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Early Reviews for Beyond Sundays

2 Comments / Beyond Sundays /

As I prepare to leave for Phoenix this weekend, I also found out a podcast aired today that I appeared on for Reports from the Spiritual Frontier.  Love that name, by the way. It’s an extensive interview on my journey and the passion behind Beyond Sundays.

I’ve been deeply touched by the conversations I’ve had with many about this new book, and the comments others have been making about the book and how it is touching their hearts.  I am grateful to those who have written to share their thoughts.  Here’s a sampling:

From Lisa in South Carolina:

I just finished Beyond Sundays.  God touched my heart so many times while reading it, bringing to mind times from the very beginning of my Christian walk that He brought people into my life and the relationships ran deep almost immediately and still do to this day!  Then He brought to mind those that He brought along side of us through our college days, preparing for full time ministry and we were blessed with deep friendships again that have remained. And when my husband got his first position as pastor, we were blessed to gain more deep relationships and quite a few of them felt the urge to walkway from organized religion when we did. Those friendships are still vibrant today. As I finished reading this book, I thought how blessed we have been to have been living relationally with others all along, it made the transition to the freedom He has given us easier than others have had who that felt that hunger for more and only had surface level relationships to draw from for support. Thank you for putting the heart God gives you down in print to encourage the faithful and to explain His pull on our heartstrings to those who don’t understand but are curious enough to read!!

Diana on Facebook:

I truly believe this is your best work. This book spoke to my heart in a very special way. It confirmed things I’d been thinking. You spoke the truth in a clear, simple, yet elegant way, not only about the church at large, but about walking in the Spirit and in the Kingdom. I encourage everyone to read this book. (I have ordered a case to share as God leads).

Amy on my blog:

I can’t put this book down! I read the first 8 chapter the first night! It’s such a great summary of what the Holy Spirit was beginning to show me over the past few years. Jesus used this book to stir up a fresh Love for people in my soul. Time well spent for sure!

Jeremy on Amazon.com:

In light of the ground-breaking and church-altering study by Packard and Hope in their book about the so-called (but poorly named) “Dones,” Wayne Jacobsen’s book encourages these “Dones” to continue following Jesus outside the four walls of institutional Christianity.

While many are using the research and ideas in “Church Refugees” to change the way Sunday morning church is done so that the “Dones” might come back and start attending again, Wayne Jacobsen praises the “Dones” for leaving so that they might better follow Jesus, love others, and live in a daily relationship with God and others, as we were called to do.

Note very carefully that Wayne is NOT saying that the “Dones” are right and everyone who stays in the Sunday morning church service is wrong. He is saying that both can be right, and both should celebrate and rejoice the choices of the others to follow Jesus. He wants both groups to stop looking down their noses at each other and judging one another.

Toward this end, Wayne addresses many of the issues and concerns that people have about no longer attending the Sunday church service, and ultimately encourages people to follow Jesus and loves others within their relationships, whether this is in a pew on Sunday morning, or by hanging out with friends during the week.

If you are a “Done,” or feel that Jesus is leading you to something more than just the Sunday morning church service … read this book.

If you still enjoy and benefit from the Sunday morning service, but wonder why others are leaving, it is also important that you read this book. It will help you understand that they are not leaving the church, nor are they abandoning Jesus.

Oh, and by the way… one of the things I loved MOST about the book was the long list of Endorsements at the front … none of which were best-selling authors, mega-church pastors, or popular bloggers and podcasters. I assume they are all “Dones.”

You can find out how to order Beyond Sundays here, in print or e-book.

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Look What Arrived Today!

3 Comments / Beyond Sundays /

They’re here and we’ll begin shipping tomorrow. Beyond Sundays arrived from the printer’s today and it’s always a fun day to open the boxes and look at stacks and stacks of books that I’ve been working on for two years.  However, our day took an unforeseeable turn. We are caring for my daughter’s three children since she is in Mexico at a business conference with her husband. Sara dropped two of the kids off at school and wasn’t five minutes away when she got a call that Lindsay, the ten-year-old, had fallen from the monkey bars and broken her arm. Sara returned to get her and take her to emergency. I joined her there for most of the middle part of the day.  The things that happen when the parents are gone….   But she’s home now and doing very well.

Anyway, so we were able to get the books unpacked and ready to ship. So pre-orders will go out in the next day or so, well in advance of our release date.  I hope you find it inspiring and helpful.  Also, I noticed that Amazon and Barnes and Noble already have the e-books out, so you can order from those two. They should be up on other e-book sites as well.

Unfortunately, Lifestream is publishing this book so we don’t have access to bookstores here or overseas. If you want the printed version you will either need to get it from us or  Amazon, or take advantage of your favorite e-book outlet. I realize Amazon will not have it available in all countries and that shipping books overseas is incredibly expensive. We have had some changes to our shipping calculator that should be a more accurate representation of the cost.  We do not charge extra for postage and charge only what we are charged. That can still be expensive from overseas, but remember we can usually ship up to four books for the same price as shipping one.  When in doubt, always email our office first and get a quote for international destinations, rather than trusting the calculator. We can usually advise on the best quantity to order and give you the exact cost of shipping.  As always, if you send us more than we need for shipping we will refund any extra.

And if you enjoy the book, please blog about it, comment in social media, or recommend it to your friends. It would be nice to get a conversation going that transcends our fixation with Sunday mornings and focuses instead on the life and love of Jesus growing in us and others. Let’s celebrate the great diversity of the body rather than get caught up in a tribalism that undermines his work in the world.

 

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Beyond Sundays Releases This Week

6 Comments / Behind the Scenes /

As I’m finishing up in North Carolina and prepare to head home tomorrow, we have just heard that we will have copies of Beyond Sundays in hand by this Wednesday. We will begin shipping pre-orders as soon as we get them.  If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy yet, you can still do so in the next few days and get our $2.00 pre-publication discount. Just order as many copies as you want here.  The e-book should follow later this week. We’ll post the links when its available at all your favorite e-book outlets.

It is my hope that this book helps the body of Christ be less tribal and open to all the ways that God moves in people and the variety of expressions by which his church takes shape in the world. If we cared more about whether or not someone is finding their life in Jesus rather than where they are (or aren’t) at 10:00 Sunday morning we’d be free to celebrate what God is doing to unify his bride, rather than judging each other for our differences.

Friday morning I did my first extensive interview about Beyond Sundays on the Vince Coakley show on WBT Charlotte. That’s Vince and I above sharing a meal together afterwards. He did a great job getting to the heart of the book. If you missed that interview you can listen to it here:

On another note, I’ve had the most amazing time the last two weeks traveling to Jacksonville, FL and then up through North Carolina from Raleigh to Charlotte. One of the real themes of this trip is the number of people I’ve met, of all ages, who are standing just on the cusp of a new journey outside of religious obligation and  performance and discovering what it means to live in the affection of a gracious Father. Yes, it is disorienting and it may well drive your friends and family crazy, but you were created to know the Father, not to try to impress him with how good you can be.

Living in his love is not the reward of a life well-lived, but the starting gate for the adventure of a lifetime where love slowly but surely wins us into his reality, life, and freedom. And it’s yours for the asking.  Asking him, of course, not me!

 

 

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A Conversation We Desperately Need

12 Comments / Behind the Scenes /

We are in the final stages of publishing Beyond Sundays, and have set the release date as February 8, 2018. This is my newest title, adapted from a series of blog articles about the phenomenon of the “Dones”, those who have given up on institutional Christianity not to forsake the way of Jesus, but in hopes of finding a more vital and authentic faith beyond it.

What are we to make of this trend and how will it impact Christianity in the Western world? Some view it as threatening its future, while others see hope in re-centering the faith once delivered to the saints. Unfortunately there is much animosity and simplistic judgments between these groups that only fractures the bride he loves so much. Literally for Christ’s sake, we need to find a way to converse about these things in love and in a way that recognizes all the ways God is at work in our world.

This book is an appeal for the all those who seek to follow Christ to be less focused on on where others are or aren’t on Sunday morning at 10:00 and more aware of what it is to engage a vital relationship with God, and to share his love freely with others.

The book is 176 pages long and we will print copies in paperback for $11.99 and in e-book for $5.99. However, you can get our pre-order special for only $10.00.  Please be advised that if you order other products from Lifestream in the same order, all products will ship together when this book is available. If you want them sooner, please order those other products separately.

If you’d like a review copy for an article you want to write about it, please contact me for a free review copy.

We hope to have copies on hand during the first week of February and will ship them just as soon as we get them in hand. An e-book will also be available through all major outlets around the same time. We will announce that in the blog when they are ready.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Preface

In the last few decades, sixty-five million Americans who once regularly attended a local congregation no longer do. About thirty-five million of those no longer self-identify as Christian, but over thirty-one million still do. This last group has been tagged “The Dones”: those who still seek to follow Jesus and find real community, but who have given up hope that the local congregation is still relevant to their journey.

What do we make of this phenomenon? Does it threaten the future of God’s work in our world, or does it create new opportunities for God to make himself known, even if it challenges our hopes or preconceptions?

I have spent my life in both places. I grew up in a traditional congregation and pastored in two of them for over twenty years. For the past twenty-three, however, I’ve spent more time outside with those who no longer participate in a Sunday (or Saturday) morning institution. I see the animosity between the two camps, and I yearn for the day when we can have a healing dialog consistent with the prayer of Jesus that we would all be one. Nothing, he said, would demonstrate his reality better to the world than the love his people share together.

It’s a conversation we desperately need, and not just between various factions of Christianity. I hope this book can seed that conversation between friends and families in communities throughout the world. Whether you attend a local church or whether you don’t, responding to this phenomenon will have repercussions for generations to come. We can continue to treat each other with suspicion and judgment that further fracture our Father’s family, or we can celebrate all the ways he works to bring people to himself and transform them in his love.

Additionally, I hope this book encourages those who have lost their mooring in institutional Christianity and yet still hunger for a relationship with God and real community with others. The failures of organized religion do not discount God’s reality or your opportunity to get to know him. I want to help you navigate a life of growing faith and impact in the world beyond the institutional borders that may have harmed you.

This is a propitious moment in Christian history, and all the more so as the world darkens around us. May we all respond in a way that allows the glory of the Lord to arise out of the love of his people, and by doing so, proclaim to the world that our God is real and worthy to be followed.

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A Jake around Every Corner?

8 Comments / Church Life /

Sometimes, somewhere beyond the cosmos, our Father must look over at Jesus and with a big smile on his face say, “Watch this…”

This might be one of those times.

I’ve had an email correspondence over the last few days with a woman in Australia that has brought more than a few smiles to my heart. I love how the Spirit works, especially when we’re a bit clueless to what he is doing. This is the story she shared with me, pieced together from a few emails.  I love how the Spirit just keeps knitting his family together even in very unexpected ways.

I first bought your book So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore for my eldest son of six children when he was not wanting to go to church as a late teenager. I gave it to him to encourage him back into the fold, without actually even looking through the book to see what it was about.

He read it and said “Mum, did you even read this book? I don’t think it says what you thought it might say.”

So, I read it for myself, and laughed, and thought you were a bit misled. Fast forward a few years and I was in a totally different place in my relationship with God and re-read it after some friends had just read it and loved it. Then I “got” it. My youngest three (by now teenagers) were not wanting to go to church anymore as well.

For a whole bunch of reasons, including considering my children – we left the institution ourselves. I said to the pastor at the time “I fear for my children if I stay and I fear for my children if I go” My fear was that if I stayed, they would just think this is what Christianity looked like and eventually reject it altogether as too boring.  I knew there was so much more. My fear in leaving was the unknown, and the worry that we were making a big mistake that would have consequences in my children’s lives. They were being homeschooled and church was a source of socialisation. But it was a lonely place for them even in the midst of church  and for me too) as there were really no other young people there for friendship anyway. It certainly has been an interesting journey and this is by far the short version. It has not been a mistake.

In May last year, my husband and I were taking a trip with some friends to the centre of Australia and had to take a huge detour because of floods. This meant we called in on some acquaintances who run an art gallery and they sent us on our way with CDs of your Transitions teaching. My, the lengths God goes to sometimes! My husband doesn’t normally listen to CD’s but because we were travelling long distances, he had nothing better to do. The teaching really spoke to him in a life changing way. I keep listening to them over and over – so much good stuff in there and I just want to absorb it all into my spirit. I have since passed them on to someone else.

I would never have imagined myself in the place I am in now. I have grown up going to church every week and we have always been very involved and busy with the various programs. But that was another aspect of  us leaving – in many ways I felt like I had hidden myself from the world in the church. I was so busy with the church, I didn’t have time or energy to invest anywhere else. I gradually got myself out of all the rosters and then joined the local soccer club committee as my children have all played over the last 20 years, and my youngest son still plays. I considered that I had spent so many years serving God in the church, now I was serving Him outside of the church and it gave me an opportunity to get to know and  love some other people in the community. A friend once asked me, who gets to benefit from your gifting if you are in church?  Interestingly, I feel like I’m actually using my spiritual gifts as the secretary there.

We attended a wedding last weekend and a friend of the bride was asked to share a short address during the wedding. As I listened to him speak about the most important thing the bride and groom, and all of us, need is to know how loved we are by our Father God and to then just love others. I recognised a fellow pilgrim on the journey. I had never met this man before but my husband and I were able to sit with him and his wife during the reception. I began to sus him out and when he confessed that he”actually doesn’t attend church anymore”, I said ‘welcome to the club”. When I asked him for his story, he just said “Well, you know Jake don’t you?”  Indeed I do!

My husband said later, “We just keep running into these people…”  God is definitely up to something!

The journey continues but thank you so much for allowing God to take you on the journey and then share it with others.

Do you hear the click of his knitting needles as the Spirit brings Jesus’ church together in the world?

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Jake Colsen Rides Again

1 Comment / Behind the Scenes /

I love how this book finds its way to people when they seem to need it most. What started as a fun project between two friends to try to tell a story of someone learning to live loved on a website, became a book that has sold way beyond my expectations. In addition, the free version has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. I never realized how much

Just this past week, I received two emails from people who have recently been touched by this story. First, from a brother in Canada:

I just finished reading the book for the SECOND time! I have read some of your other material and I listened to the Transition series,but up until recently I had been unable to download this book for some reason  (I think it was God’s timing, personally).
We have been in formal church settings for many years until recently. I had become increasingly frustrated with the lack of  opportunity in most Christian meeting to really have any kind of meaningful connections with other believers. It seemed easier in the local restaurants and coffee  shops to connect with people. Although I really love worshipping God with much of the current  worhip music, I found that the  tendencies of ‘worship leaders’ in local assemblies to try  to manipulate how people respond to God in the times of corporate praise was a huge distraction to my connection with God and often irritating.
We are now one of the ‘Dones’. I do meet with other believers often and have great time of fellowship. I just wanted to tell you a bit about myself and also to express my appreciation for this book. My eyes were opened to many things and already I can see God working in my heart in new desires of how I can walk relationally with people instead of religiously. I also took to heart the wisdom of not trying to ‘convert’ people to these new ideas if they are not ready to hear them!
You are a great blessing to the body of Christ. Thank you for all the material you have made available.
And this from a sister in Montana:

I just wanted to tell you how deeply I was moved by your book So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore: An Unexpected Journey. I had been talking with a friend who is also Christian, but he and his wife no longer attend church services. I was bemoaning to a friend some of the struggles in our church and my agony over the decision of whether to drop my membership. My friend is always very tuned into what Father places in his heart, and he immediately told me to get a pen and write down your name and the title of this book. I ordered the book that afternoon.

From the very beginning I was so captivated that I couldn’t put it down. It answered a question I had long pondered: Why do we need pastors to interpret the Bible for us? Why do we need others teaching us what to think and believe? Isn’t the Bible alone adequate to instruct us? Churches, I had observed, often become clubs with cliques, to varying degrees, with people chasing the desire for popularity or bowing under the weight of guilt and obligation. This book set free the lifelong belief instilled in me of the necessity of attending church every Sunday in order to prove my faithfulness as a disciple of God. I love the idea of Father simply wanting a relationship with us. That is so liberating!

Your book validated feelings I already had, opened my eyes to new thoughts I hadn’t before considered, and did a beautiful job of modeling what genuine Christian fellowship looks like. My only disappointment in it was that John (whom, I’m certain, ALL readers love) moved to Africa. I cried at this ending! I so wanted him to continue teaching us in another book. Any chance of a sequel??

I have ordered two more of your books and will begin reading them soon. Thank you for the blessing you’ve bestowed on humanity by sharing your unique spiritual insight and keen writing. Please keep up this holy work!

Writing is the hardest thing I do these days. As much as I love it when I get the chance, so many other things encroach on my time to write. I currently have a number of projects I’m trying to complete, and encouragement like this always helps me clear the time to keep writing. I spent most of the day Tuesday with a friend that has an amazing idea for a book that taps some of my BridgeBuilders passion from years ago.  That’s all I needed was another project to add to the six others I’m working on.  God will definitely have to sort out what gets done and what doesn’t.

And for those interested in the Jake Movie, we are still seeking the best way to fund that.  A lot of connections keep happening that encourage us to press forward, so we’re hopeful, but as yet far from the finish line. I’m content to leave this in Father’s hands. If he wants us to do it, he’ll have a way to fund it.

 

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What a Way to Begin!

6 Comments / Intimacy /

Last Friday afternoon I got the chance to baptize my granddaughter.  She’s just turning thirteen and this was her choice something she’s been talking about for the past few months. Just before I left for Europe she asked me if I would baptize her when I got back.  Would I?  My heart melted.

When I asked her why, she said, “I want to follow Jesus with all my heart.”  I don’t do much baptizing these days, never did actually. Even back in the day when I was a pastor we always encouraged the one being baptized to ask the person that was most influential in his or her decision to follow Jesus, or one who has been most helpful on the early parts of their journey, to baptize them.

It was great!  Even though that scared a lot of people to be asked we would always walk them through it and then they were thrilled to be a part of it. Lots of people experienced the joy of getting to baptize someone into this awesome journey. Many parents baptized their kids, and we never made a “service” out of it.  We’d start with the baptism and what it meant and finish up with celebrating the Lord’s supper together. They were always parties on the lake, by a stream, or in a backyard pool. Friends and family would celebrate together and often share a meal after.

I hear a lot of people out-of-the-box people diss baptism as an old relic from a bygone era. They see it as an empty ritual and argue whether or not it is essential for salvation, since it isn’t a normal part of our culture. After all, the thief on the cross wasn’t baptized, they’ll say.  I wouldn’t argue that baptism is essential, but I do think the Scriptures make clear it is preferable.  Jesus set the example with his own and we know his followers we’re also baptized. The early church saw baptism as the means of entry into the kingdom of God, which is why the Ethiopian eunuch wanted Philip to baptize him immediately in Acts 8.

This is how it played out after Pentecost:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acs 2: 37-42)

I don’t see baptism as a ritual, even though many seem to practice it that way. And even though some have abandoned it altogether for a “sinner’s prayer” and a get-out-of-hell free card, I see salvation not as the resolution of our destiny but as a door into an ever-deepening relationship with the Father through the work of the Son, by the power of the Spirit.  As such baptism becomes a powerful event in yielding to the work of Jesus and being resurrected into a new adventure in his glory. (See Romans 6:1-14)

When the heart is convicted and people want to know him, Peter says we first repent, which means to abandon our agenda for our lives and embrace him and his agenda for us. Then he said be baptized “for the forgiveness of sins”. Does that mean sins aren’t forgiven without baptism? Of course not. But baptism is a cleansing of heart and soul, a washing away of the old life and opens the door to a new one.

Then, Peter says, you will receive the baptism of the Spirit. So there are two things going on here. First, a baptism of water to demonstrate on the outside the transition going on inside. Then, there is baptism of the Spirt, where we are connected to him and empowered to go on a different kind of journey learning how to know him and to follow him. So after baptizing someone one we always lay on hands and pray for the baptism of the Spirit, which will make them alive to his reality.

Will it make them perfect?  Not even close. It’s the beginning of a journey, not the end of one.

Sharing that moment this weekend with my granddaughter was one of the most treasured memories of my life. Seeing her young faith and desire to follow Jesus touched me deeply and praying for the Spirit to fill her heart and guide her journey reminded me just how amazing this moment is.

If you’ve never been baptized, do it!  Find someone influential in your journey and ask them to do it with you. Invite some friends over.  You may feel a bit weird, especially if you’ve been a “believer” for awhile, but don’t leave out what this process does to mark the transition from the kingdom of darkness to the. kingdom of light. Don’t do it out of condemnation or fear, but when you know Jesus is the one you want to follow, remember this is how he began his journey, too. And ask him to baptize you with his Spirit as you do.

When Jesus was baptized, a voice from heaven spoke, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” I always look for a dove and listen for a voice at baptism. I think Jesus got it that way because God needed people around him to know. But I do think God whispers the same thing in our hearts as well.  Jesus wasn’t beloved and pleasing because he had maintained his perfection until 30. The words were not something he earned, but the expression of the heart of his Father for him as his Son.

Don’t we all need to start that way? I spent over 40 years of my life thinking that I had to earn my way to pleasing my Father. Now I know that he has always delighted in me, and been pleased with me as his son even when I’m lost in my own brokenness.  Brokenness doesn’t make you less loved, if anything it makes us even more endearing to his heart.

That’s what Aimee needed to know on Friday, “This is my daughter, whom I love, with her I am well pleased.”

That we are loved and pleasing to Father is what we need to know most at the start of our journey, not think we have to earn it by its end. That’s why baptism is so important, not because it fulfills something God needs, but because it fulfills something in us that we desperately need to make sense of our growing life in him.

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A Busy But Wonderful Season

6 Comments / Travelogue /

The last few weeks have been crazy for me and I’m hopelessly behind on everything.  I spent two weeks with the delightful couple above, Gert and Katia, who had it on their hearts for me to come to France and spend some time with their friends who are just seeing the French and Dutch versions of THE SHACK movie. They are native Belgians now living in the south of France. We had a 1200 mile odyssey as I arrived in the south of France and starting in Montpelier, we traveled together through Toulouse to Condom, north to Angers, stopped outside of Paris and finally arrived in Belgium for the end of our eleven-day trip. I went on to Holland for one day near The Hague with some friends before coming home Monday.

What a trip!  So many conversations with so many people about so many things!  Wow!  And when you travel like that, staying with people every night, there’s hardly any personal time for rest or reflection, or even trying to keep up with email. However, each day was so rewarding.  I have so many great memories of the people I spent time with, some I just met for the first time, others I’ve known from previous trips. It is always wonderful to return and see people growing in grace and love. I also had an encounter with a pastor who is not too fond of my books, or perhaps better said, how some in his family have responded to them. He said he wasn’t religious, but one of the the things religion does best is blind us to its tentacles shaping our lives. The next day we were with a young man who doesn’t know of God is real and in the midst of our talking, God’s love just overwhelmed his heart and with tears streaming down his face he got a taste of the reality he’s been seeking.

In addition, I got to stay in an old farm house (since remodeled) in the countryside of France that had been a winery, got to walk along the Angers river and talk about healing, and spent time contemplating the horrors of The Great War (World War I) in the battlefields of Belgium where cemeteries dot the countryside where the lives of 18 and 19 year old young men were cut short.  All that was so moving. We were also in the field where the poem In Flanders Fields was written. I remember it from high school. Such a moving tribute to those who lost their lives and forever connected poppies and veterans.  You can see some of my pictures below.

Then we had a showing of THE SHACK in Dutch at a congregation near Iepers and then a full day after processing some of the themes behind the theology of that story with people who were touched by it and others who had concerns about it.

Today I’m about to take a walk with Sara, my dad, our children (Andy is visiting this week from his new home in Denver), or grandchildren, and of course, the hounds! My dad is visiting this Veteran Day weekend. He is our favorite veteran. He was wounded in France in World War II.  He’s visiting for a few days along with our son who has arrived from Denver. I am also celebrating my good health on the first anniversary of my open-heart surgery. I’m so grateful for what medical science can do and am back to full form. Also, Sara continues her recovery and now walks pain-free and has a newfound hope that she will get her life back.  I’m so happy for her!

And between coming back from Europe and these festivities, I left for two days of a golf outing with old friends, who do this every year. We played 54 holes of golf in two days with some stiff competition. A lot of fun, but not so easy to leave Sara so soon and to fight the jet lag as well as the golf, but we had a great time.

So the weekend is full, including baptizing my granddaughter later today, a big family birthday party for our November birthdays, and then Monday I’m taking my dad back home to Central California and have a board meeting for Lifestream in Visalia.  So things will keep backing up until Tuesday.  These are all special days, however, and I wouldn’t miss any of it for anything.

And, yes, I know most of life isn’t lived here. Believe me Sara and I have our dark and challenging days in this broken world, which makes me appreciate seasons like this all the more. We are grateful that God is with us all the time–whether in joy or pain and learning to lean into him is the greatest joy of all. I hope you are learning that as well.

Here are some pictures from my time in Europe:

Azille, where Gert and Katia live, a small village set amidst the vineyards. Some great morning walks here through the vineyards. So lovely! I spent four nights here.

A conversation in Azille

The farmhouse with a winery in the garage in Condom, France

Dinner and dialog near Angers

Iepers, Belgium near the gate where they have been playing Taps every night since the mid 1920s at 8:00 pm to memorialize those who died in The Great War

One of the cemeteries in Belgium

World famous hotel on the beach outside of The Hague in Holland.  No I didn’t stay there.

All in all these last weeks have been exhilarating and exhausting, warmly refreshing and incredibly challenging–all of it filled with joy and wonder. My heart is overwhelmed in gratitude for all that God is and how he takes shape in our lives.

A Busy But Wonderful Season Read More »

Three Years of FINDING CHURCH

3 Comments / Finding Church /

Three years ago this month, we released Finding Church: What If There Really Is Something More? I love the way it has spread out into the world and touched so many lives, encouraging them to discover the church Jesus is building in the world. To celebrate we will be making the print version of this book available for $8.99 for the month of November at the Lifestream Store. You can also find it in e-book at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, or my reading it in audio at Audibles.com and iTunes.

If you haven’t had the chance to read it, or have but would like a refresher, here are some of the quotes that capture the themes of most chapters:

Jesus’ church is not a human creation. Rather, it is the fruit of the relationships of those who are part of a new creation—the redeemed race of humanity that relates to him as the head… It’s just that our conformity-based structures cannot produce the internal transformation necessary for the church to take shape among us.

Our way of organizing congregations in the twenty-first century has little in Scripture to commend it. We spend more time making the Scriptures fit our preconceived view of church, rather than deriving our understanding of church from the Scriptures themselves.

Our view of “church life” today has far more to do with institutional identity, meetings, rituals, ethics, and doctrines than demonstrating what a community of Godly love looks like. From that foundation, it is difficult to find our way into the reality of Christ’s church. Maybe he didn’t talk so much about the church because it was not the means to his end. What if he knew it was simply the fruit of his working and that it takes shape quite easily wherever people learn to follow him?

When that longing surfaces either as a hunger for something more real, or as a restlessness that something is wrong, it presents us with a critical moment of choice. Do I stick to the comfort of what I’ve always known or take the risk to follow my heart into a more undefined place? Unfortunately most people will encourage you to suppress your hunger. I’ve talked to hundreds of church leaders who have had similar moments of being pulled between what Scripture invited them to and what they have to do to keep their institutional position. Many have told me they would love to embrace a different reality but can’t figure out how to make it work. With sad and heavy eyes, they’ve turned to me, “I’ve decided just to make the best of what I already have.”

I did that, too, for way too many years, settling into a comfortable, though often lifeless, regimen and ignoring the deeper call of my heart. There were always enough breadcrumbs in the routine to give me enough hope that if we could just find the right alignment all would be well. For a long time I thought it was my fault, knowing how lazy I could be as well as the temptations and motivations that rumbled just beneath the surface. I kept trying harder to be a better person. As genuine as that may seem it always proved a side road back into the swamp of failed self-effort and frustration.

Can you imagine the kind of community that would be unleashed on the world if the people in it were more preoccupied with the realities of Jesus’ kingdom—faith, hope, and love—than they were with their own provision, significance, and power? It would be amazing but it is not something human effort can produce. Our response to the appetites of the flesh and our passion for his kingdom are more visceral. Healing does not come by knowing better and trying harder.

Those growing in a relationship with Jesus, however, don’t share the same angst. They realize the structures of this world cannot accomplish the work of the kingdom and that Jesus’ reality supersedes the things that are valued in this age. Trusting God for their resource, they don’t have to manipulate people for money. Resting in God’s acceptance of their lives, they don’t look for their validation by what others think or say. And, knowing that Jesus gets the last word on everything, they see no need to claim power over others.

This is his to win, not ours to find. I have been winning my granddaughter into my love for nine years now. I didn’t expect her to figure it out on her own or to trust me because I told her so. I convince her by how I treat her. It may be God’s greatest joy to win people into his affection, no less for you than a woman at a well, a greedy tax collector in a tree, or a terrified fisherman who had betrayed him. Love reaches out to the beloved and seeks to win them into a relationship. That’s what courtship is about and hopefully marriage, too. Every day presents more opportunity to win a heart, even if it takes a lifetime.

It may be what John referred to when he said, “We know and rely on the love God has for us.” (I John 4:16) Some translations draw out a deeper meaning: “We have come to know . . . ,” indicating a process. So often our confidence in his love is thwarted by our fears and doubts and circumstances we don’t understand. I love the picture of an older John rejoicing that at last he had “come to know” and “come to rely” on the love God had for him.

I am continually amazed at the places my growing confidence in Father’s love leads me. How great can it grow? I don’t know, but I look forward to each day to discover what new freedom overtakes me and how that leads to treating others differently. Three words help me recognize God’s gravity that replaces the pressures of the world: compassion, trust, and rest. As these emerge from our growing relationship with God, we’ll find it easier to cooperate with God’s working. They are the headwaters that allow us to join the flow of his church.

In the old creation, people tend to be more self-focused: trying to be loved, rather than loving. They are more preoccupied with meetings and activities than they are with sharing friendship. The relationships they do have are mostly task-based, and only last as long as they are working or meeting together. The family way, however, encourages friendships to flourish because people enjoy being together and genuinely care about one another. They share laughter even through difficult circumstances. They serve one another in times of need, and that even extends to strangers in need who cross their paths.

God never intended for us to live in such conflict and isolation. His desire has always been for a world where genuine affection and concern for others replace our selfish ambition. From the beginning it has been his purpose to bring everything that sin separated, including heaven and earth, into one glorious, new whole. He wasn’t the author of conflict or violence, but the one seeking to rescue the creation from its brokenness. His plan was to bring “everything together under Jesus himself.” (Ephesians 1:9-10) Where does that begin? Inside each and every human heart that allows him to begin to untwist the powers of self and shame so that we no longer fall victim to our insecurities. Where we trust his unfolding purpose we will no longer fight for our own, and when his desires become ours we’ll find a growing unity with others who are also living in that new creation. This is the community our hearts long for, a society that lives outside the human need to manage power.

But his temple keeps rising. Each added person only reflects his multifaceted glory with more accuracy and will confound the wisdom of the world by the power of its love and the simplicity of its life. Wherever people are learning to live in his love and love others, the temple rises. Whenever people learn to listen to him instead of the manipulative voices of religious leaders, the temple rises. However people find ways to work together by laying their lives down in kindness and generosity, the temple rises.

In fact, making attendance an obligation may already demonstrate that we’ve lost the vitality of real community and have become mired in mundane rituals, demands for conformity, or internal conflicts that alienate people. Jesus talked about his kingdom being a pearl of great price. If people saw its reality, they would give up anything to be part of it. Living in him and sharing that life with others isn’t drudgery. It fulfills the deepest longings of the human heart.

Everything good does not require a commitment to do what we dislike, but to the simple joy of embracing what we truly love. Obligation presumes that our desires are despicable and lauds those who give up their desires to choose painful tasks for God. But what if your deepest desires are Godly?   If he wants your joy to be full then he knows best how to fulfill you. What God identifies as sin are the desires that don’t really belong to us. They have been twisted to offer us immediate gratification or false security, while they lead us down a road to certain destruction— spiritually, relationally, and even physically.

The signal of church life is not easily found in large meetings of like-minded people, but in the engagements of growing friendships. Success is measured not by the size of the group but by the quality of relationships. Instead of complicating people’s time with meetings and commitments, real church life is more readily experienced with authentic friendships in informal settings that don’t require large resources to drive centralized programs.

You can’t share life with hundreds of people sitting in a managed group. You can share a cause, a task even, but relationships won’t grow for the lack of time and energy to explore them. Isn’t that why people feel so disconnected in large congregations and complain that the relationships they do have remain superficial?

A cursory view of history makes it clear that a hierarchy of human leadership does more to disfigure the church than it does to protect it. Perhaps the severest price we’ve paid for doing so is that we no longer see authority resting in Jesus but in the institutions we have created by our own hand—perhaps not so dissimilar from the idols crafted in ancient Israel to replace the God they could not see.

When people who are on a spiritual journey get near each other, the church takes expression. He had no idea what simple joy and life could come out of being together and how fruitful it would be, not only for that week but also for years to come because of the new friendships that were formed. I’ve had the joy of watching a web of relationships grow around the world and see how those connections enrich Christ’s work and allow us to see him more fully.

For that to continue, however, we all have to resist the temptation to throw a structure around it and start monthly, quarterly, or yearly meetings. By doing so we sow the seeds for a new faction in the family and seriously damage the spontaneity of his work by putting a human agenda to it. As excited as I was to be part of this Wicklow gathering a few years ago, I was thrilled that at its end no one pressed to make it a yearly event or formalize a network. There have been other gatherings in other places as people felt inspired to plan and host them, but there has been no attempt to get the same people together at the same place. In fact many on this journey have a hesitation to repeat anything only because it was wonderful the first time, given our propensity to value routine over reality. Tradition is the attempt to get God to repeat something he did once, again and again to the same results. But the breath of the Spirit is too unique for such attempts and we only end up capturing ourselves in routines long after he has moved on.

The power of the church lies in the unity they find together—men and women loving and working together wholeheartedly because they have found their life and joy in him instead of their own preferences and ideas. How could any conformity-based system produce this unity when people are following the expectations of others rather than living out of an ever-expanding heart?   Without that, real unity cannot exist. (p. 154)

Jesus didn’t pray for conformity, but a unity that can only arise out of lives transformed by his glory. The answer to this prayer fulfills God’s passion in the earth and by it the world will know that the Father loves us as much as he loves his Jesus. When people out of diverse backgrounds come to complete unity of heart, purpose, and focus, God is unveiled in a way nothing else can accomplish. (p. 155)

That’s why the term leadership is difficult to use inside the new creation. People see it as a management role instead of a gift to help others. So when Paul wrote about elders, overseers, or ministry gifts, he’s talking about those who help others mature, not those who manage institutions. And when we take the words of Hebrews to “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority,” (13:17) and apply them to old creation constructs, we get distorted views of leadership and end up seeking out the wrong people to lead. How often has this Scripture been used by so-called leaders to great harm as a divine sanction for whatever power they wanted to hold over others? Rather than demanding unquestioned submission, the writer was simply appealing to the younger ones to not make it difficult for their older brothers and sisters to help them grow.

So while a local congregation in and of itself cannot fulfill all that Paul promised us about the church Jesus is building, it can be a place where people discover his reality and engage in the kinds of relationships in which his church takes expression. It’s often where people go when they first open to God, and if the teaching is sound, it can provide them with the foundation for a spiritual journey. Corporate expressions of praise and adoration can provide a place for people to engage the transcendent God and opportunities for fellowship can open a door to friendships that can last a lifetime.

However, we’d be less than honest not to wrestle with the fact that their institutional frameworks are remnants of an old creation and thus their priorities are often at odds with the priorities of the new. So while they can facilitate the writing of the creeds to define critical points of theology, an overdependence on them can easily rob people of partaking of God’s mystery as he makes himself known in the course of their daily lives.

You will find the church easiest when you stop looking for an “it,” and simply love the people God has put around you. Start with growing friendships instead of trying to find a group to join. It was no accident that the church began at Pentecost without any strategy or preconceived notion of what it would look like. They weren’t told to start Sunday services or have midweek home groups. They simply did what their new experience with the Gospel and their engagement with his Spirit led them to do. Learn to follow him and then engage others around you with the reality of his kingdom and watch how that bears fruit.

Yes, there is a vast pasture of God’s life and provision to be explored beyond the conformity of our institutions. It is a risk, to be sure, but one with incredible rewards. Perhaps the biggest change is that it forces people to move from being a passive part in someone else’s machine, to someone who actively participates in his unfolding kingdom.  You don’t get to follow someone else’s instructions anymore, but instead you have to be more intentional in all aspects of connecting with him and his church.

But those are the sheep I want to romp with in the Father’s care. What can happen out of that simple reality could set a world on fire, just like it did the first time.

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To the Saints Scattered…

19 Comments / Phenomenon of the Dones /

By Wayne Jacobsen, the final chapter of a book he’s writing about The Phenomenon of the Dones

To the followers of Jesus scattered throughout the world, no longer attached to a specific congregation or denomination: Greetings from one of your kind and from Jesus himself. I pray this letter finds you growing in the affection of our Father, in the trust of his Son, and the wisdom and gentleness of his Spirit.

I know the way has not been easy. It never is for pioneers who move outside an established status quo in search of greater vitality and authenticity. I know most of you didn’t plan to get here; you simply followed the hunger of your heart and his drawing of your conscience until you found yourself outside the circles you used to frequent and for a while found so helpful. Some of you got pushed out for asking the wrong questions, others just stopped going wearied by the politics or how guilt and fear were used to keep people in line.

I have spent the last twenty years among those who have taken their liberty from Christianity-as-a-religion and yet continued to pursue a life in Christ as vibrant as the one he passed on to his disciples. Their journey beyond Sunday morning Christianity only confirmed their choice.  The people I admire most in this world are those that follow their spiritual hunger, even when it takes them beyond the comfort of their friends and family. Religion is built on approval needs, and when someone diverges from that conformity, they meet a host of well-intentioned, if not particularly sensitive, people trying to convince them they are wrong.

Jesus knows how painful your journey is better than anyone else. It is a road he walked as well. It is so easy to sing with great passion, “Though none go with me, still I will follow,” and far more difficult to actually do it. When you do, however, I’ve no doubt it brings great joy to him knowing the risk you took to follow him down an uncertain path. Live in that joy as you keep going even if the road is more difficult than you imagined. Your pursuit will reward you in ways you maybe can’t see yet, and fulfill the deepest hungers with his reality, his love, and his freedom.

I realize many of you need no encouragement from me. You have come to know Jesus and learned to follow him apart from the religious conventions of our culture and are finding yourselves increasingly at rest in his provision and being fruitful for him where he has placed you. You have discovered that there is still a church in the world to connect with relationally that doesn’t need the political gamesmanship or the mind-numbing routines of religion. I have met many of you around the world and have been inspired by your courage to take the road less traveled and your resilience in the face of challenge, opposition and false accusations.

Others of you are either new to the journey, or haven’t settled into it yet.  Here’s what I’ve learned this far into my journey:

 

Finding A New Trailhead

The early days of living outside our systems of religious performance can be quite painful, depending on the reason you left and if you have some supportive voices around you.  Initially, you’ll feel great relief to be out of the situation that helped you make such a difficult decision. You may have hoped others would have shared in your journey and either come with you or been sympathetic to how God was leading you.  Most people, however, find themselves outside alone where three critical challenges await, all of which also hold some great opportunities for growth.

Overcoming Guilt. For a while you’ll feel like you’ve lost your moorings, and your emotions will not be in synch with what you know to be true. You may know attendance at a congregation is not a requirement of our Lord Jesus, but you believed it for so long and may have looked down on others who didn’t come as regularly as you did that you’ll feel guilty when you’re not there and defensive if people ask you about it.

Guilt is the acquired baggage of religious obligation. While we know that there is no longer any condemnation for those in Christ, it’s amazing how much of our Christian experience has been driven by avoiding guilt and the disapproving glances of our fellow believers. It travels mostly unseen as long as you serve it, but when you stop it rears its ugly head. Now you’ll confront it head-on, almost every day and it will test what you know about God, yourself, and what it means to follow him.  This is a great time to see Jesus destroy the power guilt and fear hold over you.

You’ll be tempted to do something to sate the guilt, or attack the systems others might enjoy in order to justify your own experience. Resist those urges. This is an important time to find your way to the cross and discover the ways of thinking that create the guilt and condemnation you feel. As you lean more deeply into the Father’s love and his wisdom you’ll find over time the guilt will lessen as will your need to tear others down to feel good about his work in you.

Dealing with Loneliness. If you were heavily involved in your local congregation you may have given it 8-10 hours per week and it gave you the illusion that you were part of something larger than yourself. Even if friendships weren’t as close as you hoped, you felt like you belonged and that masked the loneliness that comes to the fore when you find yourself more isolated. Out of sight, out of mind is how most congregations work.  People will miss your contributions more than they’ll miss you.

Now you wonder if anyone was really a friend and does anyone care about you now. That is multiplied if you suffer the sting of judgment that comes if some of your closest friends and family begin top question your salvation, or at least view you as a reclamation project to get you back on the straight and narrow.  It may even cause you to doubt you’re making the right choices.

That disappointment grows when new friendships or connections don’t happen as fast as you hoped.  Again, the temptation is to do something to fix the problem. Some seek out another congregation, try to find a house church near them or even start their own.  But the answer to your loneliness is not “out there” somewhere. It is not in a group you can find, a program you can institute, or a new guru to follow. You’re not looking for a better way to do church, but a better way to embrace his reality. You will find loneliness first satisfied in him and then it will spill into the relationships he will bring across your path.

You may not see it yet and you may even feel as if he has abandoned you, but he has not. He has not led you this far to forsake you and he has not begun a work in you that he will not complete. This is the time to let your relationship with him deepen so you won’t use others to fill the place only he can fill. This is a great season to learn how to seek him, to listen to him, and to follow him and as you do he will swallow up your loneliness in a vibrant communion with him and then you’re ready for more healthy relationships in which true community can grow.

Losing Your Anger. Departing a congregation is often laced with anger—at disappointed expectations, betrayal by people you thought loved you, or finally seeing through some of the false things you were taught to keep you loyal and contributing your time and resources. You’ll want to blame people for lying to you or about you, and strike out against organized religion in general falling prey to an us-versus-them dichotomy that will prove destructive over time.

This is all very natural to justify an extremely difficult decision you had to make and to navigate the self-doubt you will invariably experience. But you’ll want to let it bleed out as soon as you can, which may still take months. Hopefully you can find a safe person who has been down this road before you to vent your pain without it overwhelming those who don’t understand it and will only judge you for it.

In God’s heart this journey is not about fixing “the church”, but drawing you into a deeper relationship with him and letting love over time still the anger of your heart and replace it with joy in his provision and compassion for others, even those who hurt you.  This all may take years, so don’t be hard on yourself if the emotions persist. Just keep leaning into him and let his love win you out of feeling like someone else’s victim.  No, life isn’t fair and people’s failures will make your life more difficult, but he has a way to navigate you through all of that and give you the life that really is life.  And keep in mind that your failures add difficulty to others as well.

Growing in him is a journey, its vitality will ebb and flow at times and there will be seasons where you’ll get distracted, but when he makes you aware guiltlessly lean back his direction.

A real relationship with him doesn’t try to get from him what you want, but to receive what he wants to give you each day. Keep engaging him and don’t pitch a tent anywhere thinking you’ve arrived. Our destination is not in this temporal age. Avoid simply falling into the routines of life and miss how this kingdom yearns to take shape in you and through you find more space in the world.

If you have other believers around you who are on this journey, seek for their help in learning how to ignore guilt, satisfy your loneliness inside of Jesus, and to help you discover how to follow him as a real presence in your life.  As you overcome these three challenges and you will find yourself on a very different journey.

 

Settling into a Different Journey

Now you find yourself on a very different journey. Instead of meeting the expectations of the institution you belonged to, you may find yourself adrift without them.  It was so easy when your security came from regular attendance, following the rules, speaking the party line and gaining the approval from others for your diligent efforts. Without those you’ll need to give attention to your connection with God himself. You will want to learn how to recognize his fingerprints in your day, and his words in the recesses of your thoughts.

Don’t look for quick fixes here or rush the process. You cannot learn it in a book; you have to let it unfold in the reality of your circumstances. His curriculum is not in a workbook somewhere, or a university course; it is in the events, emotions, and thoughts of daily life as he comes alongside you to show you what’s real and what is an illusion as you engage with his Spirit and the Scriptures.

Here are three things I use to keep my course:

Relational. If you’re new to this journey and still disoriented by the change from performance-based Christianity, to an affectionate relationship with The Father, Jesus, and the Spirit, take all the time you need.  Learn to let the Father enjoy your presence, and for you to enjoy his.  If you need space from “religious voices” that seek to promote guilt and fear, take some distance from them.  Jesus will show you who you are free to love, and what relationships draw you out of his affection and back into performance.

Eugene Peterson called it, “the unforced rhythms of grace.” Religious obligation and activity can so easily distract us from the purity and simplicity of how Jesus expresses himself to us. God already knows you and now wants you to know him. Jesus died to grant us full and confident access to him. It is not quick and it is not easy to learn how to live in that reality. He has to reshape internally the ways you were taught to live—twisted by indulging your desires, haunted by the insecurities of not knowing you were loved, exploited by the selfishness of others, or manipulated by the lies and fears of religious obligation.

Now he will teach you how to rest in his love, how your growing trust in his desires for you and his purpose in this age will change the way you navigate the world, and how your growing dependence on the power of his Spirit living in you will draw your eyes away from what’s temporal to that which is eternal.  Everything God wants to do in you, and all he wants to do through you will grow naturally out of your engagements with him and the people he brings into your life.

If you can find them, spend time with others who stimulate awareness in your own life. Don’t be discouraged if this takes some time or if that initially happens across great distances. Social media and blogs comments might be a good place to connect as well, even if you can’t be face-to-face. Beware the cheap fix of on-line networks or getting an identity from following a popular author or teacher. That may comfort you with a false security that it will soon evaporate.

In time, you’ll begin to meet people around you on a similar trajectory.  Jesus is inviting an increasing number of people back to himself and creating a people who will follow the Lamb wherever he goes. You’ll find those faster, however, if you’re just looking for growing friendships with those already around you, not by finding or building a group of like-minded people. Keep your eyes open for a hungry seeker at work, an open-hearted neighbor, someone you meet randomly, or connect with at another gathering or mission outreach. Fellowship grows from friendships a lot easier than friendship grows from meetings.

Truth-full. Don’t just throw out the illusions without rethinking where God’s truth lies. De-constructing the false messages of religion that feed performance and destroy community is a painful process. Not everyone survives it with a passion for truth. Once you find out some of the things you were taught aren’t true, it’s easy to throw out everything or just hold on to those things that you find personally comforting. Many have taken this course into the theological weeds and gotten lost in the skepticism about God and his truth.

Truth will often disturb us before it sets us free. Scripture underlines how hungering for truth is the most important component to grasping it. Don’t seek voices who say what you want to be true, ask the Father to reveal his truth to you.  Search your heart, search the Scriptures, and interact with others in conversation and through books and articles in a way that will help you re-construct an understanding of who God truly is and his purpose in the world. God didn’t bring you out of religious performance to leave you drifting on the winds of circumstance, but to draw you into a relationship that is not only intimate but transforming.

You won’t have all the answers and you’ll lose your need to convince others that you see it better than they do. You’ll learn to walk with him in the truth that is sometimes challenging and painful, but it will always draws your heart more closely to him.  Don’t expect this truth to be as much measured by principles you can follow, but in learning to discern in your unfolding day which decisions leads to life and which leads to death.  This is where he always wanted to write his will, not in precepts to follow, but learning to sense the pleasure of the Spirit in the direction he desires for us and the restlessness of Spirit when he’s drawing us away from our own selfishness. That’s how you learn to walk with him.

Purposeful. When you are part of a religious program everything is provided for you.  You have fellowship because you sit in a congregation, worship because you sing, and engage spread the kingdom because your congregation gives to overseas missions.  But those are simply shadows of a greater reality. To embrace those realities now you will need to make some intentional choices to follow his leadings, embrace his purpose in circumstances around you, and to live focused more on others than yourself.

It is easy for all of us to drift into complacency regarding spiritual realities. Life takes so much out of us just to complete our job responsibilities and care for our families. It also distracts us with too many entertainment options that it’s easy to end up coasting spiritually into emptiness. Growing in him and flowing with his purpose won’t happen by accident, but it also won’t happen by human ingenuity.  I realize that sounds like a contradiction. What you will want to do is to learn to live in the moment, with a growing trust in Spirit’s ability to lead and guide you. Being intentional is not doing what we prefer or even think best, but to see where love leads us and where his Spirit nudges us.

When you stop serving someone else’s vision it will be easier to recognize his leading. Let him grow your capacity to love so that you’ll have a heart of compassion for the broken, and be a champion of justice for the oppressed. Confront evil where it exploits the innocent, quickly repair broken relationships where possible with forgiveness and honesty, and treat others the way you want them to treat you.

Walking by the Spirit comes with a suspicious eye toward our own human effort, but an intentional eye on the Father and flowing with his activity in the world.

 

Helping Others Find Their Journey

The time is coming when all that you’ve discovered will not just be valuable for you, but will overflow from you to so many others who are hungering for the same realities that lie beyond the walls of their own experience. Jesus designed his kingdom to work that way. As freely as you receive, you look for ways to freely give to others. As you find more relaxed footing in your relationship with him look for ways to be a blessing to others.

I’m convinced this is what it means to pastor the flock of God. It doesn’t require a degree or a job managing an institution; it is simply the ability and desire to help others connect with Jesus and encourage them as they learn to follow him. God works through the simplest people who have sincere hearts, not the highly talented or those who seek influence. Sharing your life freely is not a task you have to do, but one that will flow out of your heart naturally as you make yourself available to him:

Live lovingly. What I enjoy most about this journey is that all the obligations and expectations I lived under were replaced with a sense of endearment. I don’t follow God because I’m afraid of him, but because I want what he wants for me. I don’t do what I do in fear that he will punish me but because I want to share in the work he is doing around me. Obligation was replaced with joy and though I can’t stop and love everyone I pass on a given day, I’ve always got an eye out for the person God wants me to engage or to serve in some way.

Live freely.  There will be no end of well-meaning people who will want to push their preferences and expectations on you. You can be gracious as you politely say, “No, thank you.”  Embrace what God gives you, and turn from those things others want to force on you. Life is too short to let people manipulate you even with the best of their religious intentions. You are to live to him, free from the tyranny of your own spiritual ambitions, and free from others’ as well.

Live generously. Keep an eye out for the needs and welfare of others, sharing whatever you might have to be a blessing in someone else’s life. Build friendships and share those friendships with others by connecting people who will be blessed to know each other. This is how his church grows in the world. Don’t just love those who can love you back, but take time with people who do not yet have any capacity for love, so that they can see him in you.

Live genuinely. No one needs you to pretend to be someone you’re not or further down the road than you are. We best help people when we let them look into the reality of our lives to see both where God has shaped his life in us and where we still struggle. Impress people with your honesty not by pretending to be further down the road than you really are. Sharing your own doubts and failures are as important as telling others how God makes himself known to you. None of us has it all together and authenticity laced with humility creates the vulnerable environment where the best conversations happen. It will free you to love and to honesty without the need to fix others or make them part of your agenda.

Live justly. Life is inherently unfair and it is somehow in the nature of powerful people to exploit others for their own gain and notoriety. The kingdom comes to bind up the brokenhearted, to free the oppressed, and to help the poor and downtrodden. Keep an eye out for those whom the culture exploits and be a champion for compassion and justice. Don’t make conformity the currency of relationship, but care and concern. You cannot love all the people in the world, so love well those God puts before you each day.

 

In Christ Alone

Jesus is doing an amazing thing in our day; he is taking his church back. He’s calling people from every corner of this world to find him as their sole allegiance.  Some of those are inside traditional congregations, and many others he is inviting outside to teach them another way to live and grow.

The truth be told, we are all part of the saints scattered, even those who regularly attended a local congregation. The saints have been scattered for a long time, divided by institutions, doctrines, leaders, and programs each believing their way is the best. For those of us who have moved beyond Sunday gatherings as the focus of our faith, we need to take care that we guard our hearts to explore the wonder of the whole body of Christ as she is in the world. Almost every group that has splintered off of Christian institutions in the past have gone on to create their own, looking down on those who didn’t live it the same way they did.

It would seem the courage it takes to leave religious obligation easily bends toward pride and an air of superiority if we’re not careful. Yes, our institutional systems can be deeply flawed as they try to express God’s reality in the world, but that doesn’t mean we need to condemn them or think less of those who attend them.  Our world is touched for the better by many of those congregations. Though it may not be the best way for your hungers to be met, resist the desire to reject others who see it differently. Don’t think your path is their path or that those not on it can’t know and follow the God you’re growing to know. He has many sheep and he does not lead all on the same path.

Always keep in mind that it is Jesus’ desire to reconcile all things to himself, and thus all of us to each other. This is the unity he prayed for with such passion. That we would all be one, as he and the Father are one. We have too long looked for that to come from our institutions or our agreed-upon doctrines, but that approach has failed us spectacularly. The unity Jesus prayed for can only come through transformed lives as we let God’s kind of love permeate our own hearts and free us to live with increasing selflessness and generosity in a world that knows too little of either.

Give yourself to what leads to authentic unity. Remember this is his work not yours, so be patient and don’t think you will have to compromise his work in you to love others who are on a different journey. Don’t be afraid to follow your heart, and encourage others to follow theirs as well.  While you will often be judged maliciously, don’t resolve your pain by judging back. Bring those accusations to God and leave them there. If he is not asking you to change, don’t let others press you towards it.

Let all kinds of people into your life to see what loving them might do. Those who criticize how you live your life, may not be against the Jesus we love and seek to follow. Don’t exalt yourself because God has given you more to see, use it as a way to serve others so that they will have a chance to see it, too.

This is the trajectory he invites all his children on and if it has taken you outside the walls of institutionalism it was not to separate you from his people, but to draw you more deeply into the life that truly is life and to free you to share that love without any borders. His purpose was not to leave you isolated and scattered in the world, but increasingly transformed by love so that he can knit you into the fabric of his church as she is taking shape around the world today.

And she is taking shape in ways most people miss. Wherever I travel in the world I meet people who are really learning to live a journey in Christ that is transforming them from the need to serve themselves and to a more generous heart for others. These are the stories that thrill my soul and give me hope. They are being led by Jesus often in direct contradiction to their own self-interest. Soon they will be knit together by his Spirit in ways we cannot yet conceive, but will speak of his glory far more than our own ingenuity.

Let’s take care that we do not exalt anything above Christ and Christ alone, the hope of glory for every individual.  Don’t give people a reason to be distracted by your pet doctrines, cute terminology, a specific program that may have been useful for you but may not be for them. Focus on him and his reality and watch him reveal himself in almost every relationship you have. Don’t fragment his family because you want to make a name for yourself, to brand an identity, or to carve off a market share for your ministry.

Share freely as God cares for you. Yearn for the day when we will be truly one flock with one Shepherd. As long as we have other humans between us and our compassionate High Priest, we will continue to live splintered into discordant factions. The world is not surprised by such

But imagine what it would think if they really saw the followers of Christ loving each other deeply, from the heart. There he will be revealed in ways that will draw the most calloused sinner to recognize who he is. And then we won’t be scattered anymore, but one body permeating every corner of our world with the life and love of Jesus.

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This is the final chapter in a series called The Phenomenon of the Dones by Wayne Jacobsen who is the author of Finding Church and host of a podcast at TheGodJourney.com.  You can read the first half here and subsequent parts below. It will eventually be made into a book for people to read more easily.

These chapters will be combined into an  e-book for future reference in the near future.

To the Saints Scattered… Read More »

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