A good friend sent me this quote today. Probably everyone in the world has seen it but me, but I’ve really feasted on it today. I’m going to resist the temptation to comment on what it means to me and perhaps others of you who find it touching will comment on what it means to you first…

At this moment I’m traveling through the Northwest and having an incredible time with a wide variety of folks. The theme of this trip seems to be the value of relationships, in God’s heart for us and hopefully in our hearts for others. Shortly before I left we spent a weekend with some of our oldest and dearest friends. When they left Sunday afternoon, Sara and I reflected on what a treasure that relationship has been over the years. On Thursday morning I got up at 3:30 a.m. to get to Portland 8 hours before I needed to arrive. Why? There’s a brother and sister in Portland that I’ve dearly come to love over the years. We have been together perhaps 4 days total in the six years we’ve known about each other. We just wanted to spend some time together and I came away so encouraged and my view of God broadened by what God is doing in them.

I spent most of my weekend with a traditional fellowship looking to be more relational in their life together. I think it became clear to us all how low a priority building friendships can often become. Even when we do activities or have meetings together, those things can become more important than the friendships that bring such rich treasure to our lives. They can even become a barrier to real relationships instead of a tool to help build them. People can serve together and miss the incredible joy that comes from sharing the journey of Christlikeness together. Unless relationships are a priority, everything else will swallow up our time and energy.

While I was there, two people I’ve never met before traveled an hours journey to spend a few hours with me. A week earlier they had never heard of me until one of them read an article I’d written. They went to my website and saw I was going to be in Salem. They just wanted to meet me. We had an incredible time talking for three hours. One of them even volunteered to drive me to Washington so we could have some more time together. I know I have met some new friends.

Last night I was with a group in Washington where one lady drives 90 minutes one-way to join with folks who want to share the journey together. This is why I think obligation is such a cheap substitute for building relationships. If people don’t desire to be together enough to voluntarily make sacrifices for it, the relationships won’t grow anyway.

One more thing. I spoke with a friend recently with whom I’d shared home group life until I moved away some years ago. They used to have lots of friends and how they’ve lost touch with everyone. We talked about how much work time he’d invested in friendships in the last few years and he admitted it was little. Work, commuting and home responsibilities crowded out the time they used to devote to building friendships. Having Jesus-centered friendship is an investment. If we don’t take time to build relationships we’ll find ourselves alone. That’s no way to live. We serve a relational God and I am convinced that almost everything Jesus does he does through relationships, not programs, models or works. Who is God putting on your heart today? Whether they be believer or unbeliever, invest some time cultivating a relationship with them and see where it goes. You’ll be amazed at what God will do. I find for every 20 or 30 relationships I give myself to, maybe 2 or 3 of those become great friends over time. If you’re not casting the net out there, the fish aren’t going to jump in it by themselves.

Do you remember on 9/11 all those phone calls from workaholic stock traders that were trapped in the World Trade Center? Their last thoughts and words reached out in gut-wrenching agony to affirm their love for spouses, children and parents. No one dies wishing they had worked more or seen more football games. When all is said and done the closest we’ll touch eternal treasure in this world other than God’s presence are the relationships we share with others. Make time for that however God leads you. They don’t just happen!

When the nurses at the hospital where my dad had his recent open-heart surgery first began to get him out of bed and get him to start walking they told Mom and I not to try and help or to worry about his safety. They said that if my dad stumbled or slipped they were trained to fall underneath him so that he would land on them instead of the hard floor to lesson the risk of injury.

Dad never stumbled so we never saw them do it, but every time I saw them walking him in the hallway, I could see how ready they were to ‘take the fall’ for him. And I can’t imagine a greater description of ministry than the picture of getting beneath someone as they are going down so that you minimize their risk of injury at our own expense.

Could that be why sinners found themselves attracted to Jesus? He was a soft place for people hurting people to fall. And as he is, so are we in the world…

Nancy from Texas posted something in the Lifestream Community the other day that summed up so well what it means to be real in the body of Christ. Nancy said she pulled together various things she had heard from some of my teachings on some of the CD series that she has been listening to. I think she captured it well and wanted to replay it here:

In a combination of her words and mine, this is what it means to Nancy to be real with other people:

Being real doesn’t give permission for people to be rude or obnoxious, to make false accusations or to victimize others with their hurt and pain. But it is the freedom to express themselves as honestly as they can, to ask questions and to follow God’s working in their heart. Anyone who has found an environment where this kind of freedom is encouraged—where they are not judged or rejected for being honest, struggling or making mistakes has found a true piece of the body of Christ. Only in an environment of this kind of freedom do we grow.

And if that’s the kind of relationships we want then it will also be the kind of friendship we extend to others.

One of my favorite people in the world (and I have many of these) is a man who calls himself Clothman. He and a group of folks up in Missoula, Montana have been through an interesting transition from a more traditional congregational life to one that is more relationally based. For Glenn that meant transitioning out of vocational ministry as the pastor to secular employment as a school bus driver among other things.

Under the his penname, Clothman, Glenn writes a weekly newspaper column for local papers which provides a different and witty look at how God works in us and the world. Here’s a clip from his latest column, which offers a great reality-check. If you don’t get what he’s saying here, then you have an amazing discovery still ahead for you.

I thought some of you might appreciate a look over my shoulder at a recent email exchange.

I have been reading and appreciating your writings on the Lifestream website for about a month now. Recently, I read your Journey notes of 2002 and am beginning to see that I am an attempting manipulator of God and people, even my own family. No wonder I get frustrated, anxious and impatient when God and others do not do what I want them to do. I’m only beginning to see this, but want the Lord to deal with this in my life, for the sake of freedom.

Tonight I read the following from one of your Journey Notes of 2003, “There is no greater freedom than learning to live deeply in the life of Jesus and watch his Father’s plans and purpose unfold in our live.” Will you help me to understand what it means and how to “live deeply in the life of Jesus”? >From your perspective, how does one know if he is doing that or just hoping that he is. The ministry I have been working with for many years teaches how one can be filled with the Holy Spirit by faith. I have taught others myself, but wonder if I really am, or am living deeply in the life of Jesus, or really trusting Him in a way that He wants me to.

Even as I write this I think I am getting deeper. I know the scriptures that speak of God’s love for us in Christ, but how do I really grasp, beyond the shadow of a doubt that God really loves me, really will shepherd me and meet all my needs.

I just returned from an awesome weekend in Sacramento. While I went there to primarily spend time with one group of believers that are wearied of the status quo and seeking a more authentic faith and community, I also got to spend time with people from at least three other groupings of believers that are going through some wonderful transitions as well. I talked with four current or previous ‘pastors.’ I wish those who are ready to write people off who are still trapped in the system, could have been with me to meet people who are taking huge risks personally and corporately to follow what Father has put on their hearts.

One of the themes that kept coming up in personal conversations is how complicated we make the life of Jesus in our day. Jesus gave us something so simple, and we humans build all kinds of structures around it that rob us of its simplicity and power. Instead of freeing people to be dependent on Jesus and trust him to bring it all together our fear that he won’t makes us create complicated systems that weary people in endless strategizing, heated debates and time-consuming maintenance. Part of that has to do with building ministries today by making people dependent on certain models or personalities. While it may make good business sense, it makes lousy kingdom sense. And unfortunately many of those ‘outside-the-box’ continue with the same methods in smaller boxes and the same fragmentation.

I returned home to an email from a brother on the coast in northern France. He said some hard things about Christianity in America, but I do think he hits the nail on the head. I also think what he says is true not only of American Christianity but also other ‘Christianized’ cultures where I’ve traveled. It seems wherever Christianity has dominated the landscape we can get easily lost in the things that divide us rather than in the life of Jesus itself. I found his perspective from a different culture to be incredibly refreshing even though the mirror he holds up for us may make us cringe. In his words, I heard the voice of Jesus and commend them to you:

That sounds like a planet I’d like to be on. Living deeply in Christ is not rocket science. We miss it so easily, not because it is too difficult but because it is far simpler than we’ve been allowed to believe. Authentic Christianity in our day is also more rare than we know. If we truly lived like the counter-culture Jesus demonstrated we wouldn’t have time for bickering, wouldn’t have the heart to maintain religious machinery and wouldn’t fragment into small camps of Christians that can only walk with those who see everything the same way we do.

Let Jesus simplify your perception of him and your journey in him. And while you’re at it, pray for the brothers and sisters in France. I’ve been there. His observations fit what I tasted of as well. So many people are lost in the emptiness of religion, and that includes many who claim to be Evangelicals, so that the voice of Jesus is not often heard in the culture. But we probably have no idea how many groups of people just like he walks with are hidden all over the world.

I don’t hear much about this anymore, but it was a catalyst for a lot of contention and division in the Charismatic Renewal back in the mid 1970s and into the 1980s. Charles Simpson, Bob Mumford, Derek Prince, Don Basham and Ern Baxter were gifted teachers and authors who found some common ground in their spiritual passion, teaching, and alternative views of church life
Unfortunately it didn’t turn out to be as helpful for everyone involved as they had hoped and it proved divisive among the Charismatic renewal as a whole. Someone sent me a new book last week entitled The Shepherding Movement , by David Moore.

I have to tell you, I wasn’t all that excited about reading it since it seems like an old story that doesn’t need to be resurrected. Though I wasn’t involved in the movement, I did help pick up some broken lives scattered in its wake. At the time I was deeply saddened by how those brothers had squandered their teaching gifts to create an institution that for many proved manipulative and destructive. But things aren’t always all that they seem. In recent years I have also met a number of people whose lives were deeply grounded in Jesus’ life through that movement. They talk with regret about the hurt it caused, but are still grateful for how God had used that season in their lives to equip them to live deeply in God’s life.

So in the past few days I read the book. I was just going to glance through it briefly and add it to the large stack of books that others want me to read. But somehow I got hooked by the story and drawn to the lessons the other was making. Moore’s book claims to be an academic treatise of the movement and he does a masterful job at maintaining an even-hand throughout. As he tells the story from extensive research and interviews with the key players a different story emerges than the one I’d assumed. He wrote about people who were passionate to find a more relevant way of living as the church and how they stumbled upon certain relationships and models they thought were Godly. As they played out, however, their desire to create a new structure and encase God’s work in it created a monster that even all of those who helped create it eventually came to lament.
Part way through this book I recognized that this was not just an historical curiosity; it was also a magnifying glass probing the motives of my own heart.

This is a timely book for anyone who hungers to find new models of church life to make it more relevant to today’s culture. This path has been trod before. The very idea that we can contain God’s working in a movement controlled by people, however gifted or wise, must be blown apart. To think that we can construct replicatable models, no matter how much people may cry for them, and the exaltation of any hierarchical structure to maintain it, invites us to recreate that same monster. This book shows all too well how the best people, driven by the best ambitions can end up doing things that not only distracts people from God’s life, but also devours them in the process. If we don’t learn the lessons of those who have gone before us, we are doomed to repeat their mistakes.

When we think our structures are more biblical, more Godly more right than other structures, we’ve already lost that battle. Jesus didn’t place the life of his church into any particular system, but into the hands of the Holy Spirit. That is best maintained by people from all over the world who will listen and follow Jesus in concert with others who are also doing so as well. He will knit us together through the relationships that he desires so that he can prepare a spotless bride for his pleasure.

I’m not advocating that we remain passive in this process, but that we take great care at how we labor. Let’s not invest our efforts in movements or models that will come to nothing but in people who will demonstrate his life in the world. We can equip people to view the church as Jesus viewed her. We can talk about scriptural priorities for discovering that life together and help people see the myriad of ways God gifts his people with authentic community. We can teach people how to walk together and listen to God together so that he can produce among them the expression of church life that will most encourage their journeys and reach people in their communities. But we dare not give ourselves to deceiving idea that we can encase that in a system or entrust it to any self-appointed group of leaders as a substitute for growing dependence on the Head of the Church himself.

This book is a must-read for anyone concerned about church renewal in our day. But don’t read it looking for mistakes others are making. This story will probe your own heart to ensure that you are working alongside Jesus as he builds his church rather than asking him to work alongside you as you try to build your own version of it.

I stumbled across this the in Proverbs over the weekend:

Doesn’t that topple all the lies of the world, which seems to say that finding pleasure is the only thing that makes life bearable? Don’t get me wrong. I like pleasurable moments as much as anyone, and I’ve had many in my life. Jesus even said that he was giving his disciples instruction so that they could know the fullness of joy. That’s the kind of joy that resides in us regardless of of our circumstances. But I also notice that as we live deeply in God’s life he provides moments of absolute pleasure that fill us with laughter and a deep sense of fulfillment.

What Solomon points out here, however, is also important. The relentless pursuit of pleasure will always leave us frustrated. No high will ever be high enough to match our expectations. Perhaps he is saying it is better to stumble upon the pleasures that God gives than to run off seeking our own. It is no doubt true that the pursuit of pleasure even by well-meaning believers is a trap that distracts us from God, opportunities to grow with others and to be available to people around us who don’t know Jesus. What would our lives look like if we trusted God with our pleasure, and set our focus on following him?

Four verses later, that’s what Solomon writes:

Jesus said something like that didn’t he? Seek to save your life and you’ll lose it. Lose it in him and you’ll find the life that really is life. Pleasure without him will never satisfy for long. Having him as the pleasure of our lives will allow us to experience the deepest joys in ever-increasing glory.

One of the brothers I met on my recent trip to New Zealand, Jack Gray, sent me an article he had written some years ago on Hebrews 10:25. It says so well what I have come to embrace. You can find more of his writings at The Pilgrim Path.

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is. The quotation of this verse is the main ammunition of those who oppose people, whose view of the Church has led them to abandon regular attendance at “services” or religious meetings. What these proof-text-quoters fail to realise is that the verse will not bear the meaning they wish to read into it. In an endeavour to be honest with myself and to face up to the real meaning of the original of this verse, I did some research.

Firstly, I found that most modern translations simply say, “Not neglecting to meet together.” Now, I suppose one may construe that in the sense that we are not to neglect attending meetings; but equally it would support quite informal times of getting together. The important point, from the context, is what we do when we do meet together. This context makes it clear that meeting together should be the occasion of “provoking one another to love and good works” and of “encouraging one another”. The meeting is for interaction, relationship and mutual encouragement. My personal experience would strongly suggest that these aims are much better served when I am together with two or three brothers and sisters in an informal situation, rather than in structured “meetings”. But maybe I too am guilty of making the verse say something to suit my position, so let us go to the original Greek text of the verse and seek the independent and authoritative interpretation of “The Expositors’ Greek Testament.”

The word here translated in the King James version, “Assembling yourselves together” is “Episunagoge” rather than the simpler word “Sunagoge”. Here is what Expositors has to say, “Delitsch suggests that the compound word (episunagoge) is used instead of the simple one in order to avoid a word with Judaic associations, but “sunagoge” might rather have suggested the building and formal stated meetings, while the word used denotes merely the meeting together of Christians.” In other words, it would seem that the writer to the Hebrews had been at pains to indicate that his meaning was not formal religious gatherings in a religious building, but rather any coming-together of Christians.

Further, I would suggest that there is much less true “meeting” in “Meetings” than in times when we sit down together, two or three believers, to open our hearts to one another, and to talk about the Lord. It is on such occasions that I find myself being encouraged and provoked to love and good works more than in formal services.

The other point of considerable importance is this; when these early Christians came together, they did not gather in the name of any denomination, but simply as members of the one Body of Christ, the Church. They had no Christian denominational menu to choose from, such as is set out in the “Church Notices” in our newspapers. If they belonged to the Lord, they belonged to the one and only Church, and meeting together was only unto Jesus Christ the Head of that Church.

No matter how fervently we sing, “We are gathering together unto Him”, so long as we are meeting under denominational banners and the names and organisations of men, we are giving the lie to our words by our actions. So, if those who quote Hebrews 10:25 to me can show me where in this land I will find Church as it was in the New Testament, there I will be glad to assemble together with my brothers and sisters in the Lord, but I will not gather in the divisive denominational churches of today, whose very existence denies the unity of the Spirit we are exhorted to maintain.
To summarise: I reject the way in which this verse is used by those who would persuade us that, because we do not “go to church” and attend services and religious gatherings, we are in disobedience to the word of God. I reject it for the following reasons:

1) The original Greek text does not specify attendance at regular organised services, but rather the evidence strongly suggests that it means something less formal, which does not take place in religious buildings. Indeed, the whole Epistle to the Hebrews is aimed at demonstrating that the “Old Covenant” with its “Regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary”(Hebrews 9:1) has been abolished and the New Covenant, which needs none of these things, has been established.

2) I would hold that wherever and whenever Christians come together, and they encourage one another and provoke one another to love and good works, then they are meeting in the true sense of this verse.

3) True meeting of heart and spirit is much more likely to occur with twos and threes than in larger formal gatherings.

4) Even should we concede that larger gatherings are what is meant in this verse, we have departed from the original ground of gathering, simply in the name of Jesus, by meeting instead in churches with denominational names. When Christians in a town gather in a dozen different churches on a Sunday they are not “Assembling together” but assembling separately.

5) Finally, Jesus said, “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” The verb, “gathered” is in the passive mood. Do we trust Jesus to do the gathering, or do we arrange gatherings? We are finding that, as we allow Jesus to do it, He provides times and occasions of rich intimate fellowship and times of mutual encouragement, quite often when we have not expected it. I look forward to the time when there will be a restoration of that original creation of God, a pure unified Church, unified, not by the ecumenical schemes of men, but by the Holy Spirit of God, released in fresh Pentecostal power among us. Then, I have no doubt, there will be large “family reunions”, joyful gatherings with wonderful fellowship, but no religious services conducted by men. These gatherings will be creative events directed and orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.