spirituality

A Church Without Walls (part 1)

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Here’s my vision (not in the apostle John way, but just something I am hungering for lately). I see a church without walls. I see a church not bound by bricks and mortar, but made up of living stones, of people whose broken lives are being made whole. Something Henri Nouwen calls “wounded healers.” I see a church unified in purpose and dedicated to sharing everything, from joys to griefs, blessings and sorrows. I see a church where worship breaks out in front of Chick-fil-A or Starbucks. Where worship is not an event, but a lifestyle.

I see a church with real people who are authentic in their brokenness and who can be genuinely themselves. I see a church earmarked by grace and acceptance, not condemnation and judgment. I see a church with no walls between believers, because a wall between two believers is a wall that keeps a non-believer from seeing Jesus in us. I see a church where I will lay down my offering or stop my worship and go to my brother or sister in Christ and be reconciled before I write one tithe check or sing one note of praise.

I see a church who meets wherever there is a need and whenever someone is hurting. I see a church who would rather draw in the lonely, the outcast and the sinner than the perfect saints, career churchgoers and religious-types. I see a church who follows Christ, not American Christianity. The church I see is becoming my passion. I want to see Acts 2 in action. I am sick and tired of the same old routine and traditions and forms without power. I want the kind of anointing that caused thousands to come to Christ daily. I want the building to shake from the power of God inside. I want signs and wonders. I want people on the outside to see how much we love each other and be in awe of the power that God’s love in us unleashes.

The Bible says that we are living epistles, not written with ink but by the Spirit of the living God (2 Corinthians 3:2-3). We are God’s letters to the whosoevers.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

No more apologies

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After talking with a couple of friends, I decided to write this blog. Not right away. I had to let the ideas simmer in my brain. Sort of like lobster. Except for without all the screaming.

God willing, I will never again apologize for being who God made me. I will never apologize for being a work in progress, a masterpiece in the making (to paraphrase Ephesians 2:10). I will never apologize for the fact that I am not perfect.

No, I am not like everybody else. I am not like anybody else. I am me. You are you. And God is God. Keep that straight and you will be fine.

I have been influenced in positive ways recently by some friends of mine. God uses people like that to make his masterpiece, like extra colors on the palette.

So here’s my thank you part of the blog. Thank you, Jerrod, Ana Liza, Stephen, Christina, Tim, John, Aaron, Michael, Luc, Paige, Brad, Julie, Richard, Hector, Mom, and many many others who have inspired me and made me a better person.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

How to lose friends and influence nobody (my attempt at satire)

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I seem to have a rare spiritual gift. In fact, I am the only one I know who possesses this fine gift. I seem to have the ability to lose friends. How do I do it, you ask? Here’s how. In 5 easy to learn steps. Actually, there is only one step.

That one step is to do and say really stupid stuff. Or to try way too hard to be funny or witty. Or in my case, to just be me.

I tend to run off friends (most of those being of the female persuasion). I am such an overwhelming personality that they can’t stand me for long periods of time. I think the magnets in my magnetic personality are set the wrong way, as I tend to repel rather than attract.

The end is always the same. Silence. They just vanish. They won’t talk to me or return my posts or texts. I simply cease to exist in their world. Which makes me think that another blog on my magical abilities might be in order.

Here’s the real point. The actual serious point. God loves me. I can’t run him off, no matter how I try. And I have tried. He’s there, loving me the same whether I am full of joy and fervor and my faith is on fire, or whether I am ice-cold and callous and could care less. My God will never ever ever ever stop loving me. The nights when I am curled up in the fetal position, buying the lie that no one loves me because I am unlovable, my Abba is cradling me in His arms.

The point is not for people to like me. The point is to be faithful. The point is for me to be a friend who loves at all times and never gives up on his friends. Never. Because that’s what I’d want people to do for me. And thank you to my friends who have seen the best and worst of me and still stick around.

Not a good weekend

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I’d have to say honestly that this was not a good weekend  for me. I relapsed into some old issues of co-dependency and lack of trust. I found out that I am not nearly as strong or wise or good as I once thought. I felt as though I were under spiritual attack all weekend.

I also found out that God can still use broken people. I was reminded that His grace covers all my weaknesses. I know that God is good and that He will never give up on me. One day I will  be who I’ve always dreamed and hoped and wished I’d be. I will be everything God has dreamed for me. In the meantime, I am still Abba’s child. He still loves me as if I always did what was right and loved people the way I should and lived out of hope and not fear.

The best part of the deal is that tomorrow is a clean slate. Every morning His mercies are new. Thank you God for a love that never gives up and for hope that never fails and for grace. Especially for grace.

Praying the Blood

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Jesus, I believe You. I believe Your blood has covered all my sin and vanquished every lie and broken every chain. You have overcome, and the victory is won! I am more than a conqueror through You who loved me.

By the power of Your blood, I renounce the lie that I am alone and that no one wants to know me or hear what I have to say.

By the power of Your blood, I renounce the lie that I don’t measure up or have what it takes and that I am just in the way.

By the power of Your blood, I renounce the lie that I have nothing to offer and that I might as well not even exist.

Jesus, You don’t come to me to tell me the truth. YOU ARE THE TRUTH! You don’t come to show me the way. YOU ARE THE WAY! You don’t come to give me a better life. YOU ARE MY LIFE!

You make my brokenness beautiful and my woundedness a balm of healing to others. You don’t make me good, or better, or my best. You make me ALIVE!

I will never ever find the words to tell You how good You’ve been to me. May my life be a living prayer of thanksgiving back to you. Amen.

Some things I have learned what it means to care

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out-of-solitude

First of all, everyone should read the little book, Out of Solitude by Henri Nouwen, which is the basis for this blog. It’s only 63 pages and you can read it in an hour or two and be radically changed.

Care at its core means “to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with.” It means weeping with those who weep. It means sharing joy and laughter. It means that I come out of my protective shell, become vulnerable and step into your world. It means that I realize that there is no one anywhere that I can not identify with if I am honest with myself. I have it in me to be kind or cruel, honest or a liar, warm-hearted or cold-blooded, etc. It means that I don’t have to give the right answers or even give answers at all. I can sit with someone who is hurting and cry with them and let that be enough.

One old saying that I like goes like “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Jesus is the best at this.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Henri Nouwen writes, “By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but to the powerless, not to be different but to be the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation, we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.” A “fellowship of the broken,” as he calls it.

I am broken and empty of anything God can use. I am full of myself and until I learn to empty myself of all that I think is so good about me and let God fill me with Himself, I can never truly care and serve. Until I give up the desire to do good make a name for myself and simply be available to people in need, I miss the blessing of seeing God really work through me. That’s what I want. That’s what I need. That is community.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Lessons Learned from a Life covered by the grace of God, Part 1

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I have learned a few thing in my time that I want to pass on:

1) Never try to figure out anything, especially people, when you are tired. I personally tend to drift toward the negative when I am exhausted and am not really good at being balanced or fair to others when I am worn out.

2) When you are inclined to judge someone’s actions, remember that there is at least one factor that you don’t know about that person that if you knew, would cast a totally different light on their actions. Also, remember that in the same circumstances you might do the same or worse. Which leads to the next point.

3) If you err, err on the side of grace. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Of course, use common sense and don’t be a doormat, but think of what you would be apart from the grace of God and then you realize that you have no place to give up on or despair of anyone (I totally stole that one from Oswald Chambers!)

4) Remind yourself that in life and the big picture, it never was, is not and will never be about you. It always was, is and always will be about God and His redemptive plan for the world. His will for you is always in context of His plan for the world.

5) Never go by first impressions, regardless of what the world tells you. Some of the best people I know who have impacted me were the ones whose first impression was unfavorable. I think you sometimes have to step out of what is comfortable and familiar if you want to find God’s secret blessings and surprises.

6) What is important in life, what I want you to remember, is not me or how well I write or how clever I am. You can forget all about me and if you remember that God loves you, that God is in love with you, and that God can take the worthless and transform it into something priceless, then I am OK with that. As one person said, I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody that can save anybody. That’s all I am, regardless of what my ego tells me.

What are some lessons you have learned? Share them with me, because I am always learning and God always has something to show me. Plus, we only grow and mature in the faith in community. You can never discover God’s will for your life by yourself, but only with other believers as you share yourself and your gifts to serve one another in love.

That’s all for now. More later.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Taking Back the Terms

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I’ve been thinking today a lot about certain words like radical, militant, fanatical and zealot. These days, those words seemed to be used almost exclusively with a negative connotation. I myself immediately think of terrorists or extreme right-wing militia groups who kill abortion doctors or church people who are always picketing something or other and chanting about how God hates this group and that group. I think it’s time we took these words back. Here’s what I mean:

Be RADICAL in serving others and sacrificing of all you are for the kingdom of Christ.

Be MILITANT is loving people as they are right now, warts and all, and living out Jesus to them.

Be FANATICAL in forgiving those who hurt, slander, and insult you; and in finding ways to display the grace of God to them (and to anyone else who has been written off as unlovable and unredeemable).

Be ZEALOUS in seeking the face of God wholeheartedly and in striving to know Him more and more all the days of your life.

I am more and more convinced that the life Jesus calls us to is radical, militant, fanatical and zealous. Anything short of that is unbiblical. This kind of life is something we can not do on our own. We need God’s power working through us. The good news is we have it. It’s “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Lord, fill us with your Spirit and give us the mind of Christ and live through us to the world around us. Make us your hands and feet, so that we may walk in your ways and go to the people You want to touch. May we see with Your eyes and feel with Your heart and go in Your strength.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Who speaks for you? (expanding on an idea I heard at Kairos)

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When the accuser of the brethren comes against you with accusations of your past, who stands up in your defense and speaks for you?

When other people judge you and make assumptions about you, who speaks on your behalf?

When the voices in your own head are full of condemnation and shame and guilt, who will be lone voice of dissent that will overpower all the other voices?

When you yourself have reached the verdict of guily with the maximum sentence of hopelessness and despair with no chance of parole, who will take your place?

There is one. He who sits on the throne at the right hand of the Father and who ever lives to make intercession for you. Jesus is the one who speaks for you. He is the one who took the blame for all the mistakes and blunders and failures, paid the penalty for those sins and make a spectacle of triumphing over the Enemy on the cross. When all these voices are giving you names (and you give yourself names I can’t print here), Jesus is the one who gives you a new name written on a white tablet that only He knows. And one day you will know it, too.

The One who knows the most about you– and has the most right to condemn you –doesn’t. The One who spoke the first words of creation and will speak the last words at the end of all things speaks the final word on your behalf: “It is finished.” No one else will ever be able to bring up accusations against you again. Jesus is your Advocate and He will never, ever, ever, ever, ever stop fighting for you.

I’ve always loved the saying that goes something like: “When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.”

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Thanks, Mike. These words were a revolution to my mind. I am thinking radically different than I was yesterday. Most of all, thank you, Jesus!

My prayer (as prayed by Henri Nouwen)

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nouwen

“O Lord Jesus, you who came to show the compassionate love of your Father, make your people know this love with their hearts, minds, and souls. So often we feel lonely, unloved, and lost in this valley of tears. We desire to feel affection, tenderness, care, and compassion, but suffer from inner darkness, emptiness, and numbness. I pray tonight: Come, Lord Jesus, come. Do not just come to our understanding, but enter our hearts– our passions, emotions, and feelings– and reveal your presence to us in our inmost being. As long as you remain absent from that intimate core of our experience, we will keep clinging to people, things, or events to find some warmth, some sense of belonging. Only when you really come, really touch us, set us ablaze with your love, only then will we become free and let go of all false forms of belonging. Without that inner warmth, all our ascetical attempts remain trivial, and we might even get entangled in the complex network of our own good intentions.

O Lord, I pray that your children may come to feel your presence and be immersed in your deep, warm, affective love. And to me, O Lord, your stumbling friend, show your mercy. Amen.”

From A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee by Henry Nouwen