For those of you who enjoyed Divine Nobodies, you’ll be thrilled to learn that Jim Palmer’s latest has just been released: Wide Open Spaces: Beyond Paint-by-Number Christianity. I read this quite a few months ago when it was still in manuscript form. I’ll have to say, I liked his first one a whole lot better, but this one has some wonderful moments in it as well.

Here’s what I wrote about about it: “Wide Open Spaces is an unabashed invitation to sail out of the shallows of stagnant, repetitive Sunday-only religion and plunge into the adventure of a life lived alongside Jesus in the wild, open currents of every day life. As Jim attests, the rewards far outweigh the risks!”

My favorite chapter is called, “Here is the Church, and Here is the Steeple.” I think this one chapter is worth the cost of the whole book. Here are some excerpts to whet your appetite.

(About his days as a pastor) I came dangerously close to implying that organizational involvement was the very essence of Christianity. A Christian faithfully attended services, programs, events, and classes, tithed, filled a needed position or served on a committee in the church, and pulled his or her weight in contributing to a steady stream of visitors.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder if we really were a ‘community.’ Seems like what we were facilitating was mostly meeting-based relationships. People would attend services, classes, programs, and groups, but outside the scheduled meeting time, there wasn’t much interaction between these people and the rest of the week until the next meeting rolled around. When the class or group came to an end, for all practical purposes so did the ‘relationships.’

. . . The last few years I’ve discovered that it’s not necessary to have buildings and classrooms, staff and programs, or even incorporate as a 501c3 organization and have a name in order to be the church. You can if you want to, but you don’t have to. Regardless of how you do it, what constitutes church is relationships—with God, people and the world. For me, ‘church’ is taking place in some form or fashion every where, all the time, with everybody. It involves an endless number of interactions and encounters that largely go unnoticed by the rest of the world. But it’s through those very unassuming daily happenings that God is transforming others and me.

When I say our experience of church is ‘everywhere, all the time, with everybody,” what I mean is that we experience the significant components typically associated with church life—such as worship, discipleship, fellowship, mission, service, . . . and giving—through an infinite number of combinations of places, times and people.

. . . I guess to some people this idea of church, ‘all the time, everywhere, with everybody’ may seem a bit chaotic, disorderly or flying by the seat of your pants. Admittedly there’s been a time or two I’ve considered trying to help things along a bit, but I’ve seen God is capable of working matters out just fine on his own.

. . . Church buildings are not essential to the true nature of the church. Christianity has no holy places, only holy people. Christians did not begin to build church buildings until about AD 200. I’m not saying church buildings are wrong. There are all kinds of practical advantages to having a place where people can gather for any given number of purposes. However, Jesus sayd ‘go,’ or disperse to where people are; but at times our church buildings can reverse it to say ‘come’ to where we are. During the first 150 years the Christian church had not even heard of church buildings. In those days the church was a mobile, flexible, relational, humble, inclusive reality that spread like wildfire.

May she be so again!

I thought some of you might be interested in this exchange with a brother today from Australia…

Quite seriously Wayne I can see your point of being the church no matter where we are or go without being committed to anywhere. But extend that premise to the extreme with no one committed anywhere. The Church would lose its presence in the earth, it would be over run. There would be literally no good works being done by corporate bodies who can with all due respect do far more than a lost of disgruntled fragmented people?

I’ll take your challenge and imagine the extreme in a moment. But first, don’t you think you set up a false dichotomy here? On the one hand you see people who meet in building to be committed and doing good works, and those who have taken distance from such gatherings as lost, disgruntled and fragmented? Is that really fair? Even some of the most passionate folks I know who embrace our institutional structures admit that only 10% of the people there do 90% of the work and contributing to let them happen. And the folks I know who are living outside such structures are incredibly active in their pursuit of God’s life, their relationships with other believers and their passion to make God known in the world. According to George Barna’s book, Revolution, they give more in time and money on average than those who attend. What’s more they have connections across broad spectrums with other believers, and many have pointed out that the gatherings in buildings on Sunday mornings make it the most fragmented hour in our culture by age, race, and economic status.

But let’s take it to the extreme as you suggest. Let’s say today everyone stops attending our Sunday (or Saturday) morning institutions. Would the Church lose its presence in the world? I don’t think so, and in fact I think you could argue that it would have both a greater and more effective impact. Admittedly there would be some chaos with so many support staff out of work, and dealing with buildings that would be difficult to sell, but once we got through all of that, I am convinced the church would take on a GREATER presence in the world. Our world wouldn’t have a daily reminder driving down their streets how fragmented Christianity is into its various institutions because people simply wouldn’t learn how to love each other they way they are loved by God.

Those who really love Jesus would find themselves liberated from all the machinery that consumes a huge amount of time, energy and resource and find their lives in more spacious places where they would have time to get to know and love their neighbor, their colleagues at work and people they pass on the street. Admittedly that wouldn’t be everyone’s response, but the reason I don’t fear people not being ‘committed anywhere’ is that they will get to find out just how committed to Jesus they really are. And that’s good for them and good for the world. Many Sunday-attenders have no idea they are missing out on what it means to be truly committed to Jesus. They think that attending a service and dropping some coins in the offering basket validate the depth of their faith. Yes, some would end up disgruntled and fragmented, but they wouldn’t be mistaken for those who really ‘get’ this journey and live in the increasing reality of being transformed by Jesus.

To survive, people would have to become more active in their faith, seeking out opportunities for growth, for relationship and for sharing God’s life in the world. They would lose the passivity that allows people to sit through a meeting on Sunday and live unchanged the rest of the week. New believers would be taught to know the Lord in small groups who share the life of the family together, rather than as cogs in a big machine. And we would have so many more resources to do whatever God might ask us to do, like reach out to AIDs patients, build hospitals in third world countries, feed the poor or host an outreach in a local park where others might come to know him. Leaders would emerge not by their education, vocation, or ability to draw a crowd, but because they have a gift to help people grow and live hospitably so that they actually come in contact with real people.

In summary, the Church would take on a greater presence in the world just because of the number of active believers scattered throughout it every day to make him known. And it would be more authentic as well, since it would be Jesus demonstrating himself through transformed lives, which I think is far more powerful than ornate buildings, spurious TV preachers, or the excesses and failures of our institutional leaders today.

So I guess I don’t agree with your premise, neither would I be so hopeful as to every think even a majority of people will ever give up their Sunday morning custom. Too many people find comfort there, and there’s quite a financial industry now based on its perpetuation. And yes, God will continue to use it to work in the world, because he is gracious to use whatever we give him. But at some point the value of it is overrun by its liabilities, which are many and vast. This life is so much easier learned in the joy of a spiritual family, rather than the rigid programs of an institution.

I think Jesus saw it that way too, which is why he didn’t leave us with the institutional instructions.

Or so that’s how I see it…

Lindsay Grace Williams
born just after 4:00 p.m. on November 14.
6 lbs, 11 ozs; 20 inches.

Join us in welcoming our new granddaughter to the world. Tyler, Julie and Aimee are celebrating their new addition to the family. After a very short almost-didn’t-make-it-to-the-hospital labor, Lindsay arrived safe and sound. All are healthy and resting comfortably as I write this!

Thank you, Jesus, for such a glorious gift! What treasures have you tucked away in this little life?

We just heard from the doctor, and our second granddaughter will be born most likely in the next 24 hours. Having just returned from what is most likely my last trip of the year, we’re quite excited. Lindsay Grace will soon join our family and we’ll let you know here how all that sorts out.

On the way back from Central California yesterday I stopped at the plant that prints all of our Lifestream books as well as THE SHACK—Delta Printing Solutions. What a plant! They print 60 million books per year and we were a bit awed by the size of their presses and their whole production lay-out. We are also blessed to work with some extraordinary people who share our passion for God’s life in the world. It was a joy to meet people face-to-face with whom we’ve talked on the phone extensively.

And now we have entered the Tickle-Me-Elmo phase of THE SHACK. Do you remember the first Christmas Tickle-Me-Elmo became the must-get gift for children? Stores sold out and people waited weeks to get one. Unfortunately th grow curve for THE SHACK has outrun our best hopes and planning. As of today Windblown will run out of books for the second printing, which we did in August. We sold 11,000 books in the first four months and the next 22,000 in the last two and a half months. We never saw it coming. We had already ordered a new printing, when sales took a giant leap. Last week THE SHACK was #17 in sales through the largest distributor in North America. Interest has soared, as have those who are ordering cases of THE SHACK to give away to family and friends. So, we’re going to have a few days overlap where books will have to be back-ordered. We do, however, still have a few copies here at Lifestream if you need some right away.

Windblown will have more paperbacks on November 26, and a new hardback edition available on December 5. The hardback version will include an article written by the author of THE SHACK telling the story behind the story—why he wrote the book and how this unique project came to fruition. It’s a great story.

Daily we continue to receive endorsements from people, as well as gut-wrenching stories of how this book has helped people out of great brokenness to re-engage God as their Father. It has been awesome. And yesterday the author received this from a noted author and theologian:

I am a Franciscan priest living in New Mexico, also a writer and teacher. I just want to thank you, of course, for The Shack, but especially for taking the mystery of the Trinity and making it so real, concrete, relational, and loving. I have done several conferences on the Trinity, here and in Canada, (“The Divine Dance” and “The Shape of God”) and am always saddened that this unique vision of God that we Christians have, has had so little actual influence. Your courage and insight can only have come about by personal experience of the Mystery and a very real life of faith. You take the Trinity from the textbooks and the theologians to real life. Wonderful!!

Thank you so much, and know that if anybody questions you, your theology is excellent and a much needed orthodoxy (and orthopraxy too!). I wish I could write even a bit as well as you do, but I am so happy that you are doing it in a way that is already healing for thousands of God’s children.

Peace and every good,

Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M.

Can you imagine? After unsuccessfully trying to pass this book off to a publisher, we concluded that three of us as friends would find a way to make this book available to the world. We couldn’t be more excited at how this book has found its way into the hearts and homes of people all over the world. We’ve not spent one dime in publicity. We’ve done no advertising nor major media appearances, and yet this gift keeps finding its way to an audience simply through friends and friends of friends. Someone in the publishing industry ran an article last week on THE SHACK, charting it’s growth curve at Amazon, as a best-seller from an unknown author. It was funny how they tried to explain in human terms, what clearly from my perspective is a work of Father’s.

Last week, Paul, the author, visited a bookstore in Canada that has sold over 600 copies of this book. He did some presentations there for librarians, Christian schools and the public. He also spent some time visiting some people nearby whom I had visited last month. When her mom told her that Paul was coming, the conversation went like this:

Aniela: So who’s this Paul coming? Is it Paul Sue??
Mom: No, Aniela.

Aniela: Is it The-Church-Has-Left-The-Building Paul?

Mom: No, Aniela.

Aniela: Is it The-Shack Paul??

Mom: Yes Aniela!

Aniela: First, The-God-Journey Wayne visits us, then The-Shack Paul. Who’s next the Queen???

You have to remember, she’s Canadian, but it’s nice to know we rank up there with the Queen! Hilarious!

Tomorrow I’m off to drive around the state of California for the next few days, with a BridgeBuilders presentation tomorrow afternoon in the Bay area, and a retreat over the weekend in Oakhurst, CA. Then I have some business meetings with various people as I meander back to Southern California early next week. I’m excited, except for all that driving. I’ve got to save up my favorite podcasts to help pass the time. And on an unrelated note, we have begun to post a Russian translation of He Loves Me, for those interested. You can find out more about all our translated materials on our new International Page. But that’s not what I really wanted to write about.

I love the exuberance of youth. It isn’t easy to create exuberance and passion, and young people have it in abundance, but with it often comes misplaced confidence, and that can spell a ton of trouble. And no, I’m not talking about age here as much as I’m talking about experience on this journey.

Often I overhear someone say, “I have the Holy Spirit to guide me, so I don’t need the Bible or anyone else.” I clench a bit when I hear it. Ahh… Youth! Love the passion, but you’ve got to know they’ll end up strewn across the rocks some day having chased down something they thought the Spirit was speaking to them, only to find out it was their own passion or too much pizza. The more people pretend to be certain about some God-told-me information, the more I suspect that they are still a bit green on this journey. Yes, God will scoop them up, help teach them that humility is a wonderful key to living his life, but I would save them from that crash if I could.

Even Paul, the Apostle said, that he only knew what he knew in part, a “poor reflection as in a mirror.” (I Corinthians 13) And remember their mirrors were not the perfectly flat, highly polished surfaces we have today. They were more metallic, like looking at your reflection on a sheet of metal. He’s specifically talking about prophecy and how well any of us actually discern what God wants. I relate to that. I very rarely think that I’ve heard anything God says with absolute certainty. I have inklings on my heart, growing convictions that seem to nudge me in a certain direction. Some of them even turn out to be the Spirit’s leading, while others prove in time they weren’t. So I’m with Paul on this. When it comes to following the leading of the Spirit a bit of caution and humility go a long way to helping us get it right.

In a fresh reading through the book of Acts in the last few weeks, I have been blessed at how the early believers found their sense of direction. Often a turn of events brings them back to Jesus to seek his mind. One of those times is in Acts 15 where the young believers are fighting over whether or not Gentile believers must observe Jewish rituals or not. The focus was on circumcision as some argued that it was an important sign of the covenant that all male believers had to undergo. Paul, of course, disagreed. So some of those more mature on the journey got together to hash it out. You can read the details, but what I love about these moments in Acts was that they looked for three things to line up to have some certainty about what God might be saying.

They looked for how God had seemed to lead and spoken in their circumstances. The looked to the Scriptures, both the Old Testament, as well as the things Jesus said and modeled that eventually became our New Testament. They would zero in on those insights that seemed most applicable to their situation. And, they talked it through with each other until they came to some measure of agreement. Only then, when all three lined up, did they have the confidence to reach a decision together.

I find myself living the same way. Yes, I look for the nudges and insights of the Spirit to guide me in decisions I make. But I’m never certain of those leadings alone. I also search the Scriptures and think about what Jesus and the early church modeled to see if that lines up as well. (I don’t go looking for proof texts to justify my point of view, because that will only lead me back to myself.) And I find myself talking about it with people God has put into my life as we kick around what might be him and what might be Wayne. (Of course it is important on this last consideration to be talking with those who are truly learning to walk in humility with God, not just people who want to scratch your back by saying what you want to hear. Also make sure they are people on the journey of being shaped by Jesus, not just Pharisee types who merely follow rules and rituals and want to find some principle to guide you.)

I have the most confidence to move ahead when all three of those line up. One alone isn’t sufficient, though I’ll let my best understanding of Scripture veto any decision I’m going to make. Instruments on an airplane measure a number of variables, and when they all line up, you know you’re on course or the glideslope for landing. And, yes, I realize many have not yet learned how to search the Scriptures outside the false religious interpretations that long held them captive, but that is no reason to discount their value. It may be incentive enough to learn how they become an important piece of the puzzle of making God’s life more certain in you.

But don’t fly with only one input when you don’t have to. God has not only given us his Spirit, but also his recorded revelation and other brothers and sisters who can help us see more clearly what God might be doing in us. I’m thankful for all three.

I often report on my impressions from my travels, but it is far more fascinating to me to read what others seem to see in it. One of the brothers I met in Vancouver last weekend wrote up his impression about the trip and if you want to see what it looks like to someone else, you can read Paul’s insights at Radical Reversal.

And then I got this last week, and just loved the journey this man is on and how he’s responding to the life God is bringing to him. Here are some excerpts from his journey:

What a wonderful series Transitions is! I have and am listening to it over and over and over. It is fresh air! It is windblown! It is revolutionary!

I grew up Amish. All my life I have felt a pull to something more, something eternal, forever, beyond, a beckoning. Somehow I knew it was God, but never realized it could be a relationship with the Father. Your stuff is so rich, deep and right! I’m now 47 yrs. old and beginning to live loved! I have lived my entire life trying to find this; I tried and did everything religion required, I wore the right clothes, said the right things, testified correctly, combed my hair the right way, went on mission trips, taught Sunday school, prayed before meals, memorized chapters and books of scriptures, I even wore the color of shoes that was required (black). I did so much and it left me soooo tired!!

Somewhere along the route a friend hooked me up to your website and it is good! I just wanted to say Thanks for spreading good stuff.

And one more. This from a brother that just read the Jake Book:

A friend of mine gave me a copy of your book, So, You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. Reading that book has been the most liberating experience since coming to Christ. To be free to relate to individual believers as God establishes relationships without the need to join a particular organization has enabled me to hear from and grow in God in ways I would never have before.

It gives me the freedom to discuss issues and feelings without the fear of ecclesiastic sanctions. I find that I am a lot more open with others and able to receive feedback from them. I feel less threatened and I believe that I am less threatening to those God places me with. Thank you for your words of wisdom.

It’s a lot of fun to see all the ways Father encourages people on this journey, to live more deeply in him and the freedom Jesus purchased for us. Grab a bucket, will you? And sling some freedom around your corner of the world. Don’t worry about battering ‘the system’ or trying to convince people you’re right. Just help them wherever they are take another step closer to Father’s reality. How? However he leads you!

The best personal assistant I’ve ever had in my office, won’t return today. Julie Williams, my deeply loved daughter and the one who has filled all the book orders and kept the place organized for the last two years is retiring. Actually, she is great with child, and in another month or so, I’m going to pick up another granddaughter that will bring great joy around here. So that will be awesome!

If any of you dealt with Julie while she worked here, you will realize how grossly overqualified she was to do what she did for us. She did it for some extra spending money and to help out around here. She could also bring her daughter to play with grandpa while she worked. It was perfect! And now, it’s over and I’ll admit to being a bit sad but that’s only because of what an awesome gift she was while she was here. She did more in her eight hours a week here than most would do in twenty and tracked so many things that for the time being will fall back into my portfolio! Drats!

I will miss her sorely in months to come, not just for the work she did but the extra Father-daughter time that allowed us and the wisdom she brought to so many of the projects we worked on here. She helped with The Shack and the new edition of He Loves Me. She helped me make decisions about so many things. What an awesome young woman! I couldn’t be more pleased at how she lives her life, and am incredibly blessed to be her father and her friend. Of course we’ll see a lot of her around here still. (Babysitting will become more important I suspect with a second.)

But I have no idea how to replace her. Since my office is in my home, it isn’t easy just to hire someone from outside. I’m sure Jesus has a solution, but I don’t see it yet. So in the meantime, I’ll be picking up her workload, which may mean things will have to wait a bit longer to get done.

But I wouldn’t have traded the last two years for anything. Thank you, Julie! You were a great blessing to me and so many others. May you know great joys ahead loving your husband, raising your two young girls and everything else that Father calls you to do. And, besides, I’d rather be your father than your boss any day! But if you miss those book orders someday, you’ll be welcome back any time…

I’ve had a great 10 days traveling through a bit of British Columbia. I’ve met a lot of people over that time at various stages of sorting out what it means to live free in Jesus. We’ve talked tons about our life in him and learning how we live in the simplicity of his working, instead of the frustration and ineffectiveness of our own. It’s been wonderful.

I fly home tomorrow and probably won’t have to board another airplane this year. I’m going to stick pretty close to home for a while. I do have one car trip in November plan for a BridgeBuilders presentation to the Association of California Administrators and then a weekend in the Oakhurst/Fresno area with some fellow-travelers. Other than that it is time to take some rest and get some stuff done around the office and home. This ends a pretty extensive travel season for me, where I have had multiple trips, back-to-back, that have kept me on the road for 11 to 12 days. It’s all been good, but it’s time to hang around the house so Sara won’t forget who I am.

One of the things we focused on this weekend is that the best expressions of church life do not form in models imposed on people by others who think they know what is best for them. The best expressions of church life rise out of friends and friends of friends that Jesus connects together. In other words the church is not something we build by our efforts, but rises naturally out of people learning to live in his love and sharing that love with others around them. It is hard for some folks to see that, since we have the idea that if we can just embrace the most Godly system we’ll see the church rise in glory. The fact is the church isn’t a system at all, but an extension of the relationships we have with other believers and seeing how Father directs those in that which he might ask us to do and discover together…

I have also not had a ‘send mail’ connection over the last couple of days, so I have a huge backlog of answered emails that won’t go out until tomorrow. So if you’re waiting for a response from me, just wait a day or two longer.

The man who sent me the pictures of the roadside memorial with a copy of The Shack posted on a one-way pole, wrote me to fill in a bit more of the details:

There was a father and his little girl killed at this spot within the last 2 or possibly 3 years. Their first names are on the little cross that is in the background of one of the pictures of which I was not close enough to capture in detail. From where I was standing I was not able to see any last names on the cross. The details as I recall was that the father was either heading out or returning home after a trip for some ice cream with his little girl. They hit a truck and trailer unit that was turning into a driveway a little past the sign in the picture. I tried to call up the news story using several search variations, however was unsuccessful in obtaining any information.

Needless to say I was extremely intrigued by this and very excited to see a copy of The Shack attached to the little makeshift memorial. Amazing!!! I sure would be interested in knowing what kind of impact this had on the person or person(s) who attached the book to the sign post?

Wouldn’t we all? But some things we don’t get to know. I’m surprised the memorial had been there so long, especially with the fresh flower by it, unless the person bungee-cording the book to the post left it there. Who knows what Father might accomplish through a simple gesture…

Someone from Alberta, Canada sent us these photos today. A few days ago he’d driven by a makeshift roadside memorial to a recent death on the highway. When he passed by it yesterday he noticed something had been added. Do you see it there on the post? Let’s zoom in by looking at the picture on the right. Someone had attached a copy of The Shack to the signpost near the accident.

That’s all we know. We have no idea who died there, who posted the book, or what is going on, but what a poignant statement. The mail we continue to get because of this little book is astounding.

One of the people really impacted by it is Wynonna Judd, the Country-Western recording artist. Here’s what she wrote:

“I received a copy of The Shack during a very difficult transition in my life. The story has blown the door wide open to my soul and during this time I’ve asked many questions. It reminds me that though I ask, ‘Why?, I know who is still in control.”

Just today I received this from a sister in South Carolina:

I’m half-way through The Shack and have been to Willie’s web site. I haven’t yet found the words to express how it has touched my heart. If only we were told of the inexplicable love of God when we were growing up, instead of the hell, fire, and brimstone so many of us were introduced to! When they taught us to sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know…” And we were like, “yeah, right!

And this from a South African couple who have recently re-located to England:

We really enjoyed our time with you in Bournemouth when you were out. We picked up a copy of The Shack that weekend and, man oh man, it was such a refreshingly different truth-injecting non religious read. I am busy giving it a second go due to the rich content that I seemed to have missed the first time round. We recently made a trip back to SA for a friend’s wedding and spent a lovely 2 weeks there. We took some copies of the book for people and the feedback has been really amazing.

Now I’ve got to get back to formating the hardback version for those who have requested copies that will be more permanent…