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Transitions, Again

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What I love about Transitions being available free of charge is that I can pass on the work it is doing in others without others thinking I am only promoting something for sale. Already the mp3 files from this series have been downloaded almost 700 times. I am so deeply grateful for how this series is helping people find fresh ways to sort out Father’s work in their lives and to be renewed in their passionate pursuit of his life.

This email is from a brother in South Africa that has been deeply touched by the Transition series. I love his journey and know he speaks for many others. These kinds of stories are the reason t hat Father wanted to make it available…

After I finished listening to the Transition recordings today, I started to cry. Why? I really don’t know.

But, I talked to God about it and I think I have some idea now. About 4+ years ago my wife and I left the congregation where we had been. We came to a point where we decided that what we have been experiencing could not be what Jesus meant by a life lived in fullness. Basically, the whole time we had this one question that drove us “like a splinter somewhere in our minds?  Is this IT? Did Jesus die for this? Is there more? We needed more of Him. We knew that at least.

So we stopped. We wanted to see what in our lives is of God and what came out of ourselves. And it was a scary time. It meant confronting ourselves. Who were we? Why do we do what we do? From 1988 we followed hard after Christ, but something was amiss. Were we missing Him in all we did? And then slowly He started to flow through us. And each day after that is wonderfully full of Him. We have died to religion!!! We found the Author of Life!

But for me, it was a lonely road. We weren’t leaders in our congregation. So no one made a fuss when we left. We were the invisibles. It took the congregation 17 months to contact us, and ask us if we were still coming, or if they had to release us. Go figure. I told them that we are still part of the congregation, but that we do not go to the organized Sunday part. So they had to go figure. They never called after that again. But it was as if our Father had shut our mouths. We had no one to share the journey with. I became very cynical about the use of words. So even when we were among very good friends, we did not really share what was happening in and with us. It was very strange. Something wonderful is happening and we are not telling a soul. What does talking help anyway? As I think back now, we could not really give answers for what we were doing and experiencing. It’s this wonderful uncertainness. My wife and I talked a lot. What was God doing? We had no idea.

I went on the Internet and downloaded everything on the church. Thousands of pages. Everything from missionary groups, the mystics, traditional churches, house churches, Quakers, Anabaptists, Messianic movements, and all the stuff in-between. That’s how I found your website and then had the chance to meet you a in Johannesburg. You were the first person that put into words what we were experiencing. And that gave lots of comfort. And that is the reason why I cried yesterday. Your words and our experience matched about 95% of ours—a confirmation of sorts. And suddenly I did not feel so alone. Don’t get me wrong, I know we are not alone. (With our Father, it is actually impossible to be alone.) And we have friends with us on this journey, in all the different stages of it. But I always felt that in talking to them, would influence them to have my experience. And I wanted them to have their own journey. It]s so easy to nail down God’s life and give it to people in religion format. Your words did not give me religion; it affirmed what we have been experiencing. And since yesterday I have had a wonderful time with our Father. I don’t know if I have ever felt so safe. It was the realization that He trusts me to be me. He trusts me with His indwelling and He trusts me with whatever that means!

So this is a big THANK YOU! Thank you for sharing this on the Internet. It changed something in me, and I will never be the same.

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Reveling in the Freedom to Follow

Living Loved, Living Loved Newsletter / /

By Wayne Jacobsen
BodyLife • July 2006

To be honest, most of the mornings I lived bogged down by the demands and agendas of religion, I woke up defeated. I’d look at the clock dreading what the day might hold and wondering how I could get everything just right so God could do incredible things around me. Don’t hear that wrong. I loved God. I was as passionate for him as I am now, but I was also exhausted all the time. There were so many things to fix, so many people to see and so many meetings I had to prepare for.

I prayed hard each morning for God to bless this or save me from that. Most of the time my prayers didn’t seem to make any difference. It was horrible. No matter how well I did on any given day, I always fell short of my own expectations. On my best days I broke even, on most days I felt incredibly frustrated, either by my own failings or, conversely, how inactive God seemed to be. But I didn’t know there was any other way.

When I think back to those days now, they seem like a distant nightmare after waking up fully. It seems only a distant memory. Now I awaken every morning in the excitement of an unfolding adventure in the life of Jesus. (You have to keep in mind I’m a morning person!) Now my first thoughts in the morning are thoughts of wonder and excitement. I can’t wait to get to the day and see how this one unfolds. (I realize some of you don’t even wake up mentally until well after noon, so that’s when you might feel it.) And, as I lay my head down at night, I am not only overwhelmingly grateful for what God allowed me to experience that day, but also already looking forward to the one coming.

Some of you may chalk that up to the exciting life of a traveling author, as if this must be loads of fun. But honestly, that’s not what excites me, and my days are rarely easy or pain-free. The reason I’m excited to wake up each day is because I can’t wait to see who God might put in my path, or how he will sort out some unresolved thing in my life or someone I know around me.

Could this be what Jesus meant when he promised us the fullness of his life? He wasn’t talking about the ease of circumstance, or the fulfillment of our dreams, but the absolute adventure of walking through each day with him as his purpose slowly but surely unfolds in the circumstances and relationships around us. He is there in our simplest joys and in our most crushing circumstances, always inviting us closer, always transforming us so that we can live more freely in him. If this isn’t at least a piece of that abundant life, it is more like it than anything I’ve known to date.

 

Why Don’t We Want People to Follow?

The most incredible invitation Jesus made in his life among us was for each of us to simply follow him. For too much of my life, however, I thought following him meant that I subscribed to the principles and rituals of Christianity. Sure I had moments of knowing him even there, but they always faded away in the busyness of religious activity, which did more to wear me out than show me how to live in him.

As I read the New Testament, I’m blessed by how much the apostles reminded the early followers that they were not offering them a religion to observe, but inviting them into a living relationship with Jesus that would allow them to know his Father and participate in his unfolding grace in the world. “Our fellowship is with him!” “Believe what you hear.” “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

How is it that we have traded that adventure for services, doctrines and principles that promise a reality they can’t deliver? I regularly meet people who have been faithful elders, pastors, and participants in good religious institutions who grope around as if God does not speak to them and as if he is not able to transform them. They have no idea how to enjoy a relationship with a Father and his Son that gives them hope and direction in their darkest days and teaches them how live in his power instead of their own efforts. I’m thinking we didn’t make the best trade there.

If nothing else, that alone should make us question the religious activities and meetings that eat up so much of our lives and yet don’t equip us to live in the reality of the friendship he offered us. No wonder religion gets boring. The New Testament is replete with the invitation to follow him, not follow the dictates of a religious program. I even look back now and see how I discouraged people from trying to follow him. Sure they would make mistakes in learning to do so, but because I wanted to save them from those mistakes, I taught them to listen to me instead of continuing through the process of learning to listen to him. I didn’t mean to. I thought I was teaching them to follow him, but in the end, they only learned to listen to me. And that worked only as long as they liked what I said. When they didn’t, they just found someone else to tell them what they wanted to hear.

 

One Flock, One Shepherd

How much clearer could Jesus have been in John 10? He knows each of his sheep by name and leads them with his voice. That doesn’t seem too complicated. He connects with us; we follow him. That doesn’t seem like rocket science or something only a few gifted professionals could achieve. He went on to say that his sheep would know his voice so well that they wouldn’t follow a stranger. Is that ever true!

His sheep really do hear his voice; it’s just that they’ve been taught not to trust it. When they hear the voice of a stranger, it sounds wrong to them even if they can’t put their finger on exactly why. But that’s when they often get talked into ignoring what they know to be true inside. They are accused of independence, arrogance and rebellion to make sure they get back in line and don’t cause any trouble. Who are you to think you can know God? Do you have the training we have, or the anointing? Do you read Greek? Are you going to argue with the ‘wisdom passed down through the ages’?

As well meaning as some of that might be, it’s effect is to destroy people’s trust in Jesus as the one who wants to lead them, teach them, protect them and free them to live powerfully in his life. Leadership in the early church helped people learn how to walk with the living Jesus, not subvert that relationship by inserting themselves in its place. Doing so not only undermines spiritual growth, but also divides the body over the differing views of those who think they are leading his flock.

I love it when people tell me that something I read or said touched them deeply, not because it was new to them, but because it gave voice to something the Spirit had already been showing them for some time before. They were just afraid to believe it was true with all the religious voices telling them otherwise. The language of real fellowship will always make us more aware of his voice and less influenced by our desire to please people, especially leaders.

That’s why Jesus said we could be one flock with one shepherd. As long as we continue to have millions of people inserting themselves as the ones to follow, this family will continue to be fragmented. But that has been changing in recent years as an increasing number of people are simultaneously and spontaneously seeing through Christianity as the religion it has become and are learning again simply how to follow Jesus again, even when it goes against the grain of other people’s religious expectations of them.

I’ve been blessed to meet thousands of these people all over the world. They seem to be on the same adventure I’m on and when we connect our fellowship is immediate, deep and filled with life. And even though many of these people don’t fit into the traditional structures we’ve inherited in our day, they are not the independent or rebellious as others have described them. In fact, those learning to follow the Lamb have a deep desire for authentic fellowship with others and a desire to see the church emerge in our day as a true reflection of God’s glory in the world.

 

Spiritual Couch Potatoes?

Much has been written in national magazines over the last year about the growing disillusionment many are experiencing with institutionalized religion. They are reassessing their fruitfulness of the time, energy and finances that it takes to maintain buildings and sustain a staff that primarily runs programs for the faithful. Some are doing their best to help renew tired institutions, others are embracing new relational models hopeful that they will offer a better result, and many others are looking beyond all of that to find a dynamic life in Jesus and relationships with others that no model could ever contain.

Some have even belittled those they call the ‘out-of-church’ crowd calling them independent, spiritual couch potatoes. They say that without accountability to gifted leaders to keep them from error and to coordinate their efforts the church of Jesus Christ will end up weak and ineffective. Really? What does that say about Jesus’ ability (or should we say inability?) to raise up a flock after his own heart and release them to live and work together however he might desire? And why would we want to listen to those who have no trust in Jesus’ ability to change our lives?

These people have not seen the body of Christ that I have seen taking shape all over the world. Growing in dependence on Jesus rather than following programs crafted by a human leader, they are being powerfully transformed by his life and are making incredible impact in the world around them. And while the individual actions may not warrant magazine coverage, the sum total of the simple obedience of those believers is allowing God’s kingdom to be known in the world.

 

The Submitted Flock

Thomas Friedman, the New York Times political columnist wrote a book a few years ago, called The Lexus and the Olive Tree. In it he describes a fundamental shift in power from the political leaders of nation-states to what he called the electronic herd – the millions of individual investors who wake up every morning, turn on their computers and trade in stocks and currencies for their own financial gain.

They move millions if not billions of dollars each day to those places that the electronic herd trusts the most in returning a profit. Friedman asserted that this trend was so profound that power had already begun to shift away from governments and political leaders. In time nations will no longer be able to successfully manipulate their currency or economies, because when the electronic herd gets wind of it they will flee overnight to better investments.

I read that book years ago and found it shocking that people acting in their own self-interest could have such an impact on world events. Their power was derived from the sum total of their actions, not from any coordination between them, and yet they are economically restructuring our world. Lately that book has come back to mind as a parable of what is happening spiritually in the Father’s family. Jesus is raising up his own submitted flock – a people not making decisions every day in their own economic self-interest, but those who will simply respond to the Shepherd one action at a time, one person at a time, and in each situation as it comes.

Can you imagine the power of millions of individual believers from all over the world simply following the inclinations that Jesus would allow to grow in their hearts? I get a glimpse of that reality every day just by the folks I know. I hear incredible stories of lives being changed. I see Jesus’ hand as he connects people when he has a task for them to do together. I see a people more focused on doing what Jesus asks of them rather than building large programs or ministries to try to catch the attention of the world. They will go wherever he asks them to, link arms with other believers he invites to the same task and do it all without the need for power, self-glory or vocational provision. This is the picture Scripture paints, and those who aspire to work with him in this venture will not seek to replace him in people’s lives, but equip them to live it too.

I sit here today overwhelmed by what Jesus is doing in our world and almost laugh, thinking, of course it would be this way. He said it would. He would be the shepherd and all would follow him with his law written in their hearts. He never wanted us to follow the programs of men but learn to live in a growing trust in his ability to coordinate his body and love the world through us.

 

A People Like No Other

I realize some reading this article will be threatened by now that I would dare to encourage believers to follow Jesus as he leads them, rather than falling in line with one of the various institutions that claim to be preparing Christ’s body for the last days. They fear that if people are not obligated to join up, they will wither away in their own selfishness.

I understand why some people would feel that way. I know many who claim to be following Jesus and are only indulging their own self-interest. Instead of increasingly demonstrating his grace and truth, they turn out to be arrogant, isolated, and so filled with their own agenda they suffocate anyone near them. These are not those who are growing to know him, however. They are those who have reacted to religion by falling back into their own selfishness. God can rescue them, too, when they get weary of living that way.

But the fact that people can abuse the truth does not negate that truth. I’m not writing to those who want to use these words as an excuse to do whatever they feel like doing. I’m writing these words to encourage those who passionately want to know Jesus and be transformed by his life. Those people are finding that their freedom from religious activity is stirring them to a deeper passion for him and he grows more real in them with each passing day. And they also have an irresistible desire to connect with others who share that passion. They may not find them easily, but in time Jesus will connect them to others.

I see a vast group of people around the world learning to depend on him more each day. I am recognizing at least seven attributes that are increasing in them as they learn how to follow the Lamb wherever he goes:

  •     They live by the reality of love not by principles (John 13:34-35). As they respond to others with the same reality of love they have found in him for themselves, they know how to treat others around them in away that conveys the life of God to broken people and fellow travelers.
  •     They live with a growing trust in Father’s purpose and power, not out of fear (Romans 8). The more they live in the reality of God’s love the more obvious it becomes to them that God can be trusted with everything, and this freedom allows them to move through the world not looking out for their own good, but living by whatever Father gives them.
  •     They live at the Father’s pleasure not in the tyranny of fulfilling their own agendas (I Peter 4:1-2). Increasing trust means they no longer have to labor under the tyranny of what they think might be best. All they need to do is follow him, knowing that he will fulfill his purpose in them best when they are not trying to do it themselves.
  •     They trust in his power, not their own efforts (Philippians 3:1-14). Those who follow Jesus have given up any confidence they had in their own wisdom or their own ability to transform themselves or impact the world. The resultant humility allows them to speak the truth in love without being rude or pushing others to embrace their point of view.
  •     They live in the moment not in the anxiety of their imagined futures (Matthew 6/Luke 12). They know it is far easier to hear his voice in the moment and follow his lead when they are at rest on the inside. Most of our anxieties come from an imagined future in which God is not present. Having seen God time and again do the unexpected, they are confident that their whole lives are in his hands they do not worry about a future they cannot see. They know the best way for them to be where God wants them six months from now, is by following him today and see what doors he opens.
  •     They live in authentic expressions of community not in isolated independence or in prefabricated programs (I Corinthians 12-14). Their freedom in Jesus allow them to connect in relationships free of pretence and manipulation and find connecting with others of like passion to be an irresistible joy that encourages and inspires them to live more deeply in him.
  •     They live generously and graciously in the world, not seeking to exploit others with their own agenda (Mark 10:42-45). As they have learned to let God provide for them, they no longer need to use others, either to get what they want or to protect themselves from others. With a heart to help others openly God can make himself known through them in some fascinating ways and by doing so allow others to come to know who he is.

 

Live Free!

Like a field of wildflowers coming into their season, this submitted flock is blooming with God’s glory in the world. Every person can be part of it. Simply draw near to him continually and ask him to reveal himself to you. Take each situation you’re in and ask him to show you what it would mean for you to follow him in it. Then watch and listen over time as he makes his way clear to you.

If you know some other brothers and sisters near you who are learning to live this life as well, ask them to help you. Learn from them without making them a substitute for the walk Jesus wants to share with you.

Believe the growing convictions he puts on your heart and follow them as best you see them, being gracious to others as he shapes his image in you. Don’t worry about the mistakes you’ll make and don’t fall into the trap of thinking that any teaching or model of church life will ever replace his voice leading you.

That’s why I’m not on any bandwagon with those who claim they have God’s proven model for church life. When our focus is on following a model, even a good one, rather than following him, we’ll still miss out on how he is knitting this family together. If you’re pursuing house church, cell church or purpose-driven church instead of following him, you will miss those he might ask you to walk beside who are in more traditional congregations or in no formalized group at all.

The glory of life in him is not found in finding the best model to implement, the right principles to follow or even the most powerful rituals to observe. It is about knowing him as our older brother and friend, living in that relationship with His Father, and following him wherever you see him leading you.

Without that freedom, we’ll just be a group of Christians caught up in the boring and powerless religious activities that never bring life to us, much less help us touch the world around us. With the freedom to follow him with joy, Jesus can do anything he wants to do in us on any given day.

Isn’t that something worth waking up to?

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Reveling in the Freedom to Follow Read More »

Where To From Here?

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I got this letter the day after the last one I put on my blog. This one is from a senior pastor as well and letters like his more than make up for letters like the previous one. When our religious institutions get in the way of a simple hunger to live deeply in the life of Jesus, then we have to rethink what we’re doing…

I am a minister in my 50s. I was ordained as a Southern Baptist, was a Navy Chaplain, turned charismatic, involved most recently in a “apostolic church” with a strong emphasis on “fatherhood” (which I have decided is the shepherding movement warmed over), and I just separated myself from my “headship.” Part of me would like to walk away from Christianity completely and just take care of my young family, put my Bible away and tell God when he has something for me to light a nearby bush! My question is where to from here? I feel as though I can’t trust anyone. ( I also had my own business, to support my ministry, which some “christian brothers” left me holding the huge debt debt that resulted in personal and corporate bankruptcy.)

I became a Christian and a minister believing that the gospel could make the world a better place. Needless to say I have been disappointed. But I can not forsake Jesus. I just no longer know how the work of Christ in the world gets done in a tangible manner. Perhaps I am most disappointed in myself in that I have no idea any longer of my destiny or my calling. I am most disappointed in my lack of the love like Christ in my person. I feel totally inadequate for ministry (even with my college and seminary degrees and years of experience).

Got any suggestions?

Your story breaks my heart. Unfortunately it is not an uncommon story, even down to the betrayal of close friends and bankruptcy. You are not alone, Bro! What Christianity has become in our day is often a painful reality that doesn’t help people be transformed, just manipulate the system for their own gain. When it finally falls out it is incredibly destructive.

I’m blessed you would write me. I don’t feel like I have any adequate words at times like this and certainly can’t map out the next steps for you. I can affirm your statement that I can’t trust anyone. Jesus even said something like that in John 2. But you can trust him. You may not feel like that right now with so many disappointed hopes in him, but he has set himself to deliver you from a system that was doing more harm than good, even with the best of intentions, and is now inviting you to know him in ways you’ve only dreamed of before. 50ish is as good a time as any to let him take you through this transition and learn how to live in the freedom of his love rather than in the religion we call Christianity.

Where to go? To Him! To Him! To Him! Every day you wake up, just ask him to reveal himself to you as he really is. Ask him to lead you one step at a time to whatever he has for you. Follow the convictions of your heart and ignore the voices that seek to manipulate your sense of shame. Who knows what that will end up looking like for you? I’ve known so many brothers in your shoes and the outcomes are always different, but they all have this in common. We all look back and say, “Why didn’t I go on this journey earlier?” While the result are rarely what any of us expected, they are always far more spacious and filled with grace than our own dreams ever would have.â€

I know that may be hard to believe, given where you sit today. But he is pretty good at what he does. You’ve been dis-illusioned by what you thought his life was, but that is a GREAT thing. You (like all of us) had illusions about him and church that needed to be dissed. Now you stand on the brink of seeing this Father as he really is, and the bodfy of Christ as she is really taking shape in the world. It is more incredible than you’ll ever know.

Where To From Here? Read More »

Where Has Wayne Been?

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I know! I know! I have been way too busy of late and some travel as well as work on a manuscript has left me woefully behind in emails and updating my various websites. It turns out I’m going to be a literary agent for awhile in my spare time, and perhaps be involved with a screenplay and movie production. All of this, because a few days after Christmas last year an unpublished manuscript arrived unannounced an unexpected in my inbox.

That is not unusual. Lots of people send me manuscripts and articles to read and I try to give as much time to them as I can and get some feedback to the authors. So I printed off a few pages to do that when I found myself on the ride of a lifetime. This book captured me in the first few pages and wouldn’t let me go until I finished it. At its end it left me in tears for over twenty minutes overwhelmed by the immensity of a Father’s love in his broken universe. And I didn’t even cry at the end of Ol’ Yeller!

The book is called The Shack and the gist of the story is this: In the midst of Mackenzie Phillips’ great sadness, he accepts a disturbing invitation to return to the shack, the scene of his 6 year-old daughters grizzly murder four years previous. There, he is confronted by a middle-aged black woman claiming to be God and thus begins an incredible weekend that turns his world upside-down.

The book was written by someone I’d only met a year previous. Frankly, this is one of the most absorbing depictions of God in his universe I have ever read. It is clever, colorful, witty, powerful and full of insights about the God I know. And it wasn’t even written specifically for believers! Though believers will find it engaging even as it challenges some of their religious constructs, The Shack will also hold great interest for nonreligious people. It wrestles in a most creative way with the universal question: Where is God in a world filled with unspeakable pain and loss? In that vein, this book and its edgy story will have incredible crossover potential. It has inspired my own journey and I find myself wishing every person I know had already read this book so we could talk about it.

Unfortunately I can’t put a copy in your hands today. I wish I could. This is one of those special books that comes along rarely in a lifetime. The author was raised among cannibals in West Papua, suffered great loss as a young adult and has overcome a host of inner struggles to live a fulfilled life in Christ now into his 50’s. As I got excited about this book, so did a couple of filmmaker friends of mine and we’ve put together a small team that is working with the author to ready the manuscript for publication, seek out a world-class publisher to get it in print, and turn it into a screenplay for a feature-length movie for general release at a budget of $15 million.

This is definitely a journey for me into uncharted waters, but I felt strongly enough about this book to help it find its way into our culture. It presents God in a way that our world rarely sees and rings with authenticity and overwhelming joy. It will help you in your own struggles to sort out God’s love in the midst of inexplicable suffering.

Already God has opened the door to put this manuscript in the hands of some major publishers and has opened conversations with others who may invest in the movie production. I would appreciate your prayers as this process unfolds. I also have no idea who is reading this blog and thought it might be worth asking if any of you have an in to a major publishers of general interest fiction, either Christian or secular. If so, I’d appreciate you helping me make that connection. Though I have many contacts in the publishing industry because of my own writings, there may be other connections God wants to make.

And if anyone has an extra $15 million lying around and would like to invest in an astounding production of this film, we would love to hear from you to.

Where Has Wayne Been? Read More »

What a Happy Anniversary!

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Today Sara and i are celebrating 31 years of marriage. Amazing! As we sat and reflected on that this morning, we were so grateful that God has given us a way to let everything that has happened, good and bad, in the last 31 years draw us closer to each other instead of driving us apart. Today we are better friends than we’ve ever been. We’re partners in each other’s journey at every level and I don’t know anyone I’d rather spend time with than Sara—whether we’re in intense prayer, laughing our bellies to soreness, hanging out with good friends or sorting out some question one of us needs resolve.

She truly is the love of my life, my best friend and most endearing sister in Christ. We have all kinds of private jokes between us no one else shares. Her laughter makes me light up. I love the way she lives her life, loves our kids and treats people around her. I can’t believe the joy Father has led us to together and look forward to whatever lies ahead together.

Tonight we’re not even together, and it isn’t due to my travels. Sara has an awards dinner tonight at the Reagan Presidential Library for some of her seniors. But as I write this I can’t stop smiling. Whether we’re together or apart, she is my joy, and I know she’ll always come home!

I know marriage doesn’t sort out this way for everyone, and it makes us sad when we find couples who haven’t learned how to cling to each other, even in their differences and learn to rely on him together. Sara and I have been through some painful times. There was even a season of pain, I wasn’t sure our marriage would survive. What we enjoy now is the fruit of a lifetime shared and I do think there is a way for every couple, if they will explore it TOGETHER, to find their way into the absolute joy and bliss God had in mind when he made a man and a woman and put them in his garden together. Don’t give up! It’s worth sorting out with Father, and with your spouse!

What a Happy Anniversary! Read More »

Wayne to Appear this Friday on CSPAN

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Tomorrow I’m off to Washington, DC for some venues I’m not accustomed to, nor do I necessarily enjoy. This summer I worked with the First Amendment Center on some guidelines to help public schools deal with cultural and religious conflicts. This one, Public Schools and Sexual Orientation: A First Amendment framework for finding common ground is designed to help schools deal with sexual orientation discrimination and harassment without undermining those parents, students of faith who have moral objections to homosexuality.

I helped Dr. Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center broker and draft this agreement with representation from educational, gay and lesbian, as well as religious groups. Here’s some of the language from those document:

In recent years, many public schools have increasingly become a front line in the escalating debates over homosexuality in American society. Conflicts over issues involving sexual orientation in the curriculum, student clubs, speech codes and other areas of school life increasingly divide communities, spark bitter lawsuits, and undermine the educational mission of schools.

The advice in this guide is built on the conviction that we urgently need to reaffirm our shared commitment, as American citizens, to guiding principles of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The rights and responsibilities of the First Amendment provide the civic framework within which we are able to debate our differences, to understand one another, and to forge public policies that serve the common good in public education…

Under the First Amendment, a school is both safe and free when students, parents, educators and all members of the school community commit to address their religious and political differences with civility and respect. A safe school is free of bullying and harassment. And a free school is safe for student speech even about issues that divide us.

I will appear with representatives of the First Amendment Center, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network and the Christian Educators Association at the release of this new publication nationally on Thursday, March 9 at a press conference held at the National Press Club at 9:00 a.m. EST and followed up with a forum discussion on CSPAN’s Close-up, which will be aired on Friday evening at 7:00 EST. (We haven’t gotten final confirmation that it will air this week, so if it doesn’t, check it out next week.)

I am always amazed at the doors God opens to me. After the media activities on Thursday, I’m going to spend the evenings with some friends Sara and I met in New Zealand a couple of years ago who have just moved to DC to work for the New Zealand government. Then on Friday I’m going to meet with a man involved in reconciliation work in Africa before heading upstate Maryland to spend the weekend with some folks near Haggerstown. Then a few dear friends of mine are meeting for lunch in Bethesda before I catch my return flight home to California.

If you think about all of this, pray for me. Just when I think the whole BridgeBuilders things is winding down, God opens some pretty strange doors. I also got a call two days ago to address a convention of school attorneys in Washington state in April. Curiouser and curiouser…

Wayne to Appear this Friday on CSPAN Read More »

Finding the Church

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First, let me share a few housekeeping items. I don’t think I’ve notified this bunch that we posted a new edition of The God Journey podcast last week, entitled Removing the Clutter, which re-visits some issues about learning to listen to God’s voice. Also, today we’re hopefully delivering the Jake Colsen book to the printers, so that’s a relief and first thing tomorrow I fly out for five days in central Pennsylvania… Whew! What a crazy week!

But the real reason I’m writing today is to share with you an email I wrote as part of an exchange I’ve had with a brother longing for fellowship and not finding any with others on this journey. This is how I responded to him:

I certainly understand the feelings you’re going through. Of course I have no idea what he might be doing in your area, but I would encourage you not to look for the church he is building as a thing, or group or activity. It will be people in whom he is working and you’ll be able to encourage that work in others as well as be encouraged in his work in you. Over time enough people might connect that will allow it to be a bit more visible to the human eyes, but that is not essential.

The time of de-toxing and learning to look only to Jesus have been important. It sounds like your friends are still going through some of that. I am convinced we keep sorting out our hurts with the system as long as Jesus hasn’t become a real person to live with each day. Once he becomes real to us, those hurts get healed and we can move on to so many other things he has for us. Perhaps God has ways for you to encourage your friends how to know him better and they won’t feel the need to continue to rummage through the brokenness of the system they were in.

So I would encourage you to look for ways God would give you away to people around you (believer and unbeliever alike) and you will see his church emerge as those relationships grow. One of the dangers of people who wander outside the box is that they can become ingrown and look out only for themselves and their needs and not see that God has put them where they are to be a demonstration of his character to people around them. This is a marvelous process and it really pulls us outside of our needs/wants/desires to truly find the freedom to live as he lived in the world. Ask him how he wants to give you away right where you are, to people you already know, and maybe some ways to connect with others you don’t know yet.

I realize it may not look like there is a lot of concrete direction in what I’ve said, but there really is. Getting outside ourselves and loving others is when we begin to see church grow around us. And to that end you have my prayers.

Finding the Church Read More »

The Freedom Not to Have It All Figured Out

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Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled The Freedom Not To Have It All Figured Out has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

As Wayne and Brad respond to a recent flood of reader comments and letters, they wander into a discussion about the challenge of living in Jesus without having all the details figured out or having the results of our circumstances guaranteed. Our safety is not found in our plans being fulfilled but in our growing friendship with Jesus. When our confidence is vested in him alone we will be able to navigate the ruggedness and uncertainty of the journey with his wisdom and grace.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

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Tree Town – A Parable For Our Times

Living Loved, Living Loved Newsletter / /

By David Hebden* and Wayne Jacobsen
BodyLife • November 2005

There was a town much like any other town, except it had no trees. A disease had wiped them out so long ago that no one living today even remembered they had existed. They had grown accustomed to the barren landscape.

One day a young man went to the library looking for something to relieve his boredom and by apparent chance he came upon the book. The library had been built when the town was new and small, nothing more than a small outpost with a train station. It just so happened that the young man was walking through a dusty section of the library when the noon express train rumbled past vibrating every shelf in the library. The dust stirred and he sneezed as it tickled his nose. And there, sticking out of the bookcase ready to fall to the floor was the book. He reached out to push it back into place, thinking to himself that they should move the library away from the train station for a bit of peace and quiet.

Obviously it was a long-neglected book, which made him curious. He plucked it from the shelf and opened it. There were no pictures, and the pages were old and yellowed. It seemed to be a collection of stories about the life of a gardener. “I may as well have a look at it,” he thought. “I’ve nothing else to do.”

Later that afternoon as he sat outside his home sipping a cool drink in the shade of his porch he began leafing through the book and came across a chapter about trees. This fascinated him, since he had only heard of trees and had never seen a real tree. He knew what wood was, but it always came on the delivery train, not from trees.

As he read he became even more excited about trees and what they provided. Why they make shade and hold delicious fruit to be eaten! They offer windbreaks from the winter storms, and fuel for heat when they grew old and tired. “What a wonderful thing trees must be! Wouldn’t it be great if we had some around here?”

As the days passed he grew more excited and began to talk to his friends about the book and the trees it described. Soon he found others who had heard about trees and one or two who had actually seen them from a distance. The excitement grew in the town as people wanted to have some trees. A town meeting was held and the mayor asked the young man to read about trees from the book. A vote was called and the citizens decided to build some trees. Soon the quiet town was a hive of activity. Committees were formed to design and build the trees, to import the lumber and even to gather the fruit.

Soon trees began to spring up everywhere in that small town. Well, at least what they thought were trees! They stayed as true to the book as they could. For roots they dug holes and buried old rope because they sounded closer to roots than anything else they had. They nailed these roots into the large timbers they imported for tree trunks. They nailed ‘branches’ to the trunks and the ladies cut leaves out of their finest linen, painted them and glued them on the branches. They also gathered fruit and tied them onto the trees so they could pick them whenever they wanted.

Eventually the streets were lined with trees. Though they looked similar at a distance, up close you could see their differences. It seemed that different people had interpreted the section of the book on trees quite differently. The branches jutted out at different angles. The colors of the leaves were different colors and they only used the fruits they thought best.

Visitors came from far and wide to see trees for the first time in their lives and marvel at the hard work it had taken to build so many. By popular vote it was decided to change the towns name from Prairie Town to Treetown. The book that started it all was enshrined in the town hall under glass. A new industry sprang up to satisfy the growing number of visitors. The townspeople set up tours, opened gift-shops and Treetown T-shirts became all the rage in that part of the world.

But as time went by the excitement over the trees faded for many. They grew weary of building and maintaining the trees and wondered why they hung fruit on them at all, insisting that the fruit stayed fresher when stored inside. Some even began to question if these in fact were real trees. The experts – those who had memorized the chapter on trees – quickly attacked those with questions. Of course they are real. Look at all the time and money we’ve spent on them and how many people it drew to their town. Could so many people be so wrong?

And even when the spoiling fruit seemed to make people sick, the people themselves were blamed for not believing that the trees made the fruit better. Soon a law was passed to require that fruit could only be eaten straight from a tree and no one was allowed to store any in their homes anymore. People grew disillusioned and discouraged with the endless work that brought so little return. “We just have to work harder to make it better,” became the refrain of the town fathers.

Most people fell in line afraid that they would be shunned as troublemakers and ridiculed for not putting the town’s prosperity ahead of their own ideas. But there were a few who just couldn’t fit in. They stopped working on the trees and stopped eating their fruit. At first people tried to convince them how wrong they were, pointing to the phenomenal growth of the tree industry in the town. “Why we even send our experts to other cities and they too are building their own trees!” This worked with some, who had grown too tired to fight the status quo and decided it was just easier to fit in.

Those who continued to question the townspeople’s obsession with trees, however, found it difficult to stay. Some of those working on the trees would throw sticks or fruit at them in anger as they passed by. They called them ‘treeless ones’ and would tell them, “If you don’t like our trees you should leave our town. But then you’ll never know the joy only trees can bring.” Then they would look at each other and smile. “It’s for their own good you know. They need the food.” Finally a few moved out of town, rather than endure the continued abuse.

One day the young man who had discovered the book was walking by the resplendent, new city hall that had been built with all the money drawn to Treetown. He sat down on the plaza beneath the trees, gazing at the gilded glass case on the front of the building. Locked inside was the book that had caused so much division. He was heartbroken that what had seemed to hold such promise had caused such trouble, and he cursed the day that he’d pulled the book off of the shelf.

Soon he found a stranger sitting down beside him on the bench. “Are you okay?” the stranger asked. “You don’t look well.”

The young man looked up at the stranger and was captured by the caring look in his eyes. “I once was a ‘treefolk’ but now I am a ‘treeless one’,” sighed the young man. “I thought the trees would bring us great joy, but it all turned out to be more work and trouble.”

“What trees?” the stranger asked.

“Look around,” the young man said pointing to the trees that lined the plaza.

“Good heavens! Are those things what you’re calling trees?” the man exclaimed pointing to the towers of wood pieces, painted linen and apples hanging from string.

“That’s what they are. We built them using a book I found in the library and …”

“Wait a minute,” interjected the stranger. “What was the name of this book?”

“Uhmm… The Gardener and His Garden. It was an autobiography, I think… something like that anyway.”

“Ah, I see. So you have never seen a real tree?” questioned the stranger as he looked around the plaza.

Puzzled the young man looked at his new friend. “Aren’t these real trees? We built them as best we knew.”

“That’s not a tree! Just how much of the book did you read anyway?”

“Well just the section on trees actually. I glanced through the rest of it but it all seemed a bit boring, except the part about trees. We didn’t have any trees at the time and they sounded so incredible.”

Chuckling, the stranger stood up. “Follow me. I think I have some news for you.” Intrigued by the stranger the young man got up and followed him over to the glass case. “So you never really read the book, eh? No wonder this town is so strange.”

“What do you mean, strange?”

“The book was not about gardens or trees, but about the gardener who grows them. Real trees cannot be built; they can only be grown.”

“Grown?”

“Yes, you plant seeds in the ground, keep them watered and they will spring up into a tree that will really bear fruit.”

“Trees grow?” the young man sighed in shock. He’d never heard of such a thing. “I thought you had to build them?”

“I know my friend, but you have never seen a real tree. They cannot be built no matter how clear the description or skilled the craftsman. You can only grow them. If you had read the whole book you would have known that. You would have gotten to know the gardener and how he does his work to make beautiful trees out of the smallest seeds. There were even some seeds glued to the back of the cover so that you could plant them and watch them grow. Didn’t you see them?”

The young man had a very sick feeling in his stomach. “There were some little, round specks of some kind.”

“That’s them.”

“I thought they were just specks of dirt and cleaned them out before we enshrined the book.”

“Only those who would have taken time to read the book and get to know the gardener would have recognized them as seeds, since they were so small and look so insignificant.”

“I guess I’ve made a real mess of things.”

“Messes can be fixed,” said the stranger.

“But I’ve thrown out the seeds and now I can’t even read the parts about the Gardener.”

“Sure you can,” said the stranger, pulling a copy of the book out of his back pocket and handing it to the young man. “You see I know the Gardener who wrote this book.”

The young man took the book in his hands and his face lit up with a smile. “You do?”

“He’s my father, and I’d be happy to show you everything you need to know about him.”

“That would great!” Then flipping open the book he ran his hands across the inside of the back of the cover. “They’re here!”

“That they are! Now that you know what they’re for, let’s go plant them and watch what happens!”

“A real tree? Won’t the others be surprised!”

“That they will, my friend. That they will…”

_____________________

*David Hebden of Vancouver Island, BC helped write the last article in BodyLife and first wrote the tale that became Treetown.

Continue to our second article, Breaking Free

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Living Under Father’s Care

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Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled Living In the Father’s Care has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

Join us for a trip to the land down under as we offer another in our continuing series of interviews with people all over the world who are living this journey with great freedom and joy. Wayne interviews Kevin Smith of Lancefield, Victoria in Australia as he shares the lessons a group of believers have experienced over the past 20 years of living as a relational community of God’s people. “Kevin has been an older brother to me in this journey and has encouraged me and confirmed so many of the things God has put on my heart over the ten years we’ve been friends and brothers.” says Wayne. As Kevin shares their story and the transitions Jesus took them through, he touches on our growing trust in Father’s care, their freedom from institutional expectations, the community it has spawned, and its effect on their children.

If you’d like to post comments or questions about this show, please do so on the God Journey Blog so that others can read them there as well. Thanks! I know it is sometimes easier to respond here, but then others on that website don’t get to interact with your comments or questions. Thanks!

Living Under Father’s Care Read More »

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