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As many of you know, Sara and I moved three months ago into a new neighborhood. We also like connecting with our neighbors so that we can share community life with them. Our old neighborhood made that very easy. The houses were situated so that the living areas were in front and we got to know most of our neighbors quickly. That has not been true here.

All the homes on our current street are situated toward the back yards. We do not even have a window that faces the front yard from downstairs. Most people come home from work, pull into their garages and roll down the doors and you never see them again. That combined with my travel has made it difficult to get to know our neighbors other than the one couple who lives next door.

Lately, I’ve been praying about God making connections with our neighbors. I know the longer you live somewhere the more awkward it is to meet people for the first time. Yesterday afternoon I got some of the answers to that. While watching football with my family, we had a couple of pieces of furniture out on the driveway that we wanted to sell. One of our neighbors came by to buy one of the items so I helped move it into his home and that opened a door to get to know that family. I found out one of the renters there wanted the couch we had for sale, but couldn’t afford it. We ended up giving it to her.

Also a single grad student from next door accidentally locked herself out of her house with her keys and cell phone inside. She came over to use our phone. Unable to reach her roommates, she was going to walk a couple of miles to where one of her roommates was working. Sara offered to drive her but unfortunately no one was there. She came back and we told her she was welcome to hang out with us until one of her roommates returned. She stayed almost four hours with us, watching football and enjoying our hospitality. We got to know her really well.

I don’t know what kinds of doors these encounters will open, but I’m just really blessed that in the normal course of a relaxed Sunday God would open doors to two of the households on our street. All it took from us was a willingness to get involved, do what we can to help others, and extend some graciousness along the way. There’s no telling where those relationships might go or how else God might open doors on this street. More to come, I hope!

Have I got a story for you!

For those of you who haven’t visited our sister website at The God Journey and listen in to one of our podcasts, now is an excellent time to check it out. If you have been a regular, you won’t want to miss this one. This is one of the most compelling stories I’ve run into on this journey.

Meet Stefan Vosloo and through him some wonderful brothers and sisters in South Africa. He was a pastor of a growing Vineyard church in Ladysmith before the hunger of that congregation for real relationship with God sent them on an amazing journey. God began to touch five things in their life together to move them from an old covenant religion to New Testament reality: priest, Sabbath, temple, sacrifice and tithing. His work in them and their response to him forever changed their life together. Wayne shares with Brad an interview he did with Stefan during his trip to South Africa last month. The process they went through and the life they have found in him together will encourage your own journey. Just click on the ‘podcast’ button below to stream it.

I often get emails from people asking me to help connect them with brothers and sisters in their area who might be walking a similar journey. I love to do that whenever I can, and in fact find it one of the greatest joys of my travel—to see Father link up people who didn’t even know the others existed. But unfortunately I don’t always know people in a given area to recommend and it is good to remember at times like that, that placing people in the family is not my job or yours—it belongs to the Holy Spirit according to I Cor 12. That’s a job he’s very good at.

On that note, I came across a quote by CS Lewis this morning that is worth some contemplation: He wrote about how religion distorts things:

Of course, the ‘first thing’ he is talking about is our relationship with God and the ‘second things’ are any other good thing we desire. As I read that I thought of an email exchange I had in the last few days that illustrates this. A young woman from Cincinnati wrote me a few days ago:

My response to her: “I wish I did. You sound like a wonderful person on a great, though sometimes-painful journey. Unfortunately I don’t know of any believers gathering this way in the Cincinnati area, but I have no doubt God does. And he will connect you to them when all is ready. Until then, I applaud your attempts to look however you can, ask questions, seek out referrals. But in the end, how God connects you and when he does will be more up to his plans than your wants. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Someday you may just hear some folks talking about Jesus in a way that captures your heart. Then find out what they’re about…

“Until then, just enjoy him and let him refresh you as his daughter… I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

Then I got this back from her last night:

Don’t you just love her response? If we put first things first—our living in Him, he will take care of second things, which is how we fit in his body wherever we live. Until we get that order right we will continue to search and search for just the right group of people and always find ourselves disappointed. But when we put our relationship with him first then no matter who he asks us to walk alongside at any given time, we’ll be incredibly blessed!

I’m finishing up my weekend with some believers in and around the Kalispell, Montana area. This area is awesomely gorgeous, though it has rained three of my four days here. On the Friday, however, I got to go for a hike on a mountain above Flathead Lake with some old friends from the YWAM base near here. What a beautiful hike and we fouind a rock at the top fo the hill where we could look almost 300 degrees around at the lake and mountains and the landscape was as awe-inspiring as any I’ve seen. I love the mountains and forests, so this is like heaven to me.

I arrived here not ever having met the folks that invited me. We had corresponded a bit on the ‘net, but that was all. But in the plans to come up here, many others emailed me to find out where I was going to be and expressed surprise that there were others in the Flathead Valley thinking outside the box. God is definitely stirring a large number of people in this area and freeing them from religious boxes that have distracted them from knowing him.

What a weekend! We did nonstop yakking from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening sharing this incredible journey, affirming the things God’s been teaching his people and celebrating our unity in Christ. A couple of things really stand out from the time this weekend.

First, Father has already been speaking into our hearts the things he wants us to know. For many people here the things I shared weren’t brand new to them, but there were many ‘Ah! Hah!” moments where people recognized that the voice that had been whispering similar things to them all along, but they hadn’t really thought it was God’s voice because it ran so counter to the religious things they’d been taught all their lives. That is so fun! What God is doing to draw people to himself today is a work of the Spirit in the hearts of those who long for him, it is not a movement initiated or controlled by any author, speaker or organization. Leaving people freer to follow the Shepherd’s voice is the greatest joy of doing what I do.

Second, God is preparing people all around us to live more fully in his life. We may not know them yet, or know what God is doing in them, but it is easy to see how easy it would be for God to connect a few dots and we would see how incredibly whole and healthy his family is in the world. When people get together who are on the journey of knowing God more deeply and being transformed in his image, fellowship is so easy and so inspiring. I love the connections that happen in an area simply because people who’ve found their way to my website, get to meet others who live near them who hunger for similar things. Many who thought they were all alone in their passions, find they are not and that there are others around them with whom they can connect.

And as I was finishing this, Eugene Peterson returned my phone call of yesterday. He lives near here and we had met years ago at a small writer’s retreat that Leadership Journal hosted near Chicago. There were only a dozen of us that got to know each other over four days. Even so, I was shocked he remembered me. I just wanted to bless him and tell him how much I have appreciated his translation of the Scriptures and his other writings. Even though we are a few miles apart in how we view the Church, we are kindred spirits in the Father we love and the journey we have walked to live in him more deeply. He’s as genuine a human being as I have ever met and it was icing on the cake to have a chance to reconnect with him today.

I’ve got a few more folks to visit with today and then have a late afternoon departure to head home. I get in pretty late tonight, but there is nothing like the trip home! I always love getting home to Sara and those crazy pups of ours!

A friend from South Africa just sent me this and I thought many of you would enjoy it too. It is an extract of an article in response to Christianity Today of August 2002:

Though most of you know I hate the word models when used of life in Father’s family, I think he gets it mostly right here. Perhaps a better word would be that we’ll see new expressions of local church life as we listen to the Head not try to design a better a better mousetrap to stuff people into. In fact, those new expressions are already covering the world. I’ve seen many of them in places throughout the world. But they happen not where people are looking for a way to do ‘church’, but where they are seeking to live deeply in relationship to Jesus and finding ways to care for each other as a family. Their emphasis is not on meetings and starting some ‘thing’, but on following him as the source of all life an connecting with others as God gives opportunity. Then he will make clear how to share that life together in a way that stimulates each other spiritually and makes his life available to the world around us.

Our latest edition of The God Journeyentitled ’Out of the Church’ Christians? has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

A recent letter by New Zealander Andrew Strom has caused a bit of a stir by many who are thinking outside the box of organized religion. He addresses what he calls out-of-the-church Christians, which we think is a bit of an oxymoron. How can a Christian be outside the church? His observations and accusations provide a springboard to discuss life outside the box and give us each an opportunity to reflect on our own personal journey and how it is sorting out in our lives. Wayne and Brad examine this letter along with many who added their comments to our earlier blog.

I’m going to let you read over my shoulder again, this time through a recent email exchange over a couple of months with a couple in Canada. Their story represents what so many go through in this incredible process of moving outside the confines of religion and connecting again with the freshness of relationship with Jesus that they had before. They express so well the challenges and questions that many face in this process. They wanted their story to encourage others and when you see what their hearts hunger for at the end, I’m sure it will. I realize the choices God is asking you to make might be very different, but learning to follow him freely is critical to us growing in his life:

My response: No one who knows God and how he works would ever ask you NOT to follow your heart as you seek him. This man sounds like a real manipulator and has no power to hold you to a commitment you have since reconsidered. While we should never treat our word lightly, when we have made a commitment we realize to be in error, we are free to retract it and follow what God has put on your heart. Not taking a ministry position is like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend. It only takes one vote not two. If it is not on your heart, follow God wherever he leads you.

My response: You have to realize that most religious institutions are about fitting in and going along. That’s what gains approval. Conversely, people who don’t do what they are told are often ‘punished’ by distance and exclusion. People will accuse them of being independent and rebellious. That’s what makes environments like this so destructive. Friendships only work as long as people are committed to the same task. It is really very sad. And your pastor’s ‘devastation’ is just another tool to manipulate you, like a young child pouting when they don’t get their way. Don’t think you have to satiate that attitude.

My response: You’re right! Others may exclude you, but that might also change in the future. Sometimes the people, who most punish us for getting out, are secretly hoping we’ll find life and grace outside. It is likely they are miserable too, but feel they have to stay in there. Don’t feel you have to convince or prove anything to anyone. Just do quietly and gracefully what God has asked you to do, keeping your heart open to all, but never forcing yourself on them. In time you will come to know who your real friends are there, and what others God might bring into your life.

And the moral of the story is simple: Follow the Lamb wherever he leads you. If he asks you to stay where you are, stay! If he is calling you out to know him in a deeper way, then go. But do not do what you do to gain the approval of friends or those who think themselves leaders, which will only lead to confusion and emptiness. Jesus can be trusted! That’s the great truth religion must obscure. You need us! You must follow us! You will whither up and die without us. Not true. Jesus can be trusted. He can gather his flock and lead them to safe pasture. (Ezekiel 34).

Sara and I are reading through Hebrews again in our morning prayers before she heads off for work. Something we read this morning really caught my eye. As the writer opens chapter 9 he talks about the old covenant and the temple and how all the facets of that system were just a shadow of a greater reality. They were not reality itself. Then he writes (and I quote from The Message:

My heart breaks for the brothers and sisters who only know the Christian life as a series of rituals or a battle to live by certain ethics. That’s the old covenant cloaking itself in new covenant terms. This life in Christ is so much better than fulfilling obligations and trying to live by the rules. It is an invitation into a relationship with him that shapes every day that we live and our lives to look like him in the world. Why would we settle for anything less?

Having just returned from six days in Washington State, I saw this contrast in so many places—people living in the reality of relationship and people living in the shadow of rituals and behavior. And this was a strange trip for me stateside. The first three days I spent with a leadership team of a seeker-sensitive congregation. This is not a usual venue for me, but I met some incredible people who are seeing beyond the programs to hunger for a full and free life in Jesus, both with him and in relationships to others. I talked about barriers to authentic relationships both with God and with each other. One man came up to me afterward and said, “I know I don’t look like it, but I feel 40 lbs lighter after this weekend.”

Then I spent the last three days with people who are living outside traditional congregational structures. Some were thriving in the freedom of this life in Christ, while others were just beginning to see the freedom beyond the religious bondage they have been captive to for so many years. (We even had a few who were still well embedded into religious ways of thinking and so filled with ambition and agenda that it was tough having a normal conversation with them. Hopefully we planted some seeds there too!)

I was even asked questions like “Is it OK to mow the lawn on the Sabbath?” (Absolutely as long as your conscience is free to! In the New Covenant the Sabbath is a life of rest in Father from our own labors, and the freedom to walk in his, rather than a day for rule-keeping!) And, “If I don’t submit to what my pastor is saying, am I stretching out my hand against God’s anointed?” (Absolutely not! The New Testament could never have conceived of a pastor-person like we have today as the center of body life. Nor did they affirm anyone who would ask people to violate their conscience in deference to their supposed leadership. Leaders help people follow Jesus, not stand in their way as they do it.)

The freshness of hunger and meeting more of those willing to take great risks to pursue the call to life that God has put within them always inspires me. On the last night I got to check in with some folks I’ve met before and to see how some of them have grown in greater freedom, evident even on their countenances, was also a real joy. You could literally see the life of Jesus that had liberated them. That’s the joy of this covenant. Rituals and behaviors are a cheap substitute indeed for the life that really is life!

Who cannot help but be touched by the incredible human tragedy unfolding in Mississippi and Louisiana? I was on the road when this all unfolded and have watched in grief since my return at the desperation of human need, the inability to get aid to the survivors. What a mess! I hope many of you who have some extra are finding ways to share the burden of those people. The Red Cross is of course a great place to give to deal with the practical needs of food, water, shelter and medical care.

Someone I know also recommended Mennonite Disaster Service. You can donate on-line and here’s what they said about these people as they arrived to help after Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida a few years ago:

May God make himself known in incredible ways in the face of such horrible tragedy. May he sustain those who suffer in the aftermath of this hurricane and give wisdom and courage to all those who are able to help in this time.

I got an email this weekend while I was traveling about Washington State from Adam, a 22-year-old who works with a campus ministry in Kentucky. I can’t tell you how much his words refreshed me personally and encouraged me to give my life afresh to what God has asked me to do. I hope you don’t mind me sharing it with you:

It amazes me how much strength and joy we can draw from a simple word of encouragement. Maybe that’s why the author of Hebrews told us to look for ways to encourage one another daily. Is there someone in your life who has had a profound impact on your own journey? Have you taken the time recently to tell them how much they have meant to you? You’ll never know how much they might gain from your simple words of affirmation from you. Why don’t you take some time and give them a call or write them an email today and let them know how Jesus has used them to touch and encourage you?