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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.  

I’m amazed people track these things, but a friend of mine from New Zealand recently posted 11 books about living in Father’s love and grace that have more than 100 5-star ratings on Amazon.com.  He Loves Me was on that list.  (You can view the entire list here, which includes some of my favorites.)  I had no idea.  So I checked and found it has 135 5-star rankings from readers.  I never think to check on these kinds of things, but I just may have to go there some day when I can find the time and see what others are saying about it.  

But I’m blessed that so many of you shared your thoughts about this book with other readers on Amazon.  Thank you.  I am truly honored and grateful that you took the time to do so, especially since I have never even recommended that people do that for me.  That makes it all the more amazing that so many have.  (I even know one blog some years ago that begged people to put up negative reveiws to discourage people from reading it.  I guess he was the only one that took his advice, because there is only one 1-star review.) 

You have no idea, however, how much this helps other readers when they are browsing for books.  Not only does it give them a testimonial from another reader, but it is also part of what Amazon uses when it recommends books based on what people are searching for.  So if you’ve read a book that really touched you, take the time to post a comment, even a brief one, and give it a rating.  The authors you enjoy will really appreciate it.  

He Loves Me is now available in Spanish:    Versión para imprimir   •   Versión Kindle •  EPub Versión para Nook, iBook y otros