I love those moments when God pulls back the curtain and I get to see what he has been shifting in my heart. I used to think most change came from hearing a new truth and applying it. I am increasingly discovering that real change comes from a relationship with him that changes the way I think about things, and thus the way I live. I almost recognize change after the fact. Sometimes that comes from being in a familiar circumstance, but finding that I’m not responding in the way I used to because I don’t have the same reactions or emotional triggers I had before. That’s fun!

And, because I’m a writer, sometimes I get to see that when people send me a quote of something they read of mine and I realize that’s not quite the way I think anymore. I had that happen this morning. Someone sent me an email quoting from THE NAKED CHURCH:

Much has been written in the last few decades about the church being an organism and not an organization. We are comfortable with that theology, but the models are hard to find…

They concluded their note with these words, “We continue to pray here for transformation and transformed models.

I had to chuckle when I read that. The one thing most folks don’t know about writing is that it is only a snapshot in time of the thoughts and experiences of the writer. If that writer continues to grow on, he may look back on some of his earlier words and phrasings that make him cringe, thinking he wouldn’t say it quite that way today. I always find that to be true, which is why I usually tinker with one of my books when I reprint them. I want to keep updating them to reflect my current thinking.

By the way, this is a good reason why we’re encouraged to follow Christ, not an author or a book! While either may be helpful to discover things God is doing in us, when we shift our focus from following him to implementing someone’s ideas in a book or even a seminar, we’ll find ourselves losing the vitality of his life in us. You cannot follow Jesus by following someone else’s idea of following Jesus. Hopefully the someone else’s in our life are helping us learn how to follow him.

Anyway, back to the point. Since my last rewrite of THE NAKED CHURCH in 1998, my thoughts have shifted yet again. When I read, ‘the models are hard to find..’ in that quote this morning, I laughed. Wow! I remember being there, in the desperate search for a model that would put this all together. Since, I’ve discovered the search is ill-fated. Jesus did not leave us with a model to implement, but his Spirit to guide us. Finding a model always suggests we’re replicating some THING instead of learning to live in someone.

Now, I’m not looking for models at all! If I wrote that line today, I’d probably say something like this:

“We are comfortable with that theology, and though the models may be impossible to find, examples of people living in the reality of the church are not. They exist all over the world as people who know how to love those God puts before them and to walk in concert with other believers on a similar journey as Jesus connects them.”

While I was praying and seeking for a model, I kept stumbling over people who were simply living the reality that I hungered for. And you know what? None of them were following a model. In fact a lot of them were disconnecting from models they had served fruitlessly most of their lives. And when I stopped looking for models, I found examples of people living in him everywhere!

My whole view of the church had shifted. I no longer see her as weak, corrupted and rare in the world, but strong, growing in purity and in every nook and corner of the world we live in. So perhaps instead of praying for ‘transformed models’, we can simply ask God to open our eyes to those who are simply living in the reality of his church—with a growing trust in the work of the Father and growing connections with others on a similar journey that allow the church to take shape in each locality and in each circumstance as he desires.

For those of you that have been waiting for THE SHACK in hardback, it is out today! And, do they look awesome! This edition has larger type and an appendix in the back entitled, “The Story Behind The Shack“. In it, the author, William “Paul” Young wrote it to tell how he came to craft this story, and how it came to be published by a circle of friends.

But shouldn’t the hardback version come out before the paperback? Well, that’s how most publishers do it, but we’re accidental publishers, remember? There is a larger profit margin in hardback books, which is why publishers do them first and then bring out the paperback version. We considered all that with the first printing, but our priority was to put this story in the hands of as many people as we could, and not worry about our profit margin. But so many people want to plow through this story again and again and take notes in the margin, that they asked us for something more permanent. That made sense to us so we ordered up a hardback printing for those who wanted it for their libraries, or those who wanted something more fancy to give as a gift. You can get it from us at Lifestream, or you can order it from the Windblown Media site.

I almost hated to post this today, because there’s been so much focus on THE SHACK here this week. I know some of you are loving the behind the scenes look and, yes, we’re having a lot of fun with what’s going on. But in the end, the book is still an ‘it.’ and I want most of our conversation to be filled with a HIM! This journey is not about books or publishing ventures, as fun as that might all be. It is about knowing him, about learning to live in the love of an awesome Father, and by living in him be transformed into his image.

He is still the reason I wake in the morning, and behind all that we do here. Don’t ever let your excitement (or even despair) over anyTHING going on in your life, ever trump the simple glory of living in him on this day! May he grow in you this weekend and may we all learn better how to yield to his ways!

Sara and I reading some of the key conversations in THE SHACK in the mornings as she gets ready to leave for work at 6:30. This morning, we came across this:

“McKenzie, even if you had been to blame, her love is much stronger than your fault could ever be.”

What a way to start the day! I must have missed this little nugget in the eight or nine times I’ve read through this book. Or, at least it didn’t hit me in the same way, because I don’t recall seeing it before. Sure it’s talking about a daughter’s love for her father, but doesn’t this also reflect the love the Father has for each of us? Isn’t that so often missed in our religious attempts to get people to feel guilty or to work harder?

God’s love is much stronger than our faults could ever be!

Think about that. There is no failure, no place of brokenness in our lives that can separate us from the love that is so much stronger, so much more fathomless than any of us can conceive today. If we really, truly knew that we would know how to simply live in him today and enjoy his presence with us! I’m pretty sure that’s all he wants.

I can hardly bear to think of climbing on an airplane any time soon. Don’t get be wrong. I love hanging out with people who are in various stages of sorting out this incredible journey in the life of Jesus, but I don’t enjoy all the airport crud you have to endure, or being away from home. Fortunately, I am in the midst of an extended stay at home to take care of a lot of other things and even do some writing.

I have the sense I’ll be doing less travel in 2008 because of other projects on Father’s heart here at home, including some a couple of books I’ve long held in my heart. And I’m sure THE SHACK will take an increasing amount of time as its influence grows. However, some trips are already starting to take shape fpr 2008. I just updated my travel page today with and thought I’d share it here for anyone who wants to plan to join us anywhere along the way:

January 25-28: Omaha, Nebraska
February 7-10: Washington, DC
February 17-22: Wichita, Kansas
February 22-24: Pratt, Kansas
March 7-17: North and South Carolina (tentative)
April 17-28: New England
June: Germany/Switzerland
July 9-11: Orlando, Florida

A letter we got last week about THE SHACK, said this: “(Your book) took me places I really did not want to go; but having made the journey, would not have missed it for the world.” What a great observation!

Doesn’t that describe the ways in which Father works. Follow your own agenda and desires and you end up shipwrecked in the consequences of your own selfish independence. Follow Father, even though it’s scary and uncertain, and you’ll end up smack dab in the middle of his life in situations beyond your wildest considerations! That expresses so well the last decade and a half of my life. God has put me in places I’d never choose to go, and then in the middle of it, he just overwhelms you with the wonder of himself!

Specifically that’s been true of this marvelous story called THE SHACK. I know some of you are probably tired of hearing about this book, but others have been praying with us about this over the past two years and are interested in the back story of this increasing tsunami! It is the craziest story I’ve ever been part of and now starting to draw some major attention. As many of you know this little book appeared in my inbox nearly three years ago. I loved it when I read it and encouraged the author to get it into print.

The author, Paul Young, didn’t want to do much with it. He’d written it for his kids and thought he’d share it with a few friends. But myself and others saw something in this story that begged to touch the world. Brad, my God Journey co-host, and I helped Paul ready the book for publication and I took it to a number of publishers with whom I’ve had working relationships. All turned it down for reasons I could not understand—until yesterday! In an exchange with a publisher on an unrelated matter, THE SHACK came up. This editor had been one of those to whom I’d submitted THE SHACK for publication. They had passed on it, and this was her explanation:

It’s tough to talk publishers into doing something unusual. I call it the Catch 22 of publishing. If somebody has done something like it, then we can’t do it. If nobody has done something like it, then we can’t do it. I’m speaking not just of of our house… but every house I know. Sometimes it takes the people closest to the project to launch it.

That explains a lot about the lack of creativity in Christian publishing today and why it has been so frustrating over the years to get them to think outside the box. Finally, as many of you know, Brad and I formed a publishing company,Windblown Media, and printed THE SHACK last May. What began as slow, lapping waves on the shore is now swelling into a rising tsunami. Here’s how one of the top media consultants in Christian publishing recently wrote this to Publisher’s Weekly:

I’m not sure if The Shack by William Paul Young is on your radar yet or not. It’s becoming an independent press (Windblown Media) runaway best-seller. Here’s the scoop:

Windblown did a soft-launch on May 1, 2007 just on their company website. They sold 10,000 (paperback) just on their website from May 1 to the end of August. It wasn’t on Amazon or in stores unless stores heard of the book from readers and ordered it through their site.

September 1st they hard launched at retail via Ingram for national distribution. They sold 22,000 copies from Sept 1 to the end of the first week of November. They just took delivery of a 50,000 third printing, and in two weeks have sold over 20,000 of that print run including orders for over 7,000 copies just yesterday.

They’ve ordered an immediate 4th printing of 25,000 to get them through Christmas. Windblown is also now launching the hardcover edition with a small 3,500 print run, available now for Christmas sales.

The cool news: They’ve spent only $200 on marketing. The rest is all word of mouth.

But there’s more. I got this report from my partner Brad today, who is the President of Windblown and the one behind order fulfillment:

As of December THE SHACK has jumped up to #19 of ALL books being sold at Ingram. We just beat out I AM LEGEND—that has $$millions of dollars ramping up their marketing machine. We’re just 5-6 steps down from THE SECRET, which was last year’s word of mouth phenomenon. There’s maybe only 4-5 paperback in the whole top 25—most Everything else is hardcovers.

Just today we sold over 12,000 books with new orders from major bookstore chains, who want to display it prominently on their front tables. One buyer asked us about our advertising campaign behind the book. We laughed. We can’t keep up with sales now, why would we advertise? Daily we hear from people who feel their spiritual lives have been rescued from anger, doubt and frustration toward God and renewed a relationship of love with him. We’re hearing from celebrities who love this book and are endorsing it to their fans. We’re hearing from theologians of every stripe, some who want to use the book in seminary classes on God and suffering. We’ve also been contacted by major movie studios about purchasing the movie rights. We’re not selling those, by the way. The dream from the beginning was to make this into a general-release feature film that would offer our culture a view of God that religion has totally obscured. It looks like now we’ll get that chance.

And we hear from authors who want to work with Windblown Media or those who want to know the ‘secret of our publishing success.’ We laugh. There is no secret. We did everything wrong with this book. We were just three brothers that wanted to take something we considered a gift from the heart of our Father and make it available to folks . The power of the story itself has swept people up with it. After reading it, many order cases to give to friends. So many people have blogged about it, and recommended it to their friends, that it just keeps growing by word of mouth.

It is all just beyond us to comprehend, and almost beyond us to keep up with it. To all those who have prayed with us, and helped pass it along, please know how deeply grateful we are for your participation in this process.

i know this is long, but it’s a story we wanted to tell. Remember the top-tier media consultant I referred to earlier, he wrote us a note last week that blew me away:

“Not by might or by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord.”
You may see this only once or twice in your lifetime.
It is unique, in the full sense of that word.

When I read that, I sat back overwhelmed. It’s true, you know. You couldn’t orchestrate something like this if you tried. And tere are hundreds of multi-million dollar publishers who try every year to do just that with all their demographic surveys and business expertise. This is not our deal. This is God’s gift. We’ve simply been asked to be it’s steward—keeping the message clear, the story available and our hands open before him. Which is what we’re trying to do!

When the idea of publishing this book ourselves came up, I was the one most dead-set against it. We’ll never be able to do it justice, I thought, and there were so many things we didn’t know about getting this book out there. Trying to find the time, the energy and the resources to do it, just wasn’t in my thinking. But one small, gentle step at a time, Father took me places I didn’t want to go.

And now, I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

This is another one of those email exchanges, that I felt would also be of interest to many others… Someone has either swallowed or is about to swallow the red pill! They wanted to know if I could help!

OK, I am in trouble. I discovered you and read two of you books and started the 3rd just this week. Oh, how your writings resonate with something deep inside of me. I know what your saying is true—I just know it intuitively. My wife and I are weary of the institutional system of doing church. We so want to separate ourselves. We are tired of the professional class and lay separation, the need for enormous amounts of money to keep the machine operating with the appeal to tithe, trying to reconcile law and grace…

Our story is long and tangled, but the short of it is that I am running into resistance from leadership which I sense will be escalating, using the tactics that you are so very familiar with. I have already been ask, “how do you interpret the scriptures that tell us that we should submit to leadership and our “covering?”

Please help us get beyond this initial hurdle—it is a big one. Thank you, my new found friend and brother.

Thanks for writing. I certainly hear your heart and am grateful for the journey you’re on, even if it may get painful in days ahead. It sounds like you’re moving from the disillusionment of religion, into the reality of real relationship with him. I’d like to tell you that’s all glorious, and it will be in the end, but the process can be a bit disorienting and painful. That’s why many talk of it as ‘de-toxing’, because there is a bit of withdrawal involved from our dependence on religion. And, there’s the reaction of others that won’t understand what he’s doing in you and will make harsh judgments about you.

First, let me encourage you to take a deep breath and slow down. If this is all fairly new to you, you are probably far more ready to react than you are to simply respond to him. You don’t have to be in a hurry here. Let your desires draw you closer to him so that he becomes more real to you than those you fear. So many who first see these things react by attacking the ‘system’ or the ‘institution’, before they even understand how Father wants to work in them. They want everyone else to understand their new insights, and end up like the proverbial bull in the china shop, upsetting things God doesn’t want upset. If he asks you to leave, leave. Don’t try to drag others along. Don’t make a final stand affirming that you have the truth and they are all in error. Just, go quietly and let him lead you on. If he has others he wants you to talk to, he’ll arrange that.

How do you do this? One step at a time. Each day wake up and ask Father what he has for you, and follow him as best you see him. Walk in the integrity of your conscience, with humility and graciousness to everyone you meet. Always doing what is in your heart to do and take on whatever consequences result, whether it be the angry accusations of others, or the guilt for not doing what others expect of you. It is often those very consequences that show us next steps and open doors to what God has for us in days to come. But, yes, they are painful too!

Yes, people will try to get you back in line by claiming that Scripture teaches us to submit to our covering. Simply ask them where? The only covering in Scripture, that I know about other than the head-covering for women is the fig leaves in Genesis. I’m not sure covering there as a positive thing. They were trying to hide from God and each other, remember. Who needs a covering from God when we have all been washed in his forgiveness. We can boldly come before him now without any need for covering. But, there is no way to scripturally convince people there isn’t a call for covering who are convinced there is. Leadership is never viewed as a covering in the New Testament, and leadership ‘over’ was forbidden by Jesus to his followers in Mark 10:42-45. The only passage people point to is Hebrews 13 about submitting to our leaders, and which King Jimmy translated as to ‘those who are over you in the Lord.’ But that is not the correct translation or interpretation of this passage. The translators added it to embellish ‘church’ authority. This passage is simply about yielding to those who stand before you in the Lord and keep watch for you. That’s brothers and sisters who have your bests interests at heart, not obeying the systems managers of religious institutions.

The overwhelming weight of NT Scriptures talks about each one of us having an anointing to know truth and error, of not needing anyone to teach us, for all will know him. The glory of the new covenant is that we all get to know him and that Jesus makes himself known to each individual surrendered to him, not through any kind of leadership hierarchy. I know some worry that will lead to anarchy, but folks who are growing in relationship to Jesus and his Father will know how to treat others with love and know how to work with each other when he calls them together. But don’t expect those who have a vested interest in the power or money of authority positions to affirm that, and free people to live in it. It just doesn’t happen until God opens their eyes.

I’d just encourage you to walk graciously in the light God has given. Love people but never compromise your conscience to go along. Folks will not understand that and say horrible things about you to marginalize your life from ‘infecting others’, which is exactly how Jesus said they would treat us in Matthew 5 at the end of his blessed-are-you statements. So just keep following him. As graciously as you can explain to those who ask what you see God teaching you, but never try to convince them. By trying to, you’ll only make them defensive and push them deeper into the cave in which the are already hiding… And that just won’t be helpful.

In it all you will learn to depend on him in the rich joy of a love relationship, and that will carry you on to incredible expressions of life in him and body life with other believers, that you cannot even conceive at this point in the journey.

My favorite restaurant around home is a barbecue joint! And like most good barbecue joints they slow cook the meat at a low temperature for a long time to make it nice and tender, only throwing it on the grill to sear in the flavor just before it is served. Man, that’s good stuff!

I thought about that yesterday after a phone call from someone struggling to find others near her on a relational journey. She had just moved recently across the country and she said frustratingly, “It’s been two and a half months and I don’t see anything happening yet!”

Now, before you think ill of me, I understand her frustration. I really do. I remember being there at so many places in my life where, wondering where God was if I didn’t see stuff happening as fast as I wanted. Somehow I got the mistaken notion that just because something had happened yet, it was proof that it never would, or that I wasn’t part of a longer (read, slower) process that would really produce the fruit of God’s kingdom in my life. But I knew something had changed in me as I listened to this woman. I almost busted out laughing and had to choke it down knowing my laughter would be misunderstood. When I told Sara about the phone call over dinner, she did bust out laughing. “Two and half months? That’s nothing!”

See, we know that now. We didn’t know it years ago, but living now in the beauty of God’s unfolding work in our lives (and being in our 50s here probably doesn’t hurt) we know the best things in our life were produced in a slow-cooking process of God transforming us at a deeper level so that we could enjoy the fruit of what he wanted to produce in us. Whether it was setting us free in a broken area, drawing us closer to his presence, or connecting us to other brothers and sisters for rich rich fellowship and doing things in God together, none of those things happened quickly. But they did happen deeply and we’re now experiencing the riches of those things.

Remember we serve a God who told Abraham 25 years early that he would have a son and he would become a great nation. Abraham thought that would happen immediately and was frustrated by the promise when month after month it was clearly not happening. He even tried to fulfill the promise his own way. But if you read his story you’ll see that the frustration of an unfulfilled promise did its work in him, bringing Abraham into a deep and abiding faith in who God is. We may think God makes promises to torture us. God actually makes them so we can relax in the moment and let him fulfill his purpose in his time.

Tough lesson. That’s why I didn’t want to laugh at someone who thought two and a half months was more than enough time to give rise to significant and authentic body life around her in a new location. Now I’m not saying God can’t do it that fast and I do know people who spilled into realities like that almost on a whim. But most of us know that is the exception rather than the rule. Our God does slow-cooking. That’s not because he likes our discontent, but because he wants to bear the fruit in us that remains, an that means the slow, deep transformation that rises from the core of our being, not just throwing us a bone to keep us quiet every time we get frustrated.

Someone wrote me this morning with an observation his wife shared the other day: “The journey is in the journey.” We are so focused on the destination we too often miss the joy of the process. Isn’t God’s promise to us specifically designed to help us relax and just ride out our life in him today, instead of being so frustrated at what he hasn’t seemingly done yet!

If you’re going to enjoy this life in him, that’s something you’re going to want him to teach you. Otherwise you’ll be counting days and fighting off frustration at every turn. Father knows everything about you and where you are today. He knows what he is doing in you to open the real doors into that life in him you’ve been praying about for years. He is doing his work in you to bring that to fruition. Unfortunately, it’s just probably going to take a whole lot longer than you’re thinking it will. But if your eyes are on him, rather than on the outcome, the delay won’t matter. In fact it will only make the final result so much more tasty and succulent.

That’s our granddaughter Aimee (on the left) last night as we went over to help her celebrate her third birthday. It had been a tough day for her. Since her new baby sister arrived she has been missing the ‘mother time’ she had gotten used to as an only child. I’m not sure she thinks Lindsay Grace (that lovely little girl on the right) is such a blessing at the moment. But we came over, brought her some balloons and shared some cake and ice cream with her, and she lit up like the candles on the cake. This picture of that event reminded me of something I’d read earlier that day in Genesis.

After the world had turned so evil that God had to purge it with a flood. After the waters and receded and Noah and his family had left the ark, God spoke to them (as Eugene Peterson translated it in The Message.):

Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans let his blood be shed.
Because God made humans in his image
reflecting his very nature.
You’re here to bear fruit, reproduce,
lavish life on the Earth, live bountifully!
Genesis 9:6-7

It was the last part that startled me. After his warning about not taking the life of a fellow human because they are made in God’s image, he tells Noah to live fruitfully and bountifully. Just after so severe a judgment, I would have thought God would tell them to be careful and live more righteously. While he still made clear that violating others is so against his nature, he still wanted them to enjoy the bounty of this earth and enjoy the life he gave them. Is that also what it means to live righteously?

I do think that’s the point. God gave us life to be enjoyed. But it is easy for us to focus so often on what we don’t have and forget to enjoy him in the midst of what we do. And it’s easy to be overwhelmed with all the need in this world, where sin, sickness and death have robbed people of life and to feel guilty about whether or not we’re doing enough to help others or enough to right the injustices perpetuated on others. An unhealthy preoccupation with those things robs us of the ability to celebrate him the midst of our lives. Part of living righteously is not just embracing God’s holiness, but also embracing his creativity and to live bountifully in whatever God has given us today.

Certainly at the same time we can openly share with others and play the part he’s asked us top lay in relieving the suffering of others. But we do so because we realize that whatever impinges on our freedom to enjoy God in his creation is also part of the fall. Sin causes robs us of the joy in life that he has given us and focusing on need all the time can be exhausting and bring us no closer to him.

No wonder Jesus spent so much time celebrating the richness of his Father’s life, whether at wedding feasts, dinner with his friends, or parties with sinners. That enjoyment is also part of his Father’s righteousness. And it isn’t just for those who have a lot. I’ve seen little children in desperate poverty play and laugh with joy in their little games. I remember back to the early days of our marriage, when we had almost nothing. Everything we owned was in the trunk of an Oldsmobile Cutlass and we came to California to strike out on our life together. In those more simple times we were blessed just to have each other and a life ahead in God.

So don’t forget to live bountifully, not just one day a year, but as a regular part of life. Do it in the joy of pleasant and abundant circumstances, and let him teach you when life’s brokenness meets you head-on. I was in a hospital this morning with a good friend whose wife was undergoing surgery this morning to remove a tumor that may be malignant. Certainly their challenge is great in this season, but his joy can still be known in the middle of such struggles. Maybe that’s where our fellowship comes in as others rally around those who are carrying a heavy load and help them with it.

Stateside tomorrow we’re celebrating Thanksgiving Day. There is so much that Sara and I have to be thankful for these days and with great relish we will share it all with the God we love so deeply. And we want to send our Thanksgiving greetings on to others who are celebrating as well, and to all those of God’s family throughout the world. Even in the midst of great tragedies our Father makes his life known. Even learning to share in that joy is part of his gift to us in a broken world.

Look at that little girl’s picture at the top left. With such exuberance and joy her arms are open wide and her face filled with joy. That’s how I want to be with my Father today—and every day he graces me to do so!

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…