started a few months ago as he had lunch with a man in his twenties and shared with him how at 30 he everything about his life looked successful on the outside, but he was dying inside.  An older man somehow recognized it, connected with him, and helped him find a better journey. The young man he was with obviously wanted the same engagement. So the judge sent an email to half a dozen young men, explaining where he’d been at at 30 and offered to get together to start a group if others would find the same time to be helpful to them. Well, they jumped on it.  Too many of us live in isolation, either needing encouragement or having encouragement to offer and not finding space to do it in. These have found that space.  They just get together after work on Tuesdays at Panera to talk about their journeys and to encourage each other.  I love those times.  

But now it is on to Cincinnati.  Recording a podcast this mornign for a friend, having lunch with someone I met years ago in Las Vegas, and then heading to an evening of fellowship and sharing with people I’ve never met, but who have been reading some of my things.  I am amazed at the life I get to live and the people God lets me know.  It is really worth crawling out of our comfort zones and connecting with people who are on a marvelous journey of learning to live in the Father’s affection.  Ask God to connect you, too to people around you that you can either encourage or be encouraged by.  Hopefully you’ll discover both, even with the same people.  Befriend them and let the relationship take its course.  That’s how his church grows in the world.  

I know it’s been a long wait for many of you. I’ve had so many people cheering me to the finish line here in anticipation of reading my latest book, Finding Church.  They have arrived at last and today we were able to get out a good chunk of the first pre-orders. It will take us a few days to get caught up in the backlog, but we are now shipping the book for those who have waited. And it has seemingly been as much torture for those waiting to read it, as for those who got earlier editions to read.  I got this last week from someone reading a PDF version of the book in preparation for my appearing on a podcast that they co-host:

I’ve been reading the advanced copy of your book in preparation for the podcast (I’ll) be doing with you in October and I must say having to keep this under wraps until it’s released has been pure torture!  This is a fantastic book!  It really is a book I’d like to put in the hands of every hungry believer.  I’m only up to chapter 8 and already I’ve come across several quotes I wanted to share with friends.  Reading this book feels the same as when I attended a college football game a couple weeks ago and watched my team throw a beautiful pass and run it all the way down the field as I stood by screaming, “Yes! Yes! Keep going! Yes!”  Then they scored the touchdown.  “YES!!!!!!”  Many head for the goal but don’t quite make it.  This one is a touchdown!

Well, Loren, and others, you no longer have to wait. Feel free to post some of your favorite quotes from the book and let others in on it as well. I have to honestly say this is not the book I set out to write. Of all the books I’ve worked on this one turned out to be a total surprise to me. I discovered so much about my own journey and how all the facets of it brought me to this season of my life. It was a grand discovery for me to write it. I told Brad today on a podcast we were recording, that if I’d only written this book for me and no one ever read it, it would have served its purpose. Doing so has helped me see more clearly into a wider creation than I knew before I began. I never saw that coming.

While I am sure this book will be helpful for those who have already given up on institutionalized forms of church, it was not written for them alone but for anyone who is struggling between the promise of Scripture and the reality of “church” as we’ve come to know it in the 21st century. Since it is Father’s desire to bring all things together under one Head, Jesus, I wanted this book to invite all of God’s people into a more wholesome conversation about what the church is and how generous hearts can engage it most easily.  So this is not only for people looking for more authentic expression of Jesus’ church outside the box of organized religion, but also for those inside of it with the same hungers.  Here’s how I expressed it in the book:  

Since you’ve picked up this book, I suspect you might have concerns about the church as we know it today, or care deeply for someone who does. Maybe you’re an active part of a congregation hoping against hope that something can be done to make it more reflective of Jesus’ kingdom. Maybe you’ve already left your congregation and have given up hope that anything can fulfill your longing for his church. Or, maybe your parents stopped attending the fellowship they raised you in and you’re wondering if they’ve lost their minds.

Then I heard from a friend last week who was in a Sunday service recently at a Mennonite church. The speaker that morning was a Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at the local Mennonite Biblical Seminary.  He had read an advanced copy of the book and told them they all needed to buy it when it became available.  He said from the pulpit: “This Jacobsen is quite the writer! He writes in a way that grips you! I’m 84 years old and have only known the institutional church, but I know he’s right!”  Wow! Hearing that it had touched him so deeply took my breath away.

He later wrote me that he’d had a subsequent discussion with this man:  “We did have another discussion today about your book. He keeps thinking about it. He finds it very provocative. I think it was a good time for him to read it because the Mennonite church is undergoing some changes and the book charged his batteries on the subject.”   I’m excited to see who this book might touch.    

So they are here now and we are shipping them out as fast as we can catch up with the pre-orders.  We are doing a soft release now to friends of Lifestream and The God Journey. Amazon is taking pre-orders now will be releasing them on October 15. E-books should be available by then at all the regular outlets.  

We are also making them available in discounted bulk pricing for those who’d like to share them with others.   We will be selling a box of 12 for $86.00 and a full case of 46 for $260.00, which includes shipping to any US destination and is less than wholesale.  You can find our quantity pricing here.  If you have a retail business or website and want to re-sell these books to your customers, you’d have our permission and blessing.  

And if you want to keep up with the larger conversation we hope this book spawns, you might want to bookmark FindingChurch.com as I’ll be doing a bit of blogging over there as well as keeping people updated on tweets, podcasts, reviews, and blogs about the book.  

The team has just arrived back in Kitale from a visit to West Pokot and finalizing arrangements to open the dispensary.  As you know we’ve been heavily involved in this area since ouf friends there discovered 120,000 people starving from drought and dying from disease in a region of the country that is beyond government assistance and NGO help.  We sent $62,000 initially to help with immediate food, water, and medical needs.  We then added another $65,000 to build school rooms and a dispensary in the region and put in four wells at a cost of over $30,000 per well.  In the last month we sent an additional $140,000 to create an enterprise that will help feed the area and whose profits will be able to pick up the shortfall at the orphanage, due to lower than expected petrol sales, and also cover expenses at the schools in West Pokot.  

Our friends in Kitale have worked incredibly hard to bless their brothers and sisters to the north and none of this money has benefited them at all.  Even though their needs are great, they have shared it all with those in worse shape in North Pokot.  In fact they have been the volunteers that have gone up into the region to do the hard work to bring these projects to fruition.  

In theThis outpouring of generosity has also opened this entire region to the Gospel.  Since prayers for the ancestors failed them they are hungrily learning about Jesus and the life he offers.  

The team yesterday received approval from the Ministry of Health to open the dispensary and begin delivering medical care to people who have absolutely none available.  We had hoped the government would pick up the costs of medicines in that region or another NGO, but so far no one has stepped up.  They need $32,500 to equip the dispensary and that’s using volunteer doctors and nurses to care for the patients.  They have been able to do some care as the pictures below will show, but they don’t have the medicines they need.  I did not promise them when they wanted to build a dispensary or now that we would take responsibility to provide medicine for that region.  We have sent almost $400,000 into that region in the last six months just from the friends I have through Lifestream and The God Journey.  I’m sure everyone is getting a bit fatigued with the ongoing needs in Kenya.  I’ll admit that I am so I am only going to make it available in case people have it on their heart to provide this medicine. As always, Lifestream takes nothing out of the contributions given for any expenses, and in fact we have covered out of our own provision the shortfalls in each of these campaigns.  

So, what do you think?  If God has put it on your heart to help with these needs, you can direct it through Lifestream.  Contributions are tax-deductible in the US.  As always, every dollar you send goes to the need in Kenya.  We do not (nor do they) take out any administrative or money transfer fees.  If you would like to be part of this to support these brothers and sisters and see the gospel grow in this part of Africa, please see our Sharing With the World page. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

Here is some of what’s going on at the dispensary now:

The Minister of Health is greeted by the locals as arrives to inspect the dispensary.

People waiting for services at the dispensary, or for those getting care. 

A doctor helping a young patient

Thanks for your thoughts, prayers, and gifts on their behalf.  They are overwhelmed with gratitude every time I hear from them, and so am I.

For those of you concerned about the process for getting my new book out, Finding Church is at the printers now and we working on getting e-books made and available.  We are ramping up for our October 15 release date at it looks like everything is coming together to make that a reliable date.  Having lived inside this book for the past twenty years, and writing it over the past twelve months, I’m very excited to get this out and am hopeful it will inspire a conversation among a vast spectrum of people who want to see the church of Jesus’ new creation as a relational reality, rather than an institution we are meant to build and maintain on his behalf.  

I am enjoying the feedback I’m getting on this book from those who have had a chance for an advance reading.  It assures me that the points I hoped to make are being made, and that people are finding a different way to view and participate in the church Jesus is building.  Believe it or not, the first review for Finding Church came out yesterday.   Yes, it is a bit early, but for those interested the book is now available for pre-order at Lifestream and at Amazon.  I’ll post links to e-books when they become available. All that will release on October 15.

We are also developing a new website at FindingChurch.com, that we hope to open next week with an advance peak at the first five chapters in a PDF download.  I’ll announce that here when we do.  All this is taking a lot of time, which is why I’m not posting too many blogs yet. But don’t worry, I have a backlog of things I want to share with you in my blog.  

Here are some other things people are saying about Finding Church:

There is no slow bleed; the mass exodus from local congregations is a stubborn fact. So why is Wayne Jacobsen so hopeful? Because dispersion and isolation need not be the endgame. Jacobsen is finding church—the fully functioning family of Christ that transcends institutions—networking everywhere. I would especially invite Jesus-loving ex-churchgoers to borrow his eyes so they might share his hope.

BRAD JERSAK, Ph.D., author of Can You Hear Me?
Abbotsford, BC

Finding Church is a riveting and challenging read that prompts its readers to seriously reconsider the definition of church. With courage and compassion, Jacobsen states what millions of Christians intuitively know but can’t admit, while sharing his passion for a church that every believer craves.

DEREK WILDER, author of Freedom
Life Transforming Group, Andersonville, IN

For that endless stream of people I meet who love God but either cannot bring themselves to re-enter the institutional church world or who are feeling great pain from abuses they cannot understand at the hands of leaders who subverted what we call church, Wayne Jacobsen’s book will be a great encouragement. Without overlaying a new structure, he reminds us that living for and with God is far simpler than we ever imagined and that God still knows our address. Rare is the invitation to relax in God’s love and love others, and it is enough. 

GAYLE ERWIN, author of The Jesus Style
Cathedral City, CA

In Finding Church, my friend Wayne Jacobsen offers Christ’s way to a home for those who have searched for it congregation to congregation all their lives. The answers he offers come long after he has learned to live it and they are as free and freeing as the Gospel itself!

JOHN LYNCH, co-author of Bo’s Café and The Cure
Scottsdale, AZ

I’m in Lake Tahoe at the moment at a missions school for young people interested in discipleship and mission. We’ve had a good time talking about the difference between what is real in Christ and what is an illusion of religion.  We seemed to jump into the deep end of the pool on the first day about leadership, why so many have been hurt by it in the past, and what it really means to facilitate expressions of community rather than manage institutions that serve our own vision and help destroy people in the process.  That wasn’t my choice, it was theirs!  It seems so much of what we are religiously encouraged to do, even to seek supernatural manifestations can so easily be a distraction to simply learning how to live in the love of the Father and let him lead them into his fullness his way. We seem to think we can control our life in him by our passion, commitment, or hard work. I remember it well in my own life. It’s perhaps the worst thing religion does to us, giving us the illusion that we can “get” from God, instead of learning to respond to what God is giving to us.  I have so enjoyed God bringing me into the peace of the latter, and honestly I see far more genuine miracles flowing from that than a lot of the self-generated hocus pocus of my fervent trying-to-earn it younger days! Far more!  

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted here encouraging thoughts for the journey. Honestly I think I’ll get back to that after the book stuff settles down.  We are busy proofing all the final bits of the cover and inside pages and getting it to the printer on time.  We are also developing a website at findingchurch.com (No, there is nothing there yet) to help further the conversation and help people find connections.  Sara has also been overrun with pre-orders for the book, which have been huge.  It has already been picked up by a publisher in Germany and they have begun translation, as have others for a French version.  I’m a bit surprised by that, but am so grateful people want to take a look at how Jesus is building his church and how it differs from the way humanity tries to build one for him, and ends up getting sidetracked into conformity-based dynamics that undermine their attempts to build real community.  It’s the classic case of subverting your goal by the very tactics you employ.

Almost always when I finish a book, I’m so worn out by the process I don’t even want to think about writing another one.  I thought that would be true this time, but it isn’t.  Almost as soon as I finished this book, a novel, whose story I’ve been contemplating for years has surfaced front and center in my mind.  I’m so excited to start on it, which I find incredibly strange.  I won’t torture you with the scope, theme, or title of it yet, but it looks like the writing will continue for a while.  

And finally, it looks like I’ll be returning to the road again this fall.  It has seemed to please the Spirit to schedule a number of trips over the next few months. If you live near any of these and want to join in, you can get details on my Travel Page.  Here’s the schedule as it is clarifying now:

• Bakersfield, CA – September 20
• Lexington, KY – October 3-7
• Millersburg, OH – October 8-12
• Houston, TX – October 31- November 3
• San Antonio, TX – November 3-6
• Corpus Christi, TX – November 7-9
• Newbury Park, CA – November 22:  Sara and I will be hosting a gathering in our home for people in the Greater Southern California area who want to connect with us and others.  
• I’m also scheduled to be in Barcelona, Spain, June 27-28 and the south of France from June 29 – July 8, though details are not certain yet.  

For those who would like to be notified when I’m coming to your area you can sign up for Travel Notifications on my website.   

Finding Church is now headed for production.  I have lived inside this book for more than a year.  Every waking moment it is not far from my conciousness and so many conversations over the last year played into its development.  Today I’m finally handing off the manuscript to the production folks, after all the editing and massaging I can do.  It’s always a weird feeling.  I have no idea at this point what to change, but as these things go when I read it in a few months I’ll think, “Wow, I wish I’d said this a bit differently.”  Or, “I wish I’d included that.”  But books are always a snapshot in time and hopefully they become part of a larger conversation where we all continue to grow in our appreciation for and our participation in the church Jesus is building in the earth. 

And thanks to so many of you, hundreds literally, who contributed your thoughts about the cover art.  I know it was risky in that people might get married to one cover or another, but I wanted some input because I was unsettled about it.  I realize all who contributed were at a giant disadvantage not having a clue what’s in the manuscript.  The geese cover I have had since last November and I loved it.  It was a safe cover, but also a bit stereotypical.  In the end, however, I don’t think it expressed well what’s inside the book. Though I’ve use the geese analogy often, it doesn’t play into this book at all.  This is about looking at the church in an entirely different way—not as an institution that man can contrive, but as a reality inside the new creation Jesus launched at his resurrection and into which he invites us all.  

It makes itself known in the conversations, connections, and collaborations he gives us with others who are also embracing a different way to live in that new creation.  Rather than having to manage our competing appetites of the flesh, we get to see what relationships become when Jesus is at the center of them and we are learning to live in his affection with grace and generosity instead of fighting for our own preferences.  It creates the potential for a new community, but one no one can regulate.  It is demonstrated in the relationships that grow out of our freedom in him and that makes for some interesting possibilities.  

In the end, this is the cover design I landed on.  I realize not every one will like it, especially if you had another preference, but it is art and it is subjective.  More than you know your comments in Facebook postings and email helped shape my journey here.  I was less concerned what cover people were voting for as to what they were saying about them.  What I love about this cover is the mystery of seeing seemingly divergent threads be spun together by an unseen breath.  I love the colors that speak of a rich diversity that is beginning to be spun into a common unity.  The cover, however, is just a curiosity, not a piece of art people have to hang on their walls.  I think what will draw people to this book is the title and tag line.  As one many told me after reading the first chapter, “Anyone who has ever sat through a Sunday morning service has had that same reaction.  There must be something more than this?”  

I trust God to take this book as far as he wants it to go, whether it is to comfort a few dozen people, or find its way into a larger conversation about how we experience the life of his church and why our institutional arrangements can never sustain or maintain a reality that transends them.  

Our publication date for the completed book is October 15 and will retail for $11.99.   We are now taking pre-orders for the printed version of this book and you can do so here.  The books will ship on or before October 15.  About that time we will also be releasing the book in e-book formats as well that will retail for $7.99.  An audio book will come later this fall when we can get it done.  Also around October 15 we’ll be making books available in quantity discounts for those that want to order by the case. Please let us have some time to sort that all out.  

I’ll be reading Chapter Two on tomorrow’s podcast since so many of you have asked. Here’s what some people are saying about this book:

This might just be the holy fire needed to inspire a generation of believers worn out by the unfulfilled potential of the Church—the kindling needed for the family of God in the 21st century.  

From the Foreword by Stephanie Bennett, Ph.D.

I am amazed at the magnificence of God’s timing that would allow Sara and I to spend a month with my father after the passing of my mom.  It not only allowed us to help him with all the details of her passing, planning her celebration, and dealing with the endless paperwork, but also allowed some amazing fellowship with him as his life gets rearranged.  Today we have to head for home and it will not be easy.  We have enjoyed this season and God’s timing.  (For those that wanted to see the video commemorating my mom’s life that I referred to in my last blog, you can view it here.)

It actualliy seemed like months ago when we arrived.  I had two weeks to finish Finding Church when I arrived amidst everything else going on and was able to get it ready to send to the copy editor.  When I get home I’ll be working to finalize the cover and finish all the copy so we can get it to the printer.  I’ve sent it to a number of people to get their reviews of it and am excited about the feedback I’ve been getting.  As we get closer to publication, I will also be sending out copies to those who would like to do reviews on their blogs or an interview on their podcasts about the book.  Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll be able to open up pre-orders for the book.  We are hoping for books by September 20, but will probably aim for an October 15 release date.  

I’ve been glad to have that out of my head for a couple of weeks of celebrating my mom with family and friends that came in from every season of my parents’ lives.  I also have a lot of connections in this area having lived in the Central Valley of California for 47 years, so that means we get to catch-up with old friends, help encourage people on this amazing journey of learning to live in his love and love others in the same way.  We even had an all-day Saturday gathering in Clovis to explore that life and many other personal encounters.  

All and all this has been an amazing month.  I’m not sure I got all the rest in that I hoped for, or all the books read that I wanted to, but I have a sense that we did what pleased Jesus.   It will be good to get back home and get back to a more consistent routine, which will include trips this fall to Lake Tahoe, Bakersfield, CA, Lexington, KY, northeast Ohio, and south Texas.  I look forward to those engagements and whatever else God chooses to unfold.    Blessings to you all!  

Thank you for all the comments, emails, and cards expressing your love and concern for our family in this season.  It is all much appreciated.  Many want to know how we are doing, so I thought I’d let you know.  Surprisingly we are doing well.  There’s plenty of sorrow, certainly, but in it there is a deep peace knowing this was her time and that here life was a full and fruitful one, and yes, full of challenges and pain as well.  She was a great part of this family and is missed greatly.  My mom lived a long and fruitful life and her legacy is her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  She always put family first and cared for us all as deeply as one can care.

Mom died almost three weeks ago now and the reality is setting in more and more, especially with our grandchildren who are sorting through the reality of death.  Her celebration service is this weekend, over three weeks since her passing and that has not been easy to wait so long but we had to leave time for friends and relatives to get here.   We’ve also been helping dad with all the paperwork and arrangements that have to be done.   The last six months was an incredible journey for both of them that drew them more deeply to a dependence on Father than they’d ever known.  Those days were so sweet, even in the conditions they endured that he is at rest.  His prayer a few years ago when he almost died following surgery that he would outlive her so that he could help her through whatever challenges she faced.  It’s not easy to watch him go on alone now, but he is most certain that God is having his way in all these things. 

Though Mom helped Dad on the vineyard, she was the consummate homemaker with a safe and nurturing environment for her children.  She loved us and our families well and would do anything to help us along in our adult years as well.   With an open heart and an open home she also found time to be a “mom” to hundreds of other young men and women who have written me with gracious words of the influence my mom had on their lives in the counsel and prayers she shared with them. 

Saying good-bye in this age is not easy, but it is joyously without regrets.  A few years ago God laid it Sara and my hearts to spend more time with them in these declining years and we’ve done that with them and will continue to with Dad.  Everything that needed to be said got said and letting her go into the Age to Come was incredibly graced with God’s presence, direction, and transformation for both Mom and Dad.  We will celebrate her life this weekend with lots of people from all across their path.  Yes, it will be sad, but grief is not something I fear when God is in it.  The tears only express the love and it is as much a part of life as the laughter of better times.  My brother has just completed a video celebrating her life and our family.  I’ll post a link to it next week for those who can’t make the service and would like to see it.  (Link to video here.)  For our Central Valley friends, here is her obituary if you missed it on my Facebook page last week: 

Jo Jacobsen

Joanne “Jo” C. Jacobsen, beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother quietly passed away on Friday, July 25 in Auberry, CA with her husband at her side.

Born on April 9, 1930, in Selma California, Jo graduated from Selma High School in 1947 and was married shortly thereafter to Eugene Jacobsen.  They enjoyed sixty-six years together that included rearing their four sons and working the grape vineyard where they lived south of Selma.  A passionate follower of Jesus, she was active in the church congregations she attended and with community activities such as cub scouts and PTA.
She is survived by three of her sons and their wives, Bruce and Susan Jacobsen of Fresno, CA, Wayne and Sara Jacobsen of Newbury Park, CA and Clay and Cindy Jacobsen of Camarillo, CA.  Her eldest son, Rod, passed away in 1999 and is survived by his widow, Kathy Jacobsen of Hayden, ID.  Her surviving sister, Ranella Kindlund, lives in Kingston , GA.

She delighted in her children, and their families with nine grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.  She worked with her husband on the vineyard and hosted numerous parties and gatherings on the ranch.  She enjoyed hand-crafting and quilting and her countless cookies, pies, and cakes were greatly appreciated by friends and family.  Her wedding cakes graced many a young couples wedding in the area.

In 1993 they sold the vineyard and retired to Shaver Lake, CA, where they relished their later years with family, close friends and active involvement in the Church of Shaver Lake where Jo played piano for the worship team.

Services will be held on August 16 at 1:30 pm at the Chapel at Shaver Lake, CA.   (41340 Tollhouse Rd)   Please dress casually.   Remembrances can be sent to the Benevolence Fund for the Church at Shaver Lake (PO Box 601, Shaver Lake, CA 93664), which will be used to purchase equipment for the Wish-I-Ah Care Center were Jo spent the last five months of her life.