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Relationship Not Religion!

We are passionately committed to help people discover the joy and freedom of relational Christianity. It is our firm conviction that Jesus’ death on the cross was to prepare for each of us a dwelling place in the heart of a loving Father and to free us to the kinds of relationships that can share his life with other believers and with the world.

You’ll understand our passion when you can figure out who in this cartoon needs the most help.

By relational Christianity we mean:

• A personal friendship with Father, Son, and Spirit. These are not just words to describe Christianity, but the very way he has called us to live.
• Healthy relationships with other believers. Many today think fellowship is nothing more than attending the same service together when it is meant to be so much more. We help traditional churches, home groups, and house churches to discover how to relate to one another in his love and allows the ministry of Jesus to flow between them.
• Friendships with people in the world, so that as God displays his character through us they might come to know the love of God for themselves.

For that to happen we spend a lot of time helping people understand the freedom that Father has given us through the work of his Son, Jesus. Only as we live in his love and freedom can we even begin to experience the power of life in Christ as he brought it to us. Specifically, we help people discover the freedom…

• To live in the love of an awesome Father, free to respond to him as he leads you, even if that means you make mistakes now and then.
• To walk without guilt or condemnation. Recognize that transformation is a life-long process that Jesus works in us by our security in his love, not something we do for him out of fear.
• To be real. To feel what you feel; to ask what you need to ask, to be wrong where you are wrong, and to extend that same freedom to others.
• To be liberated from accountability to human leaders who seek to take the place of Jesus in the church by telling others what they think he would have them do.
• To love other brothers and sisters freely, serving them the way Jesus leads you, and not trying to conform to their expectations of what a ‘good Christian’ should do for them.
• To live free of bitterness and hurt, even where religious institutions (and those who run them) have failed you. We’ve all got plenty wrong with us, so there can be no end to the generosity we can extend others in their weakness.

With this passion in mind, we look for any way Father asks us to…

• • • • • • • • • • • Go wherever he sends us to encourage people in the life of Jesus, whether it is to hungry hearts in a traditional congregation, a house church, or an informal gathering of believers who want to escape the rigors of religion for the joy and passion of a friendship with the Living God.
                    • Publish materials that will encourage people to the journey of knowing God better and trusting him more.
                    • Gather with those who are disillusioned with organized religion to help them heal from past abuse and to help them discover what life in Father’s family can be.
                    • Equip believers to let God transform them by his magnificent grace so that they truly reflect his image to the world around them.
                    • Help people who do not know him at all, to be captured by his love.

The free person in Christ and the rebellious will always look the same to those who labor under religious obligation because both ignore the conventions that manipulate men and women. But there is a major difference between the two. The rebel does it to serve himself and his passions, always harming others in the process and leaving a wake of anarchy behind him. The free person in Christ, however, does so because they no longer have a need to serve themselves. Having embraced God’s love at a far deeper level than any method of behavioral conformity will touch, they will guard that freedom even if it means others will misunderstand their pursuits. They reject the conventions of control not to please themselves, but Father Himself.

If You Would Like to Help Us…

“We are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found amoung us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.” – A. W. Tozer

“Religion killed Christ. Or I might add religion partnered with politics. History shows that when religious and political establishments come together for a cause, it often involves violence, war, and death.” – Bruxy Cavey in The End of Religion

“Generally, what I find is that the ordinary people who come to church are basically running their lives on their own, utilizing ‘the arm of the flesh’ – their natural abilities – to negotiate their way,” he says. “They believe there is a God and they need to check in with him. But they don’t have any sense that he is an active agent in their lives. As a result, they don’t become disciples of Jesus.” – Dallas Willard in Christianity Today

“We must never forget that God’s speaking to us, however we experience it in our initial encounter, is intended to develop into a intelligent, freely cooperative relationship between mature people who love each other with the richness of genuine agape love. We must therefore make it our primary goal not just to hear the voice of God but to be mature people in a loving relationship with him.” – Dallas Willard in Hearing God

“Only broken people are truly honest. By nature you and I are full of erroneous judgments… It is only after God has shaken our natural foundation to pieces… only when all our illusions are raised and we have lost the remainder of our inborn self-confidence… only when we see we have misjudgment concerning ourselves… then do we begin to be honorable. Revelation has its price.” – Manfred Haller in Christ is All in All

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” – C. S. Lewis

Sometimes in an effort to remind people of the cost of the cross, we withhold grace until we are sure they understand their sin. But it is in giving of our grace that we remind people that they need to go to Jesus to find their own. People understand their sin without our help. It?s grace they need help in understanding.

Shawn Zimmerman in a YouTube video about the AIDs crisis in Africa.

“The hijacking of the concept of morality began, of course, when we reduced Scripture to formula and a love story to theology, and finally morality to rules. It is a very different thing to break a rule than it is to cheat on a Lover.” – Donald Miller, In Search of God Knows What

What If?

I got an email the other day and in the course of telling his story the writer included a question posed to him by a friend that he later said “rocked me to my core and ricocheted around my emptiness for years like a steel marble in a pinball machine.”

What if the guy who sold everything he had to buy the incomparable pearl, was God and you were the incomparable pearl?

What if? The context certainly allows for that interpretation, and that is in effect what Jesus did when he gave up everything he had so that we could become his – now and forever!

“This adventure is not about me but Jesus, and apart from Him and the grace of the Spirit and Abba’s love in this process I would be lost and destroyed, or dead already. So let’s be people who rock the world, who fight for the unity of the heart, who embrace powerlessness and a love that is so wondrously painful that it threatens daily to pull us out of this age and into the presence of the One we so desperately love.” – Paul Young, Author of The Shack, in a pivate email

“The mind of a Pharisee thinks truth is more important than love but Jesus showed us that love is the most important part of truth.” – Adapted from Pharisiatis Test by Don Francisco, Rocky Mountain Ministries

“You should realize that the Bible neither describes nor promotes the local church as we know it today. The local church many have come to cherish – the services, offices, programs, buildings, ceremonies – is neither biblical or unbiblical. It is abiblical – that is, such an organization is not addressed in the Bible.” – George Barna in Revolution

“I have concluded at this point that the most dangerous enemy of Jesus-brand community is viewing community as an ideal to be achieved rather than as a gift to be received.” – Ken Wilson in The Promise, Pitfalls and Pursuit of Jesus-brand Community

“We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.” – Henri J.M. Nouwen

“I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man’s mind into a habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God.” – Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

“We humans are notorious for taking something Scripture describes as a reality, giving a term to it and thinking we’ve replicated the reality. Paul talked about the church that gathered in various homes, but he never called it ‘house church’. Houses were just where they ended up in their life together. Jesus was the focus, not the location.” – Jake Colsen, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore

Our priorities at Lifestream: We value God’s power over human effort, transformation over conformity, mutuality over hierarchy, authenticity over entertainment, modeling over celebrity, following Jesus rather than implementing models, and the presence of the Living Christ above all else!

“When religion replaces the actual experience of the living Jesus, when we lose the authority of personal knowing and rely on the authority of books, institutions, and leaders, when we let religion interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we lose the very reality that religion itself describes as ultimate.” – Brennan Manning in The Wisdom of Tenderness

“The most important things in life are not things.” – Seen on a refrigerator magnet in Ireland

“Unless a definite step is demanded, the call vanishes into thin air, and if people imagine that they can follow Jesus without taking this step, they are deluding themselves like fanatics… Although Peter cannot achieve his own conversion, he can leave his nets.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship

“Brothers and sisters, break free from whatever ruts you have settled into! Whoever does not want to be set free – well, suit yourself, but don’t say you are living in Christ’s spirit. You can continue in the old ways and be a part of Christianity, but not of God’s kingdom. You can live in Christianity but not in Christ; the gulf between the two is great.” – Christoph Blumhardt in Break Free

In the last issue I mentioned a new book by Brian Dodd, entitled Empowered Church Leadership. I like a lot of what this book does to rethink the nature of leadership in the body as servants of character not power-brokers. I thought you would enjoy Brian’s depiction of the dysfunctional body life that exalts human effort over God’s mercy. He offers these Rules of Self-effort:

Rule 1: Don’t have anything wrong with you.
Rule 2: If you do, get over it quickly.
Rule 3: If you can’t get over it quickly, then fake it.
Rule 4: If you can’t get over it quickly or fake it, then stay way from me. I don’t want anyone to think I have it too.

Is it any wonder that people do not grow and cannot find healing in that kind of environment. Jesus offers us so much more?

“Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God’s will from their own. Temple police are always a bad sign. When chaplains start wearing guns and hanging out at the sheriff’s office, watch out. Someone is about to have no king but Caesar” – Barbara Brown Taylor in A Deadly Mix

“It’s hard to imagine a more depressing place than a room with a few hundred people expecting community to happen to them.” – Brian D. Mclaren in Leadership Journal

“Much Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire builders have been people unable to give and receive love.” – Henri Nouwen

“Nothing makes people n the church more angry than grace. It’s ironic: we stumble into a party we weren’t invited to and find the uninvited standing at the door making sure no other uninviteds get in. Then a strange phenomenon occurs: as soon as we are included in the party because of Jesus’ irresponsible love, we decide to make grace ‘more responsible’ by becoming self-appointed Kingdom Monitors, guarding the kingdom of God, keeping the riffraff out (which as I understand it, are who the kingdom of God is supposed to include.)” – Michael Yaconelli in Messy Spirituality

“I think almost without exception that if I want to go deeper with God, be more spiritually alive, I probably need to do less of something. For so many years I saw being more spiritually alive as throwing one more duty on top of the pile.” – Ben Patterson in Leadership Journal

“Even in its ruined condition a human being is regarded by God as something immensely worth saving. Sin does not make you worthless, but only lost.” – Dallas Willard in The Renovation of the Heart

“Why, then, is there so much unfreedom in religious circles today? The sad truth is that many Christians fear the responsibility of being free. It’s often easier to let others make the decisions or to rely exclusively on the letter of the law. Some men and women want to be slaves.” – Brennan Manning in The Wisdom of Tenderness

Who Are You?

From an interview with author, Sheila Walsh in Leadership Journal, Summer 2002

In 1992 my life hit the wall. One morning I was on national television with my nice suit and my inflatable hairdo and that night I was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital. It was the kindest thing God could have done for me.

The very first day in the hospital, the psychiatrist asked me, “Who are you?”

“I’m the co-host of The 700 Club.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said.

“Well, I’m a writer. I’m a singer.”

“That’s not what I meant. Who are you?”

“I don’t have a clue,” I said, and he replied, “Now that’s right, and that’s why you’re here”

And the greatest thing I discovered there (was that I could be) fully known and fully loved. Jesus knew the worst and He loved me. What a relief to know the worst about yourself and at the same moment to be embraced by God. It’s so liberating to reach the end of yourself.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Book Review:

The Pressure’s Off: There’s a New Way to Live
by Larry Crabb

This book was recommended to me by a respected friend who told me it was one of the best he’d ever read. I think you’ll agree when you read the first three-fourths of this book. Crabb invites us to stop trying to earn or seek God’s blessing, and instead put our intimate friendship with him above everything else we might want from God. My heart soared as I read his words (see below). The last fourth, however, is a disappointment as he subverts his own message by giving techniques for that relationship that put God and the reader back in a box that won’t satisfy. It seemed to me that he has not yet found the fullness of trust he longs for, but he longingly points us to an oasis on the horizon. Yet, for that alone it is well-worth reading.

Excerpt: “The central obstacle to His life flowing in us and pouring from us is this: We want something else more. And that’s evil. We want the blessings of a better life more than we desire to draw near to Jesus. “We approach him the way a weary child approaches a weary Santa Claus in the mall, who for the hundredth time asks, ‘What do you want for Christmas?’ I wager no child has ever pressed close to Santa’s chest, looked into his eyes, and said, ‘You! I want only you!’ No child believes having Santa join him for dinner could bring more joy than watching Santa stack presents beneath the tree.”

Order it from Amazon.com

Rescued

A man had been stranded on the proverbial deserted island for years. Finally a boat comes into view, and the man frantically waves to draw its attention. The rescuers turn toward shore and arrive on the island. After greeting the stranded man, one looks around and asks,

“What are those three huts you have here?”

“Well, that’s my house there.”

“What’s that next hut?” asks the sailor.

“I built that hut to be my church.”

“What about the other hut?”

“Oh, that’s where I used to go to church.”

“Expectations are resentment waiting to happen.” – Anne Lamott in Crooked Little Heart

“Not forgiving is like swallowing rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.” – Anne Lamott in Traveling Mercies

“The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.” – Rita Maye Brown

“What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day. For each of us the time is surely coming when we shall have nothing but God.” – A.W Tozer

“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.” – Dave Barry

“May all your expectations be frustrated. May all your plans be thwarted. May all of your desires be withered into nothingness. That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.” – A blessing prayed over Henri Nouwen by a friend

“Ruthless trust comes down to this: faith in the person of Jesus and hope in his promise in spite of all disconcerting appearances.” – Brennan Manning in Ruthless Trust

A Quiz!

Part 1

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heismann trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor or actress.
6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

How did you do? Now try Part 2

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of four people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
6. Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.

Did you do better? None of us remember the headliners of yesterday. The people you’ll remember are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the biggest awards. They are the ones who care.

“Anyone God uses significantly is always deeply wounded… We are, each and every one of us, insignificant people who God has called and graced to use in a significant way… On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars.” – Brennan Manning in Ruthless Trust

Say that Again?

An official of a large denomination spoke of inviting Eugene Peterson to come and address their national pastor’s conference.

“How many people are you expecting?” Eugene asked.

“Between seven and eight hundred,” came the answer.

After a pause, Eugene respectfully declined their invitation.

Concerned that they had not gathered a crowd large enough to impress this well-known writer and translator of The Message, the denominational official asked if there was anything they could do to change his mind.

“At this point in my life, I want to make every minute count.” Eugene responded, “I rarely address groups larger than twenty people. If you can put something together more like that, I’d be honored to come.”

Now there’s someone who understands how Father does his work.

“The turning point in our lives is when we stop seeking the God we want and start seeking the God who is.” – Patrick Morley in The Seasons of a Man’s Life

“Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think and act like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning away from the old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.” – I Peter 4:1-2 in The Message

“It is symptomatic that in the Western world… the mass of people still pass Christianity by. Why? Because the visible presence of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit in Christians as a whole, apart from a few individuals, is no longer present.” – Brennan Manning in Prophets and Lovers

“My true brothers are those who rejoice for me in their hearts when they find good in me, and grieve for me when they find sin. They are my true brothers, because whether they see good in me or evil, they love me still.” – Augustine in Confessions

Truth in Strange Places

“Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is!” – Mark Twain

“The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.” – Charles Spurgeon in Lifeline, Fall 90

Truth in Strange Places

“Well, I may not know much about God, but I have to say, we built a pretty nice cage for him .” – Homer Simpson after helping some island natives build a chapel.

“There has been persecution of people who will live this costly life throughout the history of organized religion. We need to see that the real enemy of the cross-life? comes from the established religion of the day. That seems to be the clear teaching of Jesus – and history has born him out.” – David Boan and John Yates, brothers from Australia in an unpublished manuscript

Book Review:

Reflections for Ragamuffins
by Brennan Manning

Looking for a good devotional to encourage you daily in the kind of thinking that will draw you closer to Father? Look no further. Reflections for Ragamufffins offer excerpts from the writings of Brennan Manning. Admittedly the title is a bit weird, unless you have read the Ragamuffin Gospel but don’t let that distract you. Brennan Manning understands the Father’s heart and offers such relational insights into who God is and how we can engage him in the practical details of every day life. Here are some excerpts:

• The life he has planned for Christians is a Christian life, much like the life he lived. He was not poor that we might be rich. He was not mocked that we might be honored. He was not laughed at so that we could be lauded. On the contrary, he was revealing the Christian picture of man, one that was meant to include you and me.
• In choosing to be born in utter obscurity, the kIng of the universe ignored conventional expectations. He celebrated in his own birthday the freedom to be unorthodox. In failing to live up to people’s presuppositions, Jesus became a stumbling block to many of his contemporaries. The houseborken Jewish imagination cringed at the crib, shuttered at the ersatz salvation of a humble, unpredictable God. A king in rags was an insult to the finely honed intellect of the Pharisee and the rational mind of the scribe. There is a fascinating principle at work here in very religious people: ‘Messiah, you get our allegiance only when you fulfill our expectations.’

From the mind of Bob Blassingame, and the artistic talents of Dave Aldrich.

Religion vs Relational Life

• Religion conforms people to a system; relational life frees them to trust God.
• Religion divides people by preference and perspective; relational life celebrates the incredible diversity in God’s family.
• Religion bores people with routine; relational life is as fresh as a new conversation with an endearing friend.
• Religion rewards image and pretense; relational life demands honesty and reality.
• Religion provides substitutes for the active presence of Jesus in people’s lives; relational life focuses on that presence alone.
• Religion sacrifices people for the good of the institution; relational life teaches people how to live together as Father’s family.
• Religion uses what God says and does for its own agenda; relational life allows God to set the agenda and for us to simply follow him.
• Religion leaves us able to boast about how much we’re doing or how hard we’re working; relational life finds joy only in celebrating God’s work among us.
• Religion finds love inefficient and cumbersome; relational life embraces love as the heart of God’s working.

The Naysayers

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” – Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” – Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” – Popular Mechanics, 1949

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” – The editor of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” – Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.” – Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” – David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” – A Yale University management professor in response to a paper proposing a reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express.)

“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” – Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind.”

“A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” – Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” – Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.” – Spencer Silver, on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M “Post-It” Notepads.

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” – Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” – Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure deGuerre.

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” – Bill Gates, 1981

“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.'” – Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

Remember these next time someone tries to steal your dream.

Don’t Quit Keep Playing!

Author unknown

Wishing to encourage her young son’s progress on the piano, a mother took her boy to a Paderewski concert. After they were seated, the mother spotted a friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her.

Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked NO ADMITTANCE. When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that the child was missing.

Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage. In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy’s ear, “Don’t quit. Keep playing.”

Then leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added a running obligato. Together, the old master and the young novice transformed a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience. The audience was mesmerized.

That’s the way it is with God. What we can accomplish on our own is hardly noteworthy. We try our best, but the results aren’t exactly graceful flowing music. But with the hand of the Master, our life’s work truly can be beautiful.

Next time you set out to accomplish great feats, listen carefully. You can hear the voice of the Master, whispering in your ear, “Don’t quit. Keep playing.”

Feel His loving arms around you. Know that His strong hands are there helping you turn your feeble attempts into true masterpieces. Remember, God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called. And He’ll always be there to love and guide you on to great things.

New Element Discovered!

The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by investigators at a major US research university. The element, tentatively, named administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of O. However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, which gives it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons. It is also surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since it has no electrons, administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would have normally occurred in less than a second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years, at which time it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. Some studies have shown that the atomic mass actually increases after each reorganization.

Research at other laboratories indicates that administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as government agencies, large corporations, churches and universities. It can usually be found in the newest, best appointed, and best maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reaction where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising.

Go to Letters from our Readers

Wayne Jacobsen

“So why did you come all this way just to see me?”

It hadn’t been that far really, only a three hour drive. I had scheduled other business in the area, but called him a few weeks before. I had never spoken with him previously, but we had for a time ministered in overlapping circles and what I kept hearing about him made me want to meet him. He’d heard of me, too, had even read my book, he said.

“I’ve heard a lot about you and wanted to get to know you if you would have some time to spend with me?” He agreed and we had arranged a four-hour span together. It would prove not to be near enough time for either one of us.

“The truth?” My mouth twisted slightly as my eyebrows raised. He nodded

I gazed across Denny’s Formica-topped table and glared into his eyes. He was nondescript, somewhere in his early 50’s. I had only met him 15 minutes before where I picked him up at his office and drove to the restaurant. His desire to know why I had wanted to meet him was our segue from sizing each other up by family facts and ministry resumes.

His was impressive. Pastor, Bible college teacher and administrator, conference speaker, had been heir apparent at one of the most influential churches in Southern California. But all that had been three years before. Since then, if my sources were accurate, he’d just been through the biggest trial of his life.

“I heard some things about you,” I said. “As I understand it, you’ve made some very difficult choices and paid an incredible price to be faithful to your conscience. Such men fascinate me. I wanted to know if it was true. And if it is, I want to know what you have learned.”

“No one has ever said anything like that about me,” he responded, his eyes noticeably moistened. Recovering, he shook his head and chuckled. “I hope you’re not disappointed.”

For the next two hours he told me his story. He didn’t embellish it to make him look better, he didn’t gossip by name about anyone who had failed him. It started with a church the denomination had sent him to help resurrect after a brutal power-struggle had left the people wounded and bitter. Through the course of the next year that church chewed him up and he never got the denominational backing he was promised. He and his family had come to the brink of financial ruin and those who had been his colleagues abandoned him. He told me he only had three close friends who had walked him through the most painful part of his life, and one of them was an unbeliever and none of them were fellow-colleagues in ministry. To be sure I was not disappointed and though that encounter was brief we have since become good friends and confidants.

He’s a precious commodity. I’ve only met a handful of people in full-time ministry I could honestly say walks with an integrity of conscience that defies all logic. By that I mean they have made incredibly costly decisions not to serve their own interests, but truly put the kingdom first. I know I risk sounding cynical here, but what I just described is an incredibly high standard. Over the long-haul full-time ministry wears at our conscience. It is easy to link our success to the responses of other people, and prefer it over the success of the kingdom. Under the cloak of servanthood we can substitute people-pleasing for honesty. In the guise of false humility we can capitulate on our convictions to get along with those who carry agendas other than God’s and to keep a salary they control.

Compromise Made Easy

I failed my first compromise test within 30 days of beginning ministry. Fresh out of college, I took to my first ministry assignment with hopeful idealism. I was employed by a church I had attended during summers when I was home from college. Now that I was on staff, I was required to join the denomination.

I sat in my office reading over the membership application form. As I recall there were 15 statements on the back of the form that I had to sign-off stating I agreed with them. Thirteen of those were easy, but two were not. One was a matter of Biblical interpretation and though I would always vote for a pre-tribulation rapture if God ever decides that by popular vote, I was not Biblically convinced it was so. The other was about abstaining from alcohol. Not a problem for me, since I didn’t drink anyway, but I struggled with signing a statement suggesting I had theological aversion to it.

Uncertain what I was to do I sought out a pastor in the denomination to voice my struggle. I couldn’t sign it in good conscience and I couldn’t continue on staff without it. “Oh, that?” He motioned toward the form in my hand and waved it off. “That’s just a formality. No one pays attention to that anyway. Sign it and be done with it.”

So I did. But I felt bad about it–that day and for a whole week. I signed something I didn’t believe to keep a job I deeply desired. Not only had I compromised something, but in the week that followed I learned how to override the nagging conviction of my heart for the expedience of job security. It was the first step down a slippery road that has sought more than this to trip me up in ministry.

I’m not talking here about big things here we usually recognize as ministerial failures–embezzling funds, adultery or some other obvious breech of trust. Those are different issues all together. I’m talking about things that are so easily justified, many might consider them straining at gnats. The art of embellishing facts to put the best face on them, can be seen as optimism instead of the deceit it is. Selectively passing out partial information to advance our agenda can be exalted as tact when it is only designed to manipulate.

The opportunities come every day and may seem minor but they all chip away at the foundation of ministry itself–the quality of our character. Will I be honest about the self-centered nature of the person whining at me about their difficult circumstances, or will I prop them up with empty platitudes and a half-hearted prayer? When I find out I’ve been the object of someone’s gossip in their attempts to discredit me with power-brokers in the church will I respond in kind to demonstrate that they are much worse than me? Will I use my time to teach God’s Word to harp on some pet peeve hoping to motivate my hearers into more institution-serving activity? Will I prefer my perspectives above others, and what means will I use to advance them?

In a hundred ways over 20 years of professional ministry, I’ve seen the demands of ministry battle my conscience. Of course it doesn’t happen every week, but every so often a choice comes that would vex my soul. The purposes of ministry are so laudable, that corners cut too sharply and less-than-honorable methodologies are easily rationalized. How easy it is to override what we would admit to be wrong in every other case, arguing that the mitigating circumstances in this instance warrant the exception.

In that environment expediency becomes our master at the expense of conviction. The outcome is not what’s essential here, it’s the methods we use to get there. I am convinced that a person’s character is tested most severely not by evil intent, but in what he or she is willing to do when they are absolutely convinced God is on their side.

That’s why people who have paid an incredible price to follow their conscience fascinate me and why I’ll go out of my way to sit down with them–men and women who have gone so far as to give up ministry opportunities and the security of their income because they found a corner they wouldn’t cut, a conviction they would not squelch, a person they would not placate just to save their reputation. Truly these are the men and women of whom the world is not worthy.

I have found no better guide to this lesson than the Beatitudes; especially as they have been translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message. I’ve changed the names of the people involved, not because they wouldn’t deserve the honor, but that the giving of it would be an affront to the very character we are celebrating. Here are eight incredible lessons I’ve learned from people who walk in the joy of the power of a cleansed conscience:

1

You are blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.
With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

Men of conscience have been through the fire and come out transformed.

I’ve had a lot of thoughts when I’ve dangled from the end of my rope, but I’ll have to admit that feeling blessed was never one of them. Jesus said there is no better place for us to be than beyond our own ability to save ourselves, for only then will we learn to trust him.

As I’ve listened to people who have survived the conscience wars, I am not only impressed by the struggle they’ve been through, but also the fact that they look back in gratefulness not bitterness. Even when their grief was caused by those who did them injustice, they are even thankful for that. Somehow, in the fire of anguish they had come to know God in a way they had not known him before and had discovered a freedom they wouldn’t trade for their past positions.

The man who sat across from me at that Denny’s table is a case in point. He went from being one of the rising gifted men in his denomination to near obscurity. I heard nothing more of him for a number of years, when his name finally surfaced in a conversation. “How is he doing?” I asked.

“He’s been through hell,” a friend told me, his head shaking in disbelief, “but God has really touched him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t talk about it. But I know it was painful.”

When he finally told me his story, I could only shake my head in disbelief. Broken promises by key people in his denomination had left him out of work and out of money. When he was asked to go to that wounded congregation and help it heal, he said he would as soon as his house sold. They told him to get there right away and they would make the payments until it sold. So he moved his family 500 miles to the new church.

For 18 months he hoped his love would win over those who demanded control of the church, but when they went over his head to the denomination he did not get the support they had promised. Meanwhile his home had not sold and despite pleas for help, no money ever came. Finally broke, certain that he was no longer helpful in his new church, and in need of surgery for a medical condition he had developed, he moved back home. In the months that followed not one fellow pastor or denominational executive extended a hand to him. At one point he even had to take food hand-outs from an ethnic church in his neighborhood to feed his family.

What had he learned? “I learned that people will fail you; that the body of Christ can be a pretty dysfunctional family when the heat is on; and that God is big enough to take care of me anyway.” For all he’d been through–repeatedly wounded by his closest friends and his reputation shattered on the rocks of other men’s expedience–he wasn’t bitter at all. On the contrary he was thrilled with how God was using his life now to touch people who are disaffected from church systems and the thrill of living without a salary with incredible needs and seeing God provide for him every day.

No doubt, men like him get into far deeper trouble than if they would just compromise more. But they’ve learned that only in the fire is God clearly seen and his rule more able to take over their lives.

2

You are blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you.
Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

People of conscience have the most profound relationship to the Father I’ve known anywhere. They are not legalists bowing to an oppressive code of conduct, but men and women who trust

God so much to accomplish his work and demonstrate his love to them over and over again that they have absolutely nothing to win or lose. Which usually means they’ve already lost something incredibly precious to them. Having survived that, they don’t fear it happening again, knowing that God’s presence in their life is really the only thing worthy of value.

Michael founded and edited a Christian magazine that after a number of years had reached a measure of national prominence. One day he felt impressed by the Lord to discontinue publication of the magazine. He shared it with his managing editor, who also happened to be his best friend. His friend was as resistant as Michael had been when the thought first occurred to him. They agreed to pray about it for a month before talking of it with anyone else. After a month they both were certain that God had indeed spoken to them and they were to close the magazine.

They shared it with their board members, who were not surprisingly shocked at the prospect. Having suffered through the early, money-losing days of the venture, they were excited to see it operating in the black. “After all we’ve been through, how can we stop now?” But they agreed to pray about it for a month.

At the next board meeting, when Michael asked the board what their thoughts were, a sordid tale unfolded. The board wasn’t about to stop publication, and the mere fact that Michael had suggested it convinced them he was no longer qualified to be its publisher. They fired him on the spot, and by obvious, prior arrangement elevated his best-friend to be the new publisher. When Michael left the meeting, his friend wouldn’t even look at him.

Over the next few months the betrayal of his friend had pained him the most, but through the process God changed him even as he opened up to him new avenues of ministry. When I met him, the friend who had betrayed him was leading worship at the seminar he was hosting. “How did that come to be?” I asked.

“It took eight years, for God to heal that relationship. He still publishes the magazine, but I know that God called me to other things.”

During that period of time Michael had left a flourishing congregation to start on a fresh journey with some believers in a rural community. He still has no steady means of income, except the Father’s provision as he continues to let God use him to touch lives. Michael’s ability to trust God is second to no one I’ve met anywhere on the planet. Having lost what he deeply valued, Michael found the touch of a loving Father far more precious still.

3

You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are–no more, no less.
That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

People of conscience are genuine all the way to the core. They make no pretense to be what they are not. In knowing them you are aware both of their wonderful strengths as well as their struggles and failures. They’ll be the first to acknowledge them and apologize for pain they might cause others. But they will not hide them, or seek to build a reputation on false notions about who they really are.

They are not defensive when challenged, but they won’t cower either when others try to manipulate them. One of the greatest things I’ve noticed is that they are the same people in public that they are in private. That’s a major contrast from what I have encountered in many people in ministry. About their own weaknesses they contend, “What people don’t know won’t hurt them.” Or, as one successful pastor said to me as our relationship began, “I really worry about getting too close to you. I am afraid you’ll get to know the real me and you won’t respect me anymore.”

But respect doesn’t arise from oneupsmanship, or well-hidden faults. It comes from openness and honesty. When books I had written were opening doors for more extensive ministry beyond the local church I was pastoring, I struck up a relationship with someone who had been involved in a similar ministry for 25 years. When I asked for his help, he opened wide the doors of his life to me–inviting me into his home and office. He showed me how he did things and why, shared with me his contacts and vendors he used for various publishing needs. He told me the pitfalls and the joys. I warned me where to be cautious and how to trust the Lord in this new environment.

Whenever I’d go through doubtful moments in the transition, he was right there to listen and encourage. “Don’t forget, Wayne. If you’re being obedient to Jesus then time and truth are on your side.” His message was clear. don’t waste time trying to put the best face on things, or defend yourself to your detractors. Be genuine in every encounter and leave the results of that up to God.

4

You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God.
He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

People of conscience never stop seeking after God. They have realized that the essence of faith is relationship with him. Each day holds new opportunities to see his character and share in his wisdom. Never do they lie down content with past successes, for their successes were never the object of their pursuit. Knowing him is their only goal, and that is what they seek every day.

John was an engineer at a high-tech defense firm in the Northeast, as his five children were entering their high school years. Unchallenged by the church program they were apart of, John began a Friday night Bible study in his home for them and their friends. Before long 50 – 60 kids packed their home every week. Some of their friends got saved and they in turn lead other friends to Christ. John felt God’s call to walk away from his profession and devote his life to helping youth discover the fullness of God’s life.

Fifteen years later in his mid 50’s, John oversaw a regional youth ministry that helped churches in small communities band together to jointly hire and oversee a youth worker. The ministry flourished as students were saved, and graduates became youth workers. Someone donated an historic mansion to coordinate their activities. Yearly they hosted youth retreats and a yearly fundraising banquet that included many of the region’s notable pastors and professional sport stars.

Was John content? No. A few years ago, he began to catch a fresh hunger to know God. He felt the ministry had become a big machine, now engineered more by man’s wisdom than God’s provision. He ended the banquets and committed the ministry to prayer and the pursuit of helping people know the living God. As the luster faded, so did support from many of their wealthiest supporters and most consistent church sponsors. By all outward signs the ministry languished.

Was John discouraged? No doubt there were times he questioned his resolve, but always came out on the side of hungering more for God, and refusing to just caretake machinery that had outlived its purpose. His salary dwindled even as people who didn’t understand spread false information about the ministry and its objectives. Today the ministry is only a shell of what it was formerly, and yet John and his wife are two of the most fulfilled people I’ve ever known. It was never about the numbers, or the money, or the acclaim. It was about loving Jesus first, foremost–and only.

5

You’re blessed when you care.
At the moment of being ‘care-full’, you’ll find yourselves cared for.

People of conscience never kick someone when their down, never take advantage of someone’s weakness or sin. They know how merciful God has been to them, and can find it in their heart to share no less with others.

None of these I have sought out in my own times of personal struggle ever refused me their time or their help, even when they didn’t know me before. Because they had been through the fire themselves, they did not seek to save me from it by encouraging me to the path of least resistance or greatest self-service. They asked me the tough questions and gave me the difficult advice, because they cared so much that the outcome in my life would be God’s.

During a recent season of betrayal by a good friend in my own life and ministry, one in particular often sat with my wife and me night after night at our table or theirs. He had been through almost the exact same experience 20 years before. He had been made the object of rumor and innuendo by people who were threatened by his influence. He chose to walk away rather than join the fight. It had eventually cost him his ordination, his vocation and his pension. In the years since he had labored in a construction-related trade while he taught avocationally wherever God opened doors.

“You’re living in denial,” he would tell me whenever I tried to put the best face on the motives of others involved in the conflict. He encouraged me to trust the perceptions of my wife, when I refused to admit what she saw so clearly, and which turned out to be right. He told us we could throw ourselves on the lap of God and not be disappointed. In the moments we doubted that, he would tell us to hold on, that the final paragraphs of the chapter had not yet been written.

When I finally walked away from my vocation, the church I had helped plant and the salary I’d relied on for over 15 years, he and his wife were among the first to share their support with us until God opened other doors. He was a friend who truly stuck closer than brothers I have known far longer.

6

You’re blessed when you get your inside world–your mind and your heart–put right.
Then you can see God in the outside world.

People of conscience, care more about the inside of their lives than how it looks on the outside. All of these stories I have related would never had happened had they cared more about their reputation before men than their reputation before God.

They had ample opportunities to defend themselves or prevail in the power games and took themselves out of the picture rather than stoop to the tactics of those who worked against them. Even when they had the ability to unmask their opponents they sat silently. They helped me see in the flesh, what always amazed me about Jesus–how he stood quietly by as the leaders of the day heaped false accusations and undeserved ridicule on him.

Bob, a co-pastor of a church in a neighboring town, visited his former parish on the last day of his vacation. As he walked in the door before service, people rushed up to him, welcoming him back as their pastor. He tried to correct their misunderstanding. “Just visiting today,” he kept saying. But the people were persistent. They had heard he was coming back.

Confused, Bob returned from vacation to clear up the confusion. As he walked into the office of his church, he was notified that he was no longer employed there. While he had been away his co-pastor has pushed forward a resolution to terminate his employment and hire someone in his place. His office had already been cleared out for the new pastor and his things stacked in the hallway. “We got your old job back for you,” they said with a proud smile as if they’d done him an incredible favor.

As Bob told me the story, no bitterness came with it. “God lets these things happen for a reason he said. If we’ll respond to him in them, he’ll transform us.” The victim of such gross injustice cared more about what was happening inside of him, than getting revenge for how he’d been treated. In the time since God had opened up new ministry opportunities that would never have arisen had he stayed where he was..

“But didn’t you care how all that made you look?” I asked him.

“Of course, who wouldn’t? But is that really the important thing?”

“If I were still trying to please men I would not be a bondservant of Jesus Christ.” Paul’s conclusion is steadfast. If you worry about what you look like before men rather than who you are before God, you’ll never end up following God’s course for your life, nor let him change you in the most painful circumstances. If you do, you get to see him work in ways you never imagined.

7

You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight.
That’s when you discover who you really are and your place in God’s family.

People of conscience don’t fight. This is the first of two common threads that unite all these stories I’ve related and on which we’ll bring this article to conclusion. Each of these people refused to fight, even when they were in the right or had the power to change their circumstances. They refused in times of pressure to demand their way by their own hand. Like David who walked out of the Jerusalem instead of going to war with Absalom, they are content to leave that kind of fighting to God.

That has almost always come at a high price–forsaking well-paying jobs, successful ministries, and thriving churches. I never understood it until recently. Fighting changes people, and they who prevail in a war with another brother or sister is marred by that encounter. Having prevailed by their own hand, they have to protect and defend what they confuse to be their own. They rationalize the most ungodly behavior, because they imagine it for a higher good, usually the preservation of an institution. They never seem to realize that God’s kingdom isn’t in institutions but in people.

The most miserable men and women I’ve met in vocational ministry are those who have conquered by the force of their own will. They create authority structures that leave them unchallenged, or scheme by deceit and gossip to manipulate others to their ends. They can make it work for some time, but all of it eventually collapses, as do they under its weight. We seem to only hear about the days that appear successful, for no one talks about the days of burnout and emptiness where they put the whole machine in someone else’s hands and retreat to a mountain cabin or a resort hotel for weeks on end.

People of conscience often end up as outcasts of the system. They visit occasionally, often to teach insights deeper than anything they’d found inside it. They hold no judgments for those still there, but have long-since realized there is a major distinction between the church of Jesus Christ and the institutions that dot our cities and countrysides today. They may occasionally overlap, but they are not one in the same thing.

Disillusioned with the system, many forsake its trappings convinced that it doesn’t always serve the higher priorities. One of these men summed up well, what I’ve heard expressed by them all: “Isn’t there something wrong with the way we do church if it allows the most selfish and manipulative to rise to the top of our institutions?”

Those who refuse to play power games, however, get to discover who they really are and seem incredibly secure about how they fit into God’s purpose. Don’t confuse their forsaking the trappings for forsaking God or his call. All of those I’ve written about here are actively serving God today, though mostly in unconventional ways. Their love for God only deepened through their trials, and their ministries only grew more effective. Whatever they left only taught them to trust God in ways they never had to before. Finally liberated from the confining expectations and demands of their detractors, they found out what God had really called them to be after all.

8

You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution.
The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
Not only that–count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me.
…You can be glad when that happens…for though they don’t like it I do…
My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

The second thread that unites the stories I’ve told in this article is that they all have suffered–deeply! Character costs something and nothing describes the price better than the list Jesus gave here. They’ve been put down by others who didn’t understand them, excluded when they didn’t go along with the crowd, or lied about as a means to disarm their uncomfortable example.

Regretfully most of this suffering has come at the hands of other people in the church who were convinced they were doing God a favor. The conclusion? People of conscience are usually not popular. They make us uncomfortable, because their willingness to be mistreated and misunderstood when they cling to the purity of their conscience exposes the compromises the rest of us make. If we don’t follow their example, we have to destroy them, lest others be influenced by their actions.

Surpringsly, however, they are not bitter for their experiences, but almost seem grateful. They don’t blame the failures of others, recognizing that we all have weaknesses and at times make poor choices. They don’t dwell on “what could have been…” but get on with God’s work in whatever new doors he opens. All the while, they will tell you of the freedom and joy they’ve come to know through their trials.

You can see it deep in their eyes when you tell them tales of your own suffering. Their heart will break for the pain you’re in, but they don’t despair. They know what that pain will produce. More than once I’ve heard one of them say, “Be grateful, Wayne. This will change you in ways you never imagined.” I knew they didn’t relish my pain, but they didn’t hate it as much as I did either. They knew what it would work in me. At its end there would be less of Wayne and more of Christ, and they were already rejoicing when I had no idea how I would survive.

* * * * *

I have a deep admiration for those who’re paid an incredible price to follow the Father’s voice. They inspire me to take the risk to live like them. They model for me a freedom from playing the political games that too frequently worm their way into our best institutions. They help me look past the false success standards of the day and care more about what God thinks of me than what other people do–even dear friends and colleagues.

As I look back on the compromises of my own life and ministry, I am encouraged by one other characteristic of these people that isn’t highlighted in the Beatitudes’ list. They are all at over 50 years old. Maybe living true to one’s conscience isn’t nurtured overnight, nor something one can choose by shear force of will. Perhaps it is only forged in the fire of human experience.

As I listen to their tales, I hear of past compromises that came back to haunt them. I hear their own failures toward others, that has given them greater patience toward those who have failed them. I heard of their past pursuit of less-glorious objectives, and their disillusionment when they had achieved them and found the result unsatisfying.

Maybe there is hope for me. Their lives have cheered me on to live in the danger of trusting God. None of them could promise me that I wouldn’t get burned for doing so, but they all made it really clear that there is no greater way to know life-long freedom and joy in the Father’s house.

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Alan Richardson, St. Louis, MO

Meetings have become the center stage in our understanding of what it is to be a Christian – the focus of our definition in what it means to follow Christ?They define our level of “commitment”. They are the pivot point in our function as believers??.the center of our social lives, whether its meetings in large auditoriums or smaller group meetings in homes. They can be the center of our devotional lives with the bible study or “worship service” being the high point of our Christian week Meetings also provide the center for our financial objectives ( the funding of our auditoriums – “church buildings” – and the staff that perform within them). They also seem to be the focal point for what it means to us to be a Christian because its where we invite our friends saved and unsaved, to meet with God.

And in all of these things lies their danger.

Why?

Let me give you a few reasons:

1. A Christianity anchored in meetings as its foundation for or expression of life will become performance based and focused. Performance based in our expectations of what those meetings should achieve, and therefore performance focused in our expectations of the people attending those meetings. That is, we will come to judge people by how they perform, appear to us and seem to act or respond at the meetings.

Along with this, Christian ministry or leadership (servanthood is the proper term) will be judged and rejected or accepted according to our estimation of their performance at the meeting, and we will decide whether or not to join ourselves to them on the basis of that performance (very unbiblical!)

2. We will become introspective. A “meeting focused” Christianity inevitably makes us inward looking as everything is geared to whatever goes on at the meetings.

Ultimately, meetings will become our definition of the Christian life which results in agenda taking priority over relationships – worse, even defining relationships. With that we get into the dreadful and unbiblical separation of believers (clergy/laity) with everything that follows – professional ministry, ambition, finding my identity in things other than Christ alone, using the church as a means of provision, peer pressure, party factions, denominations??.and church becoming something which God never intended for it to be – an institution with a biblical name attached to it.

3. And here, we’re getting to the really critical stuff???.

A meeting based Christianity becomes a hindrance to the cross with the result that I DO NOT FIND LIFE IN THE MEASURE THAT JESUS PLANS FOR ME.

Why or how is it that I miss the cross in a meeting centered Christianity? Because I am constantly seeking to preserve my life as a believer instead of learning what it is to lose it.

4. Last but not least, we become meeting focused instead of Christ focused. Our goal becomes “church” – which again is unbiblical – and we become perpetrators of a third kingdom upon the earth, The Kingdom of Church which is a hindrance to The Kingdom of God and powerless against The Kingdom of This World

Now at this point, some of you are going to pop up and say?”But what about scripture? Doesn’t the bible tell us not to neglect to assemble with one another”? We’ll come to that more in a moment, but let me just say at this point that attaching biblical names or descriptions to what we are doing – even in an attempt to vindicate our activities – does not make them biblical or us a biblical people.

But lets for the moment get to the two most important issues reflected above. Because out of them, everything else will flow anyway.

The CROSS and The LIFE (The Kingdom).

Why would meetings cause us to hide from The Cross and miss The Life?

Lets go back to some of the basic reasons we look for meetings – and I’ll give you three.

To find an identity

To share our life with other believers.

An attempt to respond to what we believe is the legal obligation foisted upon us as believers to attend meetings.

There’s nothing wrong with the 2nd. The problem is, in a performance based environment, that’s not going to happen.

The third point is usually found in the over use and abuse of a scripture by the institution to perpetuate itself.

Much more – much, much more! – could be said concerning both of these points, but that’s not the focus I believe God wants me to take here. Instead, I want to stay with the first point???.the Meeting, or assembly of believers, being the place where I go to find my identity or my place in Christ

“What’s wrong with that?” you say.

I appreciate this should concern all believers, but at this point I’m wanting especially to write to those of you outside the camp of institutional or organizational Christianity. For those there is extra significance here.

God’s work is not just individual. It will also be Corporate.

And we cannot find it without the cross. Just as that is true for the individual man in Christ, so it will be true for the Corporate man.

Why?

Because the new thing is LIFE. It is THE Life. It IS Jesus.

If you bypass the cross you cannot find the LIFE as a reality..

Because the cross is the separation point between a life based in fear (death), and a life which is Love (LIFE or what we term eternal life). Between the SELF life and the CHRIST life.

Ok you say – but how do relationships, and finding my identity come into all this?

Firstly relationships are the definition of the corporate. And what our relationships are based upon will define whether God is being able to do his work or whether it is simply a rehashed old way.

And the litmus test is The Life.

Is it His LIFE? (Which can only be found through the death of the cross)

Or is it our Life? (Which is death because it is based in fear – self preservation, and the seeking or holding on to my own identity in things additional to Christ)

First things first.

If you mean business with God, you can’t find your identity in anything but Jesus. That will progressively cost you your life. By that I mean it will cause you to have to lay down your search for identity in ANYTHING other than Him. That includes, meetings, ministry, peer groups, leaders, messages or causes, traditions??anything. ESPECIALLY RELIGIOUS!

That’s the first thing. And if you think that’s hard wait till you get to the 2nd!

The friendships that God desires for us can also only be based in love not fear. But before you rush to volunteer, remember that to find those friendships will mean we are going to have to lose our life.

Put it another way, we will only find those friendships through the cross.

What does this mean from the flip side? It means we will be unable to find LOVE if we are trying to find or preserve our life.

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Alan Richardson, St. Louis, MO

My dear and beloved brothers and sisters. I may not have met you who are reading this letter, but my heart and my prayers are with you. You are an inspiration and encouragement to me. You are a marvel in the earth and a source of amazement to this world, its citizens and its rulers. You stand in strength when the enemy of your souls – and even your own flesh – tells you that you are weak and helpless. You face the loss of all you have, but continue to hold to the One you cannot see despite the bullying and derision of those set against you

Continue to hold through in love and peace. Do not lift up your voices or your fists against those who seek to harm you. Remember that Jesus was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and although the almighty Son of God, did not call a single angel to his help at his time of most desperate need. This is because the Kingdom you are called to is demonstrated not through your words, but through your lives. And God’s goal through you is to reach the hearts of those who oppose you. Because but for His grace, you and I might be the accusers and persecutors instead of the ones called by God to be His ambassadors. And whereas we have a hope and an inheritance that nothing can harm, our persecutors in their hopelessness have nothing but eternal despair in front of them.

Can you see then why Jesus commands us, that if an opponent should strike us on one cheek, we should turn the other cheek to him for him to strike that as well? For if we are called as followers of Christ, we are called not to preserve our own lives but be ready at all times to lay them down.

As we lay our lives down, we prove meekness and humility. And although it may be in trembling and weakness, we also prove the love that is greater than fear, the life that is greater than death. And our Father in Heaven sees His Kingdom coming upon the earth through the sacrifice of your life lived in love. Don’t be afraid dear friend, your reward is ahead of you, and it will not fail! And as you lay down your life daily, learning to live in Love not fear, you tread a pathway for the Kingdom of God on earth.

I will say one other thing that may surprise you – you may even find difficult to understand. It is this. There are many of us here in the rich and affluent West who envy you.

You may say?..”but how can you envy us who are poor, persecuted, frequently without bibles and often only able to meet at great risk to ourselves?”

We envy you because the riches of this world blind us here in the west. We envy you because though you have little support or encouragement in this world, you have all of Heaven behind you and are forced to lean upon Him alone who will never fail you. We envy you because you are called upon daily to love the loveless, to live your faith in a world that opposes you, whereas here in the West we have “churches” that are accepted by the world and are all too often left with only the language of salvation.

Yes we are organised, but our organisational strengths all too often rest in our own talents and gifts. Yes, we have wonderful church buildings, but they teach the world that God dwells in them instead of in people, and the God that dwells in those buildings is usually withdrawn and religious – difficult if not impossible to identify with the laughing, loving, vibrant, passionate, compassion filled Jesus, Son of God. And yes we have Bibles, but we have come to depend upon them as the word of God, whereas the Word of God is a person. The Word of God is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is He that we are called to learn of. The Bible is a great help in that respect, but never a substitute. Remember that the early church – the most powerful church this world has ever seen – had no church buildings or bibles for over 200 years. And when it began to erect church buildings and appoint church “officers”, it began to slip into the dark ages.

Can you see then where you are such an encouragement and example to us here in the west? In China you have become the most powerful church in the world! You have grown faster than any church since the first century! And you have done it without any of our western “strengths”. If you have had church buildings, they have been torn down. If you had bibles, they were confiscated. If you had leaders, they were imprisoned. And yet this did not stop you from growing – even though you felt, and must still feel pressed to the point of desperation! Because all of your strengths and supports in this world were removed from you, you had no other resource than Heaven!

Yes, the world sought to make an example of you. But so did God! God sought to show us that if we will yield ourselves to a point of helplessness HE WILL BUILD HIS CHURCH AND THE PLOTS, PLANS AND STRATEGIES OF HELL ITSELF WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP HIM!!

You my dear brothers and sisters – whether in China or Mexico, in Iran or Columbia – are in inspiration to us and a joy in the eyes of your Father in Heaven. Press on and do not despair!

Finally, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Beware of the mistakes we have made in the west. If persecution begins to be lifted from you, beware of ambition, beware of control seeking, beware of seeking to find your own identity amongst your friends, for these things all flow from the flesh and will cause division and strife. They will not advance the Kingdom, they will betray it to the world. Beware of setting up church buildings. If you have bibles, you will know that “God no longer dwells in buildings made with the hands of men”. Why set up meeting halls when you have homes? Why create settings for oratory when Jesus is learned through LIFE – the life that you live and impart to others each day. We are called to make DISCIPLES, not listeners. To be a functioning part of one another, not an audience. Why then should we lift up one person to stand in front of us, when only One – the Lord Jesus – should be in that place.

Yes, God has given gifts to His church. He has given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. And they will come and strengthen and equip us to live the life and share that life with each other and the world. But they are not to be the focus. They are but servants, who once a job is done, gladly step back. If a servant continues to do a job for us, we forget how to do it ourselves!

Church was never meant to be a means of finding our identity upon the earth. For “if we find our life, we shall lose it”. When we seek our identity in “our own church”, we lose the power of heaven to win the world around us to the reality of The Kingdom of God.

You may wonder then, what is the way ahead if we are not to do these things when we come to a time of peace and freedom from persecution. If you wish to know the way ahead, look behind you. See how God has sustained and kept you. See how God has caused His Kingdom to grow and advance upon the earth through you. Israel journeyed through the wilderness so that they might have this lesson to remember when they came to the Promised Land – God alone is their provision and source and supply. Depend upon nothing else but Him.

Your security is not to be in this world. We have failed in the west in many ways. We who once were your teachers now need to realise we are the pupils.

Stand strong no matter how you may feel. We need you, and so does The Lord. Pray for us here in the west that God may shake us out of bed with the world. We pray for you that God will continue to keep you strong and pure. Remember, you are strong, not because of anything you do, but because “greater is He within you than He which is in this world.” Walk on with Him dearly beloved! He is ahead of you, and His angels are around you. He will never let you fall!

With much love in our Lord Jesus.

Alan

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From Living Loved • Winter 2013

Shelly in Colorado

Thank you for stunning the religion out of me and speaking in a tone of absolute love that gave me the freedom to leave employment at a church and find real community with the body of Christ. Last week a friend of mine was asked to leave children’s ministry because her husband did not come to church. It destroyed her. Then I read in the final chapter of So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore where a group of angry church-goers are equally hurt by church leaders. I realized that what happened to my friend is just a chance for her to encounter real intimacy with Jesus. In the last three years, I have fallen so deeply in love with Father. I have found him in every hurt and blessing. I count my trouble as waters gone by. What I love most about you both is your biographies. They weren’t filled with degrees and accolades but just a journey sharing the love of God with others. I want my bio to be the same. I have put so much attention on my career when my job is loving as Christ loves.

Ingalill in Sweden

He loves Me…. Well, here is one more I am reading it slowly, as I don’t want it to end – The message of the book is transforming my life and bringing a freedom I always have longed for. I said to my husband, that it feels as if old mindsets are crashing down as the truth of Gods fatherly love for me is invading my mind and heart!

Carolyn in Canada

I’ve listened to Transitions and I can say that it sounds like “home” to me. You have a wonderfully soothing voice and the God that you know is a God that I want to know. What you speak about speaks to my spirit and I can hear the Divine Amen.

Alena in Canada

I can’t thank you enough for sharing your experience, your journey and your insights! You’ve introduced me to a God I’ve never known but always wanted and given me hope that I can know Him as you know Him.

Tom from Wyoming

Your Living Loved article, “Betrayal, Forgiveness and Reconciliation” is a God-inspired piece of work if ever there was one. Your understanding of the issue of betrayal and God’s method of handling it is nothing short of a revelation, and you have a real gift for expressing your thoughts in a clear and relevant manner. I am one of the legion who have struggled mightly with betrayal for many years with not much hope until now. Thank you for showing me how I’ve mishandled it, and then revealing God’s path out of the darkness.

Sharon from Australia

I appreciated latest newsletter. Thanks for taking time to distill what you have obviously learnt from life experience on this important topic. I felt relief and peace reading through it. Succinct, sensible, logical and easy to understand. I have waded through a number of books on this topic and felt overwhelmed with information and rules and processes that I have never been able to apply or remember when required. I am grateful.

Alan in Missouri

Re: “Betrayal, Forgiveness and Reconciliation”. This is just beautiful! Wherever the Lord has had to take you to write such things which are living I applaud Him, and you for choosing to stay the course when so many other ways were open to you.

Jill in Texas

I am being transformed by the reading of the book He loves Me. As the wife of a minister for some 33 years, I’ve walked many years with the Lord. One trial after another sent me into a tailspin of depression and anxiety. I am coming out of it, slowly. With the guidance of a christian therapist, I bought this book. I looked through it thinking, “Eh, it’s okay, but I know God loves me.” It has taken me reading it a second time to “get it” and boy am I getting it. I have finally convinced my pastor husband who is weary in well-doing that he must read it. He has just begun…

Judy in Canada

My old friend and I spent 3 days at a hotel with your The Jesus Lens DVD and she was so blessed. The weekend ended up being a spiritual retreat that really fed us both and strengthened us. I received added blessings by my being able to listen to more of your super disk on the 8 hour drive to see her. I have just ordered another copy for her and two more for friends. You have really led many of my friends to liberty in Christ and onto a different road where they seem to be pretty well ‘dancing’ along their spirituals way now. Our spirits have really been revived.

Lauralee in Australia

I really wanted to tell you how much your writing has brought healing into my life. I had recently lost a baby boy plus previously twin girls. Anyway, through your encouragement I have come through the depression, finally I ‘get it’ Jesus loves me, God does exist and there’s nothing that can separate me from Him! I love your books and have passed several copies around to friends. My favourite is He loves Me. God has gifted you with such insight into the freedom found in just being loved. I am so tired of church people that have agenda’s, create issues, praying against this & that. If we all just loved and be loved this ‘junk’ that they are praying about/against would fade away!! I feel most peace when I read your books/newsletters so if peace is my guide then I am convinced your teaching is spot on. In fact I know it was through reading He loves Me over & over that has quite literally saved my life!

Kent on the blog

False belonging is trying to find meaning and peace that is outside our true belonging inside the circle of Father Son and Spirit. When that is out of whack all our external longing gets malformed and we spend our lives trying to scrape meaning and affirmation and happiness from others and from things. It’s a destructive enterprise. When we come home to ourselves and learn to be at peace in that solitude…our inner world…the kingdom within….then all our outward activity isn’t of the needy kind… it’s of the giving kind. It redefines what healthy relationship is and what healthy individuality is. The false belonging all has to do with the malforming effects religion has on us. It leaves us attempting to scrape meaning and affirmation from a god that does not exist. It’s made up from within the dark fallen mind. And it is completely self centered and self serving.

Kate in Belgium

I was given a copy of He loves Me by a dear friend. It has so blessed me and set me free. I can hardly believe the difference between before I started reading it and now. Thank you so much for sharing what the Lord has indeed revealed to you. I sense a freshness inside and a new trust in him like I had when I first came to faith.

Steve in Indiana

Nearly every time I re-listen to the “Jesus Lens” I think about sending you an email to thank you. So… here it is. Thank you. I am grateful to have been one of those in attendance and passed along DVD’s of the “Jesus Lens” to friends.

Valerie in Virginia

In addition to being eternally grateful to Papa for the love he has shown through lives of men such as yourself and how sharing that love with those who read your books and listen in to your teachings and podcasts… I absolutely love hearing about your love for your family, your daughter and son… and your precious grandchildren. Having grown up with a dread of my own earthly father, and seeing how that has impacted my ability to rest assured in the love of my Papa… I find it heartwarming to see that there are men out there who openly adore their children and grandchildren. For those of us looking in… and catching a glimpse of your life, it makes your message and the sharing of your life’s journey more credible. Have a wonderful, and wonder filled day!

Sharon in Australia

I am learning a lot through Lifestream Journeys just looking at how people respond to each other on your website. How they resolve conflicts before they escalate and how they empathize with those in some sort of trouble or pain. I like the way many of them don’t preach. They seem to come alongside and stick to sharing from their own experience of God. So they don’t come across as if they have all the answers. That is a refreshing and honest way to go about things. Some don’t have any advice at all, just empathy. I am changing the way I respond to those around me too as a result of what I have learned from your website. More honest, less know it all.

Tim in California

I am writing to say thank you for your incredible work. I have instinctively known that there are problems with institutional church for many years, but could never quite verbalize them. I began to discover others outside the box about two years ago, (during a time that included) a near fatal automobile accident, a divorce, and receiving the left foot of fellowship from my church. I have been detoxing for about eight months and discovered your ministry only about six weeks ago. In that time I have read The Shack, So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore, and The Naked Church; listened to the Transition audio recordings repeatedly, along with many episodes of The God Journey, and am now about 2/3 of the way through He Loves Me. The past 72 hours have seen some of the most profound revelation I have ever received and I think I finally “get it.” I realize that this is merely crossing a threshold into a whole new journey, but I am overjoyed to have finally reached this point in the process.

Claire in Holland

Your book He Loves Me is so life-giving and clear about misconceptions in thought patterns and I am only at 30% of it. I can’t wait to finish it. DaRon in Tennessee God has put within you the ability of a “locksmith”. You have an uncanny ability to put language to what may be stirring around in the hungry heart, and unlock a confirming peaceful assurance that God indeed is still in the “business” of loving people to a place of rest & wholeness! Thank you for all you do. You’ll never know how much it means to us. I couldn’t have imagined when I was a young “buck” in my thirties, that living loved and walking with Jesus could be so incredible and so full of wonder! Keep slingin’ that freedom!

Jimmy via email

I just listened to the early and middle letters of The Jesus Lens. It reminds me of when I first got saved, when I just loved Jesus read the Bible and grew without fear.

Tricia from Illinois

I just want you to know how thankful I am to you for the books you have written and your website. I have downloaded many of your teachings on to CDs and I listen to them when I drive to work or drive my kids around. I cry almost every time because I can’t believe what you say, but when I hear it , it rings true with my spirit and then when I check it out in Scripture, holy cow! It’s true! I always thought and read the bible as rules to how I should live and God would punish me if I didn’t follow them. I only started to question what I thought was true about 8 months ago after reading The Shack and So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore. I just sat and cried for probably an hour after reading He loves Me!

Becky via email

Thank you for So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore. I seriously think it saved my sanity. After attending a church with my a Christian friend scary thoughts entered my mind. The church always made me feel more scared after walking out of it, rather than loved. I felt God was mad at me every second of every day. I had the urge to search on the web and that led me to your book. I wish I could write enough to express to you what it did for me. I was trying to check off boxes in hopes of getting my salvation. I was being smothered and I started to feel there was no way I could ever keep up with all I had to do. Please just know this book is amongst my favorites. it signifies the return of my life. You don’t even know me, but your words brought me back from the deepest, darkest most frightened state I had ever been in, in all my life. Who wants to live every day feeling damned, even though they love Him so much?

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By Brenda

I listened to your podcast on ‘Where is the Power?’ and wanted to share some of my thoughts. I really do appreciate your emphasis on relationship. It’s been the place of deepest wounding in my life and the deepest healing. The healing, as you guys know, is in the love relationship with the God of the universe.

As a result of several factors, I was involved in homosexual thoughts, feelings, and relationships from my early years. Mostly, it was hell in the hallway. It was hell in the whole house in one adult relationship, with stalking and harassment and physical and emotional abuse that resulted in the need for legal protection. However, those things are not the reason I no longer relate homosexually. I no longer relate homosexually because Abba loved me right out of those ways.

I have a very wise friend who said once that God uses everything to bring us to himself because he loves us so much. She was so right. He has used my own circumstances, deliverance, inner healing, worship, prophecy, sermons, books, a few longsuffering friends, the scriptures, spiritual warfare, journaling, etc., etc., to heal me. Even with the ‘power’ gifts, it is interesting how he used the nature of relationship, not the manifestation of the power itself, to bring about the healing.

Mostly, though, he just loved me to himself. He wooed me, chastised me, laughed with me and cried with me, he never let me go. He convinced me of his love for me in the trenches and there in the depths of my being, I received it. In the midst of all this, he began to change my desires. This, too, was hell in the hallway. Deep betrayal of trust and emotional wounding does not easily lend itself to unfailing love, transforming power. How grateful I am for a Father who suffered long and hard to convince me of his love!

It’s been many years since Abba began his loving transformation of my heart; I’m a few years shy of 50 and am always amazed when I reflect on the difference in my life now. What I see is that the love of God IS the power. I have full-on accepted this love; it sustains me daily. Though sometimes I fail in loving others the way he loves me, I never worry if Father still loves me because I failed (in that or in anything else, for that matter).

He continues to prove to me that no matter what life brings, he is with me in it, loving me through it. I am so blessed that I am my Beloved’s and he is mine.

“Where is the Power?” It’s in his love. Mhhm. Oh, yeah.

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German Translation (PDF 263k)

I have to be a bit vague on some of the details here, because the writer of these emails, Jamal (not his real name), lives in an area of Ethiopia dominated by Muslims who persecute those known to be Christians in that region. He was in the States on an education visa, and at the end of his studies he had an encounter at a service station that started an amazing journey…

After a rainy night at the state fair and missing his daughter’s performance in the musical he want there to see because his daughter had given him the wrong time, a frustrated Doug stopped at a gas station on the way home. He was thirsty so he went inside instead of paying at the pump. It was during the Olympics so he asked the Ethiopian gas attendant, Jamal, what athletes he was watching and what sports were big in his country. Jamal asked Doug why so many American athletes say that God helps them. Doug told him about Jesus and answered his questions for about 20 minutes. Jamal said he wanted to learn more and Doug gave him his phone number as they walked out of the gas station in the rain, at the end of Jamal’s shift. They talked a couple short times after that, over a gas purchase. Now Jamal was a graduate student in a doctoral program at a local university. He called Doug several weeks later and wanted to meet for lunch before he left to go back to Ethiopia.

They met at a deli for lunch. Doug would often have to write words down and let Jamal look them up in his dictionary. He drew the 4 spiritual laws cross diagram and showed him verses in the Bible. Jamal asked about prayer and then, without another word, he dropped to his knees right there, bowed 3 times and prayed out loud for forgiveness in his broken English.

He wrote Doug the following email that evening:

11/1/2004

Since my tongue will not say correctly so many of the words I can write I wish to tell you in this way my deepest gratitude. I wish there only was more time to learn from you more what is beginning in my heart this day. When I come first to America I am thinking that my heart is full of many dreams. But really it is only my head that is filled with these. My heart was still beneath the smiles filled with many pains and wounds, many because of my own hands. This I am trying all the time I am here to hide from all around me yet mostly from myself. I am looking for the “special magic” of America that so many peoples from over the world are longing for to find some success only to know that it can not fill up the emptiness leftover from past hurts.

But today I am praising this Jesus who sends you into my store in the rain to tell me that his love is the gift that heals what no man can see or touch. As your words come to me I can feel him touching this pain that I am hiding for so long. Can it be this easy that he would bring to my heart the joy of his forgiveness as a present like your Christmas every day? I am wondering how I must pay for such a freedom treasured. In my country if you wish to be free from prison you must bring money to the police and guards from your family. How then can Jesus way be so free? I am wishing I had some of the money left I am paying to the University and knowing that it would not be enough. This I am thinking as your words from Jesus talking are flowing through me like water poured over the cracks in dry stone. Then I see that it was never easy because of what Jesus has paid for me the blood poured from his heart. And I am seeing him with scars and brokenness because of the things I do. Yet knowing that he says to me -This is for you so you may be free.

Now I cannot wait any longer. So I am asking how I can open this gift? When you are telling me prayer is not remembering words from writing down somewhere else but turning away from the road of myself and toward Jesus and telling him all that is in my heart. So I am kneeling on the floor in the restaurant to ask Jesus for this forgiveness and he is with me making the wounds of my heart like new flesh.

Now I am thinking when I am coming to America my wallet is full and my heart is empty and now I am going home and my wallet is empty but my heart is full. I am dancing inside myself. Now the story I am telling as I go to home is not about America but about God’s son and the gift of his peace and freedom.

I am also asking you to thank your church for the Bible. I will be reading and writing to ask you many more things I need to learn. Thank the church also for the prayers they have been giving to Jesus for me.

Your friend,
Jamal

Doug got another email from him the next day that said he was struggling to pray in English when Jesus spoke to him in his language of Swahili. Jamal wrote, “Now I know your Jesus is not just the God of Americans but of the forgotten peoples as well.”

With a minimum of what most people call discipleship, Jamal returned to his native country with the simple encouragement to read the Bible, talk to God and follow him as he makes himself known to you. Here is what has happened since, in Jamal’s own words in emails he has sent to Doug:

11/8/2005

I am writing once again to you for sharing with your friends. Tell them again that I am not having a translator like at University and so I am very sorry for this bad mistakes in writing. If there heart is like yours in love they will understand and be glad.

Many days have past and I have not written you. Your heart must be filled with wonderings about me. Sorry I am for this beyond words for I cannot count how many times I wished to write to you or am thinking of you or needing from you answers but I am not in a place where e-mail works until I return to a larger city. This I am planning to do many times but the journey is so long and always something happen to keep in a greater working.

For my days in America I am trying to fill my head with knowing and remembering of things taught so that I can come back to Africa and use this learning for my family and the peoples here. But God has always planned another way that my heart would be so full of Jesus that this is all I am able to share.

So now in every village I am first planning of helping people in living ways to find some success in the world, now God is building the “living stones” that you were telling me the reading of in Peter’s letter. This is best for in many places now there could be no building of my hands big enough to hold them all. All this God is doing as we share the Jesus of our hearts and his great love.

In my city I am beside myself because it seems there is a mountain too high for any climbing between the people and the words of Jesus. They are saying that these words are for the white man only and there is no place in the heart of Africa for them. When hearing this I am in sadness deep within my heart too much for words of any kind to tell. I am melting on the inside and afraid I will run into the sand and be soaked up. I am wishing to speak to you and not able to eat for many days. Then I am remembering some of your words sent to me from Jesus’ brother James to ask God for knowing what to do. So I am talking to Jesus many days and then my mind is remembering the story you told me of the man from Ethiopia, how that in the great success time of Philip, God is saying by his Spirit that what is more important is to go to the desert and tell one man from Ethiopia about Jesus story. So I am reading from this Acts in my bible to the peoples. This I am saying there everyday and it is as though the mountain is falling into the sea of God’s mercy for this people and their dry spirits are drinking of water that is ever living.

But also a door is opening inside of me and I am walking now the path of some of your teaching to me and more. Before this too much of this is only words spoken about a far off place made of dreaming. But now I am not dreaming because this I see when I am awake in the day. This people with me and myself are learning to ask of Jesus from their hearts and the answers are too many for the telling. And so wonderful to see that even then they are hard to believe. And the greatest thing of all is that in the asking by this peoples to God they now know this is not the power of Jamal but the power of our Jesus.

It heals the sick when there is no doctor or medicine, it brings a doctor who is lost to the home of people who are made well by his care, it brings food to the hungry paid for by other Christians who know us not. They tell the driver, take this food west until someone asks you for it, we do not know where only that this is what Jesus is telling us to do. And they are driving no more because they are running out of gas in front of the house where we are praying to ask Jesus for this food. And then we are praying to Jesus our thanks for them and this people we know not and that he will provide them gas for driving back and no one is coming all night to the village but in the morning David is walking by the truck and smelling gas and we are finding the tank so filled it has spilled out onto the ground. And the boss is saying who fills this truck up with gas and the men sleeping in it all night are saying no one has ever done this. SO we are knowing this is Jesus doing. In another place we are praying for the rain water to come for the people are dying because there is not rain for many days. Then the rivers are flowing with water and the drums are celebrating and the drums from the mountains close by are coming back from up the streams of water and saying how can there be celebrating when here is no rain and how can there be water in the valley when there is no rain in the valley or the mountain.

But all this and more God is doing to say to this people that his love for them is great but the gift of Jesus for them is greater. And the people are kneeling in the road and the dust and the desert and the cities and the stores and the homes and like me in the restaurants to ask Jesus to fill their hearts and this he is always doing.

I will write to tell you more and ask you many things. But tell those people who have been asking God for us that he is hearing and now we are asking for them to live in this love that is shared opened to us by our Jesus. That he will bring healing to the hearts of your people also. That he will fill them with the wonder of our hearts because his hand reaches out beyond the seeing of man to do more with you than even bravest hearts can dream.

Your friend,
Jamal

8/3/2006

It has been too long since last I wrote to your friends and to you something other than ordinary days and many questions. Here many are praying every day for the spirit of his love to fill each of you up so that it flows over you like the waters that are too much for a dam in the river. When this happens you will all be living as the clay pots you have me reading about in Paul’s letter Corinthians. That is how it has become with us. I am remembering that here so many of the wells are having water bags in them for pulling up to get the water and that no one is ever remembering what the bag looks like but only the taste of the fresh water when they are no longer being thirsty.

Tell the peoples you know that they can be praying for us also. Everywhere we are going people are turning from their old ways to walk after Jesus. This He is doing and there is nothing ever before in front of my eyes such as this. For people that are always in fear since being tiny children are finding the peace of our Jesus. Mostly they are being born in the parts of the land that are following the Islam that is afraid and filled with rage. (Not all of Islam is walking away from peace, but our hearts are sad for those who are).

But now some are becoming angry and filled with hate toward us because of the changes inside the peoples who are knowing Jesus. One brother has been beaten so badly that he is very near to die. But the power and trust in Jesus is with him and he is smiling and saying we should change his name to Job because he is reading those words of Job who is saying even if they are killing me I will still trust only in God.

And we are learning what he is saying. As we are running from a village in the night’s blackness so thick that there is no seeing because the angry men there are coming will shouts of death on their tongues. One brother John is falling off the road and a stick is going through the top of his leg to be out the other side and the blood is everywhere. And we are hearing the voices and shouts following after us and Samuel is saying to us that John will be dieing from the bleeding and that he cannot keep running and we are saying back to him that if John is staying that they will be killing him anyway and so what can we do. And Samuel is saying back to us that the letters of Doug to us are always telling us to be praying first and thinking after so that is what we should do. So now as the lights and voices are coming closer they are praying for Jesus to help John and I myself am learning what the Bible is saying about watching and praying, and thinking later that this is meaning something different. And the bleeding is stopping and so we are breaking off the branch and saying if there is no bleeding then leave it in the leg until we find the doctor. And as the angry ones are getting closer we can see from their light that we are in a deep ditch by the road and they are running right past us but not one of them is seeing us and then we are escaping to another village where things are being safer.

When we are finding the doctor and he is pulling out the stick and cleaning the leg inside then there are two children coming to the doctor who have been hurt and he is leaving to look at them and then coming back to us and saying who is it that is helping John and we are saying that our Jesus is working through Samuel to do this, but he is not understanding us. So he is taking Samuel to one of the girls and saying that he should be sowing up the vein in her leg so that it will not be bleeding or else she will die and there is no time to wait but to help both girls or else the one will be dieing. Samuel is saying to the doctor that he cannot do this because he does not know how. The doctor is saying back to Samuel, How is he then sowing up the big artery in the leg of John and why he will not help to heal this girl as he has done his friend. Samuel is saying that all he can do is to do as he has done with John and the doctor is saying to do it, but he is not understanding. So Samuel is kneeling beside the bed and praying for Jesus to help the little girl and the doctor is screaming that the girl will be dieing, but the Jesus who hears is with her and she is being made well. The nurse who someone is running to find is coming and hearing the doctor and she is walking in and looking at the young girl and taking off the clamp and saying the doctor is working very well on her with the sowing and there is no bleeding. And the doctor is saying her mind has been lost and he is coming to see. And when he is looking down he is seeing the sowing that Jesus is doing on the young girl is perfect and looking just like the sowing on the leg of John and then he is saying if he does not see this with the eyes of his own that he is not believing that Jesus is the healer. After Samuel is speaking to him then kneeling next to Samuel in the blood of the little girl and he is believing in the blood of Jesus and becoming one who will follow Him. This is the real miracle of Jesus.

And we are telling him that all this is not us that we are like the bags in the well that no one remembers and Jesus is the living water. This is not what happens every day but our Jesus is always able to show us that he has power to do what no man can do if when doing it he is showing himself to those who will believe. But we are with John trusting him if we live or if we die. And to some this would be the words of fear, but to those who hear the voice of our Jesus in their hearts this is the life of freedom and the road of peace and they are walking down that road with us.

Please be asking your peoples to pray for the peoples telling the story of our Jesus to those who are living in fear in the villages of the angry people. Every day the danger they are living in is real and we are needing Jesus to protect them and to pour his water of life out through them. If this you will be praying for us, then you must know that we are praying for you this also.

Your friend and brother because of Jesus,
Jamal

8/20/2006

We are still feeling in our spirit that this thing that Jesus is doing here is not for outsiders to control or pay monies for and for the faith of the peoples here to turn to them instead of our Jesus if this is happening. How could they be leading us somewhere that Jesus could not? How could they be sending more money and things for helping than Jesus can? No he is wanting the people here to be trusting only him and walking the path deeper into his love.
I am taking the advice that you are giving me to not be using your name as much here for this same reason because you are saying that God is the father of me and of you and that we then are only brothers together in him. This I am always knowing because this is what your heart always shares with me even when it not among the words that you are speaking. As you told me this is to protect the hearts of others who must be like Peter on the water and always looking to Jesus with his name always upon their lips.

Yet sometimes when Samuel is being stubborn then we could say to him let us ask our brothers for help and you would be one who would be helping and then I could be using your name sometimes.

I was beginning to be wondering how it is that faith is growing in the peoples. Not just the faith of beginning to turn to follow Jesus but the growing faith in the hearts that journey with us. I am reading in many places about how Jesus is saying to the disciples…”What has happened to your faith that it has disappeared?” This I am not wanting to happen to the people here.

I am reading this in Luke’s letter chapter 1 and this is what Jesus is saying in my heart about the journey he is walking with us

“…to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Walking in the morning SON and the path of peace,
Jamal

Back to Stories

“It is my deep conviction that we must be wholly prepared to abandon anything that retards our moving toward the place where Christ is all and in all, where we come to overflow with that which has flowed over us. This is true even though we may have to forsake things we have been taught or conditioned to believe are essential ingredients of church life.” – John Beaumont in Revelatory Adventure.

A God-filled Nobody

By John Beaumont

$12.00 (Paperback – 280 pages)

We’re out of books here, but some of his other contacts at left might still have some. As well, you may find a copy here.

Book Description

Sara and Wayne met John Beaumont and his wife Mary during their 2004 trip to New Zealand. These are some of God’s pioneers who have helped blaze a trail for believers who yearn to live outside the box of religious obligation and embrace the fullness of God’s life and freedom. They are as genuine as people that Sara and I meet on this journey. They words and their lives line up as they have grown in Christ. If you’d like to read more of the things we shared during our time with them in New Zealand, check out these summaries that I included in my blog. I’ve also included an article drawn from a previous book of John’s that is now out of print about the Jetty and the Raft. I think you’ll enjoy it too! I’ve also included an experience John had caught up in a vision to God’s glory and a song he heard while there that I think will bless and inspire you.

This is a book about the amazing grace of God as John shares heart-warming experiences in his own life and ministry over the years. He writes of first-hand participation in outpourings of revival and shares personal lessons has learned on a journey that has taken him all over the world to help God’s people live in freedom and reality.

John has written other books including Revelatory Adventure and God In My Dreams. You can download copies of his books here.

In 2012 Wayne reconnected with John to glean some of the lessons of his journey. Out of that conversation John wrote a brief article about Passing the Torch to a new generation. You can download the PDF here. A couple of months later, he added a new article entitled, Jesus is Building His Church, which encourages us to rejoice in the work Jesus is doing, instead of being discouraged by that which most people call ‘church’.

Table of Contents

Foreward

Introduction

1. Childhood and Youth
2. India
3. New Zealand
4. Africa
5. Europe
6. United States of America
7. Retirement

Overseas Distributors

In the United Kingdom:

John Langford
1 Harness Close
Wimborne, Dorset
BH21 2UF, England
Email John

In the Republic of Ireland:

David Rice
“Four Seasons” Ballylusk
Ashford, Co Wicklow
IRELAND
Email David

In New Zealand:

John Beaumont
27/472 Linwood Ave
Christchurch, 8006 NEW ZEALAND
Email John

In South Africa:

Jamie Campbell
P.O. Box 5
Wellington, Cape Town
South Africa, 7654
Email Jamie

In Australia:

Bruce Kerr
34 Highview Avenue
Nambour, Queensland
4560, AUSTRALIA
Email Bruce

Foreward

I have just finished indulging in a huge feast. The table was groaning with goodies, and I sampled everything! Instead of feeling overfed and lethargic, however, I feel greatly invigorated. In fact, I feel slimmed-down for action. I was running a race, and I know I am all the more ready to continue!

…These are the best words I can find to describe my experience of reading this new book by John Beaumont!

Over the twenty years I have known John, any recollections-of-the-past he has mentioned, in preaching or in conversation, have always been something of a treat. His anecdotes never failed to be worth listening to: amusing, or intriguing – and yet invariably nourishing. They fed our spirits. They strengthened our responsiveness to the Lord Jesus.

Now, in these “memoirs” John has, as it were, provided us with a banquet – a table laden with his recollections from many different parts of the world. I have feasted at this table with great pleasure, and I know that I am stronger, and spiritually fitter, as a result. There is no doubt whatsoever, in my mind, that many Christian people, across the globe, are going to be richly blessed as they read the pages ahead.

I would like to mention three truths of which I have become much more sure, as a result of reading this book. I am not saying that God will necessarily underline exactly the same principles in every reader’s heart. I merely want to emphasise that John’s reminiscences seem to highlight priceless biblical truths.

The first is: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.” It is clear throughout the book that John always made a determined practice of listening-to-the-Spirit before replying or reacting in any situation. He consciously set aside the expectations of those involved, or his own opinions based on previous experience, and listened for the Spirit’s voice. Over and over again, there was a remarkable outcome. (You will find numerous examples in what John has written.) Most of us pay lip-service to this principle, of course – but very few of us really put it into practice. I think this book will help us to deeply desire to be “led by the Spirit”.

The second principle which came across powerfully to me was this: “Speak the truth in love”. John was always willing to speak the truth, even if it was going to be very hard for the hearer to take. However, each time he first-of-all sought the Spirit’s guidance on how the truth spoken could become up-building in the person’s life. Speaking-the-truth-in-love doesn’t mean presenting the truth in a palatable way. (Sugaring the pill, which is what most of us try to do!) It means presenting the truth in a productive way.

Lastly, I want to mention the unusual biblical phrase “married to another – even to Him who is raised from the dead”. (Romans 7:4. A.V.) John’s happy marriage to Mary shines through these pages – but so does this other marriage of his! (Isn’t it wonderful that the love-relationship with one’s spouse, and the love-relationship with Jesus, are not mutually exclusive. In fact, we learn lessons about each partnership from the other partnership.) Whether we are married or single, however, I am convinced that reading this book will help us all understand more clearly what the Authorized Version meant when it said we should be “married to another…that we might bear fruit to God”.

Well! You are at the starting-end of the table. I have tried to give you a glimpse of some of the good things that lie ahead. I know that, in the end, your plate may carry a different selection to mine. But I genuinely believe you will step out, after you have finished, renewed and refreshed, and better prepared than ever to run the race that is set before you.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Stan Firth – Sutton, Surrey, England

Introduction

This is an attempt to share some of life’s experiences and lessons in such a way that it becomes solely a testimony to the grace of God. The credit is all His for anything worthwhile coming out of my life. On the other hand, the blame for every flaw, fault and failure is mine alone. Over the years I have asked Father to allow me to be, and remain, a hidden man, even though frequently in the public eye, only aspiring to be a God filled nobody.

Years ago I dreamed that I saw people gathered for a memorial service at the end of my earthly life. It was being held in a community hall rather than in a church building.

As everyone became quiet just before the start, a man I knew rushed in and asked, “Where is he?” No one answered, and so he asked the same question louder and louder. In moments everyone was exclaiming as if it were a chant, “John is not here. John is not here!”

All eyes turned to a friend – not a minister – who slowly walked forward and said, “John is not here, he is with the Lord. We are here to celebrate the grace of God in John’s life.”

I joked with one or two that it wasn’t surprising that the Christian man who rushed in, and who will remain nameless, asked that question. I often felt that he didn’t know where I was even when we were together!

Possibly the first time I shared at any length about the grace of God was in a meeting in Kingston, New York. One of the elders there, Dale Rumble, told me afterwards that for them such a topic had extra significance. They had noted over the years that whenever the Lord intended taking them into new realms of Christian living and serving, it had been preceded by a heightened emphasis on the grace of God.

To me the grace of God is the active expression of all that He is in His intrinsic nature, being extended to a totally unworthy person such as I am. This is in order that we may live a Christ-honouring life as we walk in the fullness of God’s purpose and provision for them.

To put it a little differently, divine grace is all that God is, made available for all that I lack, to enable me to be all that He chooses.

I am most grateful to the Holy Spirit who not only stirred me to write this book, but who has also been my Encourager throughout. My wife Mary has been very supportive as we have shared memories together and discussed the best way to express them. David and Nina Rice have willingly undertaken the task of editing and proof reading. This has been most helpful and is deeply appreciated. At the end of that process I received this letter:

“At a personal level may I say that this has been a very enjoyable and stimulating exercise. The more I read the manuscript the more absorbing it becomes. I do think it is worthy of wide distribution in whatever form seems best to you.

“I would also like to put on record the enormous impact that your life has had on me. I was initially hugely helped by the clarity of the word of the Lord that you spoke in Donegal. Subsequently the biggest impact that your life has had on me was in the way you responded to the Spirit, usually at great cost, when you were staying with us during Mary’s illness, and when we were in Sweden together.

“At that time I learned to stand up in the strength of the Lord and not be afraid of the consequences of obedience. Such things cannot be taught, they must be caught. By the overflow of the grace of the Lord in your life, I caught some things which totally changed and re-formed me and continue to do so. I will always be grateful to Jesus for those experiences as well as the many other evidences of His grace in our fellowship through the years.

Bless Jesus for His faithfulness, grace and love. David”

In the Scriptures, the Apostle Paul didn’t simply follow the custom of his people in wishing others, “Peace.” His greeting was always, “Grace and peace.” I greet you thus today. May you, who-ever you are, ‘be blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ,’ by the grace of God alone.

Excerpts

“The idea that the more we do the quicker God’s kingdom is established is a very common point of view, is it not? Earnest believers strive valiantly to do as much as possible for God. Add up all the gatherings, meetings, rallies, crusades, conferences, retreats, seminars, and like events in every church and every city and town throughout any of our countries and throughout the whole year. Include all of the preaching, teaching, prophesying and exhorting plus all of the singing, praising, worshipping, praying and charitable activities that are undertaken.

In the church as in the world, this is a generation of words, noise and endless activity that is mostly quite futile. Surely, if such things as those I have enumerated could bring the church of God to maturity and fullness, and vast multitudes to repentance and faith, we would be there before now.

No, no, no! What God declares is that he responds to faith rather than to human effort. Man’s best will never do, even if a myriad of us worked ourselves to death almost. Throughout history, again and again God has shown what he can accomplish in a moment, so to speak, that wonderfully pleases and glorifies him.” (pages 35-36)

“Let the younger generation hear this: ‘This is a tremendous day for adventure and discovery. Go for it!’ I take the counsel of a highly esteemed and deeply loved brother in Christ, Dr. Jack Gray, who is many years my senior. He has wisely and rightly written that ‘there are many today whom some have described as church-forsakers, but who are actually church-discoverers.’ We refuse to blindly follow the traditions of men, choosing rather to seek and find for ourselves exactly what God’s plan is for us at the present time.” (page 37)

“This brother, who had not heard me speak in a meeting, told me very earnestly that he believed that God wanted me in South Africa at that time.

I told him that I would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in that regard, knowing that, if it was the ‘now’ word of the Lord for me, an inner conviction about it would grow in my heart. We should not accept something as the word of God to us simply because someone declares that it is. In the final analysis, only the Holy Spirit within us can declare that.” (page 119)