I've Seen You!

"I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen." — John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Sympathy Hungers

".... and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized with them at least."
( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

Deactivation Of The Church. It's here!

"The public now believes that ministry is something that only paid professionals do. Most churchgoers assume it’s their job to go to church, sit passively, and watch the professionals on the stage perform ministry. Being salt and light in the community? That’s the pastor’s job. Introducing children to the God who loves them? That’s the children’s minister’s job. Helping teenagers navigate questions of faith? That’s the youth worker’s job. Out in the world, if the topic of faith comes up, churchgoers often say, “You really ought to talk to my pastor about that.”

Has the Body of Christ become convinced that it is deaf, dumb and deactivated?"

(Have We Become Too Professional? Thom Schultz. Churchleaders.com)

Slavery Is Not A Punishable Offense In India

"Of course, such slavery is clearly against the law in India. So, how is it that millions of people can be held in slavery, and why does virtually no one ever go to jail for these crimes?"
(The Locust Effect: Why The End Of Povery Requires The End Of Violence. Gary A. Haugen & Victor Boutros)

Let's Abolish Slavery. OH, I Thought We Already Did That!

"There are more slaves in the world today (best estimate—27 million) than were extracted from Africa during 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade. And there are more slaves in India today than in any other country in the world.

For answers, Sashmeeta would take me to meet with the former slaves released from the brick factory, to hear their stories, and to learn how it could be that, seven years later, the man who allegedly abducted, enslaved, raped, and tortured them continues to walk the streets of Bangalore utterly free and unafraid."

(The Locust Effect: Why The End Of Povery Requires The End Of Violence. Gary A. Haugen & Victor Boutros)

No Visitors

"As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I mean that I had some." (Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

A Dinner Parade To Drive Me Home.

"So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man's house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I shall never revisit those scenes."
(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

The Sorrow Within Our Enemies

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Put Aside Nonessentials And Dogma And Look At Jesus?

"Discipleship demands that we put aside all nonessentials, stop playing word games, and come to the essence of things. The essence for the follower of Jesus lies in living by faith and not by religion. Living by faith consists in constantly redefining and reaffirming our identity with Jesus, measuring ourselves against him—not measuring him against our church dogmas and local heroes."

(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Never Pray For Humility Unless You Are Truly Ready

A Russian starets once said,

“If you pray for humility, be careful. Humility is learned through humiliations."

(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Thinning Church Membership Is A "Purifying Dawn"

"True disciples see Christianity as a way of life on and off camera. Obviously, it will not appeal to everyone. The ranks of church membership will be thinned. Christians will look differently and act differently from other people because they are different. The name of Jesus no longer will be mouthed casually or the Christian mysteries profaned. The scandals that recently have rocked the body of Christ will be seen in perspective as a “purifying dawn” heralding the daylight of lived faith in the living God."
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Contradicting Threat.....

"A Christian living in the world but not of the world is a sign of contradiction to the compromises that many within the church have settled for. The disciple of Jesus will be made to look and feel like a fool. Yet fools for Christ formed the early Church. And as that tiny band of believers grew, the world witnessed the power in such foolishness. “That same foolishness is the only hope we have of breaking free. The greatest threat to any system is the existence of fools who do not believe in the ultimate reality of that system. To repent and believe in a new reality—that is the essence of conversion."
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Christian "Madness"...... ?

"Simplicity, purity, and obedience to the Word will leave us weak and powerless in the world's eyes because we no longer can call upon our possessions and privileged positions as security. We will be subject to derision and outrage because authentic discipleship is a life of sublime madness. Injury and insult are promised to those who labor for the sake of righteousness."
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

The Simple Life Encounters the Cross

"Naturally the countercultural lifestyle—simplicity of life, purity of heart, and obedience to the gospel—will take us to the same place that it took Jesus: the Cross. All roads lead to Calvary, for we preach Jesus Christ crucified—a stumbling block to Jews, an absurdity to Gentiles; but to those who are called, Christ the power and the wisdom of God."
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Christians Tackle Nuclear Meltdown.

"And our dreams are not mere wishful thinking; rather they are charged with hope and promise because the crucified, risen Jesus has prevailed over every principality, power, and dominion. He has unmasked their illusions, exposed their lies, shown them for what they are. The risen Christ stands free from their threats and control. In union with him we conquer consumerism, hedonism, and nationalism by the power of God’s love. We confront the world’s powers—political tyranny, economic oppression, the nuclear meltdown- not merely with our own strength, resources, and resistance, but with the very life of the risen Christ, knowing that things impossible with men are possible with God (see Luke 18:27).
( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Small Groups Of Community Everywhere.

"The early church was built on small groups of people who came together to support one another in a whole new way of life. These primitive communities were visible evidence of an alternative to the status quo of their culture. Today we need small bands of people who take the gospel at face value, who realize what God is doing in our time, and who are living proof of what it means to be in the world but not of the world. These “base" communities or neighborhood churches should be small enough for intimacy, kindred enough for acceptance, and gentle enough for criticism. Gathered in the name of Jesus, the community empowers us to incarnate in our lives what we believe in our hearts and proclaim with our lips.

Of course, we must not romanticize such groups. It is all too easy to envision a cozy, harmonious little fellowship where everyone is tuned in on the same wavelength, to love the dream of community more than the sin—scarred members who comprise it, to fantasize heroic deeds for the Lord, and to hear the applause in heaven and on earth as we shape an angelic Koinonia.

The reality is otherwise. Egos collide, personalities conflict, power brokers intrude, anger and resentment surface, risk is inevitable. “It is less like utopia than a crucible or refiner’s fire.""

(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

We Need Group To Run With

"The experience of community is neither a luxury for the spiritually affluent nor a panacea for the lonely, bored, and idle. It is, in fact, a necessity for every Christian.....We need a group of people around us who support and understand us." ( Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

Lets give up "Separation".

This resonated because there is a core truth here. However, it does easily smack of a little Buddhism... if you misunderstand his point... 

Jim, I want to grow and deepen my spirituality, what must I do?”
“Give up the notion of separation, and give it up entirely.”
“What do you mean?”
“Quit imagining that you and God are separate, that you and I are separate, that you and all others are separate, that you and life are separate, that you and the mountains are separate, that you and the moon and stars are separate. Give up the notion that you and love are separate, that you and worth are separate, that you and peace are separate, that you and freedom are separate, that you and well-being are separate, that you and happiness are separate.”
“How will I know I have attained this?”
“You will know when you see yourself as a part of the whole, rather than merely an individual and separate entity. You will know when you no longer look at the world through eyes of judgment, but through eyes of love and compassion. You will know when all people and all living things are your family – your mother and father, son and daughter, sister and brother.” (Jim Palmer)

PLAY My Game Or I Don't Have Time For You

He nailed it ....right or wrong, about how I felt.... wow

"What frustrated me was I began to realise, from an insiders stand point, unless you were a part of what I was doing, you weren't important. I didn't have time to focus on you unless you effected the bottom line of what was going on, unless you were part of the thing we were building.
I didn't have the time. I was exhaused. I was one of those run around with you head cut off guys, light my hair on fire christians, and in the midst of all that you are going like, "Lord, where is the simplicity and the open handedness that I'm not doing this with a mixture of motive?" I'm not asking the question, "Can I get this person to be a part of our thing?"

My experience is a lot people that are... who are now setting out on this journey, or stepping away from it (institutional). I think they are pretty tired of being able to see through some of those dynamics. They don't want to be just another cog in someone elses machine." (Brad Cummings... "The God Journey" Podcast. May 19, 2005)

Sentences Need SPACE.

"Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear—we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they break each other's undulations. If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak reservedly ancl thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate." ( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

Words Need Space......

"One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head." ( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

BIG Church Vermin - Vermin Church

"Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to be extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest them."
( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

A Small House..... Will It Cut The Religious Mustard?

"It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain." ( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

Where Two Or Three Gather......

"I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." ( Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

How Much "Letting Go" is Required

"How much do we need to let go of?" a friend asked one day. ''I'm not certain," I replied, "but maybe everything." — Lewis Carroll

YOU'RE Wrong Either Way

"People will see you walk on water and say it's because you can't swim."(???)

The Eyes Of The Great..... Are Not Looking For His Job

“The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world; small hands do them, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
(J. R. R.Tolkien.The Lord of the Rings)

CEO Pastor...Doesn't Have Time For People With Needs.

We are more interested in people who have something to offer so, with gifts time talents or money we can harness,  to further the program machine we are running.

<blockquote>"For years, I ran with the elk (sometimes led the pack) who were convinced God wanted us to birth movements, shift paradigms, and save the world. Given the magnitude of it all, I didn’t have the time, energy, or inclination to help the guy wandering into a coffee shop at closing time looking for a hot shower and a warm bed. I wonder if the good Samaritan story was a secret message to all tire salesmen, truckers, coffee—shop owners, cashiers, waitresses, carpet installers, UPS drivers, accountants, tech—heads, stay—at—home moms, working single moms, bartenders, barbers, and butchers to keep their eyes wide open, because the professionals are too preoccupied with grander things, passing by real people with needs God placed right beneath their noses in everyday life."
( Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you. ) </blockquote>

Does Our "Moral" and "Righteous" OVER FLOW?

"We may be moral and righteous, have fine ideals and beautiful thoughts, but without this presence of Christ overflowing, we Christians have lost our wind, fire, salt, and yeast. Perhaps loving the guy across the street is more where the rubber meets the road, given our natural tendency to go big or be an activist so we feel good."
( Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you. )

Belligerent Homelessness - Belligerent Preachers

"Okay, I know some hopeless people are unstable and belligerent, but so are some Baptist preachers I know. Most don’t set out to be homeless. I have never known a single eight—year—old who answered the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with “Be a homeless person.” For many it’s just a series of difficult life situations, circumstances, bad decisions, and hardships until one cold February night they find themselves inside a little coffee shop in Tennessee looking for a ride to Oklahoma. Like John in Paradise."
( Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you. )

You Can't Find God.....

"The radical failure in so—called religion is that its way is from man to God. Starting with man, it seeks to rise to God; and there is no road that way. (J. Arundel Chapman- 1885-1934)

Start Movements????.... Just love your neighbour

''I once dreamed of launching revolutions, sparking movements, mobilizing the masses, and changing everything. Now I've learned the beauty and profound significance of simply loving my neighbor." - Jim Palmer

Is God Real Outside The Building?

"Until God gets real outside the building he'll never be real inside the building." (Karl Ingersoll. Fredericton N.B. )

Bad Mistakes I Made As A Pastor/Minister

20 Mistakes I Made As A Senior Pastor:

Putting church over community.
Putting orthodoxy over love.

Putting certainty over wonder.
Putting teaching over conversation.
Putting polished over real.

Putting answers over questions.
Putting membership over friendship.
Putting Christianity over Christ.
Putting knowledge over action.
Putting style over substance.

Putting appearance over authenticity.
Putting functionality over beauty.
Putting religion over spirituality.
Putting holiness over humanity.
Putting accountability over acceptance.
Putting heaven over earth.

Putting reputation over risk.

Putting charisma over compassion.
Putting the Afterlife over the Herelife.
Putting thinking over feeling."

- Jim Palmer

Speaking Out: ANOTHER Mega Church Shifting To Organic Church.

"We never believed they would work even in our original suburban context, and certainly not in urban, anti-corporate Portland. There is such an emphasis here on small batch, home-grown, do it yourself, local, organic, etc. People around here place a high value on authenticity and have skepticism toward "chains.  ....But I'm finding that this type of ministry takes church in a direction that we need to pause and consider..... But I'm finding that this type of ministry takes church in a direction that we need to pause and consider....
Multi-site inevitably ends up being personality-driven, non-contextualized, and fails to effectively raise up leaders capable of contextualizing. It promotes consumerism—even if it's masked behind several layers of "missional-speak."....
(What do you wish someone had told you at the beginning of this transition?)
How hard it would be. How long it would take. Oh, and I wish somebody had told me that it would be harder on our leadership than anyone else."

(Farewell Franchise Ministry. Why is megachurch pastor John Mark Comer ditching conventional church-growth wisdom? Two words: mission and millennials. Interview by Paul Pastor)

The Christian with depth is the person who has failed and who has learned to live with it.

"You know, in spite of the fact that Christianity speaks of the cross, redemption, and sin, we’re unwilling to admit failure in our own lives. Why? Partly because it’s human nature’s defense mechanism against its own inadequacies. But even more so, it’s because of the successful image our culture demands of us. There are some real problems with projecting the perfect image. First of all, it’s simply not true—we are not always happy, optimistic, in command. Second, projecting the flawless image keeps us from reaching people who feel we just wouldn’t understand them. And third, even if we could live a life with no conflict, suffering, or mistakes, it would be a shallow existence. The Christian with depth is the person who has failed and who has learned to live with it." (Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel, Pg,176)

Be Kind To Strangers

Hebrews 13:2 advises, “Do not forget to entertain strangers..." God didn’t want me to start a program for homeless people, launch a volunteer recruitment campaign at church, or raise money for the local mission—all things I am inclined to do. I think God just wanted me to see what would happen if one cold night I found myself face—to—face with a desperate stranger in need."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

STOP Elivating Cultures With Bigotry Toward Women.

"The message of this book, if it must have a message, is that we in the West would be wrong to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily, by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life."
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

Make The Whole....

"She could never go back and make some of the details pretty. All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful." - Terri St. Cloud

Words For Teenagers From 1959 Judge

"Northland College principal John Tapene has offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth. "Always we hear the cry from teenagers, ‘what can we do, where can we go?’

“My answer is this: Go home. mow the lawn. wash the windows, leam to cook, build a ran, get a job. visit the sick. study your lessons and after you've finished, read a book. Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your par- ents do not owe you fun.

"The world does not owe you a living. you owe the world something. You owe it your time. energy and talent so that no one will be at war. in sickness and lonely again. In other words grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Stan behaving like a re sponsible person. You are import- ant and you are needed. It's too late to sit around and wait for somelxxly to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you!"

Keep Coming Back To Jesus

"What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots, and wandered into a far country. Yet they kept coming back to Jesus."(Brennan Manning. Ragamuffin Gospel. Pg, 182)

Is Islam About Peace?

"When people say that the values of Islam are compassion, tolerance, and freedom, I look at reality, at real cultures and governments, and I see that it simply isn’t so. People in the West swallow this sort of thing because they have learned not to examine the religions or cultures of minorities too critically, for fear of being called racist. It fascinates them that I am not afraid to do so."
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

Islam.... Women Can't Look After Themselves?

Because men will use and abuse them in that culture... if they are alone.

"This is what my grandmother had meant when she warned me: if you are a Somali woman alone, you are like a piece of sheep fat in the sun. Ants and insects crawl all over you, and you cannot move or hide; you will be eaten and melted until nothing is left but a thin smear of grease. And she also warned us that if this happened, it would be our fault."
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

Women Are Not Stable Enough For Leadership?

"They said women were in the grip of invisible forces that played with their minds and made them switch from one extreme mood to another. That was why Allah had ordained that the testimony of two women is equal to that of one man, and also why women should not be allowed to govern or accept public offices, for leadership requires mindful contemplation and judgments reached after careful thought."
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

World's Greatest Lie According To The Alchemist

"Everyone believes the world's greatest lie," continued the old man. "What is the world's greatest lie?" the boy asked. "lt's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie." - The Alchemist

One Of These Us Better Than Ten Preachers? ????

"I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach,"
(Charles Spurgeon)

Learn What To fear And What Not To Fear

"But I was frightened of everything that moved — every insect, every animal. My grandmother would sometimes try to reason with me. “A wild horse that bolts at every moving thing stumbles and breaks its leg," she told me. “As you run from your small insect you may fall onto this bush and die, because it is poisonous. You may fall onto this mound and die because it hides a snake. You must learn what to fear and what not to fear."  (Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel).

"When you’re on your own in the desert, you are completely on your own." ( Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

Are We Really Interested In People?

"Whatever else he might need or ask for, it was clear to Rick that any person weary of traveling, with more miles still ahead, could use some java on a cold winter’s night. Rick listened to his story, asking questions as if he really was interested, because strangely enough, he was really interested."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Re-reading The Past Too Much

"You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one."

Oppression Of Women in Islam

From the muslim woman Ayaan Hirsi Ali. .... 
<blockquote>"Saudi Arabia is the source of Islam and its quintessence. It is the place where the Muslim religion is practiced in its purest form, and it is the origin of much of the fundamentalist vision that has, in my lifetime, spread far beyond its borders. In Saudi Arabia, every breath, every step we took, was infused with concepts of purity or sinning, and with fear. Wishful thinking about the peaceful tolerance of Islam cannot interpret away this reality: hands are still cut off, women still stoned and enslaved, just as the Prophet Muhammad decided centuries ago. The kind of thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia, and among the Muslim Brotherhood in Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves a feudal mind—set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self—deception, hypocrisy, and double standards. It relies on the technological advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind—set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam."</blockquote>
(Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel)

When Values Are Wrong.

"Perhaps I could start by telling people that values matter. The values of my parents’ world generate and preserve poverty and tyranny, for example, in their oppression of women." (Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel. )

Small, Simple Churches......?

"The early church was built on small groups of people who came together to support one another in a whole new way of life. These primitive communities were visible evidence of an alternative to the status quo of their culture. Today we need small bands of people who take the gospel at face value, who realize what God is doing in our time, and who are living proof of what it means to be in the world but not of the world. These “base" communities or neighborhood churches should be small enough for intimacy, kindred enough for acceptance, and gentle enough for criticism. Gathered in the name of Jesus, the community empowers us to incarnate in our lives what we believe in our hearts and proclaim with our lips."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Maddening Kind Of Christian

<blockquote>"There is nothing more maddening to the world than a free man or woman in Christ Jesus." (Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)</blockquote>

Applies to churches too. Those churches, people, leaders or ministers who get livid when you dare to not jump their hoops, serve their vision (they say Christ's vision- but it's their's), fill their vacant slots in the program in which they have need for you. You're often not really "free" in a church with vision. Because even if you are following a vision... it's not theirs, so you are accused of "having no vision".

Yep, those kind are mad.... at those kind of free people.
If we have been part of serving deeply in church we all have seen the "mad".

A Church Resisting Our Power Of Chains

"The church is the living extension of Jesus Christ in time and space. It is countercurrent to the drift into cultural idolatry. The church in American society today is, of necessity, a community of resistance to the gods of modern life—nuclear stockpiling, money, ego, sexual muscle, racism, pride of place. We are the pilgrim people of God with no lasting city here on earth, a community of free men and women whose freedom is not limited by the frontiers of a world that is itself in chains."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Pleasurable Possessive Faith?

"If Christian men and women are to live the gospel today in our post—industrial American culture, if we are to be in the world and not of the world, then we must be willing to assume personal responsibility for the ways in which our faith has been accommodated to possessiveness, pleasure, and domination. And we must be willing to repent, reform, and be renewed."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Can We Really Be Like Jesus? Really?

If so, he was not very unique then. We can't be like Jesus, try as we might. But we can walk with him and give him our best love, and he his best advice and encouragement and best love in return too. Abiding in him does not mean being like him. Good job! We would be up the creek.

"To present Jesus as primarily an example to us is devastating. If to be like Christ is to be the aim of my life, I give up the struggle in despair. Love my enemies? Never hit back when I am insulted? No despising of the incompetent, the ham-fisted and foolish? No complaining about privation or pain? Always ready with "a word in season"? What a hope!... if Christ is simply my copybook then count me out. (D. W. Cleverley Ford)

My Regrets Before I Die

Top 5 Regrets.....Bronnie Ware is a nurse who spent many years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog, which later became a book called, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Cheaper Church... Great Concept.... Cheap Christianity

"Consumerism indeed has its own spirituality.

Perhaps the darkest dimension to the accumulation of wealth is the exploitation of cheap labor to procure the luxuries we've grown used to. If you had a cup of coffee this morning, as I did, you participated: “In Africa a healthy young adult male cannot possibly make more than $1.50 a clay picking coffee. It is no wonder that women and children are compelled to share in the picking.” If we paid the East African pickers the minimum American wage, we could not afford to drink the coffee.

Let us be bold enough to ask ourselves, as Christians, whether the church of the Lord Jesus in the United States has anything to say to our nation and its ideologies of materialism, possessiveness, and the worship of financial security. Are we courageous enough to be a sign of contradiction to consumerism through our living faith in Jesus Christ? Are we committed enough to his gospel to become a counter—current to the drift? Or have we so accommodated the faith of our fathers to consumption that the question of simplicity of life, sharing of resources, and radical dependence on God’s providence no longer seem relevant? How do we build the kingdom of God on earth if what we incarnate in our lives is the dogma of our culture....."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Consume Spiritually. ..

"Consumerism indeed has its own spirituality."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

We're Suppose To Help The Poor. ...Not Get To Know Them...

<blockquote>"It is a commendable (even hip) thing to give money to programs and organizations that help the homeless, or perhaps serve as a volunteer dishing up Thanksgiving dinner, but you should never actually get personally involved with these people. Encountering them along the side of the road or in the supermarket parking lot, you might direct them to the local mission and perhaps even arrange a taxi ride if you are looking to go the extra mile. But you should never give them money or let them in your car or home, because they will probably kill you or blow all your dough on alcohol and drugs. I guess you could actually get to know one of them, but why? They’re homeless people. You help homeless people; you don't get to know them." </blockquote>
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Stop And Take look For Love From Time To Time...Do You See It?

"Despite all the denominational distinctions I've come across along the way, for the life of me, I cannot find any other litmus test Jesus insisted upon to authenticate his followers except love. This was unsettling when I realized that despite knowing Greek and Hebrew and the boxes in my attic filled with hundreds of my sermons on tape telling others how to be a Christian, I wasn’t very loving. Winston Churchill cautioned, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." My version of Christianity wasn’t making me much like Jesus."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Run...He's Alive....Shout...He's Alive....Dance...He's Alive...SURPRISE!...He's Alive

<blockquote>"Frank Clements dreamed of flying airplanes from the time he was a little boy.  During World War II he joined the U.S. Air Force, became a 2nd lieutenant and was soon flying dangerous missions over the English Channel into France and Germany.

Everyone in his hometown of Big Spring, Texas and the Fourth Street Baptist Church, where the Clements family had been members for years, was proud of Frank.  Pastor Elmer Dunham related that the church prayed for Frank often and tried to get reports back about his welfare, but feedback was sparse.

One day the tragic message came to Big Springs that Frank Clements was missing in action.  Mr. Clements was working in his repair shop just off the side of his garage, but when he got the news about Frank, he and his wife dropped everything and went straight to pastor Dunham and the three wept and prayed together.

Not long afterward they got the dreaded telegram.  “Greetings, we regret to inform you that Frank Clements was killed in action over the English Channel.  We extend our deepest sympathy.”  The Clements family was devastated.  The town of Big Springs had a memorial service, and since west Texas people are close, the whole town turned out for his memorial.

They placed a single red rose on the empty casket and the entire community mourned Frank’s death.  The problem, however, was it was a case of misidentification.  Lt. Frank Clements from Big Spring, Texas was not really dead.  Another pilot with the same name had been shot and killed.

Frank from Big Springs had also been shot down but he had survived the crash, was picked up by allies after several days at sea, and taken back across the channel in a boat.  He knew nothing about the other Frank Clements or the wrongful death notice.  But because he survived such an ordeal the military gave him a leave to go back to the states.

Frank was a young man – not yet twenty years old and decided not to call…he’d just surprise his parents.  That’s pretty typical – especially considering he didn’t know they had received wrong information and were mourning his passing.  He chose just to surprise them.

Frank took a passenger ship that took over a week to cross the Atlantic, then a train from the East Coast to Dallas, then a Greyhound bus to Big Spring, Texas.  When he got to the bus stop, he felt like walking so he took his big duffle bag and started walking home.  He didn’t come in contact with anyone he knew along the way.  He went to his house, heard activity in the repair shop next to the garage, walked up, stood in doorway and watched his dad, whose back was turned to him, for several seconds as he worked at the bench.

Then Lt. Frank Clements simply said, “Dad….” His Dad froze.  Again he said, “Dad!”  The old man turned and saw his son and couldn’t believe his eyes!  He ran to him, hugged him, crying his eyes out with joy.  Frank couldn’t understand what was going on.  They had always been the type to just shake hands, but his dad wouldn’t let go of him.  Finally his dad let go, stepped back and looked at him one more time, raced inside to tell his wife and then ran down Main Street of Big Spring. Texas, hollering, “He’s alive!  He’s alive!  He’s alive!”

The next day the Paper in Big Spring, Texas carried a huge front-page headline that read: “Lt. Frank Clements returns- Alive!”

Jesus Christ actually died and returned from the grave.  The women who came to the tomb were alarmed to see an empty tomb and an angel.  (See Mark 16:5.)  Mary Magdalene was shocked when Jesus appeared to her in the garden. The two on the road to Emmaus were stunned when Jesus revealed himself to them, and the disciples in the Upper Room couldn’t believe it.  They couldn’t wait “go into all the world and preach the Good News” to all who would listen.

Someone suggested that Easter can be summarized in one word, “Surprise!”  Surprise, Satan!  Surprise, Caiaphas!  Surprise, Pilate!  Surprise, unbelievers!  Surprise death!  Jesus is alive!  Death is conquered!  Sin is defeated!  Hope is alive!  What a wonderful surprise"</blockquote>

My Favorite Easter Illustration

Written on April 19, 2014 Bob Russell

Criticism Of Other Churches Proves My Holiness???????

"Just days after I completed this chapter, Father Jeff resigned as priest of his Episcopal church and shared his desire to continue in ministry as a Catholic priest. He further explained he was planning to start a Catholic home church. I didn’t think that was possible, but Father Jeff explained that the tradition of the church doesn't require buildings and bureaucracy to carry on. We think more alike than I thought. Maybe we should team up. Perhaps we will. I used to think that the deciding factor in knowing God was one's form of worship style or church life: traditional church versus contemporary church, seeker—targeted versus purpose—driven, high church versus home church, modern church versus postmodern church, institutional versus organic. After coming full circle to a greater appreciation for my Catholic roots, I realize now I was barking up the wrong tree by focusing on form and style. There will never be any wineskin capable of fully containing the life of God, but it’s funny how criticizing everyone else’s wineskin seems to distract a person from the life of God altogether."

(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Gen Xers Are Looking For Fools...

"Maybe Generation X doesn’t need the latest and greatest high—tech church service to attend but instead needs to see a few more holy fools, people whose lives revolve around the radical, foolish gospel."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Are Chruch Events Trying To Manage God?

"...I grew increasingly disillusioned with my church involvement, which didn’t seem to be getting me any closer to God. The conclusion I came to at the time was that any form of organized or institutional church (Catholic, Baptist, nondenominational, whatever) must be flawed, and perhaps God never intended people to relate to him through services, programs, and meetings. Maybe “church” had devolved into a man—made bureaucracy seeking to control and manage God."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Will God Help Me Get Girls?

<blockquote>"TO SAY I WAS RAISED CATHOLIC IS A STRETCH. TO BE MORE accurate, there was a string of years when as a youth I was made to attend Catholic Mass. Though I never doubted there was a God, my life was preoccupied with too many other things to be interested in the Almighty. Had I thought God could help me meet girls or pass algebra, I probably would have become an altar boy. As it turned out, I rarely dated, had to repeat a grade of high school, and never made it as far as confirmation."</blockquote>
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you. )

Faith Is Exposed By Going Fishing

<blockquote>"Religion is a guy in church thinking about fishing. Relationship is a guy out fishing thinking about God." (Unknown) <blockquote>

God's Dance.... And Tears

".... the God who dances over the breathtaking sunrise weeps over each victim of brutality."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

The Fake Jesus

"Such reductionisms dilute the radical demands of discipleship so that Jesus is frequently honored today for what he did not mean rather than for what he did mean. An unthinking, uncritical cultural propaganda becomes more persuasive than the sayings of Jesus regarding what is real, true, good, and of enduring value."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

What If Jesus Said; "STOP Inviting People To Church First."?

If Jesus temporarily took away the Christian's ability to invite non-Christians to our church, some church service, program, or special event first.  What (or who) then would our spiritual conversations be about? What would we say, table to discuss, or talk about with other people, if we stopped making church, or, "Come attend our church....."(insert the name of some program or event), the foremost conversation? 

I suggest that those themes are probably much more important and pivotal conversations to have first.  Long, like, way long,  before a church invite.

We get the cart before the horse in our discipleship habits, and we never get to the critical life conversations with people.

Even I get annoyed when people invite me over and over and over again, to their church events, but never visit, call, or extend ANY relational contact or express ANY desire whatsoever to get to know me otherwise.
But that is probably just me ;-)

But it seems to ease their guilt and offer a sense that they discipled or evangelized me in the inviting (I need evangelizing because I am not a member of their church denomination).  Biblically, in my view, I would suggest they have done neither by a mere invitation to church.

I might be mistaken, what do you think?
What should the real conversations be?
What do you feel are the "first" importance subjects?

Side-Of-The-Head Church Fellowship... My FAVORITE Kind..

<blockquote>"Transformation into Christ’s image takes a life-time and beyond. And it doesn’t work very well outside of face-to-face community."
(Frank Viola) </blockquote>

Just what we all long for anyway- connection in community... and it's what helps us most. I've not met many running from the real deal.

The "face-to-face" part is key too. Most of us have tried the "side-of-the head", and the, "back-of-the-head" kind of community and confessed a group is not necessarily community and no longer need to fake or pretend it is when it is not.

Find some people to walk with face-to-face for your good, and theirs.

God Bless My stuff, My Nation, And My Pleasure

"Our culture, as John Kavanaugh observed, “fosters and sustains a functional trinitarian god of consumerism, hedonism, and nationalism. Made in the image and likeness of such a god, we are committed to lives of possessiveness, pleasure, and domination”;

Unless the church of the Lord Jesus creates a counter—current to the drift of materialism, self—indulgence, and nationalism, Christians will merely adapt to the secular environment in a tragic distortion of the gospel, in which the words of Jesus are reinterpreted to mean anything, everything, and nothing."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Ya Think Like An American...

"Whether we like it or not, our very membership in Western society imprisons us in a set of political, economic, social, and spiritual principles that shape our lifestyles, even when we don’t subscribe to it."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Loving Fear?

"The apostle John, the lone male disciple who stood at the foot of the cross, says,
“In love there is no room for fear” (1 John 4:18, NJB).
If you are still afraid of judgment, go kneel at the cross and the Messiah will set you free."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

No One Wants Jesus Crucified

"He went on to point out that nobody wants to hear about Christ crucified these days. Everybody wants Jesus the agent of social change, or Christ the revolutionary, or the Master of interpersonal relationships who is going to help them win friends and influence people. But nobody wants to hear about a Christ nailed to the wood who says, “Change your life. Strike out in a new direction. Come follow me and allow yourself to be radically discipled."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Stop Shaming People.

"In my study I kneel before the crucifix and see the human face of God. Throughout his passion Jesus condemned no one. Throughout his life his words were not those of blaming and shaming, accusing and condemning, threatening, bribing, and labeling. Nor should mine be."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Who's In Heaven Before Us..... Surprise. ...

"Jesus told the chief priests, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you" (Matthew 21:31, NASB). Christianity is simpler and grander than the commentators and theologians have made it out to be: “Treat others the way you would have them treat you” is indeed the whole law and the prophets."
(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus)

Addicted To Preaching Addicted To Being Preached To... Now We Don't Hear Jesus Any More?

Read the quote at the end first. 

I'm throwing this out there, and it is not too coherent yet. It may be off base. However, been mulling it over for some years now as I change how I serve.

I remember Neil Cole telling us (and I paraphrase) to take people to the cross and leave them there. Get new believers bonded to Jesus,  hearing his voice, sensing his direction.... not running to a middle man (church or a pastor) to hear what they say you should do.  This is why they do life transformation groups where people get together after reading 25-30 chapters of scripture each week to duscuss and pray over it. Bond people to Jesus and the word...  not second hand sermons about it....

Certainly we learn about scripture from others, but the final direction is Jesus in you, and his word.
I rarely answer this question anymore, "What do you think I should do?".
Instead I ask, "Well, what does the word say and what do you sense the Spirit of Jesus in you suggesting? I'll walk with you until you get this figured out."

This used to sound so hokey to me... like some neo charismatic bull crap. I did not get it because, well, I was not getting "it"- "direction from Jesus". I was serving at church like I was supposed to, because that IS what Jesus wants me to do. So when I asked people what I can do for Jesus, I was given another church job or church program to run for Jesus, and, oh, "evangelize people and pray", talk. So I did the same for others for over thirteen years of minstry.....basically answering by saying, "Here do this"

Now, I ask them to ask Jesus about  that. We will ask Jesus about this together. This way I feel I am training people to examine the word and tune in to the Jesus Holy Spirit's convictions, promptings, and moving based upon that.

This natural spiritual mechanism is very weak in our fellowships.... frankly because we think it's kind of "loosey spooky"... at least I did.

Rather than training individuals to take human direction, the human voice casting their idea for you (which frankly is often reduced to pluging in and filling a nebulious slot in a pastor's or leadership teams vision script, that frankly leaves no room for Jesus to move you another way.), lets develop the idea of "lets go to Jesus" so YOU can figure it out.... Jesus can guide you, and others can give insight too, and we as a body will walk with you in this process to the end, ok?

If Jesus does move you other ways, I guess it does not further my script and therefore, I am wasting my time with you. In leadership today, we only have time for people playing our game, very little for those who don't.  The desire is to recruit you to the vision I cast, so I spend more time selling my vision to (for) you, than walking with people like you to help you respond to Jesus and what Jesus would have you do today.

The more people we train to live like this... the less control I have over outcomes... the more difficult it is for me to build something that I came up with.  But I think it's good. Because when people do rally together for a common goal, it will be because Jesus put them together to acomplish this. I no longer need to sell it, or beg for people to serve at it. That has become Jesus’s job as it should be.

<blockquote>"Institutional Christendom is bound to sermonizing and weak because of it.  Preaching is an excellent means of drawing a crowd and becoming a celebrity but the poorest means of  effecting change.  People listen to religious lectures all their lives and never mature to do anything.    Jesus looked at the 12 and declared to them that it would be better for THEM if He went away.  What could be better than life with God in the flesh?  Life with the Holy Spirit in your own flesh!    If we create followers dependent upon "being fed"  we never create followers of Jesus who are dependent upon the Holy Spirit.  Some leaders put out so much "good" food that their followers never learn to hear from the Holy Spirit.  Their followers are addicted to the "milk (that which has been digested by another) of the word" .  But "lactose intolerance" is rising and teachers are beginning to see that their real function is to make folks hungry to learn for themselves by asking the right questions and to train them to trust the Holy Spirit's answers."

(Steve Hill. Harvest Now April 2014)
<blockquote>

The Poor Have No Protection By Law.

".....buried in a little—known but thorough report by the United Nations which simply states: most poor people do not live under the shelter of the law, but far from the law’s protection."

The Dummies Helping Me Lie......

"Lying is a cooperative act. Its power emerges when someone else agrees to believe the lie."
(Pamela Meyer. TED Talks)

Rich Murderers Buy Their Innocence In Much Of The World

After a graphic story of how a rich family buys their way out of a murder and rape of a poor 11 year old girl with blood all over their home,  the police burning all the obvious evidence against the rich family, and then torturing two innocent poor people for days to make them sign a fake confessions.... the author writes.......

"When we think of the global poor, we easily think of hunger, disease, homelessness, contaminated water, illiteracy, and joblessness. But José and Richard think of another reality that keeps the poor in poverty, and that is violence. This reality is very hard for outsiders to see—even for frequent and sophisticated visitors to the developing world—because most acts of violence against the poor are intentionally hidden. It’s hard not to see the squalor, the shanties, the sewage, the begging, and the trash. But behind the walls of poverty, few ever see with their own eyes the swift strike across the face, the ugly struggle of rape, the iron blow to the head, the hands throttled against the throat."
(The Locust Effect: Why The End Of Povery Requires The End Of Violence. Gary A. Haugen & Victor Boutros)

The story made something primal rise up within me about injustice, especially against the poor. I was so angry I had to stop reading the story of the girl and hiw the poloce etc consupred witj the rich family to protect them for the rape and murder.... The poor have no protection under the law. The law is not there for them... but only an elite rich few in many countries.

No Evidence Of "Christian".

"If I had to take my family to court and convict them of being followers of Christ, I am not sure where I would find the evidence..... My family does not display Christ-like behavior. I hurt for the people my family has hurt."

(Mark Phelps. Saved from Hate: An Interview with Mark Phelps, Son of Westboro Founder Fred Phelps Sr. Ed Stetzer)

"It is very difficult to comprehend the degree of control and fear that results when rage, violence, psychological domination and hateful teaching from God's Word starts at birth. The very soul of the child is forever engulfed—and lost—unless the Lord breaks through with his healing love and delivering power."

Jesus Died For A Traitor(s)

"How easily we forget that the church was founded by disciples who betrayed their master. None was willing to stand by Jesus as the religious and political authorities condemned him to death. At his moment of greatest need, the disciples fled in the darkness. The boldest of the lot, Peter, was the very one who cursed and denied him three times before the cock crew. It was for traitors that Jesus died."
(Philip Yancev (b. 1949). Soul Survivor)

Nasty Pulpit View....

Yep......

"The ordinary group of worshipping Christians, as the preacher sees them from the pulpit, does not look like a collection of veryjoyful people, in fact, they look on the whole rather sad, tired, depressed people. It is certain that such people will never win the world for Christ... It is no use trying to pretend: we may speak ofjoy and preach about it: but, unless we really have thejoy of Christ in our hearts and manifest it, our words will carry no conviction to our hearers."
(Stephen Neill (1900-1984), The Christian Character)

ALMOST One Rape A second in Eastern Congo

"....Eastern Congo, where, in 2011, armed conflict in the region reportedly gave rise to an epidemic of sexual assaults against women at the stunning rate of 48 rapes every hour."
(The Locust Effect: Why The End Of Povery Requires The End Of Violence. BY Gary A. Haugen & Victor Boutros)

Broken Justice For The poor.

"Secondly, given the brokenness of the public justice system, forces of wealth and power in the developing world have carried out one of the most fundamental and unremarked social revolutions of the modern era in building a completely parallel system of private justice, with private security forces and alternative dispute resolution systems that leave the poor stuck with useless public systems that are only getting worse."
(The Locust Effect: Why The End Of Povery Requires The End Of Violence. BY Gary A. Haugen & Victor Boutros)

Distracted From My Own Demons

"Maybe demonizing people out there distracts me from the demons of pride and selfishness within myself."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Right.... But Excluded From Their Life And Dialogue.

"I began to see the meaninglessness of it all one afternoon in my front yard after passionately debating politics with a non—Christian neighbor. Getting all red in the face and almost in tears, she stormed off to her house, leaving me standing there with my “words of truth” still floating in the dialogue bubble above my head. Right or not, what did it really accomplish? She’s now even more convinced that the other side is wacked—out and closed—minded, and I’m now excluded from her list of people with whom she can hash out the difficult questions of life. Something just didn’t seem quite right when “them" now included my next—door neighbor and Ms. Jill, who had practically become my daughter’s biggest fan and hero."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

I Love Labeling Peoole..... Becuse I Get It Right...;-)

"To imply these realizations resulted from some determination within myself to assign all people equal dignity is a far cry from the truth. No, that would be Gandhi. Labeling people was actually very comforting. lt supplied what every adolescent adult like me needed: scapegoats to blame, adversaries to defeat, and dimwits to set straight, making me innocent, victorious, and right."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Give Me Someone To Blame. ...

"For crying out loud, would someone just tell me who to hate and pin the world’s problems on? People who previously fit into my “l’m—excused— from—loving—you box” were not cooperating very nicely... Sure, there are greedy wealthy people, folks who abuse the system, and wackos who want to see it all go up in flames, but mostly I found my stereotypes didn’t accurately describe the ordinary people I knew. It just didn’t pay to let others do my thinking for me."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.) "

I Sat On Her Grave, And Knew. ......

"I recently sat at Carol Ann’s grave and wondered what she must have been doing that day. As I pondered, I realized there are but a few things that matter to her now. And there will be but a few things that will matter to me then. And thus there are but a few things that matter to me today: to know him, and make him known."

(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

Build A Castle...

"Stones in the road?
I save every single one,
And one day I'll build a castle."
(Fernando Pessoa)

When It's OK To Disappoint

"Some people will only love you as long as you fit in their box. Don't be afraid to disappoint."(Unknown)

When Is Changing Church Impossible?

"You cannot change what you are willing to tolerate."

Church Will Abuse You...Then Criticize You For Not Coming

Paraphrase of something I heard from a speaker reciently..... it slapped and dumbfounded me because I've seen it... probably a part of it in some way too.......forgive me.... 

"Only an institutional mindset can permit us to treat someone like crap, say mean things, mercilessly accuse and criticize, gossip, speak harshly, make phone calls about, slander, backstab, give the glare, demonstrate hostility, and give a cold shoulder. 

And then, remarkably, when the soul leaves, because they can't take the abuse any more (and make no mistake about it, this is abuse), we then criticize them mercilessly for no longer coming anymore. 

'They should/could be coming here...Why are they not coming here anymore? What's their problem?'

Are we serious? It's the scene of the crime. That is the same thing as a person who raped some unfortunate girl asking her, "Why don't you come to my house anymore? You should be here. Didn't you forgive me? Why are you so bitter. There isn't any reason you can't come. What's your problem?". 

This is telling because proping up our institution just became more important than a soul, than a person. That, my friends is warped and sick."

Missional People Hear: What Church People Say - What The Discipled Say...

C: Where were you Sunday?
D: Thank you for coming over Sunday.

C: What's more important than church program attendance?
D: Thank you for talking about this stuff with us.

C: You should have been in church!
D: We know you had other important places to be but we appreciate you taking time for us.

C: Where are they going to Church?
D: I've  never known a Christian who thinks time with people is as important as their church programs.

C: You are backsliding!
D: In the past my friends who became Christians were so busy doing church things I never saw them any more. Thanks for deing available.

C: You need to come hear the word of God.
D: Thank you for talking about Jesus with us. We learned so much.

C: You shouldn't be hanging out with those kind of people!
D: People like you usually avoid people like us, but you are different. Why?

C: You should be ashamed of yourself for not being more involved in this church.
D: We're thankful you are so invested in us, you are a great friend.

C: What good are you doing if none of these people ever show up to church here?
D: This kind of no-fuss gathering is one I feel I can be apart of.

C: There is more to Church than that!
D: I never knew church could be this simple.

C: You are being Rebelious.
D: You must really love your Jesus to want to bring him to people like us.

C: Who are you accountable to if you are not in this church? 
D: It's interesting how you keep reminding us that Jesus is our shepherd, his Spirit will guide, and his word is true.

C: You need to be part of a local church to grow.
D: I can see we have all grown so much from the time we spend together in this small and simple "church" group.

What do you think. Heard any of these? Have any to add to the list?

Free From Applause

"... what it would be like to be free, free from the need to be spectacular, free from my addiction to people's applause, free from the burden of being a somebody."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Zombie Christian Compassion

"The frozen parts of me began thawing at 8:03 P.M. on April 28, 2000. Somewhere back in my distressed childhood, a thick, icy layer of hurt had formed over my heart. Shutting off my emotions as a survival mechanism growing up, I couldn't seem to turn them back on as an adult. Listening to a grieving friend share deep pain, I'd be nodding my head and offering facial expressions of deep concern but feeling nothing. It was particularly acute in church services as people around me displayed emotions of joy, sometimes tears, while I was going through the motions like a zombie."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

When Evangelism Turns People In To A Project

When our evangelism and discipleship become part of participation in some church program... we have conditions and time lines ... we do it thursday nights and onlt for a few months, and onktbwith those who are ready to jump our evangelism or discipleship hoops as was pre-planned and mapped out in the "training".

"If I'm going to get there, I'm going to need some help from a friend or two without conditions and time lines."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

WHEN Church Is No Solution...Or Help

"I don’t need another fluffy pep talk. Many times I simply can’t bear the thought of pasting a phony jesus grin on my face. I want something real. I NEED something real. I need real people in my life. Where does a guy find people like that? I'm finding non—Christians are more honest with themselves and the struggles of life than Christians. I’m bitter and just can’t take it anymore. My parents go to a church where the pastor insists women wear only skirts, no pants. Is that what Christianity is all about, skirts Vs. pants?!

I know jesus is true and real. I just don't know where to start anymore. I've tried so many different things: being a gay Christian, being just gay, being just a Christian. I’m just plumb out of solutions. I know Jesus is the answer, but I don't know where to go to find him anymore. What to do, or not to do. I just don't know."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Tired....?

"I'm weary from my lists of dos and don’ts and tired of trying to figure it out, yet I struggle to simply receive the love and life God wants to give."
(Jim Palmer. Divine Nobodies : Shedding Religion To Find God - And the unlikely people who help you.)

Say Nothing, Do Nothing And People stop Criticizing

"There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing. say nothing, and be nothing." -— Arisioile

Onlt Professionnels Can Guide Faith Or We Become Wacos

"There seems to be this notion that knowing God is a special field of expertise, and ”professionals" are needed to sort through the complexities of the Bible and bring order and organization to God's work. Left to ordinary people, who knows what kind of heresy, chaos, and anarchy would ensue."

(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.) 

Gatherun With A Few Othrs IS Enough

"I'm not convinced there's any value added by a large group of believers gathering in one place at one time compared to the benefit of maintaining a few close relationships. I need to hang out and really get to know and experience others depending on the life of Christ in the everyday world of sick kids, control—freak bosses, and the misery of staining and sealing your own deck. I want more than just two Sunday services or a midweek pick-me-up; I want to get to the bottom of ]esus’s words: ”The kingdom of God is within you."
(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

Jesus is In Me All The Time?????

"Whether donning a clerical robe or greasy work overalls, doesn't the one and the same risen Christ in whole and equivalent measure live in you and all believers? Isn't it people God indwells, not buildings? When two or three believers are together encouraging one another in their journey with God, isn't Christ present in their community whether the geographical location is First Baptist, St. Peter's, or Starbucks? Maybe my greatest need isn't another sermon about Christian living, morality, and dos and don’ts. If the life of Christ is configured within me, isn't spiritual growth a matter of grasping the reality of that and being transformed through my intimate, personal, individual relationship with Jesus?"

(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.) 

When Attendung Church Is Your Faith.

"I was prone to press people to engage their Christianity primarily in institutional forms: attending services, filling positions, perpetuating programs."

(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

Fighting Fragmentation... Is Unity Worth It?

"There are those who do not want this wholeness, who want to continue the process of fragmentation, and this has to be fought, with Michael and his angels by our side. If we care about wholeness, about unity in diversity, we are in battle."

- Madeleine L’engle

Christians Must Be Pansies... When exposing Evil

"Movements need Martin Luther King Jr.– and they need Malcolm X and Huey Newton.
The problem is, most of the MLK-types I’ve encountered want everyone else to be MLK-types and they tell the Malcolm Xs of the world that we’re wrong. That what we’re doing is counter-productive and we’re hamstringing our own cause. We need to be nicer, calmer, more logical, more compassionate; otherwise, the institutionalized power will never listen to us. We have to talk to them the way they want to be talked to, or it’s pointless."
(Bradley Schenck. Blessed Are The Peace makers. Defeating The Dragons Blog)

Living Transparent Hurts...

"But you don’t want to have a hard heart. You’d rather be hurt than impenetrable. This is the price of living without armour, of making art with your life and stories and faith: you are vulnerable. Every attack feels personal because it’s your heart-and-soul-work. And that’s okay.... You consider quitting writing but first you’d have to quit living, quit caring. "
( Sarah Bessey. In which I read my bad reviews.)

He Calles Me By My Name..... Not Slut!

This so worth reading.

"What can happen in prayer is described in a scene in Man of La Mancha. In the play a dialogue takes place between Alonso Chiana (aka Don Quixote) and Aldonza, a barmaid and hooker. In his delusion, Alonso sees this tramp as an aristocrat and treats her accordingly. He calls this coarse, Vulgar trollop "my lady" and "Dulcinea, my sweet little one." At first she is puzzled and angry. She can't understand this madman. But there is a haunting beauty about him. Why is she attracted to this mysterious man? Because out of him comes an affirmation that she is treasure and is to be prized as treasure and treated as treasure. He shatters her wall of defensiveness and fear. "Dulcinea!" cries Aldonza. "My God, he knows my whole life story. I'm a slut. Yet he is calling me Dulcinea!"

(Brennan Manning. The Signature Of Jesus )

When Goimg To Church Out Weighs Living The Gospel.

"Is it not therefore exceeding strange, that people should place so much piety in the attendance upon public worship, concerning which there is not one precept of our Lord's to be found, and yet neglect these common duties of our ordinary life, which are commanded in every page of the Gospel?"
*William Law (1686-1761), A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life)

Rain Is Good For You....

"The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me."
(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

The Witches Are Hung... But I'm Still Afraid Of The Dark

"I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced."
(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

Natures Liberty

"I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature..."

(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

The Greatest Lie...... The Old Man Says....

"Everyone believes the world's greatest |ie," continued the old man. "What is the world's greatest lie?'' the boy asked. ''It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie." - The Alchemist

I love this quote. I personally don't believe that fate takes over. But I also do not believe that we are in control of many things.  Cancer.... tragic sickness. Etc.

Atheists Tips To Evangelicals About Good Evangelism (Excellent)

Cant argue with him can we?

Top Ten Tips For Evangelizing (From An Atheist).

1. Be Like Jesus: Hang With The Sinners and Judge The Judgers
2. Form Genuine Relationships With People, Don’t Treat Them As Projects. 3. Actions Speak Louder Than Words. 4. When Talking About Religious and Philosophical Matters, Ask More Questions And Do Less Preaching.
5. Don’t Give Unsolicited Advice or Judgments. Support People and Wait For Them To Ask For Your Input If They Want It.
6. Appreciate That Nominal Christians Are Still Christians.
7. Don’t Try To Force Others Into Christian Participation.
8. Understand Atheists and Embrace The Opportunity Confrontational Atheists Afford You.
9. Respect Other Religions Even As You Evangelize Their Members.
10. Love Your Enemies, Not Just Your Tribe.

- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2014/04/top-10-tips-for-christian-evangelizing-from-an-atheist/#sthash.gFcGXOm4.dpuf

You Can't Change Anyone....

"I confess, that practically speaking, when I have learned a man's real disposition, I have no hopes of changing it for the better or worse in this state of existence."
(Henry David Thoreau. Walden)

Every Path But Your Own Is Best- So People Say!

"Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then."

(Henry David Thoreau. Walden )

Great Questions For Fundamentalists To Wrestle With.

"ls there life before death?" —Belfast graffiti

Time For Goodness To Come Out.

"I FIND GOODNESS IN PEOPLE. SOMETIMES IT’S HIDING, SOMETIMES IT’S UNNOTICED, SOMETIMES IT JUST NEEDS A CHANCE To COME OUT."
(JIM PALMER)

Deliver Me From You..... and Me....A better "Deliverance"

DELIVER ME... FROM WHAT THEY WANT ME TO BE.

DELIVER ME... FROM WHAT THEY EXPECT ME TO BE.

DELIVER ME... FROM THE SCRIPT THEY WROTE FOR ME.

DELIVER ME... FROM THE STORY I MADE UP ABOUT ME.

DELIVER ME... FROM THE PEOPLE-PLEASER IN ME.
DELIVER ME... FROM THE SELF—DOUBT IN TRUSTING ME.

DELIVER ME... FROM THE APPREHENSION IN EXPRESSING

DELIVER ME... FROM THE FEAR OF BEING ME.

(JIM PALMER)

We Can't Out Run Sadness

"I made the mistake for so many years of running away from my past. I eventually decided to walk into the darkness rather than try to outrun it, to let my sadness take me on a journey wherever it would lead, and allow it to transform me rather than to think I could somehow avoid it. Sometimes I turn around and surprisingly discover little ways God is healing wounds and making me whole, but I’m still not ”fine.”"

(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

You Mean I Need To Be Nice To "False Prophets"??????

Well why not... not be sn ass about it?

"Stop saying “farewell” to Christians we disagree with."

(Benjamin L. Cor. How To Be A Christian Without Being A Total $@#& About It.April 9, 2014)  

If Church Was A Foretaste Of Heavenly Reality......What...

....would oeople do.... eat or vomit?

"The question which has to be put to every local congregation is the question whether it is a credible sign of God’s reign in justice and mercy over the whole of life, whether it is an open fellowship whose concerns are as wide as the concerns of humanity, whether it cares for its neighbors in a way which reflects and springs out of God’s care for them, whether its common life is recognizable as a foretaste of the blessing which God intends for the whole human family."

~ Lesslie Newbigin from Sign of the Kingdom

When The Church Sings, "I've Got POWER, POWER, Wonderful Power"

"When the Church tries to embody the rule of God in the forms of earthly power it may achieve that power, but it is no longer a sign of the kingdom."

(Lesslie Newbigin from Gospel in a Pluralist Society)

"Missional" Has Been Made Meaninglessness By Church.

I hear ther term missional everywhere.... and the localnchurch is applying it to the same old- same old... they have always done. 

"The idea of missional church has gained tremendous traction over the last decade. But the most common missteps and misnomers among well-intentioned, rightly motived leaders happen when the word missional is used merely as a fresh term for outreach and evangelism. The difference is this: Missional doesn’t visit the neighborhood. It moves into the neighborhood. To be missional is not simply to evangelize; it is to do the hard work of an evangelist— getting to know those who need to hear the message, learning the language and the cultural setting. 

Isolationist, Shunning, Seperated Religious Mentality

They have a false gospel that undermines us all as missionaries and living as  a royal priesthood.
Those ho fear contamination of false ideas are showing their fear and lack of faith. No one can take my faith away unless I choose to give it up... If our faitj is only intacts bevuse we know nothing else... is it faith or is it brainwashing?

"The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it." (Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Children Forgotton Because Of Their Parents Pain....

"Laddie was my brother's dog. This
collie and I had one unfortunate thing in common. In the maddening chaos, all the people who were supposed to be taking care of us forgot we existed.
.....I allowed him to hang out with me in my room even though he wasn't supposed to be in the house. Somewhere along the way in all those hours together behind that locked door, Laddie and I arrived at a certain understanding; we needed each other if we were going to make it. I would sometimes sink into the black hole of anguish and loneliness in the corner of my room. Inevitably Laddie would shuffle over and stretch out lengthwise on the floor facing me. With his head down between those big paws, he would look straight up at me. Making eye contact would prompt a slow tail wag, but he remained dutifully quiet and still until welcomed into my lap. I talked and he listened. I cried; he lay there next to me. Often we dozed off together back—to—back on my bedroom floor. Maybe he needed attention; maybe I needed a presence until the darkness passed. All I know is that neither of us was quite right from all we had endured, but we both seemed to accept this about each other, and somehow that mattered. A lot of years have separated then from now. I'm finding it takes time, maybe even a lifetime, to grieve your real losses and possess them as your own. Though I'm all grown up on the outside, I've not come along quite so quickly on the inside. I have not easily let go of the secret hope that somehow it could all magically be erased or made right or the wishful expectation that someone or something could compensate for the sadness."
(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

Storms Remind Us We Are Not The Boss Of Me

"Stormy weather is what man needs from time to time to remind him he's not really in charge of anything." ——Bill Vauqhn

Just The Way I Told You... No Deviations

"Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to." — Alan Keightley

Religious Depression Is Still Depression

If this is what sever depression is like.... I'm thankful I have not experienced it and so will not be critical of those who struggle......  

<blockquote>"Some days I awake with a heavy despair and icy deadness at the pit of my soul. I sometimes lay my hand across my chest searching for a heartbeat, just to be sure. The thought of taking a shower exhausts me. There's no rhyme or reason for when it strikes. Pulling myself out of bed, I begin trudging robotically through the day with total detachment. Only the sense of responsibility for my family and the habit of living for forty years keep me alive."<blockquote>

(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

You Can't Make It Without My Church Program

How could we possibly survive without church classes and programs? These programs are doing wonders at building biblical literacy and vibrant spirituality in the lives of the overwhelming majority in church, right? ;-)

"Life beyond institutional forms of church feels freeing at first, but then you start wondering how you are going to grow without all the sermons and classes."

(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

When "Doing Church" Is Your Spiritually

"I grew up Catholic, became a Baptist, attended an Evangelical Free Church seminary, and pastored a nondenomina- tional church. Through the twists and turns, the common denominator of all those years in church was my dependency upon services, clergy, and programs to dispense God and facilitate my Christianity. My spirituality was largely doing church, but deep inside I hungered for something more."
(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

I Need A Stage For My Fancy Religion To Shine From...... ;-)

Or do I?.....

"God has been trying to free me from the burden of doing something spectacular for him. It has a way of distracting you from the opportunities to be salt and light right where you are. I'm starting to see that the "cup of cold water given in Jesus’s name” sometimes means running the register by yourself during lunch so your heartbroken coworker can cry in the break room, or volunteering to reshelf all the returns in your area so a worn—out coworker twice your age won't have to. A kindness shown here, a listening ear offered there, a caring hug as you go might be the case for Christ a cynical waitress most needs. I'm starting to recognize that I am immersed in a sea of hurting people every day. If I simply pay attention and follow the promptings of the Spirit in all these little ways, my life is "ministry." One of my spiritual gifts is teaching, but I don't need to stand on a stage before a crowd to use it. God uses it in conversations with people like Wanda to help unravel the complex, far—off, unattainable version of Christianity she heard at church."
(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

The 99% Who"s Role Is To Be Silent.

"Government and religion share the similar dynamic of 1% having inordinate influence over how things work for everyone else. In religion’s case, the 1% are religious clerics and the 99% are the rest of us, many of whom practice a particular faith but still have very little say on how that faith is expressed in the world."
(Jim Palmer)

Christian Waffle House Whores

People who treat people like this destroy a churches (Christ's) witness.

"I have received hundreds of emails from other nobodies who feel judged and marginalized by Christianity, including Wanda the Waffle House waitress who’s only crime is having tattoos and wearing her Waffle House uniform to church, where people stare at her like she’s a whore and avoid talking to her after the service." (Jim Palmer... interview with)

Called - Is Not Always Expressed By Going Into Ministry.

"Some things you learn kicking and screaming all the way. I never knew "called" people worked as cooks, cashiers, or carpet installers and reckon it would have remained lost on me if it weren't for becoming one."

(Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

Kick And Screaming Learing Style

"SOME THINGS YOU LEARN KICKING AND SCREAMING ALL the way." (Jim Palmer.  Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion To Find God- And the unlikely people who help you.)

The Andy Manifesto - Where I Am Manifesto

Andy Manifesto..... 

Andy Manifesto.....  Having had the opportunity to form, lead, or participate in  "ecclesia",  in simple forms, under mango trees, off and on for 20 years... it changes how I see "ecclesia". What is required for ecclesia to be practiced is very simplified to me.  So my forms and locations and thoughts on basic biblical necessities to practice ecclesia are different. Incidentally, good or bad, my theology has changed little. I've not tried to join any new thing movement, model or fad. This has been my life for a long long time. Long before terms like "missional" or "organic" existed. Even as a minster i had a hard time faining concern over what some people get worked up about in church.... the issues were mostly over control and who wins and has the right to bully the flock toward their preferences. Rarely crucial matters.
I have never ceased to be alarmed at how we say, "where two or three"... but when anyone practices that ( well in africa it's ok- but not here)  how hostle, suspicious and questioning the loud people get when that means we are not at their church.
I can honestly say I have never been misused by any congregation I have been part of. Good people and good folks. A joy to walk with... well most of them. I'm simply helping people find Him, who are not "going there" yet...immersing myself among them.... as a missionary.
I was once called the PEI HOUSE Church Expert and was quite horrified. He meant nothing buy it and had no issue with the house church idea. But, house churches can be, and many are, just as dysfunctional as any other group. Location changes nothing. I said to that Baptist Minister that I kind of resent that title because it is very misleading.  I have advocated for simplicity.... I asked if he realized that to this day I have never told anyone not to attend a traditional church, and go to a house church instead. In fact,  everyone I've worked with I have directed to a local church encouraging them to go there. Stating that what I do is not for everyone, not just anyone understands this idea and can appreciate it.   We have had people gathering in our home, and elsewhere, but no one has been with us more than a few months, and move on to the fringes of traditional churches to varrying degrees. I have never formed an "every week" house church... though, admittedly,  I would like a tribe of spiritual buddies to walk with for life.  I've never hung a "house church" shingle.

I do advocate to people that they be with people who challange, grow, and encourage them and where they can do the same for others. A people who talk and talk Jesus. No one grows in Jesus sitting in a pew without people interaction on a deeper level.  Most don't have this connection, nor can they find people like that to walk with... in church, or a house church. Suffering alone with no real spiritual buddies. 
We are partners in addressing this little secret, not enemies.

Having said this I can say I have preferences. Is that a bad thing? Does that mean I must be bitter?   I have never ever told a church leadership what style of music to play or pushed them to do something I preferred in musically. I've sat silent thanking God for those who serve that way... even if I don't prefer it, or care to be part of it myself. (I still despise some blue grass gospel.... I can't get past the drawl whine in some of it to hear the words...:-)  but I don't ask those people to stop playing their style of musical worship. I feel no compulsion to change that, or them)
I prefer simplicity, not stage, dialogue over monologue style preaching and teaching. Always was uncomfortable with traditional pulpit form and being the guy doing that. But love the dialogue teaching contexts, especially unscripted ones.
As leadership and minstry shifted from shepherd and teacher, to manager or CEO of many things, events and complicated programs, policies and papers....you lost me. I no longer qualify...... it was not me "leaving Ministry"... it was the ground shifting under me.... and I either moved with it, or had to take another focus. I took another form of ministry. I once qualified (well maybe) and soon found (or felt) I now do not, with the shift. I predict many a young ministry men and families being consummed and totally crushed under the new pressures and stress. I see the signs all over the guys and families, as wives look on and see their husbands driven, but slowly dying and being consumed bit by bit by something they can't identify.  It breaks my heart. I was one of them.
Maybe, in a way, Africa ruined me.... I don’t need anything more than people, gathered in his name with his word to be his body.  I will continue help people discover him...

I chose over decade ago, to serve simply. It took time to grow into that choice.  No agenda, no movement. Organic, house, missional, other terms, were terms I never heard of back then.  But in was very refreshed, and I felt less isolated (or crazy), when I discovered there are others also taking simple ways. When I read Neil Coles book "Organic Church", in 2005 it helped me to realize I'm not the only one.... there are millions of us... and we are not running away as many accuse we are running to more depth more service.

I was tired of living two different ministry lives. One way of doing things in Africa, another here in Canada.  So we decided to live consistant to our views, and biblical ecclesia values in both places -  one philosophy of ministry for life and ministry so to speak. 

So I've not gone emergent,  missional, house, organic, or what ever handles people have. Maybe "Organic fits????... but i'm still not sure what that term means. :-)
Though I read widely some of these materials  from these sources too, and enjoy "SOME" of their perspectives... because I need to hear this stuff.  We have much to learn about simplicity and rawness of where people, in reality-not in theory, are. What people are saying in groups is often not what they are really believing or following or asking in private.... people have a lot of things they want to talk about... but can't in church...they feel they can not...they have seen what happens to people who "question" things, or who say I don't see it that way. So they just sit silent. This is where I want to walk and work, hearing them and searching with them for answers to questions they have

It's been about knowing Him, with others. I have long felt the "busyness" of a good few things was an exhausting fruitless busyness burning out the people who run them, for little fruit.  Things that really could stop today, at no harm to the local church, nor compromise any scripture. I know I am far from alone in this sentiment. So I chose to be a steward of these things and made choices, personal choices. They are not a model for you or anyone else to follow. No matter what I write or say...  some people think they have me figured out and are mistaken (After all, if you quote it, you MUST beleive every word from that author after all ;-)... I know they are mistaken because these types have never sat down and chatted about these things (anything of substance anyway) with me. But I frankly don't care to explain to the austrization temprament people why I should belong.... I don’t want what they have (or what they insist I should have) enough to care.
Transformation of the sad old me, my community, the world, and walking with anyone seeking Him- seeking this transformation, is what I'm "On".
I could care less about music style, and grew tired of 20  hours of prep on a sermon with 30% (or more) of that time being devoted to making a shiny, showy, delivery. I'm not the charisma guy. Give me content, the shiny package don't impress me much, i don’t need it. My preaching package is not shiny enough to impress you much either, if you require shiny.  Developing "Stage Shiny" is a waste of my time, and life; not interested.

I tried to be what others wanted me to be in temperament and personality... (what is it they really think a minster should be like anyway? It's not human... not Andy anyway.. ) and I realized something; I simply can't stop being me..no matter how hard I try. I can't fit some peoples illusions for me.  I hurt and bleeded for too long trying though.
I'm not seeking your approval,  nor permission to serve Jesus, like me.  Good job, as I've rarely received either... but that is ok... can we still be brothers and sisters?
Can we serve together without the measure of my faithfulness being reduced to measurement of how much I throw myself into (run, manage, volunteer) your church programs and events, how I park my butt in your church?
I WAS, (still am?) one of them.... one of those who asigning motives like bitter or disgruntled to anyone who did not tow the line and agree to be eyeball deep in local church programs,  (after all, who could ever possibly survive spiritually without them right? ;-))
Criticizing those who would not "commit" to one local church body... . I've discovered some are people (not all for sure)who recognize and walk with the body of Christ at large. They fellowship with the body in many local congregations in the region refusing to get tied down into programs and events that prevent them from spending time with people and discipling people. Forgive me for judging you in the past..... now I see...
I'm glad the body is bigger than my local church, bigger than me, bigger than my plans, bigger than me and my visions and hopes. I'm glad Jesus can direct his people ( if they are asking) so I don’t have to plan their life and service for them.

I'm thankful for those who run and support local churches, as is, for decades. Keep it up. How do you do that? You work very hard. I'm also thankful for those who rattle me, shake my status quo stupor, and challange me by asking, "Why exactly are you so doggedly insistent in this, this way, anyway?", "Why do you think you have to do that? Why are you doing that?"

I'm serving in a way I can bear. If you insit I must do ministry your way, the way I used to, it will crush me and my soul and I will not make it. I'd literally die young trying. Do you really want that? So, I'm here walking forward to Him... I can be your brother, if you will let me. We can discuss, grow, chat, talk, teach and encourage each other. But if it's got to be on the terms of you pushing me to reduce my serice to running programs at your local church and plugging in to one local church...launching all I do from that building- I can't. I promise, I will not pressure you to serve my way either. I'm not angry or bitter.... are you? 
Going forward.

  get past the drawl whine to hear the words...:-)  but I don't ask those people to stop playing their style if worship. I feel no compulsion to change that or them)
I prefer simplicity, not stage, dialogue over monologue style preaching and teaching. Always was uncomfortable with traditional pulpit form and being the guy doing that. But love the dialogue contexts.
As leadership and minstry shifted from shepherd and teacher, to manager or CEO of many things, events and complicated programs, polocies and papers....I no longer qualifed...... it was not me leaving... it was the ground shifting under me.... and I either moved with it, or had to take another focus. I once qualified (well maybe) and soon found (or felt) I now do not, with the shift. I predict many a young ministry men and families being consummed and totally crushed under the new pressures. I see the signs all over the guys and families, and it breaks my heart. I was one of them.
Maybe, in a way, Africa ruined me.... I don’t need anything more than people, gathered in his name with his word to be his body.  I will continue help people discover him...

I chose over decade ago, to serve simply. It took time to grow into that choice.  No agenda, no movement. Organic, house, or other wise were terms I never heard of back then.  But in was very refreshed and I felt less isolated (or crazy) when I discovered there are others also taking simple ways. When I read Neil Coles book "Organic Church", in 2005 it helped me to simply realize I'm not the only one....
I was tired of living two different ministry lives. One way in Africa, another here in Canada.  So we decided to live consistant to our views, and biblical ecclesia values in both places -  one philosophy of ministry for life and ministry so to speak.  So I've not gone emergent,  missional, house, organic, or what ever handles people have. Maybe "Organic fits????... but i'm still not sure what that term means. :-)
Though I read widely some of these materials  from these sources too, and enjoy "SOME" of their perspectives... because I need to hear this stuff.  We have much to learn about simplicity and rawness of where people, in reality-not in theory, are. What people are saying in group is often not what they are really believing or following in private.... people have a lot of things they want to talk about... but can't in church...they feel they can not....this is where I want to walk and work.

It's been about knowing Him, with others. I have long felt the "busyness" of a good few things was an exhausting fruitless busyness burning out the people who run them for no reason.  Things that really could stop today, at no harm to the local church, nor compromise any scripture. I know I am far from alone in this sentiment. So I chose to be a steward of these things and made choices, personal choices. They are not a model for you or anyone else to follow. No matter what I write or say...  people have me figured out (so a few think thet do) and are mistaken (After all, if you quote it, you MUST beleive every word from that author after all ;-)... I know they are mistaken because these types have never sat down and chatted about these things with me. But I frankly don't care to explain to the austrization temprament people why I should belong.... I don’t want what they have (or what they insist we should have) enough to care.
Transformation of the sad old me, my comminity, the world, and walking with anyone seeking Him seeking this transformation, is what I'm "On".
I could care less about music style, and grew tired of 20 hours of prep on a sermon with 30% (or more) of that time being devoted to making a shiny, showy, delivery,. I'm not the charisma guy. Give me content, the shiny package don't impress me much, i don’t need it, and my preaching package is not shiny enough to impress you much either, if you require shiny.  I tried to be what others want in temperament and personality... (what is it they really think a minster should be like anyway? It's not human... not Andy anyway.. ) and I realized something; I just can't stop being me... and I can't fit some peoples illusions for me.  I hurt and bleed for too long trying though. I'm not seeking your approval,  nor permission to serve Jesus, like me.  Good job, as I've rarely received either... but that is ok... can we still be brothers and sisters? Can we serve together without the measure of my faithfulness being reduced to measurement of how much I throw myself into (run, manage, volunteer) your church programs and events in your church?
I WAS, (still am???) one of them, one of those who asigning motives like bitter or disgruntled to anyone who did not tow the line and agree to be eyeball deep in local church programs,  (after all, who could ever possibly survive spiritually without them right? ;-)) who would not "commit" to one local church body... many of whom are people (not all for sure)who recognize and walk with the body of Christ at large and fellowship with people in many local congregations in the region refusing to get tied down into events, rather than spending time discipling people. Forgive me for judging you too..... now I see...
I'm glad the body is bigger than my local church, bigger than me, bigger than my plans, bigger than me and my visions,  and hopes. Im glad Jesus can direct his people ( if they are asking) so I don’t have to plan their life and service for them. I'm thankful for those who run and support local churches, as is, for decades. Keep it up. How do you do that? I'm thankful for those who rattle me, shake my status quo stupor, and challange me by asking, "Why exactly are you so doggedly insistent in this, this way, anyway?"
I'm serving in a way I can bear. If you insit I must do ministry your way, the way I used to, it will crush me and my soul and I will not make it. I'd literally die young trying. Do you really want that? So, I'm here walking forward to Him... I can be your brother, if you will let me. We can discuss, grow, chat, talk, teach and encourage each other. But if it's got to be on the terms of you pushing me to reduce my serice to running programs at your local church and plugging in to one local church...launching all I do from that building- I can't. I promise, I will not pressure you to serve my way either. I'm not angry or bitter.... are you?
Going forward.