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When You Don’t Get the Miracle You Want, Part 12

6 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

This is the last posting of our continuing story of Alan and Lynn that began as In the Shadow of Death. Despite their best theological certainty that God would heal her, Lynn passed away from metastasized breast cancer. Alan is left to deal not only with his grief, but also with his view of a God he was certain would heal her.

You can read from the beginning starting here.

From Alan, July 31, 2019 (96 days after first email):

This has been a series of awful days as far as the devastation of grief is concerned. The reality of Lynn being dead is so horrific. I am quickly losing hope and lacking any reason to have it. God is silent. I am all alone in this world. People respond, “Oh, Alan, you’re not alone.” But I realized the other day that I do not know anyone in Lynn’s and my peer group that has ever lost a spouse. Many of them have lost a parent or friend but no spouses. I’m glad for them. I would not wish this on anyone. But at the end of the day, no one knows what to say.

Hope is non-existent.

I have been listening to some of your messages online trying to convince myself that God is not punishing me. Then my mind goes to all the ways I was unfaithful to the precious gifts God gave me. I never committed adultery with another woman, but in my position as a part-time disc jockey at a big country music station, I had myriad opportunities to flirt with women who called in to my show and flirted with me. I have done and thought and fantasized things that said, “Father God, I do not appreciate this precious woman.” Things that I looked at online were a disgrace to my wife.

So, here I am. Harvest time for Alan. Wife dead. God knows all of these things, and I feel that I am reaping corruption that comes from sowing to the flesh.

Your message is “living loved.” How can he “interact with me as His beloved,” and sit by in silence as my wife dies? Knowing He could have healed her in this realm with a breath or a word or a thought and yet when I poured my heart out in prayer, when Lynn poured hers out in prayer, He essentially said, “No.” How is that love at any level? Are we as believers – as his children – only to expect that he’ll be there to help us pick up the pieces when life crashes, but not to intervene to keep things from shattering?

Why did the apostles say to pray? We have a God, a Father. Isn’t there some benefit associated with that that unbelievers do not have? God let Lynn die. He took her. Yes, she is blessed beyond measure and likely not even aware of my pain. But he could have healed her here; he didn’t. I’m left in an avalanche of empty, lonely searing pain. I try to pray for others who are going through battles with cancer, and I wonder what is the use?

The other day I was listening to a teaching and how God delivered Israel from Egypt after 400 years of bondage. 400 years! What about those who lived and died and essentially had their cries for freedom ignored during all those years? At the end of the day, God is sovereign and will do what He wants when He wants, and we are best served by living with no expectation of answered prayer. We can only hope that we don’t end up too broken. My mistake was having too much hope and faith.

Paul went through tribulation. The apostles died horrific deaths. Where is the hope, the evidence in this life that having a Heavenly Father is even real? When does my mourning turn to joy? When will He give me gladness for sorrow? Lynn loved God and trusted Him, and I am confident even in her pain and death, she never had these cynicisms that I have. Her heart was never tainted with what she didn’t understand nor with the questions that I had. She often told me in frustration to trust God when I would be at a crossroads. But, it seems that we are just to shut up and try to be obedient and never get our hopes up even though we are supposed to have faith to please Him.

Wishing I could tell her “Happy Birthday” again in this life,

My response

I know, Alan, and my heart breaks for you this morning.

The first year of grief is always the most painful—first birthday, first anniversary, first holidays, first vacation, all the things you do the first time without her will feel hollow and horrible. Grief comes in waves. That’s why you’ll have good days, where you think you might be getting beyond it, and then WHAM! A special day, a memory, a place you both thought special, or a random rush of pain will cross your path, and the grief rushes back in. Take hope in this, the painful days will, in time, grow less intense and less often, and the better days of celebrating the love you shared will grow more frequent, sweeter, and more prolonged.

The only way through this is through it. Great wisdom, eh? As much as you might want to run from it, embrace it. One person said when the darkness overwhelms you don’t chase the sunset because you’ll never catch it. The fastest way to the light is to head toward the sunrise, away from the setting sun and the light will yet appear again, sooner if you head east than if you chase it hopelessly to the west.

How I wish you could just grieve on the days that seem so dark and invite your loving Father into that grief! Instead, what you believe about God takes you to a different place. Instead of having God as a comforting presence inside your pain, you beat yourself up for every bad thing you’ve ever done or mistakes you’ve ever made. Do you really think God would kill your wife to punish you for something you did wrong? Do you really think God would say, “You looked at another woman years ago, so I gave your wife cancer?”

Is that how you interpret sowing and reaping, that reaping is God giving you a penalty for some weakness or failure? Can you appreciate that when your mind goes into that dark hole, it will seem as if God is silent, even when he is not? His beckoning to you with great compassion is drowned out by the way you view him.

I can assure you the God who loves you was not silent through any of this. Unheard, maybe, because some things you’ve believed about him made it difficult to sense what he was saying to you, especially in the crisis you were in. In the flood of great waters, we can lose sight of who he is because we are so focused on our disappointment or feeling betrayed. I’ve tried to reflect some of what he has been speaking to you in my words through these many emails, and you have recognized that at times. He has been there with you. My words have just been imperfect reflections of the deeper love and wisdom in his heart for you. That’s why I struggle so against religious thinking that puts God on the other side of our pain, as the cause of it whether it be through punishment or “allowing it” through a lack of concern. I reject both of those.

You were not the cause of Lynn’s cancer; this is not punishment from him. Jesus took all of that for us. If he’s still punishing you for your mistakes or imperfections, then Christ died in vain. Sowing and reaping are not about punishment for past actions, but the simple consequences we face for the choices we make. Sow generosity, reap generosity. Sow indulgence, reap emptiness and pain.

I pray you can come to see God as the one who loves you more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will. I want you to see Jesus as the loving Shepherd teaching us to live in the increasing freedom of the Father’s reality and growing us out of the places we got stuck and twisted. None of our failures surprise him, and none of them cut us off from his love. All of us can go back in our lives and pick out every mistake, bad thought, sinful action, or indulgence and think any of them exclude us from his love and care, but it still isn’t true. He’s the only one that can shape the trajectory of our lives and draw us out of the darkness and into the light. We won’t hear him do that if he’s condemning us for the darkness.

He celebrates our progress toward the light, not holding our past mistakes against us. How could we grow if he did? Ask him to help you let go of the past, not the good parts, but the mistakes and failures. You are his child—today! He is the rescuer in your story. No, that rescue did not include Lynn’s healing in this world to our great disappointment, but she has it now in another. And now he wants to rescue you through the grief and reveal himself to you in ways you’ve never imagined.

Don’t stay in the past, focused on your failures. Wake up every morning in the fresh mercy of a loving Father. Follow him each day in the simple things he nudges your heart towards. He will lead you beyond the grief to all that he still has planned for you in your days on this earth. Let who he really is sink in past your disillusionment with him. You are being dis-illusioned. You had illusions about God that were never going to serve you well. He wants you to know him as he really is, and that is far better than either of us could conceive.

So, lean into love, Alan. It will be there for you every day. He’s closer than we know. Ask him to open the eyes of your heart to what is true of him, and for the God of all comfort to hold you in those moments you despair of life, just like Paul did (2 Corinthians 1).

I’m praying, too, Alan. I think you’re making significant progress, but I know that may be tough to see from where you sit, especially today.

———————————————————–

This is the last blog I’m going to do in this series. Alan and I have continued to be in touch, and I see signs of new life springing up in him as he continues to move forward. What’s more important is that he does, too. Here are a couple of snippets he sent me toward the end of August.

… I had a cool moment yesterday as I was going through some of her CDs and found the original one where I first heard you. You were in Wisconsin talking about living loved, and it is terrific. I’m listening to it multiple times, which seems to be a habit I’ve developed of late – listening to teachings that minister to me over and over.

… I am in a weird place. I am still grieving hard for my sweet bride. But I feel like God is putting me back together. A friend spoke to me and said that they felt like God was showing them that I am like a big tree that has had the bark blown off, and that has been nearly obliterated. But there is still a deep root. And that root is springing forth new life, and the tree will grow again. I don’t know, but I am thankful more and more for Lynn and her strong, steadfast faith.

If there’s a significant development here that extends the story, I will add it in a future blog. But I think Alan is finding his footing again and it will just take time for the grief of Lynn’s passing to be overwhelmed by the new creation that will continue to spring up in Alan’s journey. I want to thank “Alan” for giving me permission to share his emails, and thus his vulnerability and pain, with all of us. There were some raw moments in there that were real, and I know they resonated with many of you as you sort out God’s goodness in the face of him not doing what you thought love, or your theological convictions, would compel him to do. Our best intentions and misguided expectations can so easily block out our ability to sense his presence and see his fingerprints unfold in our days.

Every week my inbox is full of people facing horrible tragedies, and it is also filled with lots of stories of people who have been through those tragedies and come out on the other side more alive in Christ than ever and more transformed to embrace who God really is. Finding our security in his love, especially when the foundations of our lives are shaken, is quite a process. Pain has a way of dulling our spiritual senses, but God’s Spirit is even better at helping us embrace reality and find that God is bigger than our disappointments in him.

Dave Coleman, my co-author on So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, often tells me that he thinks 90% of Christians live with an undercurrent of anger towards God for not answering their prayers. Many have lost children, spouses, marriages, businesses, or friends in sickness, accidents, betrayal, or just unforeseen circumstances that sidetrack our joys or hopes.

The only absolute reality is that we are deeply loved by the God who made us and he wants to be inside the most brutal moments of our lives with us, helping us resolve our pain and draw closer to him. To do that, it will help if we lean on him at such times and not push him away by our false judgments about him or his motives toward us. He can handle our honesty, our disappointments, and our fears and walk us out to a place of freedom. That’s not a given, however. Brutal times can make us defensive, bitter, and isolated, or they can open our hearts to compassion, humility, and transformation.

I don’t believe God causes sickness and disease or withholds healing to make us better people, to punish us for our past mistakes, or to teach us much-needed lessons. He doesn’t have to. This broken Creation causes pain enough for all of us in various seasons. How we navigate them inside his care is way more important than trying to figure out why they happen, or why he doesn’t fix them the way we want.

I have been overwhelmed with email, blog comments, and FB postings that many of you have shared as this story has touched something in your own journey. I do think we’d be better off if we talked openly about these things—prayer, healing, death, disappointments. And our own mortality. Growth comes in such exchanges.

On this side of the Resurrection, we are all mortal. Until Jesus comes again, you and everyone you know will die. That’s how we get from this realm into the next. Death is so excruciating for those it leaves behind because of the vacuum it creates when their love and presence departs.

We forget, however, that for those who die in Christ, it is just the beginning of the greatest adventure ever into the unrestrained depths of God’s love!

When You Don’t Get the Miracle You Want, Part 12 Read More »

Are You Worthy of Love? 

8 Comments / Encouragement /

If you gave this question serous consideration, we probably need to talk.

The saddest words I hear from people are those that wonder if they are worthy of God’s love. That question is predicated on the biggest lie to find it’s way into God’s creation—that love can be earned.

It can’t.

Nothing disproves that lie better than the coming of Christ into our world that we celebrate at this Christmas season. He didn’t come to redeem people the Father was disgusted with, but those he loved. Even on the night Christ was born, the shepherds heard the angels proclaim, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

Pleased?  Really? With all the brokenness in the world? Sin was rampant, Humanity was ever at war with itself and his own people were under Roman captivity and lost in their legalism. How could God be pleased with humankind?

Luke certainly didn’t mean God was pleased with the brokenness in his creation, but that he was pleased with humanity in spite of it. God’s love is not so fickle as to come and go based on how good we are. Love is love, even at our most broken, no less than you would have for your children. Our struggle in the darkness only endears us to him as his compassion seeks to rescue and redeem us.

We are all worthy of love because of the place we hold in Father’s heart. No failure, or broken place changes that. The prodigal son was loved as much when he was wasting his father’s money as he was when he returned home. It’s just that he wasn’t living in that love. He didn’t believe it and though he thought he had good evidence for his conclusion, they were based on the lie. Even when he returns home he considers himself  “not worthy” to be called a son.

But he was worthy simply because of the value he held in his father’s heart. The joy of the Gospel is not in getting God to love us, but to relax into the reality of the love he already has for us. Those who grew up abused or neglected have a hard time embracing that. The rejection of their parents seemed proof that they were so flawed as to be unworthy of love. But that is just part of the lie.

Those who grow up in religious settings, who think their performance can endear them to God, fall victim to the same lie. You can’t earn what you already have. You are loved, no less today than when the Father conceived you in his heart before you were born.

That’s the Gospel. Believe it or not, the Creator of the universe is your loving Father. You have the choice to run to that love and embrace it, or hide outside of it as long as you want. Love offers a door; it doesn’t force it’s way.

He loves you as much as any other person on the planet. For those who don’t know that in the deepest part of your soul, Sara and I are praying that Father will reveal that to you and you will find the freedom to joyfully embrace how deeply he delights in you. That’s where this journey of faith truly begins.

And what a Christmas miracle that is!

Notes For the New Year:

Wayne’s Latest Book Is Almost Here

Beyond Sundays, Wayne’s newest book, will be available early in 2018. It will cost $12.00 and we’ll begin taking pre-orders in early January.  It will also be available by e-book as soon as we can get that done.

This is an adaptation of blogs postings Wayne has written over the last year about the current dilemma of people leaving the traditional congregation and the opportunity it affords for the whole church to celebrate all the ways that Father is at work among his people and how he is preparing the bride for the return of his Son.

 

Travel Dates for Early in 2018

  • Jacksonville, FL- January 18
  • Raleigh, NC – January 19-22
  • Greensboro, NC – January 23-24
  • Charlotte, NC – January 25-29
  • Phoenix, AZ- February
  • Abilene, Tx – March 22-25

If you’re in these areas and still want to plan something, we do have some available time. Or if you just want to join us, please see our Travel Page, where details will be posted when we have them. If you’d like to be notified when I’m coming to your area you can sign up on our email list and include your address.

Kenya Update

Thanks to the generosity of so many of you, we have given just under $200,000 this year to the people in Kenya with orphan children and to help the people in Pokot establish a sustainable future. We put in two agricultural projects so they can grow their own food, and have helped with hospital staff, medicine, food, education and micro-finance loans to help create enterprise. Get more information here.

Staying Up With Lifestream

If you did not receive this by email yesterday or today, then you re not signed up for our blog or our mailing list. If you’d like to be, you can do so here. Include your address details if you want to receive Travel Updates when I’m planning a trip to your area. If you’re not signed up to get my blogs or the podcasts straight to your inbox, you can go to those home pages and submit your email address in the appropriate are.

Are You Worthy of Love?  Read More »

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.

__________________

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 »

Revisiting The Nashville Statement

24 Comments / Culture Watch /

A few of weeks ago I posted a blog about The Nashville Statement, and got a host of feedback from people, both those who loved what I wrote and those who thought I’d committed the unpardonable sin. It sad how angry Christians can get just by reading a different point of view. Here’s some of what I learned in the ensuing conversation on that blog, by email and on my Facebook Page:

1. Most people really get it, at least those on my blog and Facebook feeds. There’s a growing number of people who are accepting the fact that we are living in a post-Christian culture and we will not impact it by trying to force our morality on people who don’t know the God we know. Attempting to do so in a pluralistic society only makes you look arrogant and weakens your voice. This is why even people who agree with your moral stands grow weary of your need to tell everyone else how to live their lives. We are looking for better language and approaches to help people discover who God is so that they will want to follow his ways.

2. Those who put morals first have little appreciation how arrogant their tactics appear and how that destroys any opportunity to impact the culture. Most of them think as long as you’re speaking truth you cannot be guilty of arrogance. However, Merriam Webster defines arrogance as, “an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner.” I don’t know a better definition of what I read in The Statement and what I hear from many of the so-called Bible teachers behind it. Their air of superiority makes me cringe, even though I’m in agreement with much of what they believe.

Truth can be spoken with gentleness and humility that opens doors, or with superiority that closes them. That’s why the more truth you think you know, the more humility you will need to let Jesus cultivate in your heart. There is more written in Scripture against arrogance than there are sexual sins, and that arrogance is a major deterrent to effective communication. Though Jesus had all truth he was never accused of arrogance, because humility and compassion set his course as he engaged people. And it probably helped that he didn’t write columns for the Jerusalem Post or Lifestream for that matter.

3. There is a great divide in evangelicalism between those who think we need more Law to bring people to repentance, and those think Jesus superseded that approach in his Incarnation. Is it by guilt or by goodness that the Spirit leads the lost to repentance? The problem is so many of them were won by guilt, but that only worked because they had a religious upbringing. Those without it won’t find guilt a helpful course to finding God.

They are also divided on whether human effort can conform to God’s standards, or whether God does the transforming as we invite him to live in us. I know those behind the Nashville Statement would claim only God has the power to change hearts, but their demands for other people’s compliance with their morality would suggest otherwise.

4. People really hate being within 500 feet of the ‘P’ word. And yet so much of the public perception of Christianity is more analogous to how Jesus saw the Pharisees rather than how the crowds saw Jesus. I see much of that in me in my first forty years and have even joked about needing a Pharisectomy because I was more concerned about people following the rules than knowing him.

Some even accused me of name-calling those they consider to be great theologians. I wrote (very carefully I might add) that “it seems that the Pharisees met….” I admit it’s a small distinction but nonetheless a critical one. I don’t know how these people treat others around them, but many are known beyond their borders as those who care more about rules than people. Being a Pharisee in the first century wasn’t a pejorative, except to Jesus. They were the best-read theologians of the day, the rule makers and the busybodies who made sure others followed them as well under penalty of death. They were proud of their station and even young Saul aspired to be a “Pharisee of Pharisees.” What I meant by correlating their actions to those of the Pharisees was that they seem to demonstrate more concern for sexual rules than they do for love and compassion of those Jesus saw as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

5. For too many the Statement has already become what I said it would—a litmus test. If you’re not wearing the “Nashville” pin on your lapel, some will accuse you of being soft on morality. They seem incapable of understanding that you can be committed to the moral claims of Scripture and at the same time not want to use civic law to discriminate against those who do not yet know the God we know.

6. People who categorically state the Bible teaches anything about being transgendered aren’t being honest with the fact that it never mentions it. There’s one verse about not wearing clothing of the opposite gender in Deuteronomy, but that is a very different application and one that is alongside other instructions God gave Israel that we don’t follow today. I realize many prefer a simpler world where everyone falls in line with what makes them comfortable, but it ignores the deep struggle and suffering that goes on in the transgendered soul. The conclusions made in The Statement are at best an extrapolation of Scripture and must be held suspect while showing compassion for those who for whatever reason in deep conflict with their anatomical gender.

7. Where is the compassion among evangelicals for people who, through no fault of their own, struggle with affections and desires outside of Scripture’s moral window. If the New Testament is true, none of us have the power to change ourselves without the redemptive power of Jesus at work in us. It’s the love and goodness of God that begins to make inroads into our hearts so that we begin to care about his will and his power to change our rebel hearts. People will beat a path to your door when you show them you care. If you treat people with contempt you become an impediment to the Gospel finding its way to them.

8. The best comment I received about this wondered if the reason conservative Protestants are so enamored with civic law, is because they refused to write a book of common order to spell out their view of morality as previous groups had done. Instead, they substituted civic law as their vehicle of morality and have had a painful time adjusting to their loss of influence as societies became more secular. They see civic law as their moral code and are frustrated when it no longer reflects their preferences in matters of sexuality and gender identity. They seem unable to understand that when you enforce theological views with the penalty of the state you become an oppressor and an advocate for discrimination.

That’s how Christianity lost its hold on the public debate as the wider culture concluded that freedom of conscience took precedence over theological demands, especially if those violating those demands weren’t a detriment to society and weren’t otherwise infringing on the rights of others. Thus, gay marriage and transgendered issues are being resolved as a freedom of conscience issue by the culture rather than a theological one, as they should by a secular state. Christianity always loses its vitality when it is enforced under the penalty of law. The life of God is freely given and can only be freely received.

9. Some have suggested that The Nashville Statement was not intended as a volley in the culture wars, but to draw a line of theological purity to exclude those pastors, authors, and denominations that advocate for the theological acceptance of homosexuality. That may be true, but the way they released it in the secular press would argue otherwise, and the fact that they did not host a wider conversation but stuck to a very narrow segment of evangelicalism would undermine that hope. The controversy it caused, as much by its process as its conclusions, shows that no one can in selective isolation compose an edict and have any hope that it will clear the air or bring the church together. The age of presumed gatekeepers has long since vanished.

10. As a culture we are losing our appreciation for nuance and assume that people can fit into one of two pre-determined camps. In our last election, we could either vote for the party who wanted to give amnesty to all undocumented aliens, or to the one who wanted to deport them all. No one was willing to negotiate the difficult space between those two extremes and find a more nuanced and just solution tailored to the circumstances of different people. The same is true of sexuality. You have to push biblical morality on everyone or the authenticity of your faith is suspect. Conversely people think your fidelity to Scripture will make it impossible for you to love those who don’t believe it. I reject both extremes. It is possible to disagree on moral issues and still be able to treat each other with compassion and respect, by protect the freedom of everyone’s right of conscience.

I hope we find a different conversation, both within Christianity about matters of morality and with the world in a way that opens the door for people to discover the Gospel, not slams it shut in their face before they ever have a chance to know how deeply loved they are by God.

Revisiting The Nashville Statement Read More »

Do You Need Covering?

20 Comments / Phenomenon of the Dones /

 

By Wayne Jacobsen, a new chapter for the book he’s writing on The Phenomenon of the Dones

Perhaps no teaching has been used more to subjugate the will of one human to another than that of spiritual covering. Under the guise of spiritual authority, people are actually instructed to obey a religious leader even at the cost of not following Jesus himself.

I don’t hear much talk of it stateside any more, though I know it’s here, but it came up often in my recent trip through South Africa. Spiritual covering is the idea that as a believer you need something or someone above you to protect you from deception and error. Some traditions teach that your local pastor or congregation is your covering. As long as you follow their teachings and submit critical decisions to them, they will keep you from slipping off the narrow way. Others claim they are covered by a denomination or denominational executive, or even the Pope himself.

It assumes God only works through hierarchical leadership structures and if you don’t follow them you are not following Christ. If you have a covering God will protect and bless you. If you do not, you are in rebellion and not only can the enemy deceive you but also God will not care for you.

Those who teach this false doctrine use it to exploit people and demand their unquestioned obedience. Those who believe it are paralyzed by fear, especially when the Spirit inside is trying to warn them away from leaders who are exploiting them, or a teaching that manipulates them. It confuses people when what God reveals in them runs counter to the desires of their leaders. In those moments they will find it easier to believe they must be wrong and defer to the alleged anointing, education, or charisma of the leader. It’s no wonder we have so many weak and confused Christians who are dependent on someone else to tell them what to believe or do.

It’s amazing how much traction this doctrine has gained over the centuries especially when it has absolutely no biblical support! Chalk that up to the fact that those teaching it are beneficiaries of it, whether to sate their ego or garner their income. Nothing in Scripture is written that tells us we are safer following a human leader than we are following Jesus himself by the Spirit. In fact much is written that argues against the very idea.

The only place in Scripture where covering is mentioned is Adam and Eve using fig leaves after the fall. Their shame sought a covering to hide from God and each other. So why does their first reaction to sin become our model for safety, especially when it’s God they were hiding from? And that’s exactly what happens under covering theology. It puts someone or something between you and God to protect yourself from him and surrender your allegiance to another flawed human being. Not surprisingly it also fragments the body of Christ as we divide up into separate fiefdoms of covering.

The only other Scripture I’ve heard quoted in the defense of covering is Hebrews 13:17, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.” The first part of this verse is intentionally translated to over-hype ecclesiastical authority. The early followers didn’t have institutional structures or those managing them that people had to submit to unquestioningly. They had relationships with more mature followers and this verse encouraged them to yield to their wisdom as they learned to follow God themselves. These leaders didn’t tell people what to do, but taught them to engage God and to follow him.

The second part of this verse is often twisted to teach that believers are accountable to human leaders when the clear meaning of the verse is that the leaders are accountable to God for what they teach and how they treat his people. Jesus never intended that those who lead in his kingdom would get between him and his people. The glory of the new covenant is that “all will know him, from the least to the greatest” and that they will be able to follow him because he will write his ways on their hearts and minds. (Hebrews 8) True leaders equip people to know Christ and to follow him, not get people to follow them instead.

In Finding Church, I wrote of a friend from Australia who drew a great distinction between elders in the first century church and what elders became in the second generation. Ignatius, a disciple of John the apostle, helped make that twist. Prior to Ignatius elders were seen as guardians of a gift—“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Every believer was a temple in which Christ dwelled, and elders guarded that gift from anyone trying to subjugate his followers to their own desires or vision.   But as the early believers began to form hierarchical pyramids of authority, Ignatius demanded loyalty to leaders as guardians of right faith and practice. Thus, in one generation leadership had changed from those who equip others to follow the Spirit within, to those who would conform them to rules and doctrine from without. Instead of serving people’s spiritual journeys, they became policemen to compel people to do what they think best.

This covering theology may well have been one those “doctrines of demons” Paul warned us to reject. For under the guise of protecting people from Satan’s deception, they take them captive to their own will or wisdom. People are taught to trust some other person’s “anointing” or academic training. But it simply doesn’t work. I’ve never met a pastor or other leader who got caught in a sexual affair or misusing ministry funds who wasn’t under a designated covering of some sort.

Wasn’t it Lucifer’s goal in the garden to separate the first humans from God getting them to trust their own ways instead of his and cover up in their shame? Wasn’t this what Israel expressed when they ran from God’s presence, encouraging Moses to listen for them promising they would obey him instead? And wasn’t this why Samuel warned Israel that their desire for a king was a rejection of God and would backfire on them in ways they couldn’t imagine?

We have a long history of wanting to put someone or something between God and us in the misguided fear that God can’t lead us personally. And didn’t those choices always inure to the detriment of humanity, as their designated leaders would end up serving their own interests rather than God’s? It gives away responsibility for what’s true to someone who is usually vested in our response to it. Some of the dearest people I know get their agenda and God’s confused quite easily and all the more so when their livelihood depends on it.

The Incarnation of Jesus invited each of us inside a relationship with him where he would be our shepherd. He said that his sheep would know his voice and that he will lead them into safe pasture so they would never need to be afraid again. The work of Jesus puts our trust in him, not religious leaders. Because he conquered sin and shame on the cross we each have the opportunity to know him, not trust someone else to tell us what he’s like. Any need for a covering was removed as we are given full and free access to God.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Jesus would have submitted to the “spiritual covering” of his day? The Pharisees would have silenced him and separated him from the very people he came to rescue. Unfortunately the religious leaders of his day were among those who had most lost touch with God and his nature.

That’s why Jesus didn’t tell us he would send us a book to guide us, a religious structure to protect us, or spiritual leaders to control us. He said he would leave us with his Spirit who “would guide us into all truth.” The reality of the New Testament community is that God lives in us all by the Spirit and thus has access to every heart and mind and that those who know him would recognize that voice and follow him.

Though Paul told Timothy to appoint elders in Ephesus that could encourage people with sound doctrine, he did not intend for those elders to supplant Jesus or to infringe on his relationship with them. When they did, John wrote to Ephesus again many years later, to let them know that the elders had become the problem demanding allegiance to them over their obedience to Christ. He had to remind them that they each had an anointing from the Holy One so they could discern between what’s true and what’s not.

So, no, you do not need a covering to protect you spiritually. In fact it will have the opposite effect if it convinces you that you cannot trust his Spirit within you to be your protection and guide. Does that mean, then, you’re on your own then and if a bit theologically naïve, you are at risk? If the Holy Spirit dwells in you how could you be? He is able to keep you safe in the arms of the Father against any lie that would deceive you whether it comes from the evil one or from the best-intentioned religious leader.

Haven’t you heard a teacher say something that had all the biblical prooftexts one could want, but left you restless inside, questioning whether something was amiss even if you couldn’t identify it? Like a teaching on spiritual covering perhaps? That’s his Spirit helping you discern what’s true and what’s false. When religious leaders teach you to trust them instead of the Spirit’s compass within you, you’ll get very confused as to how Jesus wants to lead you. Your allegiance belongs only to him, not to people or organizations who claim to speak for him.

But won’t that lead to chaos and error when everyone does what is right in their own eyes? To the degree that people follow self instead of Jesus, it will. We all know people who claim to be led by the Spirit who do horribly self-serving and destructive things in his name. We might think it helpful if more mature brothers or sisters could rein that in with command authority, but Scripture gives no place for that to happen and history gives us no example where that authority was not soon corrupted to take people’s eyes off of Jesus.

Jesus warned his disciples that they would not “lord over” others as demonstrated in the worldly structures around them (Mark 10:42-45). His leaders would be servants, not commanders. They help people come to know Christ and teach them how to follow him. History teaches us that whenever humans draw his authority to themselves they will almost always end up using it in self-serving ways. They will make decisions for the good of the institution that employs them rather than the individual they were called to serve.

So how do we respond to spiritual authority? It is helpful to separate institutional authority from spiritual authority. They are not the same thing. If you are part of an institutional system then yield to its way of keeping order or you’ll only be a destructive source of division and chaos. When you can no longer follow along or feel it is compromising your own life with God, then you need to leave and see what else he has for you. Just because someone has authority in a system, does not mean they have authority from God.

God’s authority comes through the power of an indestructible life, their integrity and the authenticity with which they live. They are not playing a role, but have simply learned to live in growing trust of God’s love and can encourage others to do the same. Authority doesn’t come from a vocation, academic training, or a place on the flow chart. They are people you respect not only for their insight and wisdom but also the tenderness and compassion with which they treat people. They do not marshal people to build their own kingdom, but build up others so they can follow Christ with greater freedom and joy. When you are near someone at rest in God’s goodness and though their insight may challenge you, you’ll find them the safest people to be around in your struggles, failures, or questions. Give their words weight, but resist the urge to grow dependent on them instead of letting them help you learn to listen to God’s Spirit in you.

No person is meant to be a covering between you and God. Anyone who seeks to tell you what to do on God’s behalf proves by doing so that they are not acting in his authority. True leaders will speak the truth as they see it in love and entrust it to the Spirit and your conscience to convince you of what’s true. They don’t exploit people or demand their loyalty. They simply serve you, as Jesus grows bigger in your heart.

I know people reading this will fear that people following Jesus will become arrogant and independent, but I don’t find that to be true of people who are looking to follow Jesus. This is a family after all, not a free-for-all. They realize that Truth exists apart from their own preferences or best wisdom. Anyone seeking to follow Jesus as he makes himself known within them will soon realize that they navigate in uncertain space. As Paul says we all see through a darkened mirror as we seek to discern his ways.

Perhaps that’s why we want the security of the pseudo-confidence of anyone who claims to know it all or some doctrinal structure to protect us. But they are only an illusion. No one hears God perfectly, interprets Scripture with complete accuracy, or knows your heart like God does, which always makes me suspicious of those who proclaim certainty and speak as if their words are proclamations straight from God.

So where is our safety net, if there is no spiritual covering? Why it is in him, of course! God the Father watches over you, Jesus walks with you and his Spirit dwells in you. Having any other spiritual covering is an act of distrust in his ability to care for you. If we are wanting to follow his ways he will let our hearts resonate with those things that are true and make us restless in those things that are false. In time circumstances and whether or not we are finding his fullness within will help us learn where we are listening to him and where we are dressing up our own desires in God-language. If it doesn’t become evident to us, it will become evident to those around us.

That’s why learning to listen to him incubates a spirit of humility and openness. Those growing in Christ do not become independent or anarchist. Learning to follow Jesus is a life-long journey, separating his desires from our own and his way of doing things from their own ways and they will find themselves drawn into those spaces where they can test between what is true and what is false.

Always look for what his Spirit is revealing to you to be consistent with the character of Scripture. Always treat most suspiciously those leadings that perfectly dovetail with your own desires and whims. God’s ways are higher than ours and mostly his insights will challenge our conventional and preferred thoughts to lead us more deeply into his reality. Truth will almost always challenge us before our surrender to it will set us free.

Of course anyone who willingly walks alone on this journey and without the wisdom and counsel of others is a fool. Find some other men and women you can share with and let their thoughts and insights help you discern how the Spirit is leading you, or whether you’re just reacting to last night’s pizza. Your friends won’t always get it right, but they will help you find your blind spots. Be most careful when they are trying to talk you out of a difficult obedience, and most open when they help you see how pride or dishonesty is slipping in as our flesh tries to masquerade as his Spirit

And in the big-ticket items of theology or direction, find some others who are a bit further down the track than you. There are elders, teachers, prophets, and apostles who are gifts to help us know God better and learn his ways, just know that the real ones don’t carry the title on their business cards and are not building an institution in their name. Almost at every stage God where God has shifted my thinking he put me alongside some older men and women who could encourage his work in me and provide warnings when I was being sidetracked. Those who are wise, gently honest, and without the need to control your response are great gifts. We need more of these genuine elders scattered in the body of Christ who are courageous enough to walk alongside others and encourage their growth without controlling them.

We also have opportunity to think alongside men and women who have lived before us by the writings they’ve left that have endured the test of time. Interact with their thoughts and see how they might apply to your own journey, especially those who have lived thrived in faith through dark and desperate times.

In these days of disintegrating institutions Jesus is calling the church back to himself. As long as you are cowering beneath any kind of human contrived covering, you’ll ignore him in deference to them. He has made a way for you to be deeply connected to him and he is more certain than any covering humanity can devise. Put your trust in him and look to follow him each day as best you see him.

I’ve heard some people who when asked what spiritual covering they are under will respond that Jesus is the only covering they need. I get what they mean by that, but perhaps it is better said that Jesus came to do away with any need for covering at all. Now we can with unveiled faces behold him and in doing so be transformed by him.

There’s no good reason for anyone else to stand in the way of that.

_________

This is part 19 in a series on 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.

If you’d like to subscribe to this blog and receive future posts by email you can sign up at the top of the right-hand column of our home page.

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When Scripture Terrifies Me

16 Comments / Growing in Trust /

I realize a lot of well-meaning people think that fear will endear people to God. They pull out any passage that can be interpreted to terrify people, thinking that fear will lead people to holiness. Well-meaning perhaps, but horribly ignorant of the Gospel itself.  Jesus taught us that only love leads to holiness. Fear will not draw people to God. It will either draw them away from him, or it will make them so focused on their failures that they can’t find mercy and grace when they need it most.

The entire Bible story was written to draw people out of their fear and feelings of condemnation when they think of God, to see him as a loving Father drawing them into his love and his reality.  Look at Jesus. When he was among us he was not terrifying people with his power, but reaching out to them “as harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.” I am so sick of religious teachers twisting that story by pulling out those moments where God has to intrude into human history to preserve a line of salvation and concluding that they define his nature. His actions are still one intent on rescue, not destruction.

A few days ago I received an email from Germany written by a young woman who finds some of the more ominous passages in Scripture undermines her freedom to trust God’s love.  Here’s what she wrote:

I emailed you last year shortly after reading your book He Loves Me the first time. I love your book! Since I read it,  I am trying to change my perspective and “live loved”. I really want to live my life for God and do His will without fear.  But I have a problem with different fears since I am a child. Right now, I am seeing a therapist for it (he`s not a Christian) and we are working on it. I think God is working on me, too. I realize His love especially through brothers and sisters that I meet and circumstances. However, there are still great fears in me  because of passages in the Bible that I do not understand. They really disturb me and make it harder for me to believe in a loving Father.

The passages I am talking about are where God hardens the heart of Pharaoh, Romans 9, the story of Annanias and Sapphira, God trying to kill Moses, God saying he loves Jacob but hates Esau, the fate of Judas, the passage in Matthew 7 where Jesus warns that not everyone calling on His name will be saved, and some passages in Hebrews. Reading all these passages create a fear in me that God may choose to harden my heart as well, or suddenly punish me one day or make me “an object of his wrath — prepared for destruction” (Romans 9) – for I know that there are still dark sides in my heart, that I am far from perfect, and not obedient all the time. I really fear that I might get lost or loose my faith one day, that God chooses to do so because of my sins & doubts.

In this regard, I thought about Judas a lot. Did he ever had a chance? Was he meant to get lost since the day of his birth?  And finally, how do I know I am a “real believer” and do not have to fear Jesus warnings in Matthew 7?

I am often telling myself Bible verses that speak of Gods love and that I do not have a Spirit of fear. I also think of your words that fear never does make anyone holy. I talked to some Christian friends about my fears and they said that we will never understand God completely and that I just have to trust & obey him. They said that “nobody can take me out of His hand”, but I wonder, is that true? What about my doubts and sins – can they not take me out of His hand?  I am really trying to learn to trust God but whenever I think of those passages I feel discouraged and fearful. These fears make me doubt God and in the end, I do not only feel awful because of my fears, but also because of my doubts, which in turn increase the fear again that God leaves me/hardens me because of my doubts, and thus, this becomes an endless circle.

I am telling God about my struggles often and ask Him often to give me a trustful, fear-free heart, but obviously, it does not happen yet. I am telling myself that He is still working on me but sometimes I fail to believe that.  How can I loose my doubts and fears and trust God whole-heartedly, knowing that He will not leave me?

It’s easy to understand why these passages cause such concern. It’s just like the alcoholic father who comes home and beats his wife and kids.  He may only do it every few months, but if he does it at all, his family will live on pins and needles always afraid when he comes home that this might be the angry dad. I hate that religion has made our God look like that and creates an environment where people have to either totally trust God or be terrified of him. It isn’t honest and it causes paralyzing fear in people God simply wants to invite to know him better as he teaches them how to live in his love and grow in their trust.

Here’s what I wrote back to this young woman.  Perhaps it will be helpful to others of you as well:

There are many more passages (even in the Old Testament) about God’s “lovingkindness is better than life”, where his faithfulness is great, and where his love endures forever.  You’re pulling out the most extreme circumstances and applying them in ways they were not meant to. Of course it would take a while to drill down into all of those stories and explain what’s really going on there as a loving Father is trying to keep creation from falling into complete darkness and preserving his work of redemption in the world. His actions in these moments are like a surgeon removing a cancer that will spread, than an abusive dad blowing up in his anger. I recorded a video series (8 hours +) to help people work through all of this.  I know that is a lot of time, but it is at least free.  It’s called The Jesus Lens and seeks to help people interpret passages like these through the eyes of Jesus.  It will help, but I realize it will take some time.

Part of the problem may be that you feel as if you must trust God whole-heartedly and never have doubt.  Wouldn’t that be awesome?  But it is also unrealistic.  God wins us into ever-deepening layers of trust as we grow more secure in his love. Jesus is the “author and finisher” of our faith, because we can’t do it on our own.  We all have doubts and God does not reject us for it.  Instead he wants to be invited into our doubts, where we can pray, “What is it about your love God, that if I understood it, I would not have this doubt.”  This is a journey out of fear and doubt into love and trust.  It is a lifetime journey. You can relax in this process as he teaches you.  Look at Jesus’ patience with the disciples when they kept misunderstanding what he was about.  He gently kept inviting them in closer so they could relax in his love.

Don’t try to completely trust him.  Just trust him today as much as you can. Be honest about your doubts and know that he sees you as his beloved daughter and he wants to teach you how to respond to his love and grow in trust.

I don’t believe Judas was condemned at birth.  God might have known the choices he mad,e but he was not forced int to hem. Scripture makes clear that God always responds to the slightest attempts to look to him and follow him.  Focus on those passages that demonstrate his magnificent love.  Those that provoke fear, ignore for a time. Ask God to show you what’s really going on there in his time. But know that his perfect love casts out fear.  Fear will not serve you today in any way God wants access to your life.  Fear drives us from him not toward him.  He doesn’t need it.  You don’t need it.  Your heart is his or you wouldn’t write the things you write here.

How will you know?  Look to him. Watch how Jesus treats the people around him, especially those who are struggling to believe him. Listen to your own heart as his Spirit lets you know how the Father feels about you. You don’t have to trust what others say, or sort through competing conclusions from Scripture. Simply knowing him will make it absolutely clear to you.

I pray you will have the freedom to relax in his love. Walk in it where you see it today. Let the passages you do understand shape your heart, and put those you don’t understand on a shelf until God makes them clear to you.  Do so again tomorrow and you’ll find your freedom growing.

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Joining the Revolution?

So you think that if God wants a person to do something unconventional — revolutionary if you will, that He will make it beyond clear what that person is supposed to do? Will he at least make the next step clear, like he did for Abraham? Does God give a person knowledge only for them to live in and function in the institution, but with frustration? That doesn’t make sense. Is God waiting for the individual to have enough guts to step out? What is this God of ours up to? Patience I suppose is the answer, but there is a fear that if I wait too long I might miss what God is up to. What do you think? I need to be real. I need to be truthful. I need to admit my flaws. I need to teach God’s word and encourage, shepherd, and coach His people. I need to hate religion. I need to be emotionally healthy. I need to provide a healthy environment for my family. Problem is, from what I see – most of these things can’t happen in full time ministry. I am discerning enough to figure out the problem – am I innovative enough for a solution? My question to you is – do you think that I should wait on God for the solution, or is he waiting for me? Should I join the revolution?

Joining the Revolution?

Let me just make some comments that may be helpful. This is not a revolution. God is inviting people to know him better and love him in environments that encourage their pursuit, not discourage or demean it. In other words, there is no bandwagon to jump on here, no rebellion needed against the system or those who unwittingly or intentionally manage it. The call is simply to live free. The system may eventually expel you. God may ask you to leave it, but if he does it will most likely be as quietly as possible without destroying others. If you haven’t read Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards, this would be a good time! It will help.

Hating religion is OK! I think Jesus did too, actually, and certainly Paul came to do so. We all need to be real and be truthful, admitting our flaws and embracing his grace. But we need to do all that in the way he asked us to do everything else–in love.

I am concerned, however, over your feeling the need to shepherd or coach people. He is more than able to do that himself. That was the fix in Ezekiel 34. God wasn’t going to get rid of the bad shepherds and look for good one, but to shepherd his own people. I know you probably already know this but if ministry rises from need in us it really isn’t ministry because it doesn’t have to do with him and them, but with us. That’s the wrong place to start no matter how you look at it. I know those are hard words to hear, but it is truly the only place from which ministry springs. If God wants to use you to help people discover who he is, he has more ways to to do that than you’d believe.

Yes you do need a healthy environment for you and for your family. And Father will provide it, you just watch. You’re quite discerning to realize that most of those things can’t happen in the environment most people call “full time ministry”. As someone said, “He who takes the shekels wears the shackles.” I watch so many pastors go through it. The money and the job descriptions often end up owning them. They are afraid to follow God because they don’t see him as their source, only their vocation. As long as they do they will make compromises to fit in as best they can and the result is that it is destructive to them and the family pays a huge price for that.

But if God wants you to be free full-time to love his people, he’ll provide a way for you to do that. You won’t have to beg, borrow or steal. You’ll just find that he is an incredible provider while you live in him. That provision can come in a million different ways, including picking up odd jobs or tent-making at times. The call to trust God for provision every day is the very thing that ought to discourage almost everyone from ‘full-time ministry.’ If we can’t trust him for that, then we’ll only turn his people into resources for our own living and then we cannot truly minister to them in freedom.

Whether you leave or stay is less important today than that you find peace in your relationship with him and the freedom to live authentically right where you are. That’s a process and only he can do it. You can wait on him, but I don’t think he is waiting on you. This Father is always working. We don’t always see it, but he is. Let him lead you, doing only what you’re convinced he’s telling you to do. Don’t fear what men will think or say. (Yes, I know this is far easier said than done.) And don’t try to force yourself into a place where you’re not welcome. He will make his work clear in you each day, but I think that is far more in little steps, than in huge decisions we struggle with. Following every day will resolve those bigger issues, in a far more healthy way than if we knew now and tried to force it to happen.

You sound as if you’re right where Father wants you, asking the right questions, struggling with the right realities. To the degree that you can, relax. (Also easier said than done!), let him carry you through this to whatever place he has for you and your family. If you just jump from this fire on you’re own, you might well end up in another one and have to learn this same lesson again.

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International Translations

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international

A guide to translations of Lifestream books, articles, and audio

Chinese

Dutch

French

German

Translations from Glory World Medien:

  • Finding Church in German from Glory World Medien as Die Gemeinschaft der Neuen Schöpfung (The Community of the New Creation)
  • Authentic Relationships – Authentische Beziehungen
  • So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore, retitled as Der Schrei der Wildgänse (The Call of the Wild Geese) Order from Glory World Publishers
  • He Loves Me – Geliebt!
  • In Season –  Zu Seiner Zeit

Other articles in German:

Portuguese

Russian

South Korean

Spanish

Swahili

Tamil

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Leadership Conversation

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An email discussion with a brother in South Africa

S.V., South Africa

How do you fit the scriptures about elders and deacons into the relational church? I understand the Greek words, especially regarding deacons and the fact that elders should be seen more as the older Christians. In the Vineyard we believed in John Wimber’s words that “an elder is an elder to the degree that he elds”, so we have never had elders, but worked with a management team. I still feel though that what Paul said to Timothy and Titus about elders and deacons, needs explanation within the new context.

Wayne: I wonder if we have a new context if the meanings will be obvious. Most assume that what Paul meant in Titus and Timothy was to appoint elders that look like what we call elders today. We appoint people who then ‘manage’ the body of Christ and its programs. I wonder if in the decentralized church environment of Ephesus and Crete it simply meant for them to point out people they recognized as elders based on the soundness of their doctrine and the demonstration of God’s working in their lives. Perhaps many were claiming to be elders who were not and the sheep were being confused. Could Paul have been saying, “Point out those you consider to be elders…” In other words, help identify those whose life and instruction are square with God’s work. Notice he doesn’t assign them the task of managing the body of Christ, but simply to help others learn how to live the life.

“Deacons” may be a bit different because it seems these had specific tasks, but again they seem centered in people care not filling communion cups or vacuuming the ‘sanctuary.’ They seem to take some specific responsibility in looking after folks who were in need who were left out of the simple loving one another of body life.

The appointment of deacons in Acts, looks very “institutionalized” as well – should the need have arisen to appoint people to oversee the distribution and the tables if everyone was operating in their gifts? Is it possible that this may have been the first instance of institutionalism in the first church?

That’s what some think, though Scripture doesn’t say and I think it is a slippery slope indeed for us to consider what examples from Scripture are positive and which are negative if the text itself doesn’t say. A bit of organization doesn’t bother me. Even a home group has to agree on a time and place to get together and have some sense of how they will meet. I think the greater concern is whether or not our structure overruns our life… I honestly don’t know what to make of the Acts bit. Did they resort to a ‘managed’ response when the encouragement to “love and serve one another” might have been a better answer? It seems like that to me. But any of us who have ever encouraged “one anothering” know how few people really pick up on it. Most believers persist in living self-centered lives and not connecting in a vital way with other believers. Perhaps if someone is doing something “on behalf of the body” rather than just as an individual believer they need to qualify as a deacon.

Where does the buck stop and what is the role of the leader?

Wayne: There are really two questions here. Where does the buck stop spiritually? That clearly lies at Jesus’ feet. Where does the buck stop with our institutional needs for management? That can vary with how the group is set up. I like to see as minimum of maintenance functions as possible. The body doesn’t do its work through programs, but through people free to do what God has asked them to do. To do that we have to have to decentralize and let people operate out of growing relationships and love for each other. It would almost mean no salaries, no huge building expenses, no programming decisions that affect wide groups of people. It would mean we would have the absolute minimum of structure that we would need to accomplish what Jesus asks us to do. The bulk of our time and attention would be helping people come to know Jesus and helping them learn how to live with him and live with others as his body.

How do we make decisions in the corporate context?

Wayne: I’m not sure there is an easy answer to this one. All of our decision-making models are inherited from the political or business worldfrom autocratic, to leadership teams, to democracy. I don’t think ANY of those suffice. Ultimately we would want Jesus to make the decisions and realize that we best recognize that by hearing from people who are listening to him. In some sense, that invites the body as a whole to sort out the decisions together. This is only possible in smaller groupings. It would mean younger believers would respect older believers at such moments not so they can defer. What do we hear God saying? If the group makes a mistake they can fall back and reconsider. This way everyone learns and everyone grows.

How do we understand the fact that the gifts from the people were laid at the feet of the apostles and they did the distribution; wouldn’t the relational model require that people give to people as they perceive need or as the Holy Spirit directs?

Wayne: As far as we know that was simply how they handled it in the early days of Christianity in Jerusalem. It doesn’t seem to have become a model for the whole church. Later when Paul takes an offering for the saints starving in Palestine, he just asked people to lay aside something commensurate with their income and collect it on the first day of each week until he or his reps could get by to collect it. I don’t know that we can extrapolate a principle from either of these actions. Collecting money always means pooling power. Whenever we pool power it will in time divide brothers and sisters who want to fight over what should be done with it and where it should go. We use it to build institutions that eventually trade dependence on God for its own survival.

It seems the early church fell victim to that as well, which is why Paul had to right half the New Testament encouraging believers not to trade God’s life for another religion. Can people be trusted to give out of their passion to follow God’s voice in their life? That seems scary doesn’t it? But the real question might be, is Jesus able to provide through his body for whatever he wants to accomplish. Of course he is. The reason we are afraid of that is because we’re not sure he’ll pay for what we want to do in the amount we want to have to do it with.

There are two values in this. First we will no longer look at people for our resource, only God. Second, people will participate much more from the heart when God calls them to be involved in something. It means our focus has to be not on teaching people how to tithe, but how to live in God. One of our great struggles early in this process was to trust that to God. We couldn’t decentralize the way God was leading us because we didn’t know how the bills would get paid and whether the “pastors” would get equal pay. We would not trust the chaos of the body, or so we thought. Ultimately we weren’t trusting Jesus to do what he needed to do.

Paying a salary to anyone seems to distort that process and in time distort their calling as well. Instead of listening to God, they have to give in to the political pressure of those who control the purse strings. For the last seven years Sara and I have lived by what God has provided sometimes through the generous giving of people in his body and sometime through tent-making enterprises. It means we need to depend on him every day to see HOW he is providing for us. It is definitely not as easy as making the salary I used to make, but the freedom to follow God’s voice without people trying to shape you into THEIR image is so worth it. The advantage is no one is “supporting” us who doesn’t support us. What God gives to us through is people come from folks who are passionate about what he is doing in us, not because they are trying to pay some legalistic bill and want their money’s worth in return.

Do you see these things as problems in the first church that are now being corrected – I do not believe that the structure in the first church, was necessarily the correct one for all time – nor do I believe that we will ever evolve the perfect structure this side of eternity – we are working with the “already and the not yet” model of the Kingdom amongst us. I believe that the wine is perfect, but the wineskin will always be flawed.

Wayne: Agreed, Brother! I think our focus on a structure at all takes us away from the relational dynamic that is so powerful. I think Jesus’ body will always be a bit of a mess, because love is messy love is the only currency of this realm. Let us learn to follow him instead, freeing people to live as the body of Christ with their time and resources and let’s just see what he is willing to do. I honestly think our pursuit should not be how do we implement the right structure, but how do we eliminate those structure elements that distract from his life among us rather than nourish it. That’s not to say structure is evil. It isn’t. It is neutral&emdash;but can be used in ways that tear apart the central community and freedom of God’s people. We will always have structure because that is intrinsic to this age, but keeping that as minimally as possible seemed to be what our early brothers and sisters strove to do…

Can we fit the Sunday service into the model, and if we can, what is the goal and the format – we stopped to worship with a worship team leading, but most of us miss it, so we would like to do it again without re-creating the place of safety and deception that the performance often creates for consumer Christians.

I agree that our ‘worship’ dynamics today are mostly performance or entertainment dynamics. That doesn’t mean people are trying to perform, but that our “up front” sense of worship leading is all about how well people feel entertained. That’s sad. Can the larger-group gathering fit into relational church? Not really. Instead of letting people live as the body it treats them as spectators of a performance. But listen to me carefully here. Because I do see a place for gatherings where people are trained how to live as the church. But I think we have to be intentional about telling people, “This isn’t church!” This is a gathering of believers designed to train you how to live as the church. It might include praise and singing similar to how we do it today, but it would also engage teaching that would genuinely train, equip and free people to live as the body in more relational settings. Ideally I think someone would only participate in such a thing for a year or two while discovering more life-giving ways to gather with believers. As they found themselves being joined to others for more relational engagement, their need for the training time would decrease. Thus the large group would be more like a university, training people and sending them out, not trying to hold on to them every Sunday morning for 40 or 50 years.

WOW, it turned out to be quite a few questions – please don’t feel that you have to answer them yourself – you can maybe just direct me to a particular article or teaching so that I can glean

Wayne: Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of great resources out there on this kind of stuff. That may be good. We all need to learn to follow the Shepherd not simply adapt someone else’s model that we might think will work for us. I used to be frustrated that Jesus didn’t map out a clearer church structure for his disciples to implement. Now I see the great wisdom in that. He wanted people to follow him, not a model. But that is always a challenge… For all of us.

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Coming To the End

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At 4:35 pm Monday afternoon, I wrote the final sentence in my new book, Finding Church:  What If There Really Is Something More?  That’s always a wonderful moment, akin to a builder turning the last screw in the dream house he’s been building for his family, or a trucker turning off the freeway toward home at the end of a cross-country trip.  It’s a wonderful feeling.  Part of what helped me get to the end was the cheerleading of a friend who said he had the sense that “this message is a modern version of what Christ was doing while he was here in human form, fighting for the freedom of his beloved.”  Gracious words, given that he hadn’t read it yet, but I hope that’s true and I’m blessed not to be the only voice in that fight.  I do hope, however, that for many for whom the term “church” conjures up images of pain, arrogance, or bondage, might look elsewhere to the church that Jesus is building that is filled with love, life, and grace.  

If you’ve been following this odyessy you know I was close to this point four months ago before I blew it all up on the advice of a good friend and first editor I ever had.  I love how it has come back together and hope now we’ve find the form that will best convey this material.  But even then I had yet to work on the final chapter.  Though I had some notes there, I was never sure how this book would end.  On this reformatting I kept wondering and it didn’t become clear to me until early on Saturday morning as I began to approach it.  I had no idea how to give a final summation given the fact that this journey is still unfolding for me and that I have great hope that God is still percolating something amazing beneath the surface of our world and that the church will yet take expression in ways more profound than any of us see at this point.  Finally I knew how to end it in the only way this book could end, in a chapter titled, “To Be Continued”. 

Here are a few excerpts:  

No, this is not a promise for a sequel called Finding Church Too!  I am simply acknowledging that this book speaks into a story that is far from complete.  Though Jesus is building his church in the world she is not yet all that she needs to be to bring this age to its conclusion and to be presented before him as his spotless bride.  He is still building his church though in ways that mostly go unnoticed and unnamed. 

And while I’m filled with anticipation at what might yet lie down the road, I have no idea what she will look like in the end as people are untangled from obligation to human systems and become more preoccupied with him and his kingdom.   What will it look like as we learn to love one another from the heart and care about each other the way God cares for us? The tastes I’ve had locally and internationally of this family when people are focused on him and generous with each other have fulfilled every desire I’ve had to experience his church in the world.  My heart yearns to see more of his children find their way into that reality and when they do, what will we look like then?  I told you upfront that I wasn’t an expert with all of the answers and now that we’ve arrived at the final chapter, hopefully you’re convinced. If you have more questions than answers, you are not alone.  I do too.  I want to keep learning how I can more effectively engage this church Jesus is building and I anticipate that to be a life-long adventure.  But to be honest, if I died tomorrow I could truthfully say that I’ve been able to participate freely in the incredible beauty and power of his church that I always hoped was possible. 

Finding church is not a matter of locating a group you like and joining it.   I hope many of you arrive at the end of this book as exhilarated as I am by the possibilities of finding a more vibrant church experience than you have found to date.  If you’ve wondered why you never seemed to fit freely into the human models we’ve created, perhaps now you understand why.  You weren’t rebellious or independent; you just had a seed of life in your heart that refused to settle for an illusion when something real beckoned you onward.

Finding church is not a matter of simply joining a Christian group, but actually embracing him and inside of him discovering how to live and think with others in the new creation.  We can’t describe her in intellectual terms and then implement our own strategies to fulfill it.  The church has to be experienced alongside others who are being transformed by him.  You don’t control that, and neither do I. We can only make ourselves available to him and see how he links us together. 

I hope this book is continued in a broader conversation of men and women worldwide who are passionate about Jesus and his kingdom that are willing to look past our differences to the common unity we have by virtue of the fact that we are children of the same Father.  It won’t be about the best way to do church, or to which one you belong, but how can we all belong more fully to Christ.  How can he be our shepherd and lead us to greater freedom from our own agendas so that we can truly be one as Father, Son, and Spirit are one?  How can we encourage each other on that path, and how might he connect us in conversations and collaborations of generosity and graciousness that will make him visible in the world…

Sharing my joy with friends I’ve been near over the last couple of days at finally completing this book, illicited the same question:  “So when will it be ready to read?”  So before I get those emails, I’ll answer as best I know.  I’m going to spend the next month polishing up the entire work. While I’ve already cut about 15,000 words from it, I want to streamline it a bit more and hoping find another 5,000. For those of you who don’t write, that may not make much sense. Why cut out something I might want to read?  I am not cutting it to leave things out; I’m cutting out the extraneous matter to make what’s most important stand out.  And believe me, there’s always extraneous matter.  If I was with a real publisher it would take another 12 months to get it ready for publication. But since I’m doing this one on my own I’m hopeful to get through editing, lay-out and cover design by early September and release the book in late September. That’s all best-case scenario.  If I have to blow it up again, it will take even longer.  But I’m hopeful that I won’t need to.  

Thanks to so many of you who have been an encouragement throughout this process.  I

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