Search Results for: Friends and friends of friends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gotta love it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few weeks ago almost all of the extended family on my side of the family got together for a reunion in honor of my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. We gathered at Shaver Lake, California where my parents live. That’s the mob to the left. We had a great time together in the Sierras and though it was a bit of a task to get us all together, it was well worth it.

Given the the pressure on relationships in our day, it is quite a treasure to have parents who have found a way to stay together that long. Our family is far from perfect and we have our share of ups and downs, but overall we have a deep and abiding love for each other that becomes more precious with the passing of time.

But I realize that isn’t true for everyone. Some families involve very broken people who are not free to love even their own children in a way that even older children desires. A few weeks ago a man wrote me about a desire to reconnect with his dad even though their relationship had been estranged for some time. He had experienced some healing in his own life and wanted to see if that could extend to this father as well. We shared about the process for that and I warned him about not having any expectations about how his father might respond, or he’d probably come away disappointed. Here’s what he wrote me a couple of weeks ago. I share it here with his permission.

I met with my dad. We hadn’t seen each other in over four years. I was able to offer him love in a way I never have been able to before. In the past I could only love him out of my brokenness which demanded certain things from him. This time I was able to offer my love out of a heart that is being healed. And I realized what a tough man he is to love. Honestly, for the past four years I really didn’t miss his caustic, cynical personality, one that is quicker to make enemies than friends. But I’m stepping into this, moving towards him, offering him my love and honesty. And I was able to tell him that I don’t have any expectations of him, of how I would like him to respond. The lines of communication have been re-opened. And in the end he thanked me for reaching out to him and he told me that he loves me.

An interesting side note is that I have befriended our neighbor who is the same age as my dad and who lost his wife of 45 years. He would have people stop by from local churches who would attempt to console but would end up preaching at him. He would kick them out. I just tried to love him and be there for him. This was two years ago. He has since given his life to Christ and is a new man! And I have been able to play a part in helping him reach out to his adult son and reconnect. That’s been an amazing journey to watch, since I’m now seeing it from a father’s perspective. Here is a 70 year old man who used to be tough as nails (marine in Vietnam, cop, etc) and now is a humble, gentle and broken man. He tears up when he talks about his son and how he longs to be a friend to him. And he always hugs me and tells me I am his best friend. Pretty incredible stuff.

The Father has revealed and healed so much in my life, exposing all the lies I believed about events that happened to me when I was younger that I had no control of. These lies then formed the foundation of my beliefs—about myself, others and the Father. God, in His kindness, has taken me (and continues to take me) on a journey of exposing the lies, deconstructing them and then speaking His Life and Truth into the situation. He is in essence reframing or reinterpreting those events. And since He is outside of time, he is taking me back to those events and showing me that He was there, even though I didn’t acknowledge His presence at that time.

I love it when people who are being loved, grow in the freedom to share that love with others. It reminds me of one of my favorite passages from THE SHACK:

Mack, if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.

The kingdom of God breaks into our world not through our achievements or large-scale initiatives. The kingdom of God breaks into our world in the simplest ways we love the people God puts in front of us today, and doing the simple things he nudges us to do, especially when we are willing to move beyond our comfort zones to love others who may, in fact, be quite difficult to love. Those are the acts that change the world!

One more picture! This was the view from our chalet last night in the village of Rougemont in the Swiss Alps.

Sara and I just returned from two days in that area with our hosts Silvio and Dominique Viotti. We have had a great time with this dear brother and sister and their family. We have laughed ourselves silly more times than I can count. A couple of years ago Silvio translated SO YOU DON’T WANT TO GO TO CHURCH ANYMORE into French and is just finishing up on HE LOVES ME. They have been warm and gracious to us and have showed us the incredible beauty of their country. They have also introduced us to a number of their friends on Sunday as we had a bbq out in a park and shared about Father’s life together.

Tomorrow Sara and I board a Swiss Air jet from Geneva for the flight home. I’ve been gone 3 weeks, traveled hundreds of miles and am looking forward to a night or two in my own bed at home.

Finally, we just found out that the NY Times published an article today on THE SHACK, which has now had four weeks at #1 on their Trade Fiction list. Christian Novel Is Surprise Best Seller traces the rise of THE SHACK by William P. Young, calling it “the most compelling recent example of how a word-of-mouth phenomenon can explode into a blockbuster when the momentum hits chain bookstores, and the marketing and distribution power of a major commercial publisher is thrown behind it.”

Still working my way through Germany. Sara arrived on Monday and we are enjoying this trip together now. We will be leaving Kaiserslautern today and head to Manheim. Then we have one more stop in Germany before we go to meet our friends in Switzerland. It has been an awesome trip so far. We’ve met lots of hungry people and have had some wonderful fellowship. I love how Father is calling people to himself in these days.

Here’s some items that might be of interest:

Our local paper out here ran an article about Windblown Media and The Shack. A lot of the facts in the story aren’t quite right, but the writer sure got the spirit of it. I thought some of you might enjoy reading it.

For those who have been waiting for an audio version of THE SHACK, it is now available both in a seven CD set and by Digital Download.

Also the ebook versions are done and will be available for Amazon’s Kindle and other ebook outlets on June 20.

First, an announcement. For those who want to listen to an interview I did on the The Drew Marshall Show on April 12, you can click here for the audio link. We mostly talked about So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore.

And then I wanted to share this letter with you. For many folks the combination of a few of the following: The Shack, He Loves Me, So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore, The God Journey and Transitions has been a bit of a ‘perfect storm’ to help them catch the reality of living in the love of the Father. I am so blessed by that. Because the reality isn’t really any of those things. We try to describe it in various ways in each of them, but it is in knowing him and how he works in us and in the world that helps us discover how to live in him, not just talk about.

A couple of weeks ago I received the following email from a sister in England that captures that perfectly. More than anything I don’t want people reading or listening to my stuff, but finding the freedom and joy of just living in the Father’s reality every day and watching him make a difference in them and through them every day, wherever they happen to be living, working or playing. That’s the gospel!

Thank you so much for Lifestream – and thanks for the Jake book and the God Journey as well. And The Shack of course.

My husband and I left our charismatic (originally a house but now an organisation) church after 18 years there, being in church leadership and both of us on staff in responsible positions in the past. You don’t need to know the reasons but it was a very painful process involving betrayal and control. I never wanted to go near a church again – but thought (now I see erroneously) we would be in a dangerous place if we had no “covering”. So we tried a few but for some reason God seemed not to give the green light. Instead we bought a small flat by the sea and spent our weekends and Sundays walking the cliffs and on the beach, listening to worship, reading books (Christian and otherwise) and enjoying each other’s company. We also invited friends down and once a month had a get together when we ate together and just rested in God’s presence for a couple of hours.

However, I still felt guilty that I hated the organisational church, loathed the thought of house groups, never wanted to darken the doors of a conference ever again, and enjoyed good teaching on the web but only as long as I closed my eyes and didn’t watch the church bit. After all the Church was the Bride of Christ wasn’t she – so really I shouldn’t hate it. Guilt… Guilt… Shame.

Then extraordinarily (well not, of course) two things happened. My husband went to Spring Harvest 2 weeks ago to man a stall for work (not to go to any meetings though, no way man!) and he discovered the book The Shack. He is not a great reader but he could not put it down and he wept his way through a large part of it.

While he was away I discovered So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, read it on line in one sitting, found it totally liberating and then discovered the podcasts and the other stuff on your site. And of course saw the link with The Shack.

So when he came back I read it, also wept, and something has happened to me – I have been taught about God the Father and Daddy God until I know it inside out in my head, but the penny has never really dropped in my heart. Reading The Shack made the connection for me between the two but I didn’t realise it at the time until I emailed a friend and my jaw dropped when I realised I was talking about what Daddy wanted to do. I have NEVER felt comfortable referring to Father God as Daddy before although my husband found that heart relationship about 2 years ago. What a miracle. What freedom to know that all I have to do is let Daddy love me, and from that I will be able to love others. I DON’T HAVE TO PERFORM ANY MORE!

It is clear that God is shaking up organisational church all over the place. When praying the other morning he gave me a picture for the church I left (since then many others are exiting as well) but which I think is applicable worldwide. He showed me a glass beaker punched all over with holes and water was pouring out of the holes. But what was so amazing was that as the water landed on the table it did not remain in little droplets separately but it made a pool which was held together by the surface tension. If more water came near it and joined it then it became one with the first lot of water so you could not tell which was which. God is far more interested in the contents than the container and those contents do not need a structure to keep them together. (emphasis mine).

Gotta love that last line! It really says it all! God is more concerned with people coming to know him than he his preserving our religious institutions. But that is nearly impossible for those who manage institutions to understand. They are used to sacrificing individuals for the good of the whole, thinking that is God’s heart. If only they could see…

I get this question a lot, so I thought I’d post the exchange here, so i won’t have to rewrite it so many times:

First of all, thank you for the encouragement you have been to us in the last year. We left the institutional church a little over a year ago and honestly do not think we can ever go back. Your blog, book – So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, Transitions and The Shack have been both freeing and refreshing to us.

Secondly, not asking you to critique or anything but how does your belief system differ from the organic church movement? We read Pagan Christianity and it really opened our eyes. We don’t want to start a house church because we think that can be just moving the institution to the home. If you are willing to give it, we would like your opinion on the whole apostolic house church movement.

To answer your question, In my view the organic church movement, is not very organic. How can it be when they give you all the models to follow? And I’m never thrilled with movements. They always seem to have too much of a touch of man’s plans and human efforts behind it. People create the illusion of a movement for many reasons. Some might be sincere, thinking they are providing a valuable resource for God’s people, though that is rarely the result. More often they end up only trying to validate people that they are part of ‘something special’, or to sell them their books and seminars. God just doesn’t work that way. He moves freely in the earth inviting people to him.

The apostolic house church movement is also too man-driven and program-centered for my tastes. Body life rises out of brothers and sisters who simply want to learn to share Father’s life together as friends and to have his heart in reaching out to others in the simplicity of living their lives. People doing that will find the life of the church springing up around them. It can’t be imposed by implementing any system or model, which only teaches people to play church instead of really living as it.

Thus, discipleship (learning to walk with Jesus) precedes any depth of real community together. So learn to follow him. Encourage others to do so. Follow what God puts on your heart to do together in joy and freedom and you’ll find yourselves being the church. Set up a weekly meeting with a mini-ritual and soon you’ll feel like its just a routine you’re going through. Because it is. But let God connect you with people who want to share a journey, and your life together can take on a myriad of expressions in different seasons as best serves his purposes in the community in which you live.

God wants to give us real frienships with others and teach you to share his life together. We’ll get to experience that simply if we don’t try to put something else together on our own first. Then we’ll just end up with another substitute, not the real deal.

He can do this in you. Ask him to show you and just follow what he puts on your heart each day as you learn to live in the reality of his love…