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…

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…