Sara and I attended the Hollywood premiere of Rust Thursday night, a movie about a loss of faith by a pastor and his attempts to sort out the lies of his past from the truth of it. No, we haven’t joined the celebrity crowd. The writer, director, and producer of this movie, Corbin Bernson (LA LAW, MAJOR LEAGUE) has become a bit of a friend in the last few years. Brad and I looked in on the movie early on as Corbin shared with us his own recent journey into faith spurred by the death of his father in 2008. I have enjoyed getting to know him and the journey he is on sorting out what faith in God means without all the religious trappings.

The movie in many ways parallels Corbin’s own spiritual journey, but also has an interesting back story. Funded by and set in the real-life Canadian town of Kipling, Saskatchewan (and featuring local citizens in prominent roles), RUST is a labor of love filmed on a shoe-string budget with unprofessional actors, but is an engaging who-done-it mystery surrounded by pain, an enduring friendship, and a passion for truth. I think many of you will find this an interesting and inspiring story. It released straight to DVD and is available at all your normal DVD outlets.

I also wanted to commend another movie that I saw on my recent flight to Germany, not for its spiritual implications, but for its tender story of young love. FLIPPED, by Rob Reiner, tells an engaging story of two kids growing up across the street from each other who can’t seem to “like” each other at the same time. Each event is told alternatively from each character’s point of view and is a great study on how we so easily misunderstand and misinterpret the actions of others. It’s wonderful little movie and somehow during the last song it made me fall in love with Sara all over again, something I look to have happen every day. Sara and I watched it the other night and she loved it too. It opened in theaters but is now on DVD.

Also, Narnia opens today. I probably won’t see it for awhile, but THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER is my favorite book in the Narnia series, and I can’t wait to see it someday soon. But this weekend is way too busy and I don’t enjoy opening weekends anyway.

Tuesday night I did a live conference call with a group of brothers who are sorting out what it means to live out their individual callings in Christ and how to encourage others to that same reality. The call it Base Camp and it is part of The Noble Heart website. They have just released that hour-long conversation as a podcast. I post it here for those who might want to listen to it. We cover everything from the redemptive themes in Les Miserables to the destructive nature of religion on our relationship with God. It covers some of the broad areas that most resonate with my heart.

If what I’m about to share with you breeds any guilt in your heart that you are not doing something similar, then stop reading immediately and go on with your day. There is nothing that guilt would lead you to do that would have any value whatsoever in his kingdom or his work in your life. Fair enough? Please hear in these emails the complete joy these people are finding in what Father has invited them into. If you don’t know what that means for the moment, keep leaning into his love. He’ll show you when the time is right and the opportunity is present.

But if these stories inspire you like the did me to realize how much a simple individual can accomplish that merely responds to the nudging of the Spirit in their heart, then run with that as far as his Spirit might carry you!

Street Kids in Mongolia:

I have listened to you guys on The God Journey for a couple of years and always wondered when I would contact you, here goes. I have been in the US Navy for nearly 20 years and just came off my last deployment. I have suffered through some PTSD. We came to the Lord 12 years ago. Five Years ago, the Lord gave my wife and I James 1:27. This verse came to life and He truly gave it to us to give away. We started taking out the widows trash next door, feeding the homeless and even adopted two children from Mongolia. Three years ago, God laid on our hearts the need of all the children that were left behind in Mongolia, so we acted. We started by sponsoring children from one orphanage. 21 kids the first year. As we speak, my wife and 13 year old daughter are on our third journey with over 60 children sponsored, 4 orphanages visited and blessed, plus multiple street children loved, clothed, fed and connected. When God put Mongolia on our heart we would have never seen ourselves riding this humbling and amazing wave.  This latest trip allowed Stacy to love on street kids and meet with the First Lady of Mongolia. To see so many barriers fall and doors open all because the “crazy round eyes” keep coming back.  We received a letter from the government thanking us for being the first adoptive family to ever come back and love on those left behind. This is the heart that God gave us so many years ago we thank you for sharing a snapshot of what we are blessed to be a part of. I would love for you to read the post on her blog from 30 November 2010. Your willingness to be two goof balls loving on the rest of us goof balls, has directly attributed to our drive to just go. To go 13,000 miles to below freezing temperatures and watch God fund nearly every dime and my wife get paid for the week on top of it. I mostly wanted to share this story on the blog. It is simply a story of LOVE. Thanks Guys, see you out there loving on people.

Dolls for Orphans:

(Note: This started over the weekend as a little Facebook phenomenon. Faith is a fifteen-year-old girl that I first met over 10 years ago staying in her parents’ home. She wanted to do something to help raise money to move the orphanage in Kenya out of the slums and onto a safer locale. She started making these dolls and wanted to sell them for $20.00 each and she is donating all the proceeds to the orphans in Kenya. I watched as people started ordering dolls, and then some wanted to pay for a few dolls and donate the dolls as toys for the children in Kenya as well. Soon she was overwhelmed with orders. Here are some of her thoughts as we have discussed this together:)

“Hello Wayne, I just wanted to talk to you about some of the Orphan Dolls I sold. Yesterday I sold four on the internet and today I sold 17 at the salon, and my grandma wants two! We added the numbers up and it was $765 dollars and Uncle Kent said someone was matching everything we make, so it’s really $1,530! One of Uncle Kent’s clients already said she would pay to ship the dolls out for us. I was really excited, so I though I’d tell you. Faith”

How cool is that? Her orphan dolls are all hand-made. Each doll costs $20 dollars and 100% of the profits go to Orphans in Africa. I’d put a link here so you could order some if you want, but she wrote me this yesterday, “Hold off for a little while on the blog post! My mother and I need to get some more made for this Sunday, because there’s a big Christmas party on Sunday at the salon and we’re going to sell some, and I have a few orders to fill. But I’ll let you know when we’re ready because we want to sell as many as possible!”

So right now Faith is doing all she can. If she needs more orders up the road, I’ll let you know here.

It is so much fun to watch people work alongside Jesus when he has put a vision and a passion in their heart. I was deeply touched by both of these stories. Too many times I hear that we need to have large organizations to make an impact in the world. The reality is any one can have a profound impact on the world by simply following what God puts on their heart. So cool!

First a personal note. We had an incredible weekend that first began by meeting with the people who most carry our lives and this work on their hearts. Then we met some new people in the Clovis area who are freshly on this journey of living loved and escaping the legalistic conditioning of their past. Folks came from as far away as Sacramento, the east bay of San Francisco, and Ventura County. I really resonated with the hearts we met with this weekend. Then yesterday we finished up at a community church near here that needed a substitute speaker yesterday. In so many ways this weekend was filled with great joy.

OK, it isn’t really forgotten, but I get so much about He Loves Me and So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, that it is fun to hear with people connect with Authentic Relationships as well.

This morning someone sent me a link to a new review of Authentic Relationships and I thought some of you might enjoy reading it. To me, this book is the horizontal application of He Loves Me. Knowing we are loved by God allows us to explore relationships with others in new ways. No longer so self-centered on our own needs and coping mechanisms, we can truly begin to love others and watch those relationships grow into wonderful friendships that can last a life time. We tried to describe a process here where real friendship can grow over time, instead of push people to manufactured relationships.

Of course there is a downside to relationships as well. Not all survive. It certainly takes the commitment of two people to have a relationship grow through the pains, misunderstandings, and struggles of real life. This week’s podcast deals with the reality of good relationships going bad. For various reasons not everyone has what it takes to get through the rough days to find that the greatest gifts

I don’t generally deal in Christmas thoughts, so consider this a rarity.

Yesterday morning I was a pretty sick puppy. My daughter, Julie, had come to bring our granddaughter over for Sara to watch while she volunteers a few hours at her older child’s kindergarten. When she got to school she told Aimee that Grandpa was pretty sick. Aimee felt bad for me. Later, Julie noticed Aimee feverishly working at the craft table during some of her free time. My daughter wondered could she be doing with such intensity. When she went over to look, Aimee told her that she was making a card for Grandpa because she wanted him to feel better. Did I ever!

My daughter brought the heart-shaped, orange card to me after school when she came to pick up Lindsay. She told me the story of Aimee thinking up the idea and making the card on her own. Amazing. I stood in awe that my granddaughter in the midst of her school day would even think to try to make me a card. The drawings on it and the plea to “Grandpa, feel better,” touched a deep place in my soul. Tears of absolute wonder and joy began to pool in my eyes. Of course, I would get better. Aimee wants me to.

You can see the front and back of her card here. You couldn’t sell this card in any store in America, but Hallmark has never printed the card of more exquisite beauty or more touching a message. You see, it is not the quality of the card that defines the one who gives it. It’s the quality of the one giving it that brings beauty and meaning to the card.

I think the same is true of our lives, especially in relationship with God. Religious obligation led us to believe that our worthiness to God derived from the quality of work we can do, the gifts we can give, or the heights we can achieve. Jesus taught us something different. Because we are already special to God, even our most immature and faltering attempts bring great joy to his heart. The gift doesn’t qualify the giver; the giver qualifies the gift.

That’s why Aimee’s card is a treasure to me. It represents the best gift she could give at this stage of her life and growth. I’m sure a card she’ll give me when she’s 15 or 24 will look quite different indeed. They will be special in their own way as well, but how could they be more special than this one even if the artwork is better, the cut lines cleaner, or the handwriting more fanciful?

By the same token I’ve known husbands to give extravagant gifts to their wise as a substitute for not loving them over the course of the day. Because the life it comes from is empty, so is the gift even if it is costly. It’s how we live and love that matters most, to God and others. It’s not the size or cost of the gift we bring; it’s what it expresses about the life behind it.

I will treasure this card for a long time! It has six-year-old Aimee pouring out of ever cut, letter, and sketch. It connects me to the one I love so deeply and with whom I share a wonderful grandpa-granddaughter relationship. When I see her card it warms my heart with her love, and it reminds me that God’s not evaluating today how good my efforts compare to anyone else’s. He’s just thrilled that they celebrate the growing bond between us, and they are what I can offer him today taking into account where I am on this journey.

Where’s the Christmas thought in all of this? Don’t get caught up in gift-giving as if your gift has to be good enough to earn their love. If they don’t already, no gift will change their mind longer than for a few moments. And if they already love you it won’t matter what the gift is because they will care about the friendship most of all.

Read this in an email yesterday:

Absence of conflict is not evidence of love.

Wow! Is that ever true. But a perpetuation of conflict without the opportunity to humbly discuss, reconsider, and reconcile would be, I think!

Sharing about the cross the Father Heart Conference in Germany

No I’m not being crucified, at least not in this photo. This was a wonderful time sharing about the cross with the Father Heart Conference in Hannover. It was one of many wonderful and incredible moments hanging out with brothers and sisters in Germany. I can’t believe I spent two weeks in Germany and did not have time for one blog update from there. I’m so, so sorry. It was a whirlwind trip, to be sure, one that pushed me to the limits of exhaustion at one point. But I wouldn’t have traded the times I had with so many diverse groups and people from throughout Germany.

I began in Nuremburg, spending a few days there and then the first weekend at a retreat in Bavaria. From there I went to the area around Stuttgart for the week. Then on Thursday I took a train up to Hannover where I spoke at the Father Heart Conference. The final weekend I was near Hannover at another retreat of free-rangers exploring life in Jesus beyond our religious institutions.

What a fascinating trip! I met people all over the spectrum of this journey, from people deeply involved in and committed to church life lived out in corporate settings, some with 500 year old chalices that the saints have used to celebrate the Lord’s Supper through good times and bad, to those who no longer connect there and are wondering what’s next. The common thread was this—people have a growing hunger to truly engage a relationship with God, not just talk about one. Almost in every locale I was asked about the cross and how God had begun to reshape my thinking there fifteen years ago with some brothers and sisters in Australia.

I talk more about this trip in our recent podcast at The God Journey, but it refreshed me in the knowledge that the most important questions to be answered are not about “church” structures or “church” meetings, but have to do with knowing God as Father and learning to live in his love. If we don’t do that, no matter what we do for “church”, it will become a substitute for our not knowing him. Once we begin to connect with him in a real way, then we can follow him as he leads us into connections he wants to give us with others, in whatever setting best serves his work in us and the world.

Truly there are people all over the world who have a growing hunger for an intimate relationship with God that transforms their lives. As many of you know, I rarely do “lecture” presentations from the front of a room, but enjoy engaging conversations, whether it be two or three of us over a meal or 700 people in an auditorium, though that conversation is a bit more stilted. I loved hear the stories of how God has been stirring the hearts of his people to not settle for religious rituals, but to find their way into a real relationship with him. I love the questions people are asking that deal with real issues of the heart and the confusions brought on by much of their religious training.

At each locale we had an extended time to process a nonappeasement view of what God accomplished at the cross. So many Christians believe that Jesus died to satisfy the anger of his Father, instead of to resolve the sin and shame that kept us estranged from him. Viewing the cross as appeasement presents God as an abusive Father, who lures us into his kingdom under the threat of death and destruction. Instead, he is our Abba who invites us into his house to rescue us from all the ways that sin and shame seek to destroy us. There’s nothing I enjoy talking about more. I even did it in Hannover with a huge cross in the front of the building (see above) that helped people have an image of what was going on in Jesus during those incredible hours. (If you’ve never heard this view of the cross, which I believe to be the primary view of Paul, the apostle, you can listen to it here, and it’s free!)

I hope it was a blessing to those I was with. I can think of so many individual stories of dear, dear people finding their way into freedom and resonating so deeply with some of the things I’d written and some of the things we shared. I am deeply grateful to all those who made my trip so wonderful. I’m thankful to be home now for a delightful Thanksgiving celebration with my family and friends. I hope you have some warm and wonderful days this week with those you love as well.

Widows and children we’d like to help move to a safer and more sanitary location

Many of you who have followed this blog over the past few years know well the need in Kenya thathas been exacerbated by the tribal violence of the disputed elections in 2007. We have an opportunity to help move an orphanage full of children, some of them pictured above, onto an available piece of land that can be refurbished to help meet this need. We have been working with them over the past month to see what solution God might have in mind. Originally they wanted to build a pristine orphanage on 10 acres, but the costs were extremely high.

We encouraged them not to see this move as a permanent solution for these children. God did not make children to be raised by institutions, but to become part of a family. We wanted them to think of this move only as transitional—to care for them until God can work out a way for them to be with an extended family member, or even to be adopted into the home of a believing family in Kenya. It has been a remarkable journey praying with them and helping them think through all of this.

They have now found a one-acre piece of land with some buildings already on it than can be refurbished to help provide a place in the short-term for them to live away from the unsanitary conditions of the slum they are in. The cost of buying the land, refurbishing the buildings, and providing for the staff for two years comes to about $85,000.00. Yes, that is a lot of money and I don’t have a clue if we know enough people who can pull that off, but we do feel led by God to provide a conduit here for people he moves to give to see what we can do.

The most immediate need is to buy the land while it is still available. That cost if $49,000.00 and we need to see if that can be provided soon. To renovate the existing buildings and to build a couple of others as well as to supply them with furnishings will cost an additional $20,000.00. We are also hopeful to provide expenses for the staff, which is $1,000 per month for 24 months. After that the Kenyans will take over the ongoing expenses of this facility as needed. The total to get them moved and cared for is $93,000 and will also provide much-needed jobs for people there in the construction and ongoing care.

Where they live now


The property currently for sale, that we can give to them as a place to live.

We’re going to see if there are enough people out there that God would invite to help us cover these costs. The most immediate need is to buy the land while it is available, so that is our first goal. People have already been sending gifts large and small. One man from Europe just sent us almost $700.00. And to make this goal more attainable, someone has offered to match every gift sent in, up to $50,000.00. This means we only need help with half of the amount.

I am so blessed at the excitement so many people have had to help us share our bounty with these people. If you would like to be part of this to support these brothers and sisters and see the Gospel grow in this part of Africa, please see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560-1 Newbury Rd #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

I’m off to Germany to share God’s life and love there. Three of my books have been translated into German, He Loves Me as Loved, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore as The Call of the Wild Goose, and Authentic Relationships as Authentic Relationships. I’m glad they kept one of my titles! And, in the last few years I have gotten a lot of email from Germany from people who are excited about living more relationally in the life of Jesus. I’m looking forward to meeting many of them and hanging out discovering what Father has been doing among them to teach them how to live in his love.

I often hear people refer to what I write and teach as the Grace Message or the Love Message. I know people often need a simple tag to put on things, but a part of me cringes whenever I hear the sum of my life being reduced to a message. I have to choke down those internal screams that want me to to pound that table and shout, “It’s not a message, it’s a way to live!” The joy of this journey comes not in convincing ourselves that God loves us but in actually learning to live as one of his beloved children in the earth!

I have the same reaction when anyone refers to marriage as an institution. My marriage is not an institution. It’s a relationship of growing love and respect that yields the incredible fruits of deep joy, hilarious laughter, insightful conversations, and a consistent friend and partner through the joys and trials of living in this age. This relationship has been hard won and grace-filled over 35 years of learning to care for her more than I care about myself. (I’m still learning that one!) She is the greatest joy I have in this age.

That’s why when people talk about what I share as the the Grace Message, I want to pull my hair out. If this was only a message, how empty would it be? Jesus has not invited me to teach a doctrine about God’s love or his grace. He has asked me to help people experience the reality of a growing relationship with him deeply centered in his Father’s affection for us. That is not just an intellectual proposition; it is a revelation that allows us to know him in increasing reality.

And as you grow to know him, you’ll realize that he is not a “warm fuzzy” grandpa in the sky. He is the transcendent, holy, all-powerful God of the universe who has offered to be my Abba, the most affectionate term that a first century toddler would call his or her dad. Yes, his affection is outrageous. But that affection also seeks to win me into increasing arenas of light so that I can be transformed by truth, not just coddled in my deceptions, lies, and broken coping mechanisms. That’s why I rarely use the term “unconditional love”, not because I think God’s love has conditions, but because the reference is so static. God’s affection is transformational, allowing me to know him and also changing me at the core of my being.

The invitation to live loved is not to buy into a new doctrine but to embrace a new way of living. I can increasingly live inside the Father’s affection instead of all the fears, anxieties and ambitions of my flesh. It is both joy and freedom of the highest order. And so can you! It is not something you turn on or off in a moment; it is a lifetime journey of being shaped a bit more every day as you learn to live at home in him. Go, live loved! Ask him to help you because this is way above what any of us can produce on our own.

By the way, the picture above is courtesy of some dear friends of mine whom I saw recently in Minnesota. They gave me a Living Loved graphic for my wall that Sara and I love. I asked them if others could get one if they wanted it and they told they could. You can get just a graphic for your wall, or you can order one on a tile like the one above. If you’re interested in having something like this in your home, or giving it as a gift, you can visit their website for more information.

He Loves Me has just been released in the French language by Edition Promesses, who also published So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. The market for these kinds of books in French is incredibly small, but as a labor of love a good friend of mine from Switzerland translates them and a dear lady from France publishes them to make them available. You can get information on ordering either book in French here.

I’m always overwhelmed with joy when people find some of our books and articles so valuable to them that they want to take the time to translate them for others who cannot read English. I just had a request today from a fifteen-year-old girl in Finland that wants to translate into Finnish some of the articles from our newsletter. Her parents are going to help her. I’m just amazed at the graciousness of people who have passion and vision. I appreciate so much those who are willing to go to such lengths to help others be encouraged in the journey of learning to live in the Father’s affection and live in that love with other believers and before the world.

If you want to keep up with various translations of Lifestream books and materials, you can visit our International Page. If you know of others we’ve left off here, please let us know.