Life has been incredibly crazy of late and many of you have noticed I haven’t done with my blog lately.  Sorry!  I’m gone again this week helping my parents continue to sort out the best choices for dealing with their new circumstances.  So let me give you some quick updates:  

FINIDNG CHURCH:   I am writing tons, and when I get some time I’ll post some excerpts from the new book.  I couldn’t be more excited about what is going on there.  The new arrangement is falling together well.  I can’t wait to be in a broad conversation about the church as it exists on the new creation, not the old creation models we humans keep deivsing.  But in the interim, let me give you some quick updates.  

KENYA:  We’ve taken in almost $20,000 of the $50,000 hope to have for them by early April when their team goes into West Pokot to help with the starving people there.  You can read the full story here.  If you have some resource to share and these people are on your heart, now would be a good time.  If you need the details, check here.  

JAKE MOVIE:  The first eight minutes of the podcast I loaded today will give you an update on the progress of the movie adaptation of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore.  It is very much a work in progress, but something has happened in the last couple of weeks to up the excitement meter significantly. We’ll have to see how it works out.  Listen to the first part of the podcast if you want the full story.

EAST COAST TRAVEL:  More details on this will come out soon, but I’m headed to Maryland for the last weekend of Aprill, then to Virginia for the first weekend in May.  We may be able to put together a “Seeding Community” conversation that second weekend like we had in North Carolina this summer. I’m still trying to work out those details. The first weekend will be open to everyone who wants to come, the second may be structured for a smaller group of folks who are learning to live loved but want to discuss how to help others live the life of Jesus’ church in the new creation.  If you are in the Virginia area and have an interest, please let me know.  For now, I just want you to have the dates if you want to keep your schedule open.  

I hear the question all the time, and actually I’m really grateful to know that others are carrying this process on their heart and are anxious to read it.  For those that don’t know, I’m working on a new book called Finding Church:  What if There Really Is Something More?  I want it to help people find the realitly of Jesus’ church in the world, especially for those who have grown disillusioned with the traditional forms of it that have failed to live up to Paul’s incredible language about the life and power of Jesus’ church in the earth.  My thesis is that the church is a reality inside the new creation Jesus launched on the earth, and as long as we try to build it with old creation realities, we will only end up with the church humanity builds, not the one Jesus is building.    Having spent the last twenty years tasting of the church Jesus is building all over the world, it is far more wondrous than anything humanity can replicate even with his best efforts and schemes.  

To be honest, it has taken a bit longer to write than I had hoped.  Some of that has to do with situations around my life that is curtailing writing time, and some of that has to do with trying to find the way to say what I want to say so that it is clear, conscise, and compelling. I’ve also invited others into this process and their insights, while incredibly helpful, also sent me back to the drawing board at times.  

So how is it going?   I’ve got good news and bad news there. The good news is that I pretty much finished it last week.  The bad news is that I blew it up this week, on some wonderful advice I got from a former editor of mine.  Hopefully that will be good news in the long run, because it will make it a better book with a better flow.  So for those of you who listened to the first chapter and/or the second chapter on The God Journey, they are no longer the first and second chapter.  That material will still be there, just arranged quite differently, and not all the content will be in the same chapter.  So, it’s a bit of a mess right now, but all the pieces are there waiting to find their place.  Maybe that’s a metaphor for the church itself.  

So my best guess now is to try and finish it in the next couple of months and have it available after a couple of months of production.  Early summer may be a best-case, and late summer more likely.  I’m sorry for the delay, but I’m really excited at how it is taking shape—again!   

My friend, Michael, Wafula, who is also the director of IGEM, has been our man in Kenya to help in the post-election violence that devastated so many people in the region and left a trail of orphans and widows in its wake.  I was just with him as he was our guest for the Israel tour for his own education and to give him a chance to meet other people in the world who are learning to live loved.  I am convinced that God has given us this corner of the world so that people who resonate with Lifestream or The God Journey will have an opportunity to share with other brothers and sisters who live in such need. We are blessed to know Michael and many others there who have a passion for Jesus and his kingdom, and love to share with others in the area who have even less than they do.  

Michael returned home to firsthand reports of a crowing crisis in the lands to the north of where he lives.  The West Pokot region is a primitive area in the northeast corner of Kenya and is suffering an intense drought.  Many of already starved to death and six hundred more families are at risk if they can’t get water and food quickly. 

I won’t even show you some of the pictures I received from that region because they are so shocking.  The people look like skeletons with flesh barely draping off their bones.   The only economy in that region is cattle and they have almost all died off because of the drought.  This is a difficult area to reach because they are in the rural interior with no good roads to bring people or resources in.

Michael’s network in Kenya has already mobilized to intervene and to bring help to these people.  They will be taking a team of thirteen people, including two doctors and three nurses to help with the malnutrition and pandemic diseases that are spreading there.   They will be ministering the life of Jesus, pouring out their love, treating the sick, and distributing Bibles for those who can read in ecither Swahili or Pokot language.  They will be visiting three different villages—Konyao, Amakurriat, and Nawuyabong.  These are the villages that are most affected and encompass about 2500 people.

The immediate need is for food, drugs, and water.  Two hundred pounds of corn costs $35.00, for beans it is $67.00.   Five thousand liters of water costs $500.00.  It is difficult to put a price on the drugs at this point. 

These people are often nomadic in their search for sustenance, wearing only skins or sheets, and are in unreached areas where the word of God has not yet arrived.  They believe in shrines, mountain and ancestors spirits.  Catholics have done limited work in this area and only a few NGO workers are present to help with development.  IGEM wants to get a drilling machine to drill for water, because once they get water there is life. 

IGEM also want to start education centers to build a sustainable economy.  They want to teach the adults how to sew, bake goods, and grow crops so they won’t be dependent on cattle alone. They also want to help educate the children, which do not receive any schooling now. 

Your prayers are most welcome for the IGEM people who will be going to that area, and if you have some extra resource to help the people there, you can direct it through Lifestream.  As always, every dollar you send goes to the students themselves, 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 at Lifestream. 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.

It’s finally here.  We’ve been planning this for over a year and I can’t it is now time to go.  This trip fulfills a promise to Sara after I was there seventeen years ago when she couldn’t go and it was always a dream for her to do so.  We decided to take along some of our friends, so tomorrow Sara and i will depart for Israel and join 39 others from around the world for a ten-day tour of Israel.  We’ll not just be viewing the sights, but we’ll also be sharing all that God has done here to invite men and women into a growing trust in a loving Father and why it was so important of all the places in the world to do it in the land we know as Israel. 

Here God made himself known through the patriarchs and prophets of Israel and then through the Incarnation of his own Son.  Throughout the whole story of redemption, God keeps trying to rescue humanity out of the brokenness of a fallen creation and humanity either resists him or continually seeks to exploit him by creating religious rules and rituals that diminish his reality even as they profess to honor him.  In that sense Israel is a land of great contrasts.   We will be at the tomb where the patriarchs were buried, the caves where David hid from King Saul, the mountain where Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, on the Sea where Jesus calmed the storm, the garden where he prayed, and in the prison cell where he spent the night before his crucifixion.  But we’ll also see the arrogant, excessive, and soul-numbing intrusion of religion in this landscape, where every religious group in the world seeks to have a presence and in the name of celebrating the God of the universe fight each other with firm resolve.  We will see in stark terms the emptiness of religion and the glory of God being revealed in the earth in the new creation Jesus inaugurated when he was here. 

And where will we see that new creation best?  Will it be at the garden tomb or the Wailing Wall?  The Mt. of Beatitudes or along the Jordan.  I don’t think so.  The new creation makes its way into the world in the hearts and lives of people who are discovering who God is.  This new creation will be evident in conversations on the bus, over meals, and in the scores of locations we’ll visit.  Knowing those who are coming and the journeys they are on I anticipate the new creation emerging in the relationships that people from four different continents will share over the course of these ten days.  New friendships will form, insights and encouragements will be shared, and God will make himself known in the diversity of people he brings together affirming the wider work he is doing in the world that includes us all.  

I wish everyone reading this could join us, but that would have taken a really, big bus and been completely unmanageable.  Honestly, I’ve put off doing this for years because I didn’t know if I knew enough people who could afford the time and expense of going.  I’m glad these were able to pull it off, some having saved for years just for such an opportunity.  I hope all of you find a way to come sometime.  It’s more than you’d ever dream. God is no more present there than he is in your home, but to actually stand where some of the major events in God’s redemptive history took place will change something in you and help your understanding of Scripture come alive.  

You can follow our itinerary here.  We’ve got some gifted photographers along and we’ll try to share some of those photos on this blog and on the Lifestream Facebook Page when we get a chance.  That depends, of course, on time available as well as wi-fi access.

People are already asking if we’re planning to do this again next year and my answer today is I don’t think so. My daughter is already pressing for me to do it again when her kids are a bit older and she can go, but I don’t want to be that guy that leads an Israel tour every year.  I’m much more interested in helping building up the church all over the world where people are learning to live in his life.  But you never know.  If this turns out to be a powerful time helping people make connections that bear the fruit of his kingdom, I’ll may consider doing another one somewhere up the road. 

I do enjoy watching God draw lines of connection and relationship in his body, especially internationally.  That’s a lot of why I do the travel I do.  So as we celebrate these days with a small slice of the church, we will be thinking of that larger body that is emerging all over the earth as people learn to live in the love of a gracious Father.  

I get lots of email asking how the new book is coming along, so I thought it best that I answer here. For those who don’t know I’m writing a book called Finding Church:  What If There Really Is Something More?  I had hoped to have the rough draft done before I depart next week for Israel, but it isn’t going to happen.  I’ve got about 80% of the book done and have three chapters left to write.  On a personal level, I am thrilled with how this book is turning out, though it has been a harder write than I anticipated.  There is so much on my heart here and finding a way to say it that is clear, compelling and accessible has been a challenge.  But I enjoy that kind of challenge.  Days spent home writing are some of my favorite days, so don’t feel badly for me.  

I am working on the pinnacle chapter now:  “Unity Without Conformity” that pains a picture of what his church looks like in the world as she takes shape, but also how she fulfills her mission by demonstrating God’s character and being on the cusp of where the new creation confronts the brokenness of the old.  It will be one of my favorites and help people appreciate why Jesus wants to make himself known through the church that is not built by human hands or ingenuity.   

After I finish the rough draft, I’m going to go back through and tighten it all up.  It is about 20% longer than I want it to be, so that means cut, cut, cut.  And while it’s always hard to throw out paragraphs or stories that I spent so much time crafting, I learned a long time ago that writing is a discipline.  You can’t say everything you want to say and keep people engaged, and cutting forces you to do better writing.  I learned that while I was a Contributing Editor at Leadership Journal years ago.  No matter how long an article was, they always wanted me to take another pass and cut 20% out, because it forces you to write a better piece.  So I was not surprised to discover that this book as I’m coming to its end is about 20% longer than it needs to be.  I’m actually looking forward to cutting it back about and shaping the writing to be more focuse and more disciplined.   My theme verse at times like this is Ecclesiastes 6:11 “The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?”

I’ll continue to work on that when I get back from Israel and hope to have the book completed by late spring and hopefully out this summer.  Who knows?  It’s a journey and I’ll get to the end when I get to the end.  There’s an excitement in my heart that continues to bubble up through this process and I’m looking forward to getting it done just to engage the conversations it will spawn, both with pepole who will resonate with it, and with those who will find it threatening.  I can already see that in this season of my life I want to be involved in the conversations that help people recognize how Jesus’ church is already taking shape in the world and to spend time with those who have a heart to facilitate its life where they live, and have no desire to build a kingdom for themselves.  

On next week’s podcast, I’ll also be reading the rough draft of the second chapter for those who want to hear it.  I did the first chapter a few months ago.  You can find it here if you missed it.   For those who want to get a taste of what I’m working on, I am including an excerpt below to give you a taste:

A number of years ago I was invited to speak at a black, inner-city fellowship near Boston.  As I joined their meeting for the evening I was struck at how passive the people were even as the pastor railed at them for not being as faithful in attendance as she wanted them to be.  We went through all the motions. We sang.  I spoke, they listened, and while those times are not valueless, they are not what church life is all about.

The next morning I met two young men from that congregation for breakfast at their request.  As we ate they shared their stories and their spiritual hungers, which were not being met where they were. They talked about the community they lived in and their desire to see a display of Jesus’ life available to them. We laughed, we cried, and we prayed unaware that others were listening to us.

After a couple of hours of conversation two ladies in their seventies suddenly appeared at the end of our table with tears in their eyes.  “You don’t know how long we have been praying for God to touch some young men in this community who have a passion to share God’s life in such a desperate place.  We have enjoyed listening to you three for the past couple of hours and know this is part of the answer to what we’ve been praying.”  We all knew we were in a moment bigger than any of us and for that moment the church had taken shape in a restaurant in Roxbury, Massachusetts and was far more soul-shaping than the meeting we’d had the previous night.

If you’ve ever had a taste of authentic fellowship you’re a marked person. Nothing religious will ever satisfy you again.  You’ll know that it can appear where you least expect it and it will capture your heart in a way no obligation can.  You won’t see it as a meeting you can organize or invite others to, but as real and growing relationships with others on this amazing journey.  Nothing we can do, even with the best of intentions, can produce or maintain it. 

Though we see its reflection in fits and starts now, I don’t think any of us can yet conceive of what his church will yet look like when thousands upon thousands of people freely live in the reality of Jesus’ love and respond to the voice of the Shepherd simultaneously and spontaneously around the world, without the need to encase it in human institutions.  

As I’ve been contemplating joy over the past few weeks my inbox has been filled with people going through serious seasons of pain.   A young mother potentially facing a scary medical diagnosis, another losing a second child in a miscarriage and may not be able to have any more, a family facing bankruptcy, a father losing his job, as well as people recovering from past abuse, debilitating results of a traffic accident, or betrayal of a loved one. 

Life can be excruciatingly painful at times. 

Often times, I’ll respond with encouragement such as, “You are absolutely safe in the Father’s hands, no matter what transpires here.  May you find the rest in his affection for you and may he be glorified in all that unfolds here to sort you out and lead you onward in his life.”

Often the response back is an apology for not doing better, or a confession that they are being overwhelmed with fear and doubts as if by doing so they aren’t living up to my prayer for them.  Then that only adds to their pain, it doesn’t lighten the load.  And prayers are never something to live up to, but to find refuge in.  

When I pray I am asking God to do something.  I’m not pressuring the other person to pretend they are doing better.  Yet haven’t we all felt that pressure?  Someone prays for healing and we have to act healed, or for joy and we have to smile and act happy afterwards.  What has religion done to us?  Has it made us believe that the trusting life in God grows without pain, without seasons of doubt, and without blinding tears? 

Then why did Paul tell us not only to rejoice with those that rejoice, but also to weep with those who weep?  Why did Jesus during his time on earth offer up “prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears?”  If Jesus found the reality of the broken creation so painful, that it led him to tears, and even to doubt God’s presence with him on the cross, why would we think we should be stronger?  He wants to have fellowship with us in our suffering as much as in our joy.

When someone prays for you or blesses you in time of pain, please don’t feel the need to pretend all is well even if they want you to.  Take it as God’s invitation into your pain and find him there.  When I pray someone will find rest in his affection, I don’t want him to pretend to have that rest when their guts are churning inside.  I want them to hold their pain before him until is rest finds them.  Drawing near him in our tears, anguish, and doubts opens a door to greater wisdom and engagement than any pretense ever will.  Some of my best moments with him have come out of tear-stained eyes.  

I want people to discover a God whose love and comfort is greater than anything this world can throw at them.  And in standing with them I realize it may take weeks or months for that reality to break through in a way that will consume their pain in his incredible affection.  So I would rather weep where you weep, than have you waste one ounce of energy pretending what is not yet true in your heart. 

And I think he would too. 

I thought others of you would be interested in this little exchange I had the other day.  The only reason I’m posting it is because I get this question often as it’s a very real part of our journey and the shift in thinking that happens when we move beyond religion to live in the Father’s affection. 

Mark:   I have a quick question for you. How do you respond, when people that you used to attend church with ask what’s going on in your life?  I don’t want to begin arguments and I don’t want to come across in a negative way, but how do I share this new understanding with those who don’t yet have it.









  


 
Its so odd because Church in America is always touted as being a place filled with love and acceptance, but the moment that you walk away from that organization you are labeled, ridiculed, and often belittled by the very people that claim to have unconditional love for you. When I try to share that I left church to draw closer to God, I find that the response is condescending, accusatory, or skeptical. Yet, at the same time many still in the church will say that church is not required for salvation, but, the sad truth is that being part of an organized religious group is required in their minds. For many in America, Christianity is more about membership within a congregation than about adoption into the Kingdom of Heaven. If you can lend me any advice I would greatly appreciate it.

Me:  Don’t you remember being there too, looking suspiciously at people who had withdrawn from a congregation you thought was essential to your own spiritual growth? That’s what gives me patience with others who are still there. They can’t see what they don’t see, and my trying to convince them isn’t helpful.  I simply engage such people with friendship, finding out how they are doing and, where appropriate, the things I see Jesus doing in my life that I hope will encourage them.  I don’t get into the “going to church” thing or why I’m not there anymore. I’m just interested to see if the friendship is bigger than whether or not I’m part of the same club with them and at the end I want them to know they are loved whether or not they are in a place to love me back. Don’t worry so much about what they are thinking, and you’ll be able to see how Jesus wants to love them through you.

Mr. M:  What a great answer!  Thank you for helping me to remember.

Escaping the conformity confines of religion doesn’t make us immune from its tentacles.  Because that system is built on our approval needs it leaves in a conversation more aware of what others think of us than we are what it would mean to love them and perhaps by grace open a door to a wider space for them to know God.  Any time our personal wellbeing rests on what someone else is thinking, feeling, or saying, then we have no option but to try to figure out a way to change them or make them stop.  In doing so we become like them and if we keep living there we will get lost in relationships because we will have to control them and when we seek to control we are not loving. 

I got this email from a friend of mine last week who lives in Virginia:  

My 92 year old aunt who lives in a nursing home in California.  Despite her age and being confined to a wheel chair much of the time, she has a very sharp mind.  She spends her days reading the Bible and other books.  In a note at Thanksgiving she commented that there were times she didn’t understand the Bible and what it was trying to say, and so the idea of sending a copy of “A Man Like No Other” to her for Christmas hatched.  Her faith and love of art, I hoped, would make it a great gift.
Today I got a note from her thanking me for the things my family sent.  I thought you’d enjoy her comment on your book:
 “I thank you—the beautiful book arrived before the 24th, what a surprise!  The illustrations were beautiful and the written word was very good.  I have read this beautiful treasure several times and it so touched my heart, it felt so real it brought tears, and I thank you for this lovely piece of work.  I love it, so much, and thank you.  Although I was lonely at Christmas, Jesus took me by his hand and we enjoyed a few words together.  His love touches me so and he is always there for me.”

One of the joys of putting some things out in the world is to hear stories about the way people are touched by God.  Every songwriter, artist, author knows what I’m talking about.  This brought a huge smile to my face when I read it, grateful that God makes himself known in moments like that.