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Sara and I are off to Toledo and the Detroit area for the weekend. As I wind things up today I am overwhelmed with joy at the way Jesus changes people and how he opens their eyes. I got this from a twenty-year old sister this morning who hales from the Pacific Northwest. She gave me permission to post her story because I thought it would encourage others of you who are at a similar place in the journey.

Wow! What a journey it has been for me since reading your book, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. Your book of truth has brought me to a whole new level of deepness, since my not being involved with the institution.

My journey thus far, having spent 20 years on God’s beautiful green earth, has been centered around the system of what is referred to as the modern day church. I have been brought up in the institution, and I have done the time. From accountability teams, to door to door outreach teams, and just about every leadership role in the system, besides the role as Pastor, I have been there. I fully understand the depth of your book, and how the importance of being a follower of Christ is not, and should have never been, based on, “What can I do? What program or organization can I be involved with to be a good Christian and show the world I am a light and not like them? Nevertheless, I harbor a deep love for those caught up in the system, and I passionately crave for them to one day understand it’s not about rules and programs. It’s about the Father of Lights, the One who desires full relationship. The One who craves for us to sit on His lap like a Father, and talk to Him. Just talk to Him.

It has been so hard for me to be able to explain to those caught up in the system, where I am at with my loving Father and why I do not attend an institution. I find myself at a loss of words when it comes too people questioning why I don’t go to church anymore, and why I don’t join outreach teams anymore, or how come I am not on the praise team playing my drums. So many questions, and so little answers I have been able to conjure up to come out of my mouth. My desire is to fully love, and to know what it means to be fully loved. How does one try to explain the question, “Why?”

My parents, my friends, and those I have worked with in the system, ask me, “Why are you doing this? How come you aren’t involved anymore? We never see you at church, and we are worried for you.” I have the same answer for all who ask me questions as these, “I have found my Love. I have found the one that hung out with sinners and loved on them. I have found the one we say we have programs for. I have found the Jesus that loves every man the same, He is my Love, the One who first found me.”

I have chased revival, I gave up everything in plans of moving to attend a school of the supernatural. I tell you, what a change I have come to. And thank God for that! Revival is right here in my heart with the new journey! THE GOD JOURNEY! I am starting a whole new life on this journey! Having literally nothing but God, is beautiful! Scary and challenging at times, but let’s roll!

Thank you for spending countless hours and days and years, writing this book so a 20 year old such as myself, can say, I’m not alone on this journey, there are others who understand true love. The love of Jesus. The relentless tenderness of His desire for us to just live life freely, with no system of have to’s or binding rules. The foundation on my heart, which has been knocked down and rebuilt, is finally being built up again, but this time, being built with the Chief Cornerstone, Papa. Thank you again, for sharing your journey, and allowing me to again build this foundation of living freely with my Abba.

Gotta love it!

I get asked that question probably more than any other. How do I find fellowship if I’m not part of a traditional congregation?

It’s true that there are a lot of wonderful people who attend traditional congregations, but as many have found it’s also not easy to build relationships there unless you’re involved in all the programs. Even then, it can be difficult when people already have their friendships and very little time or energy for more. And if you ever leave a congregation because you’re exhausted by the behind-the-scenes politics or because the pulpit messages are laced with guilt and performance, you’ll find just how shallow those relationships are. Many of your so-called friends will forget about you or exclude you because you’re no longer part of the same work. Then what do you do?

One of the difficult realities people face when they leave a congregation is finding ways to connect with people. But that’s only so because we’ve always expected others to provide the fellowship opportunities for us. Some look for a nearby house church or think of starting one, hoping to draw others into a similar task, but that can also replicate the same problem. The good side of this is that people who find traditional congregational life unsatisfying, don’t do so because they’re loners. They actually want friendships that rise out of a common passion for Jesus and are looking for ways to walk with other believers in a deeper community.

If you’re new to this journey and have found your old friends pulling away from you, first know that you’re not alone. Almost all of us know what that’s like. We know the loneliness and the desperation that can set in. But the loneliness can be a great tool to draw you closer to Jesus. We often try to fill the God place in our life with others and thus miss how he wants to do it. So literally put him first. Find your life in him, not in your friendships with others. Learn the joy of waking up in the affection of Father each day, even if it takes months to learn.

As you learn to live in that freedom, ask him to give you away to others during your day. It is the task of the Spirit to set us in the family, not ours to find out what we think is best for us. That said, Sara and I just don’t wait on the couch expecting someone to come to our door and ask for fellowship. Instead we’ve been pretty proactive each day about looking for opportunities where our lives can intersect others.

In the last 8 years Sara and I moved twice to localities where we knew no one, and both times we just started loving up on our neighbors and others we met through work and other community engagements and watched a new network of friends develop. We followed those distinctive nudge in our hearts to go meet some believers in a congregation, fellowship groups, mission settings, and other local ministries. . Even though we didn’t join any of those things we met people there with whom we have maintained relationship and watched friendships deepen. We’ve volunteered in community projects and made intentional efforts to be a friend to our neighbors. Not all we met in our new surroundings were (or are) believers, but we have eventually found our lives so full of others, some to love and some to journey with, that we felt our lives quickly filling up.

Live loving toward others near you where that is possible, taking an interest in them whether they are believers or not. See where those relationships go. Don’t try to “build relationships”, because that puts an agenda to them that will drive people away. Desperate and clingy destroys the hope of organic relationships. Just love others and let relationships take their course. Some will deepen and grow, others will just be a passing moment. If God leads you to engage believers in places where they gather, feel free to go. You can be alongside others even in congregational settings without having to buy into all the baggage and without disaffecting them from what is meaningful to them. This is not an exact science, it is a journey and God knows the friendships that you need and how to bring them into your life.

Stay in touch on the web with connections God seems to make there. Travel a bit to meet others to whom God is bringing a connection. Resist the urge to treat relationships as a convenience and make some sacrifice to engage others. Everything about our world trends away from relationships and so will we if we get so overwhelmed with life that we only have them when its easy or convenient. Friendship is about laying your life down for others knowing that Jesus is always laying his life down for you. Friendships will grow best when we’re not trying to control them or trying to get others to act according to your expectations.

In the long run, it is trusting that God knows how to bring you into relationship with others and show you the way forward. It is out of that trust that real relationships can begin and grow.

[A personal note: To those who have been praying for my Dad, he got home Saturday from nearly 3 weeks of surgeries and re-surgeries and his home, healing, and grateful. Thanks for your expressions of prayer and love for us during this time.]

Many of you know that I am in San Francisco at the moment helping with my 83-year old father who went through a critical surgery yesterday. This has been a two-week ordeal since a botched surgery two weeks ago. The second surgery was an arduous and tenuous procedure demanding a top-notch specialist, which is why we are here. He came out of it as well as the doctors had hoped, but having had two major surgeries in the last two weeks, has taken its toll on him.

I love the way God slips in little things even at a time like this to let people know he’s around. Last night the night nurse came in to introduce herself. “I am Grace,” she said, “and I’ll be with you through the night.” That was pretty cool. Maybe all nurses should be named Grace, especially those who follow a major surgery.

Then this morning a new nurse took over. “My name is Hope and I’ll be taking over from Grace today.” I loved hearing that and it brought a smile to my face. Maybe half of the nurses should be named Grace and the other half Hope. Then there’s Goodness and Mercy too! I like being followed by them too.

Now Hope just came in. “Grace will be taking over again tonight.” It’s been a fun subtext to our day as I’ve watched my father get stronger and stronger with each passing hour. We’ve been surrounded by prayers and love. Hopefully it’s all uphill from here.

Incredible! Surrounded by Grace and Hope twenty-four hours a day! We all are you know. It just usually isn’t this obvious. But it would be my prayer for all of you reading this that you would find expressions of God’s hope and grace in whatever challenges you face.

He’s there, you know. As certain as the sun rising!

And who knows? Maybe Joy will come in the morning.

A couple of items first. At the left is the cover to our newest edition of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. It has been printed in Russian. How fun is that? Also, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with some medical emergencies in our extended family over the past few days that are slowing things down a bit around here. Please be patient as these things unfold.

I do want to share a letter with you that I got a few days ago. I love stories of how God sets people free and I know they encourage others as well. I got this from Tammy:

I have a stack of Christian books a mile high. To me, reading is a bit like breathing. But of all the wonderful books I’ve read none of them have touched me as much as He Loves Me. It was so bizarre reading it because it was as though you had somehow read my mind and quoted my thoughts in your book!

For along time I have felt so weary of “Christianity”. I don’t know how many times I must have told my husband “there has to be more to it than this…”. But I mistakenly thought that I wasn’t trying hard enough… not reading my Bible enough or attending church enough. What else could be making me feel so empty? It all came to a head when last spring I found myself fighting another battle with major depression. One Saturday my husband said he just couldn’t do it anymore. He just couldn’t give me what I needed and it had drained him of his very life and that maybe we shouldn’t be married any more.

I remember so clearly going into my bedroom and falling on my knees beside the bed. I literally began yelling at God. “Why? Why have you abandoned us when we have tried so hard? What more do you want us to do?”. And in my heart I heard Him say “Nothing. I want you to do nothing but give it all to me. My love for you has never depended on what you do. If I had fixed your problems in the midst of your best effort you would have believed that you had earned it. But now I will show you that my best gifts come when you know you don’t deserve them.”

Wayne, it all turned around that day. I began having revelations from God like I have NEVER experienced in my life. Not that I was hearing an audible voice, but His Spirit was communing with mine in such a way as I could hardly keep up! Moment be moment He began giving me bits and pieces that made every incomplete picture in my life make sense. When I prayed for Him to change my husband as much as I was changing, He asked me if I really wanted to be different or did I only want to change as much as could be used to guilt my husband into change? When I prayed in anger because my Christian “friends” had abandoned me He asked me if I wanted revenge or redemption? On and on it went. Sometimes many times a day these amazing truths came to me and all I could do was weep that He had reached out to me with His very “voice”. Finally one day I fell on my face on the floor and declared, “You are MY God”. And I haven’t looked back since.

I began to recognize the lies that I had been told about God. All of them in church I’m afraid. I began to see how much I had feared Him. I summed up what I imagined He thought of me in one word—”Disappointed”. Praise God for an amazing Christian counselor who began to set me straight about who I am to God. She’s a pastor’s wife yet she often says she doesn’t fit in church. It has gotten in the way of too many people and their Father.

So much has happened in the last 8 months I could write a book myself! My marriage is better than EVER! I have been so overwhelmed with Fathers love that even colors look brighter. Even on days that I face a struggle I am filled with joy like I have never known. I look around my church now at faces that look so sad. I listen for people to laugh and shout about God’s love (because thats all I want to do) and all I hear is silence. One day I asked God how Christians can be so silent about something that fills you to overflowing? He simply said “if they REALLY knew how much I loved them, they would not be able to keep it to themselves. Tell them.”

Only a few days ago I came across He Loves Me and have already finished it. I laughed out loud when you said that people who knew that God loved them would never be able to keep it to themselves. Amazing how Father is teaching us about love!

I am preparing to take a small group of ladies on a journey into this book. I pray they will discover the joy that I have found. Thank you for putting into words what so many of us have learned at the Father’s knee.

I was having coffee with a friend yesterday. She has been so hurt by religion and I want so much for her to be free. As I shared some of these things with her she asked quietly, “Why can’t they tell us this from the pulpit?”. I too pondered the question until God’s voice (that I’m learning to listen for and recognize) spoke again. “This lesson of love will not come from the pulpit right now. It will begin as a silent revolution. One heart to another, telling of my love, seeing people set free.”

Thank you again Wayne. Perhaps someday God will allow me to put my journey to paper as you have. God is using you to set His people free.

Well, I guess she has already put it to paper, or at least to html. When I wrote Tammy asking for permission to share her story, this is what Tammy wrote back:

Feel free to use my email and my name. I would be blessed to see it posted where it may help someone. In fact, I would love to correspond with anyone who would like to know more about how Fathers love has changed me as a woman, wife and mother. There is nothing that I have gone through that I am ashamed of. What God has done for me is His gift to me. I simply see sharing my story as a small gift to Him.

I am so overjoyed in my new found freedom that it is hard not to share it. I find myself asking strangers “Has anyone told today that God loves you?”. For the first time in my life the fear of rejection is overpowered by Love.”

I love it when God transforms people by his life and grace.

I received this today from someone I’d met a few years ago:

Hey Brother,
Sorry to see some people attacking you and The Shack. I don’t agree with the extremism of their reaction. I read the book and it was a big blessing to me personally.

How are you standing up? Have you formulated any kind of a response? If so I’d like to receive a copy. I suppose they have some points that are valid, but what are they missing here?

Maybe (your critics) bring up some valid points that you need to write other book(s) for, to bring in the catch of readers that have initially been brought in by the first books? What points do the critics have against the emerging thing that are valid? Which are invalid or misunderstood?

Anyhow, I love you brother and I thank you for your work.

I thought others of you might be also be interested in reading my response:

Thanks for your note and thanks for asking about my own well-being. I really appreciate that. I responded to some of these concerns on my blog a few months ago. If you haven’t read it, you can see it here.

But to answer your other questions, we love the genuine conversation that THE SHACK has spawned about who is God, really? We wrote the book to be provocative and edgy so that people would rethink their own relationship with him and whether they are coming to know the God of the Bible or simply following the rules and rituals of a religion called Christianity. When push comes to shove in the broken places of people’s lives, rules and rituals just won’t cut it. People hunger to know a Living God and a resurrected Christ who make themselves known in our lives through Christ’s work on the cross and who can intervene in the most devastated places of their lives. We love hearing that families, co-workers and neighbors have been able to have extensive conversations about God because they’ve read THE SHACK and want to talk about it with others.

Not every one has to agree with what we wrote. I don’t think there’s a book on my shelf, except for the Bible, that I would agree with cover to cover. We all see through a glass darkly while we are being transformed into his image. So we love the honest conversations and concerns that people have raised. It seems God wants to have a significant conversation with our culture about who he is and how he invites people back from the brink of sin’s destruction to embrace him and his forgiveness. We’ve been invited into a large space to interact with all kinds of people about God, who he is and what he wants to accomplish in our lives. We are blessed to be there.

We also recognize that there are those who are so threatened by the book and its success that they use dishonest means to discredit the book and those of us who worked on it. There is much that is untrue in the blogs and articles that are being written about THE SHACK and me. Their tactics are always the same: distort the content so you can disagree with it, marginalize the people behind it by calling them names (emergent or universalists) and make them guilty by association with others they read or relate to. How sad for them! Refusing to engage the ideas of the Gospel, they instead posture themselves as judge and jury and that on false information. Unfortunately they may miss a wonderful work Father wants to do in our world and in their hearts.

But just for the record, I am not a universalist or an ultimate reconciliationist. I believe in the God of the Bible and his offer of salvation for whomever accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And I have never been in the emergent conversation. In fact there is much in that movement that gives me great concern. While I love a lot of the questions they are asking, I don’t always agree with the conclusions they come to, their political answers, or their attempts to start another franchise of Christianity. But I know great brothers and sisters among them who love the God I love and who live deeply in him. I can overlook their faults as they overlook mine. This journey is not for people who have it all figured out and want to force others into their prejudices, but for people whom Jesus is transforming by a ongoing work of grace.

But how am I doing? Though I’m a bit overwhelmed with all that begs for my attention these days, honestly, none of this gets me down. I learned a long time ago that if you care what people think about you, you are owned by anyone willing to lie about you. This is all in God’s hands, and I truly believe he is even using the controversy and the lies that are told about us to further his purpose. I am more than OK with that. Everything about my life that matters, with God, my family and friends is fulfilling and complete. I don’t need to have others speak well, or even honestly, of me. That is God’s to sort out in his way and his time.

A wise man said to me years ago in the midst of a painful betrayal: “When you’re following Jesus time and light are always on your side.” It is my ongoing hope and prayer that God will bring all things to the light and let them be seen for what they truly are.

And we’ll write and publish more as God allows. And we’re well on our way to making that movie of THE SHACK, which will only bring another wave of frustration from those who believe we’re out to destroy God’s work in the world instead of spread it with joy into some pretty incredible places.

We don’t often think like this, do we? I got this email from someone recently and I loved what they had discovered:

We have been in this area for about 9 years now. I really felt strongly that the Lord had spoken to my heart about coming here back in 1998, and we made the move in 1999. I always assumed it was to start a church or to be on staff at a church or something along those lines. I’m not saying that God still won’t use us in a way to minister here, but wow, how our view of things has changed. I think it was about relationships, all along.

My biological dad (who did not raise me, I had no contact with him at all) contacted us shortly after we had decided that it was God’s will for us to move to this area. I agreed to meet with him, probably early in 1999 before we moved. I always had a dad growing up, so I didn’t resent him or anything like that. Turns out he is a heck of a nice guy. Anyway, he lives about 30 minutes south of where we live now. We have developed a great relationship with him and many of my family members that I never knew growing up. He told me later that him and his wife had been praying for years for our relationship to be restored.

Here I was thinking that God sent us here for some great ministry, but all along He was answering the prayer of a father wanting to get to know his son.

We’re always so conscious of trying to get God to answer our prayers, that we rarely think how we might be an answer for someone else’s. Maybe what’s going on in your life isn’t about you? Maybe God is making you a gift for someone else…

And on that premise, true community thrives!

They did it again on this list trip through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Every where I go the question I get asked most is, “Can you come back and will you bring Sara?” I usually joke that I don’t bring Sara with me because people enjoy her so much, that they’d rather spend time with her than me. But that isn’t far from the truth. Sara has her own compelling story and compassionate heart for people, especially women, who are sorting out what it means to follow Jesus. She is a wealth of wisdom and great fun and people usually feel sorry for her because she has to put up with me all the time.

But for the last few years she’s also been counseling high school students at a local high school, as well as grandkids to play with and a garden she loves to tend. We pray together about every trip I take and whether or not God wants her to be part of it. While we do love traveling together when we get to, we also realize that God’s purposes are not always served by our doing so. There are times Sara could have gone with me, but we felt she needed to be home. We had no idea why, until events later unfolded and we knew afterwards why it was best for her not to come. I hope her freer schedule this year will allow her to take more trips with me, but that will be mitigated by her need to take care of things in the office while I’m gone on longer trips.

And to be honest, most conversations I get into on the road about Father’s love, my journey, the cross, growing trust, or relational church life, Sara has been through hundreds of times already. Those conversations don’t provoke the same passion in her that they do in me, because God has not wired her in the same way. (And, honestly, I’m very grateful for that!)

But we’ve had a marvelous summer working together. For those that don’t know, Sara is taking a leave of absence from her job to work with me at Lifestream, The God Journey, BridgeBuilders and Windblown Media. She’s an incredibly capable woman in handling all things administrative with the vast number of projects I’ve gotten involved in. I need someone like her handling all those things for me as we work through the changes we face here. Hers is the voice you will hear now when you call our office. Believe me, she can handle anything I can handle.

All of this makes me so grateful that almost thirty-five years ago that lady sat down across from me at a homecoming banquet while we were in college. The relationship that began there has brought innumerable joys in the journey we have shared together. I’m so amazed that God chose us for the other and brought us together in a growing love for each other. I can’t imagine a better partner for this journey and anyone that I could have more fun with on the way. I’m truly blessed that we have found a way to journey together through the ups and downs and joys and trials, that has only has drawn us closer together and fall ever-more deeply in love.

We talked the other night how different our lives might have been if we’d not found each other. Thirty-three years of married life has brought us together in a partnership we’d never have imagined. We continue to discover new things about the other and enjoy God’s unfolding purpose in our lives. We’ve never loved each other more and we’re having more fun sharing this journey than we could have imagined. Yes, we have our difficult moments both in life and in our growing relationship, but the wonderful times more than overwhelm them. After three decades of practicing what it means to love each other, we’re actually getting pretty good at it. At least we think we are. Maybe we’ll look back after fifty years and think how superficial our love was at thirty-three. That’s how it feels now looking back at what we thought was so incredible when we’d only been married five years.

We’re working on a book to share what God has taught us about engaging a lifetime partnership. We’re calling it ONLY AND ALWAYS: TURNING THE WONDER OF ROMANCE INTO A LIFE-LONG ADVENTURE. But don’t try to order it any time soon! We’ve got a lot of work to do!

I just wanted to re-introduce Sara to many of you so that you’ll know who she is when she picks up the phone or answers your email. She’s really good at what she does. I trust her with my life and all my joys. She’s always been faithful, always gracious, and always wise. Treat her well, will you?

Still hanging out in Wisconsin, headed for Duluth, Minnesota tomorrow. Having an awesome time with some wonderful folks on this journey.

I received an email the other day with some quotes in it from Barbara Brown Taylor who has written an autobiographical book called Leaving Church. She’s come from a very different tradition than I did—as clergy for the Episcopal Church. But she didn’t find it to be all that she expected it to be. Now I haven’t read her book yet, but I loved the quotes that were sent to me. I’m not sure how quickly I’ll get to read the book, but thought I’d share some of her insights with you.

The first quote is about people who get stuck in church meetings but never engage God as a personal reality:

“(For some) God was the boundless lover, but for many people God was the parent who had left. They still read about him in the Bible and sang about him in hymns. They still believed in his reality, which made it even harder to accept his apparent lack of interest in them. They waited for messages from him that did not arrive. They prepared their hearts for meetings that never happened. They listened to other Christians speak as if God showed up every night for supper, leaving them to wonder what they had done wrong to make God go off and start another family.” (Leaving Church, pp 74-75).

And then this from a collection of her sermons entitles, Home by Another Way.

“So if you want to know who today’s Pharisees are, here are some of the questions to ask. Who are the religious people who follow the traditions of the elders, and who – on the basis of that tradition – believe they can tell the true prophets from the false ones? Who are the guardians of the faith, the fully initiated, law-abiding, pledge-paying, creed-saying, theologically correct people who can spot a heretic a mile away?

According to John, these are the people to watch out for, because they think they can see. Furthermore, they think they can see better than other people, and they are not shy about telling you that you are not really seeing what you think you see, or that what you are seeing is wrong. They do not do this to be mean, either. They do this because they love God and maybe even because they love you too. They are doing it to protect you from believing the wrong things.”

My previous post on “Is The Shack Heresy?” has promoted the most comments (81) of any blog to date. It is the most read and has generated the most anger in some quarters. I said there that it does not bother me if people struggle with some of the theology in The Shack. It was meant to be provocative and to get people to think outside of the religious conditioning that has distorted the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our day. I have a very close friend that thinks God should not be characterized in human terms in a novel. I respect his view and love him deeply, this disagreement notwithstanding.

But I have also received letters and comments from people that are vitriolic, making false accusations and bleeding with rage. I’m surprised that people take the time to get so worked up over a book they don’t like, especially one that is helping people reconnect with the love of the Father through the work of Jesus. There are millions of books out there that I disagree with, some of them theological in nature, but I’ve never felt the need to write the author or publisher or cast aspersions on their motives. I find it amazing that this book can at the same moment connect broken people to God in the deepest part of their souls, and enrage others who feel we didn’t cross all the theological t’s or dot all the doctrinal i’s.

Someone sent me a link to a blog called The Thin Edge that has made this comment about the controversy that has raged over this book, especially the personna of Papa in the early part of the story:

Those who miss the amazing story of The Shack by theological nitpicking are like those who try to fit every aspect of a biblical parable into their systematic theology textbook. They will never make all the pieces fit together. It seems to me that the predominantly white male critics of The Shack—especially those with Reformed theology running through their veins—may owe Paul Young an apology and the rest of us…well, we’re just really thankful for a literary portrait of the God who crawls into our deepest sadness and brings us through the darkest night from brokenness to wholeness once again.

I don’t know about needing an apology, but I resonate with his point.

We are happy to announce the release of Wayne’s video on Sharing In the Father’s Affection in full-screen DVD. This video has been available on the Lifestream site for some time, but we’ve had many requests for a DVD of this video to be shown in personal and group settings in full resolution. The video is $13.00 and may be used for personal or group showings. You may view the video here, and you may order the DVD here.

Canadian residents can order the video directly through Crown Video.

Also, tomorrow I leave for a ten-day trip through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Find out more on our Travel Page. It’s hard to believe we’re in the waning days of summer. It has flown by here!