Not Called To Be Holy?

"Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the Gospel of God. The one thing that is all important is that the Gospel of God should be realized as the abiding Reality. Reality is not human goodness, nor holiness, nor heaven, nor hell; but Redemption; and the need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker to-day. As workers we have to get used to the revelation that Redemption is the only Reality. Personal holiness is an effect, not a cause, and if we place our faith in human goodness, in the effect of Redemption, we shall go under when the test comes."  (O. Chambers)

Chained - And Don't Know It!

“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” (Rosa Luxemburg)

Think this describes our relationship with most institutions. You think it's your friend until you grow, or try to move.

Widow Maker Churches For Pastors - Ministers

A Friend posted this article about a church that crucified minister after minister and repented. Or did they?
Read the article.... "Widow Maker Churches"

It made me cry as it has some good news.... But in the end does it really?

The best Quote

"It's dumb to act like we have no problems. And it's just as bad to take half measures. You can't fix congestive heart failure with band-aids. You have to dig down, dig right to the cause, look at ourselves." (Paul Pastor)

Here was my comment about the article on FaceBook.

"The article made me cry. It was a touching gesture. Not to belittle their good heart. What they extended was beautiful. But the restoration was offered by innocent bystanders who let it happen.... At the time.... Not complicit perpetrators. The perpetrators of the crime are still at large...... Their churches name might be restored, and a healing process started in some way, but the abuse is not over... It moved down the street.... (We moved the priest to a new parish - did the abuse go away?) So i'm strangely very very saddened by the article too. Did I miss something?

My favorite quote in the article. .. ‘It's dumb to act like we have no problems. And it's just as bad to take half measures. You can't fix congestive heart failure with band-aids. You have to dig down, dig right to the cause, look at ourselves."

When the Bar Crowd Tells You To Follow Jesus.

"I was living in the last of a series of missionary outposts that had filled most of my twenties. This one left me in the former Yugoslavia, beneath the flight path of NATO war machines preparing to bomb Serbian troops in Kosovo. 

This thought, I can’t believe anymore, had been buried deep inside me for close to a year. 
This final outpost was the last stop on what I had often described as a great adventure. It was exotic. I was a driven young man, driven by a desire to make a difference in the world. I was also driven by an obsession to prove myself. I had to prove myself to my church, to my dad, and ultimately to my God.
Obsessions snowball with time. So I took harder and harder assignments in Europe’s complicated and pain-filled corners. This drive was both intoxicating and addictive. And like all addictions, it left me with a dead soul.

My last year on the field, I kept this sorrow—secret hidden deep inside me: I had stopped believing. No one knew. No one could be allowed to know. I would lose my job. I would lose my whole world as I knew it.
What possible place exists for a missionary who doesn’t believe?

A cadaver soul impacts everything. It makes faith impossible. It makes prayer impossible. But that is only the beginning.

It also makes kindness almost impossible. It makes true compassion impossible.

In my case, it also led to acts of manipulation, anger, and emotional abuse. It is a great irony that I had been commissioned to support and protect, but instead I became an instrument of hurt and chaos.

In what can best be described as a mercy killing, those under my charge turned me in. They demanded that I be removed from my post and ultimately from the mission field. Months later my leadership finally determined that I needed to return “home” to heal, which meant Oregon, a place I had left long before.

They said I needed to find the faith I had lost.
I was sentenced to a Christian seminary.

I spent the next year, from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon, sitting at plastic—topped tables, under fluorescent lights, surrounded by taupe—colored walls.

I needed my professors to meet me in the very midst of my lost faith. They couldn’t, so I sat silent, like a man in solitary. At the time, I didn’t know if I could survive in America, a world I had long forgotten. Academia, strip malls, and big—box stores were like sound pollution after my years in the developing world.

How could I find a way station of relief?
Relief soon came. After class I would escape to a British pub a couple of neighborhoods away from campus. My inner screaming eased in the mostly empty, cavernous, dimly lit, dark-wooded world of the Horse Brass Pub.

Back on campus, I had nothing to offer my fellow students. I did not have the language to explain that I could not share their hope and idealism. It was different at the Horse Brass. My company instead became the sort of nonreligious ragamuffins who frequent a British pub at three in the afternoon.

I had a favorite table. It was under the large, dark-framed window at the pub’s north end, my back situated against the street and my face toward the wraparound antique bar. There were thick rafters and rough—hewn pillars on every side. Occasionally, Dennis the bartender would give me a chin nod, and on the really great days, he would come around the bar and sit awhile, often bringing me a joke.

My routine solidified quickly. Dennis would catch my silhouette as I came through the heavy double doors. Most days I couldn’t even get to the end of the bar before Dennis had already poured me a chewy India Pale Ale in an English pint. I would collapse behind my computer and thick theology texts, all spread across the long, skinny table. A couple of deep breaths, and then I’d dive into my studies.

Each day, inevitably, someone would come and distract me from my studies. Occasionally the person was tipsy and lonely; usually he was just friendly and bored.
My studies would sit on the table like a quivering puppy, begging to be included in the conversation. They could not be ignored forever. Eventually my pub friends would ask what I was reading or writing. They wanted to know about me. They wanted to hear what I was learning.

I would begin sharing safely, staying in the world of ideas. Eventually, I would tell them about my years overseas.
I talked about my secret sorrow.

I told them that I was a theology student but that I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. This confession always seemed to release delight in my companions. It is funny; after years of having all the answers, I discovered how attracted people are to someone with honest doubt's and real questions.

This was when something magical would happen. Every time it startled me. They started to counsel me, counsel from their stories, from their hurt, and from their own faithlessness.
I cried out to them. I told them I was at a precipice, at a watershed, teetering on a rooftop: Jesus on one side and the desperate unknown on the other.

The more I would share, the more they would enter my hurt. They would tell me to “fall toward Jesus.”
Over that next year I did discover faith again. Not only did I find faith; I found a mostly satisfying sort of Jesus-faith, based in a communal God who loves me and suffers for me. This God was creative and unshackled.

This was a God who is, as the Scriptures say, “not far from any one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being.” He is “over all and through all and in all” and “in him all things hold together.”

This faith I discovered was unapologetically Christian, rooted and dependent upon the holy Scriptures and the historical and global church, but at the same time, fresh and fueled from unexpected sources.

This rebirth did not happen in the classrooms of my religious graduate school. It did not happen in the pew of a local church.

It primarily happened in a nicotine-saturated beer hall.
My priests were not pastors or professors; they were pub folk: people who would never call themselves Christians, nor would they visit a Christian church, but they were the gospel to me all the same.

This pub story barely scratches the surface of a much larger journey. Many of my spiritual heroes have been unexpected. (Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters In Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places. Tony Kriz.)Obsessions snowball with time. So I took harder and harder assignments in Europe’s complicated and pain-filled corners. This drive was both intoxicating and addictive. And like all addictions, it left me with a dead soul.
My last year on the field, I kept this sorrow—secret hidden deep inside me: I had stopped believing. No one knew. No one could be allowed to know. I would lose my job. I would lose my whole world as I knew it. What possible place exists for a missionary who doesn’t believe?
A cadaver soul impacts everything. It makes faith impossible. It makes prayer impossible. But that is only the beginning.
It also makes kindness almost impossible. It makes true compassion impossible.
In my case, it also led to acts of manipulation, anger, and emotional abuse. It is a great irony that I had been commissioned to support and protect, but instead I became an instrument of hurt and chaos.
In what can best be described as a mercy killing, those under my charge turned me in. They demanded that I be removed from my post and ultimately from the mission field. Months later my leadership finally determined that I needed to return “home” to heal, which meant Oregon, a place I had left long before.
They said I needed to find the faith I had lost. I was sentenced to a Christian seminary.
I spent the next year, from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon, sitting at plastic—topped tables, under fluorescent lights, surrounded by taupe—colored walls. 
I needed my professors to meet me in the very midst of my lost faith. They couldn’t, so I sat silent, like a man in solitary. At the time, I didn’t know if I could survive in America, a world I had long forgotten. Academia, strip malls, and big—box stores were like sound pollution after my years in the developing world.
How could I find a way station of relief? Relief soon came. After class I would escape to a British pub a couple of neighborhoods away from campus. My inner screaming eased in the mostly empty, cavernous, dimly lit, dark-wooded world of the Horse Brass Pub.
Back on campus, I had nothing to offer my fellow students. I did not have the language to explain that I could not share their hope and idealism. It was different at the Horse Brass. My company instead became the sort of nonreligious ragamuffins who frequent a British pub at three in the afternoon.
I had a favorite table. It was under the large, dark-framed window at the pub’s north end, my back situated against the street and my face toward the wraparound antique bar. There were thick rafters and rough—hewn pillars on every side. Occasionally, Dennis the bartender would give me a chin nod, and on the really great days, he would come around the bar and sit awhile, often bringing me a joke.
My routine solidified quickly. Dennis would catch my silhouette as I came through the heavy double doors. Most days I couldn’t even get to the end of the bar before Dennis had already poured me a chewy India Pale Ale in an English pint. I would collapse behind my computer and thick theology texts, all spread across the long, skinny table. A couple of deep breaths, and then I’d dive into my studies.
Each day, inevitably, someone would come and distract me from my studies. Occasionally the person was tipsy and lonely; usually he was just friendly and bored. My studies would sit on the table like a quivering puppy, begging to be included in the conversation. They could not be ignored forever. Eventually my pub friends would ask what I was reading or writing. They wanted to know about me. They wanted to hear what I was learning.
I would begin sharing safely, staying in the world of ideas. Eventually, I would tell them about my years overseas. I talked about my secret sorrow.
I told them that I was a theology student but that I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. This confession always seemed to release delight in my companions. It is funny; after years of having all the answers, I discovered how attracted people are to someone with honest doubt's and real questions.
This was when something magical would happen. Every time it startled me. They started to counsel me, counsel from their stories, from their hurt, and from their own faithlessness. I cried out to them. I told them I was at a precipice, at a watershed, teetering on a rooftop: Jesus on one side and the desperate unknown on the other.
The more I would share, the more they would enter my hurt. They would tell me to “fall toward Jesus.”Over that next year I did discover faith again. Not only did I find faith; I found a mostly satisfying sort of Jesus-faith, based in a communal God who loves me and suffers for me. This God was creative and unshackled.
This was a God who is, as the Scriptures say, “not far from any one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being.” He is “over all and through all and in all” and “in him all things hold together.”
This faith I discovered was unapologetically Christian, rooted and dependent upon the holy Scriptures and the historical and global church, but at the same time, fresh and fueled from unexpected sources.
This rebirth did not happen in the classrooms of my religious graduate school. It did not happen in the pew of a local church.
It primarily happened in a nicotine-saturated beer hall. My priests were not pastors or professors; they were pub folk: people who would never call themselves Christians, nor would they visit a Christian church, but they were the gospel to me all the same.
This pub story barely scratches the surface of a much larger journey. Many of my spiritual heroes have been unexpected. (Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters In Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places. Tony Kriz.)

Unexpected Heroes Of The Local Pub

"I was living in the last of a series of missionary outposts that had filled most of my twenties. This one left me in the former Yugoslavia, beneath the flight path of NATO war machines preparing to bomb Serbian troops in Kosovo.

This thought, I can’t believe anymore, had been buried deep inside me for close to a year.

This final outpost was the last stop on what I had often described as a great adventure. It was exotic. I was a driven young man, driven by a desire to make a difference in the world. I was also driven by an obsession to prove myself. I had to prove myself to my church, to my dad, and ultimately to my God. Obsessions snowball with time. So I took harder and harder assignments in Europe’s complicated and pain-filled corners. This drive was both intoxicating and addictive. And like all addictions, it left me with a dead soul.

My last year on the field, I kept this sorrow—secret hidden deep inside me: I had stopped believing. No one knew. No one could be allowed to know. I would lose my job. I would lose my whole world as I knew it.
What possible place exists for a missionary who doesn’t believe?

A cadaver soul impacts everything. It makes faith impossible. It makes prayer impossible. But that is only the beginning.

It also makes kindness almost impossible. It makes true compassion impossible.

In my case, it also led to acts of manipulation, anger, and emotional abuse. It is a great irony that I had been commissioned to support and protect, but instead I became an instrument of hurt and chaos.

In what can best be described as a mercy killing, those under my charge turned me in. They demanded that I be removed from my post and ultimately from the mission field. Months later my leadership finally determined that I needed to return “home” to heal, which meant Oregon, a place I had left long before.

They said I needed to find the faith I had lost.
I was sentenced to a Christian seminary.

I spent the next year, from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon, sitting at plastic—topped tables, under fluorescent lights, surrounded by taupe—colored walls.
I needed my professors to meet me in the very midst of my lost faith.
They couldn’t, so I sat silent, like a man in solitary. At the time, I didn’t know if I could survive in America, a world I had long forgotten. Academia, strip malls, and big—box stores were like sound pollution after my years in the developing world.

How could I find a way station of relief?
Relief soon came. After class I would escape to a British pub a couple of neighborhoods away from campus. My inner screaming eased in the mostly empty, cavernous, dimly lit, dark-wooded world of the Horse Brass Pub.

Back on campus, I had nothing to offer my fellow students. I did not have the language to explain that I could not share their hope and idealism. It was different at the Horse Brass. My company instead became the sort of nonreligious ragamuffins who frequent a British pub at three in the afternoon.

I had a favorite table. It was under the large, dark-framed window at the pub’s north end, my back situated against the street and my face toward the wraparound antique bar. There were thick rafters and rough—hewn pillars on every side. Occasionally, Dennis the bartender would give me a chin nod, and on the really great days, he would come around the bar and sit awhile, often bringing me a joke.

My routine solidified quickly. Dennis would catch my silhouette as I came through the heavy double doors. Most days I couldn’t even get to the end of the bar before Dennis had already poured me a chewy India Pale Ale in an English pint. I would collapse behind my computer and thick theology texts, all spread across the long, skinny table. A couple of deep breaths, and then I’d dive into my studies.

Each day, inevitably, someone would come and distract me from my studies. Occasionally the person was tipsy and lonely; usually he was just friendly and bored.
My studies would sit on the table like a quivering puppy, begging to be included in the conversation. They could not be ignored forever. Eventually my pub friends would ask what I was reading or writing. They wanted to know about me. They wanted to hear what I was learning.

I would begin sharing safely, staying in the world of ideas. Eventually, I would tell them about my years overseas.
I talked about my secret sorrow.

I told them that I was a theology student but that I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. This confession always seemed to release delight in my companions. It is funny; after years of having all the answers, I discovered how attracted people are to someone with honest doubt's and real questions.

This was when something magical would happen. Every time it startled me. They started to counsel me, counsel from their stories, from their hurt, and from their own faithlessness.
I cried out to them. I told them I was at a precipice, at a watershed, teetering on a rooftop: Jesus on one side and the desperate unknown on the other.

The more I would share, the more they would enter my hurt. They would tell me to “fall toward Jesus.”
Over that next year I did discover faith again. Not only did I find faith; I found a mostly satisfying sort of Jesus-faith, based in a communal God who loves me and suffers for me. This God was creative and unshackled.

This was a God who is, as the Scriptures say, “not far from any one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being.” He is “over all and through all and in all” and “in him all things hold together.”

This faith I discovered was unapologetically Christian, rooted and dependent upon the holy Scriptures and the historical and global church, but at the same time, fresh and fueled from unexpected sources.

This rebirth did not happen in the classrooms of my religious graduate school. It did not happen in the pew of a local church.

It primarily happened in a nicotine-saturated beer hall.
My priests were not pastors or professors; they were pub folk: people who would never call themselves Christians, nor would they visit a Christian church, but they were the gospel to me all the same.

This pub story barely scratches the surface of a much larger journey. Many of my spiritual heroes have been unexpected. (Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters In Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places. Tony Kriz.)

Unexpected Heroes Of The Local Pub

"I was living in the last of a series of missionary outposts that had filled most of my twenties. This one left me in the former Yugoslavia, beneath the flight path of NATO war machines preparing to bomb Serbian troops in Kosovo.

This thought, I can’t believe anymore, had been buried deep inside me for close to a year.

This final outpost was the last stop on what I had often described as a great adventure. It was exotic. I was a driven young man, driven by a desire to make a difference in the world. I was also driven by an obsession to prove myself. I had to prove myself to my church, to my dad, and ultimately to my God. Obsessions snowball with time. So I took harder and harder assignments in Europe’s complicated and pain-filled corners. This drive was both intoxicating and addictive. And like all addictions, it left me with a dead soul.

My last year on the field, I kept this sorrow—secret hidden deep inside me: I had stopped believing. No one knew. No one could be allowed to know. I would lose my job. I would lose my whole world as I knew it.
What possible place exists for a missionary who doesn’t believe?

A cadaver soul impacts everything. It makes faith impossible. It makes prayer impossible. But that is only the beginning.

It also makes kindness almost impossible. It makes true compassion impossible.

In my case, it also led to acts of manipulation, anger, and emotional abuse. It is a great irony that I had been commissioned to support and protect, but instead I became an instrument of hurt and chaos.

In what can best be described as a mercy killing, those under my charge turned me in. They demanded that I be removed from my post and ultimately from the mission field. Months later my leadership finally determined that I needed to return “home” to heal, which meant Oregon, a place I had left long before.

They said I needed to find the faith I had lost.
I was sentenced to a Christian seminary.

I spent the next year, from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon, sitting at plastic—topped tables, under fluorescent lights, surrounded by taupe—colored walls.
I needed my professors to meet me in the very midst of my lost faith.
They couldn’t, so I sat silent, like a man in solitary. At the time, I didn’t know if I could survive in America, a world I had long forgotten. Academia, strip malls, and big—box stores were like sound pollution after my years in the developing world.

How could I find a way station of relief?
Relief soon came. After class I would escape to a British pub a couple of neighborhoods away from campus. My inner screaming eased in the mostly empty, cavernous, dimly lit, dark-wooded world of the Horse Brass Pub.

Back on campus, I had nothing to offer my fellow students. I did not have the language to explain that I could not share their hope and idealism. It was different at the Horse Brass. My company instead became the sort of nonreligious ragamuffins who frequent a British pub at three in the afternoon.

I had a favorite table. It was under the large, dark-framed window at the pub’s north end, my back situated against the street and my face toward the wraparound antique bar. There were thick rafters and rough—hewn pillars on every side. Occasionally, Dennis the bartender would give me a chin nod, and on the really great days, he would come around the bar and sit awhile, often bringing me a joke.

My routine solidified quickly. Dennis would catch my silhouette as I came through the heavy double doors. Most days I couldn’t even get to the end of the bar before Dennis had already poured me a chewy India Pale Ale in an English pint. I would collapse behind my computer and thick theology texts, all spread across the long, skinny table. A couple of deep breaths, and then I’d dive into my studies.

Each day, inevitably, someone would come and distract me from my studies. Occasionally the person was tipsy and lonely; usually he was just friendly and bored.
My studies would sit on the table like a quivering puppy, begging to be included in the conversation. They could not be ignored forever. Eventually my pub friends would ask what I was reading or writing. They wanted to know about me. They wanted to hear what I was learning.

I would begin sharing safely, staying in the world of ideas. Eventually, I would tell them about my years overseas.
I talked about my secret sorrow.

I told them that I was a theology student but that I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. This confession always seemed to release delight in my companions. It is funny; after years of having all the answers, I discovered how attracted people are to someone with honest doubt's and real questions.

This was when something magical would happen. Every time it startled me. They started to counsel me, counsel from their stories, from their hurt, and from their own faithlessness.
I cried out to them. I told them I was at a precipice, at a watershed, teetering on a rooftop: Jesus on one side and the desperate unknown on the other.

The more I would share, the more they would enter my hurt. They would tell me to “fall toward Jesus.”
Over that next year I did discover faith again. Not only did I find faith; I found a mostly satisfying sort of Jesus-faith, based in a communal God who loves me and suffers for me. This God was creative and unshackled.

This was a God who is, as the Scriptures say, “not far from any one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being.” He is “over all and through all and in all” and “in him all things hold together.”

This faith I discovered was unapologetically Christian, rooted and dependent upon the holy Scriptures and the historical and global church, but at the same time, fresh and fueled from unexpected sources.

This rebirth did not happen in the classrooms of my religious graduate school. It did not happen in the pew of a local church.

It primarily happened in a nicotine-saturated beer hall.
My priests were not pastors or professors; they were pub folk: people who would never call themselves Christians, nor would they visit a Christian church, but they were the gospel to me all the same.

This pub story barely scratches the surface of a much larger journey. Many of my spiritual heroes have been unexpected. (Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters In Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places. Tony Kriz.)

Dull Enough To Desire Money

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.” ― G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

The Hooker Is Here......!

"In modern culture we tend to rewrite the histories of our heroes. We brush by their mistakes, amplify the triumph and hide the scars. We manufacture bright, shiny heroes. But the Bible doesn’t. Rahab is not skipped over. There she is loud and present. The hooker." (Jon Acuff)

Spiritual Intimidation And Control

"I have been denounced publicly and privately as a heretic, schismatic, universalist, and cockeyed optimist. A Roman Catholic scholar informed me that I had out-Luthered Luther. I have been charged with not believing in the existence of hell, judgment, and damnation. One report out of Indiana scolded me for a selective use of biblical texts. I have been labeled “unbalanced,” “spiritually immature,” and “intellectually unhinged.” A newspaper article in California challenged my doctrinal purity and moral rectitude.
The gospel of grace continues to scandalize.

The legalists, puritans, prophets of doom, and moral crusaders are having a hissy fit over the Pauline teaching of justification by grace through faith. They take umbrage at the freedom of the children of God and dismiss it as licentiousness. They do not want Christianity to help us become whole but to feel wretched under its burden. They seek to intimidate us, make us afraid, file through their exclusive pathway of righteousness, and control rather than liberate our lives. Their perverted spirit of legalism would cripple the human spirit and send us sagging under great spools of rules and regulations. The thrilling quality of their dedication—zealotry is always impressive—obscures the fact that they accept the gospel in theory and deny it in practice." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg 212)

Keep Learning

‘In times of great change (which is always), learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists" (Eric Hoffer)

I started with Jesus... added all this Theology, Minister, Churchy Pursuit stuff..... 32 Years later I'm back to Jesus

It began with Jesus.

At age fourteen I knew I needed him. I did not know all of the theological reason why I need him, so my understanding was limited at the time.

After attending church for a few years, I soon learned how terrible I was, an how angry God was at my sin. I had Jesus, but I was never good enough. People told me I was forgiven, but.......................

We never served enough, gave enough, was good enough,  prayed enough, listened enough, knew enough, attend enough. Well that is what every sermon and bible study was about. "Growing". Growing what exactly?

So I add to my Jesus a county church theology. don't drink, do drugs, spit or chew, nor run with girls who do. I did pretty good a that.

Then I add to my Jesus a theology degree, that even studied Greek. I learned many wonderful theological things, things about doctrines and history, and Palestine, and Greek language, and propitiation,  but little of it made Jesus more real. If anything it made me more mechanical. I was being trained to run a machine, and preach in a way that grew it. And Machine repetition was the way to connect with him. Prayer times, journals, books, places, events.

Then I added to Jesus pastoral ministry. I preached those theologies, explained those deep truths, evangelized and visited, married and buried, I met wonderful people, but lost he ability to be a normal human being. Preachers become an untouchable, no one wants around. Because we tells them they are never good enough. They never arrive....... who needs the joy killer around.
No matter how hard I preached, and prayed, and how much I visited and chatted and loved people. The magic growth for the church never came. It was more about time spent running the church, than running with Jesus. Everything was organized and programmed to death.

So I added seminars and retreats.... to fix me up, and fix my gifts up, and nothing change. I tried to be a better me, and a better "Preacher", and it never worked.

Then I added to my Jesus, mission to West Africa

Then I added to Jesus another part-time ministry and commercial fishing job. Then my home church fired me (Failed to Renewal My Annual Contact). because, as I suspected all along, I was never good enough, Not for them, not for Jesus, not for ministry.

Then I added to my Jesus a house church plant that the house people soon wanted to make a Regular church plant. and there I was back in that game. Marketing a church plant.

Then I said Jesus I don't hear you though all this clutter. All this stuff, we are told, and we believe, are needed to help us grow. We certainly could never ever find Jesus without adding all this to our life. It was a lie. You can find Jesus without all this stuff. In fact, its easier.

I walked away from managing the institution, and growing something in its image. Oh I had Jesus all long, but he was muffled with all the middle man stuff. To bus jogging by to stop and talk with Jesus in person. I chat with him on the cell phone for hours on the way by. I think that might be it. I talked an talked with Jesus, but through a church filter. So I walked away from "Building church" as we know it on Sunday, But I did not walk away from "Church",  just your kind of church at your location, or pre approved locations, is all. .

And Now, 32 years later,  I am back to being with Jesus, knowing I need him, but letting so much church get in the way of being with him.

"There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus". There is no BUT in that message. Despite that almost every sermon has a But attached to it. .....

I grew up trying to measure up to the "but"............ and it robbed much of my life of any joy. But you would never know it, nor see it. Striving for something no one ever told me a human can't achieve. In Modern preaching we never reach the goal. They move the achievement goal post just as you approach it.

I've preached the Buts, and enslaved so many other people into a miserable defeated christian journey.

As a result I became a Butt.....

But, then I realized there is no But..... at the end of the day. There is no condemnation in Jesus.... The Goal is Jesus. If we have him we have all we need, and no matter how much we fail... There is no condemnation in him.

I started with Jesus and now I am back with  Jesus 32 years later. I never lost him, he was there, as after all, I was doing ti all in his name to "Open the door for others to see him. Those of us running the machine of institutionalization the most, and our volunteers all know it's for him.... But he's seems so far away...

Most for the "stuff" in the middle was a wasted life.
for the first time in my life and have him, and him alone. Now I will love him and love others around me.
Like the pharasee's of old, I retored... is that it? Can it really be that simple? For years I thought no.... 32 years later, I will say its enough.

There is No Holy Land"

Hello Friends
Recently a friend from the majority world asked me for help to make a trip to Israel.  He had sold his motor cycle and pawned his wife's wedding ring but was still $1700 short of the $3,000 he needed for the trip.  He was going with a group that assured him that "walking where Jesus walked" was an experience that would change his life forever.   Really?  My response to his request was four fold: 

Number one, I will not help you or anyone else go to Israel for a "holy land tour" since there is no holy land.  The whole earth is the Lords by right of creation and right of redemption.

Secondly, much of the Western Church is based in a consumer mentality with its leadership seeking to provide its members with "good experiences" for them to consume.  They package those experiences in  spiritual terms  but the context is not the Kingdom of God.   The context is the consumer society which functions  to provide pleasurable, entertaining programs and events that consumers will pay to experience.  Those events may be "worship" in a contemporary style with advanced sound systems, expert musicians and motivational speaking, "holy land" trips and even, (might I say?),  short term mission adventure tours.

Thirdly, we are not Moslems with their Mecca, Catholics with St. Peters in Rome, Mormons with their temple in Utah, Hindus with the Ganges River or Jews with their wailing wall.  We are followers of Jesus who celebrate that the Triune God by the Holy Spirit indwells each one of us and makes us His temple.  It is a characteristic of all religions that the presence of god is associated with a place where access to the presence can be controlled for money by a professional priesthood.  The first martyr of the Kingdom of God was killed for declaring that "God no longer dwells in temples made with hands|".   With that declaration the temple priests saw their positions of power and privilege made redundant and reacted murderously.  We do not go to any physical place to find God but declare that He reveals Himself to all men by the Holy Spirit and thus access to His presence cannot be purchased or controlled.

And finally, if you wish to walk where Jesus walked, simply continue what you are doing in serving the least and the last.   Jesus walked among the broken, the outcasts, the prostitutes and lepers.  We serve this same Jesus, who declared that whatever we have done unto the least, we have done unto Him.   This is not about you going to Israel and having a life changing experience.  Your life has already changed in the only way that really matters- you have been taken from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of His love.  This is about you changing the lives of the people around you.  You are doing that.  Keep walking with Jesus where you are.  The Kingdom context is simple and often costly obedience  for the benefit of others.  

This friend agreed with my counsel, bought back his motorcycle, redeemed his wife's wedding band and continues to walk where Jesus walked.  
It is a privilege  to walk with such a brother.

Steve & Marilyn

www.harvest-now.org

A Welcome Home Cabin In The Sky

"On the last day, when we arrive at the Great Cabin in the Sky, many of us will be bloodied, battered, bruised, and limping. But by God and by Christ, there will be a light in the window and a “Welcome Home” sign on the door." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg, 194)

We don’t have have to tarry at the tavern

"Abba just wants us to show up. We don’t have to tarry at the tavern until purity of heart arrives. We don’t have to be shredded with sorrow or crushed with contrition. We don’t have to be perfect or even very good before God will accept us. We don’t have to wallow in guilt, shame, remorse, and self-condemnation. Even if we still nurse a secret nostalgia for the far country, Abba falls on our neck and kisses us." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg 189)

Expose My "Phony"

"This is what the world wants from our rhetoric, what the man of God longs for in a shepherd—someone daring enough to be different, humble enough to make mistakes, wild enough to be burned in the fire of love, real enough to make others see how phony we are." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. pg, 176)

Later Life Spirituality Is Different... and Better

"For the Christian, this second journey usually occurs between the ages of thirty and sixty and is often accompanied by a second call from the Lord Jesus. The second call invites us to serious reflection on the nature and quality of our faith in the gospel of grace, our hope in the new and not yet, and our love for God and people. The second call is a summons to a deeper, more mature commitment of faith where the naiveté, first fervor, and untested idealism of the morning and the first commitment have been seasoned with pain, rejection, failure, loneliness, and self-knowledge." (Brennan Manning Ragamuffin Gospel, pg
164)

The Real Question is, Is the Gospel True - Not Is It Relevant

"If Jesus is to be believed, if His message is to be taken seriously, if God has indeed intervened with loving and saving mercy, then the message is supremely relevant and the issuance of invitations to the wedding banquet is supremely important. But the fundamental issue is not whether the world considers it relevant; it’s whether it is true." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg, 173)

Save The Earth..... To Hell With the Dishes?

Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes.

— P. J. O'Rourke

Taming Jesus We should be Profoundly Dissatisfied

"When I become so spiritually advanced that Abba is old hat, then the Father has been had, Jesus has been tamed, the Spirit has been corralled, and the Pentecostal fire has been extinguished. Evangelical faith is the antithesis of lukewarm-ness: It always means a profound dissatisfaction with our present state.". (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg, 167)

Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins

“Seven Deadly Sins" According to Mahatma Gandhi.
Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Science without humanity
Knowledge without character
Politics without principle
Commerce without morality
Worship without sacrifice.”

Community Development Is Gospel Work Too

I teach poor families how to grow gardens in the Sahel of Mali,  with simple drip irrigation kits. It is Gods work after all.

If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed…
The Lord will guide you always;
He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land…
You will be like a well-watered garden,
Like a spring whose waters never fail.”
(Isaiah 58:10-11)

We have Culture In Canada Too

"In the 1840s, when Sir Charles Napier was governing a large part of India, he is said to have witnessed an attempt to practice suttee, the burning of a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre. His response could instruct us today in standing up for our principles.

“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them.“Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”"

Canada Needs To Find It's Backbone

Launching Your Second Life Journey

"A man can have piled up an impressive portfolio of dollars and honors, get his name in Who’s Who, and then wake up one morning asking, “Is it all worth it?” Competent teachers, nurses, and clergy can reach the top only to discover that the job no longer fascinates; there is nowhere higher to go. They find themselves terrified of stagnation and asking, “Should I switch careers? Would returning to school help?” Gail

Sheehy’s second journey began at thirty—five when she was covering a story in northern Ireland. She was standing next to a young man when a bullet blew off his face. On that Bloody Sunday in Londonderry, she felt herself confronted with death and with what she called “the arithmetic of life.” She suddenly realized, “No one is with me. No one keeps me safe. There is no one who won’t ever leave me alone.” Bloody Sunday threw Gail Sheehy off balance and flung at her a barrage of painful questions about her ultimate purpose and values.

It need not be a bullet that initiates a second journey. A thirty—five—year—old wife learns of her husband’s infidelity. A forty—year—old company director finds that making money suddenly seems absurd. A forty—five—year—old journalist gets smashed up in a car accident. However it happens, such people feel confused and even lost. They can no longer keep life in working order. They are dragged away from chosen and cherished patterns to face strange crises. This is their second journey. (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg 163)

The Second Journey of Life

"Second journeys usually end quietly with a new wisdom and a coming to a true sense of self that releases great power. The wisdom is that of an adult who has regained equilibrium, stabilized, and found fresh purpose and new dreams. It is a wisdom that gives some things up, lets some things die, and accepts human limitations. It is a wisdom that realizes: I cannot expect anyone to understand me fully. It is wisdom that admits the inevitability of old age and death. It is a wisdom that has faced the pain caused by parents, spouse, family, friends, colleagues, business associates, and has truly forgiven them and acknowledged with unexpected compassion that these people are neither angels nor devils, but only human. The second journey begins when we know we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the morning program. We are aware that we only have a limited amount of time left to accomplish that which is really important—and that awareness illumines for us what really matters, what really counts. This conviction provides a new center." (Brennon Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg 164)

Wild West Religion Is Rarely Freedom?

“Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom.” 

― D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature 

Faith Without Your "Best Practices"

”My faith in God became something so much more than a theology, than a list of beliefs, of "best practices;” I began to find this divine God in every moment, in every action, everywhere... especially in the places I'd been taught he wouldn't be. (An excerpt from ”Churchburned, releasing in fall 2014.Travis Klassen)

Things Don't Grow.....

"So much I know, that things just don’t grow, If you don’t bless them with your patience.
And I’ve been there before....."  (First Aid Kit: "Emmylou")

All Welcome Here..... On our Terms

“Too many churches want more young people as long as they act like old people, more newcomers as long as they act like old-timers, more children as long as they are as quiet as adults, more ethnic families as long as they act like the majority of the congregation.” --Robert Schasne

IS Communication Really Happening?

“The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.” (Edward R. Murrow)

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." (George Burnard Shaw) 

“I just realized my lips are inside out. They should be turned inwards, because I spend most of my time talking to myself. 
”  (Jarod Kintz, This is the best book I've ever written, and it still sucks)

No More Need For Theology?

“For my part, the longer I live the less I feel the need of any sort of theological belief, and the more I am content to let unseen powers go on their way with me and mine without question or distrust.” (John Burroughs, The Light of Day)

I get the sentiment about theology. But, if Jesus is a person, such ad God is, how could you just let them work without acknowledging his personal presence, without wanting to know more about him. Isn't relationship like that?

Is it possible to know and acknowledge, accept his activity without all the details? How much do you need to know? He here, I acknowledge him, I let work as he wishes, and we accept it for what it is. Is that "Christian"

Brain Brakes......

I see this in the Homeschool movement. parents who think that "No Exposure To Any Other Idea" will prevent their kids from straying form their faith.... I believe it is in showing this is reasonable, and that exposure to other ideas makes us see the beauty of what we have. It was no choice, if we have never known anything else.

“Intelligent men do not decide any subject until they have carefully examined both or all sides of it. Fools, cowards, and those too lazy to think, accept blindly, without examination, dogmas and doctrines imposed upon them in childhood by their parents, priests, and teachers, when their minds were immature and they could not reason.” (James Hervey Johnson)

Reordering Our Lives.

A few year back I arrived at the stage in life when I realized that much of how I was doing things was not fruitful. It did not need tweaking,  what I was doing just needed to stop being done. I headed off in new directions and it was freedom.  

"Have you filled your life with the urgent instead of the important, the good instead of the best, and the insignificant instead of the eternal? If so it's time to make some changes. Reordering your life isn't easy. Sometimes people misunderstand, and that can be painful, but we can't allow the expectations of others to shape our life; not if we want to please God rather than man." (Richard Exley)

To Understand God Will You Need and Open Bible - And A map Of The World

“To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map.” (William Carey) 

Give Up Small Ambitions And Come East.

“Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.”
—Francis Xavier (1506-1552)

The Ploy For Church Professionals!

Read this quote today and frankly I'm speechless. Not to mention it defies the "priesthood of all believers" teaching; that we are all Priests.But some people actually do believe there is a clergy Laity division in the body of Christ. I don't

“There are those who advocate that we drop the word (missionary) altogether. Others insist that it should be applied to all committed Christians. Stephen Neill has warned that if everybody is a missionary, nobody is a missionary.”

Secondly, it's silly. If everybody is a missionary, nobody is a missionary? If everyone man is a father, no one is a father?

Everyone is a missionary. But not every missionary (Person) will be sent by the missionaries (People) to another land. So what.

Learn the language of the people where you are. Hear their stories, find out what makes them tick. Build a bridge into these people for the love of Christ Jesus. Everyone is a missionary. It does not negate that some are sent further and supported to do so.

I will grant this; Maybe it is best phrased "everyone should be a missionary", because it is clear many are not.

Another quote from the same source.

“The Chinese have a proverb: “If two men feed a horse, it will lose weight; if two men keep a boat, it will soon leak.” What is everybody’s job is nobody’s job. If every Christian is a missionary, missionary work is bound to suffer. It is correct to say that every Christian is, or should be, a witness. It is not correct to say that every Christian is a missionary.”—J. Herbert Kane, Missionary statesman, author, and professor

I grew up with horses.... More than two people water a horse. I grew up as a fisherman's son. More than one person keeps a boat in tune. Sure it is the captain, or the family Patriarch who coordinates and assures others do the task. Did you water the horse? Did you tighten that bolt? But we no less felt it was our job or responsibility. It was our job and responsibility of the the whole family.
And I think that is exactly what God is doing. Assuring it gets done.

This is much truer of mission.  Anyone can do this where they are in any place, among any people.

The missionary heart: Care more than some think is wise. Risk more than some think is safe. Dream more than some think is practical. Expect more than some think is possible. I was called not to comfort or success but to obedience….There is no joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving him.” —Karen Watson, martyr, March 15, 2004

Send Me Anywhere............ Really?

“Send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever any tie, but the ties that bind me to your service and to your heart.”
—David Livingstone

Kicking Aside The Pedestal Of Wanting To Look Good

"I experienced a significant breakthrough into the freedom.... at my first AA meeting. In the past I would have set great store not only on looking good but on thinking too often about who is looking..... My ravenous insecurities made my sense of self—worth rise and fall like a sailboat on the winds of another’s approval or disapproval. It was a supreme moment of liberation to stand up, kick the pedestal aside, and simply state, “My name is Brennan. I am an alcoholic.” (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg, 153)

Freedom From Payback

" The account of the widow’s mite suggests that all the best gifts come from the loving hearts of men and women who aren’t trying to impress anybody, even themselves, and who have won freedom precisely because they have stopped trying to trap life into paying them back for the good they do." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg153)

Admired For Good...Good To Be Admired

"For most of us it takes along time for the Spirit of freedom to cleanse us of the subtle urges to be admired for our studied goodness. It requires a strong sense of our redeemed selves to pass up the opportunity to appear graceful and good to other persons." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg 153)

Pompous......just Pompous....

"Unfortunately we sometimes become somber, serious, and pompous. We fly in the face of freedom....." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg, 149)

"Love The Sinner Hate Your OWN Sin"- INSTEAD of - "Love The Sinner, Hate The Sin."

How many times have we heard the saying "love the sinner, hate the sin"?
And often good people mean well when they say that.

Hmmm.  Tony Campolo points out that what Jesus taught us would really be more like "love the sinner, hate your own sin".

If you have any doubt about this, check out Matthew 7:3, where Jesus says "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

And if that isn't clear enough, in verse 5, Jesus says "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." 

 That looks a lot like Tony's quote: "love the sinner, hate your own sin".

Expanding on what Tony says, might look like "love the sinner and hate your own judgmental attitude for looking at the sinner as 'the sinner'".

Something to think about next time we might be tempted to look at someone in a judging sort of way. (Baptist Minister Community Life Church,Grand Manan Island New Brunswick.)

Let Have An Orgy Of Christian Joy

"Christians ought to be celebrating constantly. We ought to be preoccupied with parties, banquets, feasts, and merriment. We ought to give ourselves over to veritable orgies of joy because we have been liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death. We ought to attract people to the church quite literally by the fun there is in being a Christian." (Robert Hotchkins at the University of Chicago)

Christians Want To Be Slaves

And church leaders are so willing to make them, for the accomplishments of their own visions.

<blockquote>"The question had become not “What does Jesus say?” but “What does the Church say?” This question is still being asked today.

Sad but true: Some Christians want to be slaves. It is easier to let others make decisions or to rely upon the letter of the law.  (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg 145)<blockquote>

Why Have You Come To Disturb Us Jesus?

"In Dostoyevsky’s incomparable novel The Brothers Karamazov, the charge flung by the Church—embodied in the Grand Inquisitor—against Jesus who has returned to earth is, “Why have you come to disturb us?”

After fifteen hundred years the institutional Church, instead of proclaiming Jesus, had supplanted Him. Ecclesiastical traditions and man-made laws had usurped Jesus, and the Church was living off the success of its ingenuity.

You will know the truth and the truth will make you free,” was intolerable. The elders decided that men and women simply were not capable of being free; so the Church ascribed to itself the protection of souls entrusted to it, only to dispense it when absolutely necessary. Ordinary people could not endure the burden of freedom, so the Church took it away from them for their own good. They would only abuse and misuse it anyway. Delivered from the anxiety and torment of personal decision and responsibility, people would feel safe and happy in obedience to authority. 

“They will be amazed at us,” says the Grand Inquisitor to Jesus, “and will think of us as gods, because we, who set ourselves at their head, are ready to endure freedom, this freedom from which they shrink in horror; and because we are ready to rule over them—so terrible will it seem to them, in the end, to be free. But we shall say that we are obeying you and ruling only in your name. Again we shall be betraying them, for we shall not let you have anything to do with us anymore.” Indeed, “Why have you come to disturb us?”

The Grand Inquisitor means to take this Jesus who has come again, bringing freedom once again, and burn him at the stake in the name of the Church.

The question had become not “What does Jesus say?” but “What does the Church say?” This question is still being asked today. Sad but true: Some Christians want to be slaves. It is easier to let others make decisions or to rely upon the letter of the law.  (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel)

Faith is Determined By How I Respond To Interruptions From People I Dislike

"The way we are with each other is the truest test of our faith. How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.

We are not pro-life simply because we are warding off death. We are pro-life to the extent that we are men and women for others, all others; to the extent that no human flesh is a stranger to us; to the extent that we can touch the hand of another in love; to the extent that for us there are no “others.”

Today the danger of the pro-life position, which I vigorously support, is that it can be frighteningly selective. The rights of the unborn and the dignity of the age-worn are pieces of the same pro-life fabric. We weep at the unjustified destruction of the unborn. Did we also weep when the evening news reported from Arkansas that a black family had been shotgunned out of a white neighborhood?" (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel)

Homless Signs "Mom told us to wait right here, that was Ten years ago."

 "Mom told us to wait right here, that was Ten years ago." (Sign held by Homeless Person in New York, 2013)

Signs Bought from the Homeless and presented by an artist, in an art display called " Signs of the Times. By Andres Serrano

"Husband died. No insurance. Lost everything, Homeless. Please Help. God Bless." (Sign held by Homeless in New York, 2013)

"I thought I had problems until I ended up On the Streets." 

 "Giving is easy Asking is hard."

"Homeless, Broke, Anything helps. WWJD?" (Sign held by Homeless in New York, 2013)

Bought and presented by an artist in an arts show called " Signs of the Times. By Andres Serrano

A Terrible Thing Has Happened- Religion Has Left The Realm Of Respect For People

"A terrible thing has happened to Caiaphas: Religion has left the realm of respect for person. For Caiaphas, sacredness has become institutions, structures, and abstractions. He is dedicated to “the people,” so individual flesh and blood men are expendable. Caiaphas is dedicated to the nation. But the nation does not bleed like Jesus. Caiaphas is dedicated to the Temple—impersonal brick and mortar. Caiaphas became impersonal himself, no longer a warm human being but a robot, as fixed and rigid as his unchanging world. The choice usually presented to Christians is not between Jesus and Barabbas. No one wants to appear an obvious murderer. The choice to be careful about is between Jesus and Caiaphas. And Caiaphas can fool us. He is a very “religious” man. The spirit of Caiaphas lives on in every century of religious bureaucrats who confidently condemn good people who have broken bad religious laws. Always for a good reason of course: for the good of the temple, for the good of the church. How many sincere people have been banished from the Christian community by religious power brokers as numb in spirit as Caiaphas! " (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel)

Why Are We Always Called Away From What Is In Front Of Us?

Why is what we do never good enough?

"A woman in Atlanta with two small children told me recently she was certain that God was disappointed with her because she wasn’t “doing anything” for Him. She told me she felt called to a soup kitchen ministry but struggled with leaving her children in someone else’s care. She was shocked when I told her the call was not from God but from her own ingrained legalism. Being a good mother wasn’t enough for her; in her mind, neither was it good enough for God." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel)

Legalism Is A Lack Of Trust

"The tendency in legalistic religion is to mistrust God, to mistrust others, and consequently, to mistrust ourselves." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel)

"....they persevere in religious practices as they struggle to maintain a hollow image of a perfect self. The struggle itself is exhausting. The legalists can never live up to the expectations they project on God. (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel)

Hell Shall Emptied And Then Filled Up Again

"There is an ancient Christian legend that goes this way: “When the son of God was nailed to the cross and gave up his spirit, he went straight down to hell from the cross and set free all the sinners who were there in torment. And the devil wept and mourned for he thought he would get no more sinners for hell. “Then God said to him, ‘Do not weep, for I shall send you all those holy people who have become self-complacent in the consciousness of their goodness and self-righteous in their condemnation of sinners. And hell shall be filled up once more for generations until I come again" (Ragamuffin Gospel. Brennan Manning)

A Self-righteous Turd

"A humble woman seeks me out because of my vaunted reputation as a spiritual guide. She is simple and direct: “Please teach me how to pray.” Tersely, I inquire, “Tell me about your prayer life.” She lowers her eyes and says contritely, “There’s not much to tell. I say grace before meals.” Haughtily, I reply, “You say grace before meals! Isn’t that nice, Madam. I say grace upon waking and before retiring, and grace again before reading the newspaper and turning on the television. I say grace before ambulating and meditating, before the theater and the opera, before jogging, swimming, biking, dining, lecturing, and writing. I even say grace before I say grace.” That night, soggy with self-approval, I go before the Lord. And He whispers, “You ungrateful turd. Even the desire to say grace is itself My gift.” Ragamuffin Gospel. Brennan Manning)

Is Our Life Scripted Like A Travel Itinerary?

I thought this travel advice was wonderfully insightful. It might possibly be excellent advice for all of life too.... about the danger of writing down an Itinerary for a trip, or about our life.

I never thought of it before.... but to much of my life was an itinerary. The word perfectly describes how we script life in advance, and then are blinded to the reality in front of us. Not able to take time to enjoy it, because it was not planned.  

 "Just like it’s impossible to know what will happen in any future, near or far, it is impossible to police a trip with a piece of paper, no matter how bolded the font. It's like trying to reign in life with absurd expectations like wanting to be married by a certain age or have children by another..... it’s the happy acceptance of our ignorance and the subsequent open-mindedness and willingness to observe and learn as things come. To choose where to go and what to see once you're already there, once you’re present and more informed, dealing with the real and not the imagined situation... It's the idea that you will make your choices just before the branching of the road and not three miles back.... It’s easy to confuse a lack of planning with recklessness. But there is a difference between this perceived recklessness and recklessness of the moment. The difference is one of speculation and reality. In reality, I trust myself to make the responsible choices,.... . An itinerary is simply an absurdly high expectation – the expectation that the world is clockwork and you are the clockmaker.... And more often than not comes the implication that this choice of conduct is unsustainable, a by-product of the wishy-washiness of youth, when in reality, it’s the healthiest outlook I can imagine. With it, I allow myself the freedom of possibility, to know precisely what I can control and what I can’t – I am the pirate captain of my vessel and no one else’s – to open the cages and burn the blinders we affix. And to do all this, the itinerary must burn as well. .." (The Squeaky Robot)

It's Not My Dream?

This is how I felt about leadership in church. You can't force people in to something, and if you have to sell the vision, it is not really their vision. No amount of talking , manipulation and cajoling can change that.

"He had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute, was becoming less important. Maybe cause that wasn’t really his dream."
(The Alchemist, by Paulo Coehlo)

Get up Eight Times

"The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times." (Paulo Coehlo. The Alchemist)

I've Said Nothing New

" I haven't said a thing about the church since leaving it, that I didn't say while in it." (Karl Ingersol. Stepped out side the church Pastor Job to Serve differently. New Brunswick Canada)

I can't help but love this guy. But we have yet to meet face to face. How true this statement rings to my experience as well. But you talk blue in the face and it never changes inside, so you have to release yourself to Jesus.

"The inherent danger in business-as-usual church is that people will go there and be "discipled" to spiritual mediocrity. Years ago, older believers used to smugly whisper about the zeal of new converts, "They'll settle down." (… just like the rest of us). And guess what? They always did. A normal North American church will reduce that wild, crazy experience to the lowest common denominator believing that this is stability or maturity. "Become just like the rest of us." The masses in most churches are Sunday morning observers. That's what we implicitly want, to support our metrics. I know that I can change nothing but myself. If the NA garden variety church actually belongs to Christ then He is the Architect of change, revival, renewal. When men usurp this place they just break it in a new way. I haven't said a thing about the church since leaving it, that I didn't say while in it. At a point, I realized that to change the church, you'd have to wreck it and that was not my place … so I stepped outside. I found that God was at work in ways and in places that the institution could not afford to work. Though it may not sound like it at times, I am passionate about the Church. Not the organizational machine that man is building, but the Church that God is building." (Karl Ingersol)

I've Said Nothing Different About Church

" I haven't said a thing about the church since leaving it, that I didn't say while in it." (Karl Ingersol. Stepped out side the church Pastor Job to Serve differently. New Brunswick Canada)

How true this statement rings to my experience as well. But you talk blue in the face and it never changes inside, so you have to release yourself to Jesus. 
"The inherent danger in business-as-usual church is that people will go there and be "discipled" to spiritual mediocrity. Years ago, older believers used to smugly whisper about the zeal of new converts, "They'll settle down." (… just like the rest of us). And guess what? They always did. A normal North American church will reduce that wild, crazy experience to the lowest common denominator believing that this is stability or maturity. "Become just like the rest of us." The masses in most churches are Sunday morning observers. That's what we implicitly want, to support our metrics. I know that I can change nothing but myself. If the NA garden variety church actually belongs to Christ then He is the Architect of change, revival, renewal. When men usurp this place they just break it in a new way. I haven't said a thing about the church since leaving it, that I didn't say while in it. At a point, I realized that to change the church, you'd have to wreck it and that was not my place … so I stepped outside. I found that God was at work in ways and in places that the institution could not afford to work. Though it may not sound like it at times, I am passionate about the Church. Not the organizational machine that man is building, but the Church that God is building." (Karl Ingersol)

Giving Orders.... Interferes With God

"The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us." —A. W. Tozer

If You Don't Share Our Enthusiasm For the Vision - Get Out! Ok Let's Go!

Saw this posted on FaceBook Today. I think it is from the movie about Him.

"If you don't share our enthusiasm and care for the vision for this company, get out. You're done!" (Steve Jobs)

Yes, and when a person does leave quietly just as you told them they should, you get mad that they left.
If they can't get with the program, they are criticized for not getting with the program. Character assassinated as rebellious and uncooperative people. Accused of being poor team players or possessing little vision. Dividers of the body of Christ. The measuring stick is not Jesus, it's their cooperation with our plan. Pretty low and sick standard.

When we are on the top (That is what leadership is now), this kind of talk appeals because we are doing what we want, the vision "we" chose so we can't fathom why EVERYONE can't see this is the best ,of the best of the best. When you are in the bottom to middle, we are the work horse for those with the vision on top. That's your value, to promote and forward what they want to do (And it's all passed off as Jesus-ey) . If you can't perform as the cog, or will not, get out!

I've actually heard church leaders brag at leaders conferences about the fact that they tell their members the very same thing. We are excellent managers honing our executive leadership skills.

I've read many articles that suggest Steve jobs was a very lousy person to work with. It's not unique to him, it's a common attitude of the personality type drawn to these positions and statements of power.

Any leader like this is hard to be around, because all rises or falls on his vision and program.
The leaving people are not even suggesting the vision is wrong, not good. It may very well be good. They may be simply saying, "This is all fine, but it's not my vision, not my choice of how I see Jesus leading me to serve him and others."

Is there really not a place to lovingly do something different? Is our value and worth, the time and attention give or receive, the friendship we are extended or not, the grace we extend or withhold,  based on my response to your orders? We use these checks to manipulate people for that cause, or don't waste my time. I don't really like you, but you serve my purposes, and when you don't, Get out! Get Lost! I'm not going to miss you. This really is a window into our heart. Who doesn't want to "go" from people like this?

When we treat people like objects, gears in a cog; it has little to do relationships, and unity. If people are a cog that needs to roll, or get out of the way, they should get out. In fact, they should run, run very far away from people like us.

So, are we actually going to suggest to people that they need to get in line with our vision, or they are disobeying Jesus?

Have we thought about the fact that their vision is a vision too? Like it or lump their vision.
We have to extend the same ability to others to like or lump our vision too. It goes both ways baby.

If we are going to talk like this, at least as Christians, we have to be much more gracious when people do "get out", thank them even wish them well on their way.

We are getting out in masses. No crying now! After all, you did tell us to, "Lead, follow, our get out of the way. (Oh wait, you did not ask us to lead because you took that job from us, you are not about to listen to us).

We all need to grow up and stop manipulating people.

When I hear people say things like, "If you don't share our enthusiasm and care for the vision for this company, get out." 

I want to reply. Ok, let's go!

I'm to a position in life and leadership that if I talk like that,  I welcome people telling me the same thing.
"Ok, let's Go!"

They are realizing I'm not really looking out for them, I'm treating them like a cog, not a human being and friend for life.

Jesus was not part of any kind of Establishment - But We Don't care!

Because we have our thing... and we have to hold it up as the norm for everyone. Church, the body of Christ is not optional. But it is not obligation. Anyone who has a spiritual heart beat of Jesus seeks out people to walk this life with. They don't need guilt, and warnings not to forsake to keep them connected to the body. However, Jesus never managed anything like a church, nor did his disciples. They were mobile and light...so we should be a little more humble for insisting people park with this one group of people, forever for life. We can cross pollinate with the full body of Jesus, not get tied up too to one dust particle size section of the church. I realize this does not fit the project builders idea. Because they have to corral your time, energy  talents for their vision and purposes. You have to stay put. If Jesus could walk and Mingle, and his disciples, I think we should be freed to as well.

“Jesus was not part of any kind of Establishment. Not an old one or a new one. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus did not replace Judaism with Christianity. At a later point, others organized an establishment called Christianity, but the itinerant Jesus had nothing to do with that. The very nature of an establishment was contrary to his free spirit.Jesus was always picking a fight with religion. Religion was supposed to help people know God, but Jesus exposed the ways it was the obstacle hindering it. Jesus spoke of being divine AND human. He wanted humankind to know that, contrary to the view of religion, the two were not in opposition to each other. Jesus handpicked the most notorious “sinners” of his day as his close friends, and in so doing, confronted the false notion that some people did not qualify for God’s love and acceptance. Jesus didn’t allow the adulterous woman to be stoned to death as the religious law required. He stood in opposition to the performance-based mentality of relating to God.” - Jim Palmer, Notes from (Over) the Edge