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I couldn’t resist sharing part of an email I received last week, but only caught up enough with my email to read it today. It brought many a smile to my heart for lots of reasons. I love how broadly this book resonates with people and how this family travels:

Our family was making a relatively short trip (5.5 hours driving) to visit my parents during spring break and we have come to enjoy listening to books and radio plays during the drive. For this visit my wife and I decide that we would look for a suitable Christian book to listen to, something the whole family would enjoy. I should state that we are a family of faith, with some of us being more “religious” than others, so purchasing a Christian book was not a method to investigate Christianity, but way to deepen our faith, and broaden our minds.

As we spent a couple of hours doing one of my and my boys favorite things, perusing the bookstore, we looked at numerous audio books to purchase. All of which said “buy me, buy me”. We had settled on a book to purchase, “The Ragamuffin Gospels”, or at least thought we had, when a book apparently jumped off the shelves and right into our hands. You guessed it, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. It screamed, buy me My wife, Rose, and I have long believed and taught our two boys that Jesus and the Father guide our lives, and this was one more example of it for us. We knew this was the book and we immediately put it into our purchase this pile. Little did we know how much our minds would be broadened.

We passed the time during the trip by being captivated by Jake’s journey with John. We would turn the CD player off between chapters to discuss what each of us had learned and discuss the different ways each of us approached what we had heard. It was one of the best drives to my parents house that we have ever had as a family. The insights into our lives revealed to us on that Tuesday morning and afternoon were simply incredible.

I said earlier that some of us are “more religious” than others in our family, let me explain. We are a Catholic lay-family. We have been married for 20 years this August and we, like any married couple, have had our share of ups and downs. The two things that have remained constant throughout our marriage have been our love and faith in Jesus and each other. My wife is a “cradle-Catholic”, as are my two boys, while I came to the Catholic faith about 12 years ago. There was never any pressure from my wife for me to become a Catholic, let alone go to church.

That is how my search for religion started (little did I know then that what I was really searching for was relationship, not religion). We visited numerous churches, went to numerous masses, services, worship and fellowship meetings before I decide to be baptized in the Catholic faith. Since that time I have been active, active, active in the church. I have been on parish councils, president and vice-president of parish councils, on finance committees, various planning committees, taught Sunday school (or religious formation as we refer to it), been part of the planning and execution of vacation bible schools, and a lector and Eucharistic minister during Mass. I enjoyed it all immensely (probably for the wrong reasons). I learned a lot about myself, other people, the church; but never about what it means to live in Jesus’ love. Despite the joy, I always new there was something missing, something that didn’t set right with me.

During my conversations with my wife after church on Sundays I would inevitably say something along the lines of, “There has to be more. What I see is the priest and the church espousing is a list of man-made rules and regulations. I hear The Church wants you do x,y, and z. I never hear about what God and Jesus wants.” After listening to this week in and week out for a number of years I became disillusioned with “The Church”. But I kept quiet (publicly, amongst other Catholics, never expressing my doubts). I did my duties as a good Catholic and Christian.

After all I was alone, or nearly alone, in my way of thinking. Then along came Tuesday, March 17, 2009. I slid the first CD of “So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore” into the CD player in our vehicle and things began to change. Your words in this book echo what I have been saying for years. At one point, during one of John’s conversations with Jake, Rose and I broke out laughing. The words John chose were exactly the words I had used just the Sunday before to express my believe in why God sent Jesus to us. I could have written that passage and not had a single word different from yours, and I said as much. Then my 11 year-old, Nicolas, pipes up from the back seat, “Alert the Media, Dad is the Apostle John.” It was one of those family moments you had to be there for.

But that does not tell the whole tale of how engrossed the family became in this book. We finished listening on the way home a couple of days later. The boys fell asleep before we put the last disk in, but Rose and I decided to listen to it anyway. As we neared home, about an hour out, the boys woke up and the first thing they asked for was to listen to the last disk because they had missed it. That is impressive when you capture the hearts and imagination of two little boys and their parents with the same story.

All of this above Wayne, is a long winded way of saying thank you to you and to Dave for writing this book. I know the true thanks goes to Jesus and Father for putting the book in our hands and CD player. However, I firmly believe that had Father not wanted me to come into contact with you, he would not have guided you to write this book, or me to purchase it. I am listening to it again for the second time in a week and I am enjoying it as much this time as I did the first time. I know I have to listen to it many more times to glean the nuggets of truth and information out of it.

Like Jake in the book, I have million questions to ask running around in my mind. I just wish that I had the time to ask you. I hope at sometime in our futures that Father sees fit that we meet one and another. Thank you again for this book. I look forward to reading more of your work.

After my last blog posting I got this response from a woman who now pastors in Illinois It continues the conversation in a wonderful way:

I just read the e-mail you posted on your blog. I also just recently read your book. Wow!! I realized that there are probably countless individuals who can relate to the individual who was raised in a “religious” home where “law” was enforced and mercy and love were absent.

I was also raised in a home where my Pastor father was an amazing and gracious and loving man and my mother was broken and extremely “religious”. I never knew whether she would grab a Bible or a belt. For many years I believed I deserved only punishment and judgment. I believed I could never and would never be good enough to face a Holy and righteous God. What I didn’t realize was that Jesus loved me and was pursuing me passionately. As I was running I encountered HIM.

His love completely overwhelmed me and today I am free at last….free at last!!! When I read your book I was once again reminded of his amazing and everlasting love. I truly believe that we all need a revelation of God’s great love for us and to hear of his love over and over again. I have always believed that Billy Graham has had such an overwhelming response to the invitations he gives because when ANYONE who is lost or hurting hears the first few words of “JUST AS I AM” it is just so powerful. You have written a simple and most POWERFUL book of love. Thank you from my heart!!!!!! I love him because he first loved me.

This email arrived in my inbox this morning and I wanted to share it here, not for the kudos it offers to me, but for the encouragement it might offer others who live where this woman has lived. I hope we all know by know that only God can win someone to his love and affection. Don’t get me wrong. That some of the things I’ve been involved in provided a conduit for him to be revealed in her is wonderful and encouraging to be sure. But the larger story is of how God makes his love known to people who have not known a lot of love in their lives. I want to share her story because I know there are hundreds if not thousands like her out there.

They were raised in the demands of a religion devoid of love. They didn’t find it from their overly-religious parents, and never found it whatever kind of “faith community” they were raised in. But God never gives up. He pursues us with a love that can overwhelm all of our failures and hurts.

If you’ve never known God’s love for you, don’t give up. Just keep asking him to make it real to you. And if you know God’s love be aware that some person like this one may cross your path today and perhaps God can give them a glimpse of himself through you. Perhaps a smile or a gracious word from you might open a door that will allow God to find someone he has been looking for, for a long time.

Words will not come close to expressing my thanks to you for your book He Loves Me. I was born into a pastor’s home. There was no real love but lots of condemnation. I didn’t hear God’s love preached from the pulpit. My childhood was an extremely sad place. When I was six I went forward to accept Jesus as my Savior six nights in a row at children’s camp. When my father asked me why, I replied, “Because I’m not too good saved yet”.

That has been my journey. No love at home so I couldn’t believe that God loved me. To say I have struggled with God would be a huge understatement. I have walked away for years at a time, come back when I was hurting from my choices of looking for the love and approval I so sought.

Last June after a particularly hard time I heard about the book The Shack. Oh my goodness! It tore apart all the false beliefs and showed me a Papa I had longed for. I’ve shared that book with my friends and talked about it to anyone who will listen! Over the next months I read So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore. That book knocked my socks off. Then came along He Loves Me. “WOW!” is all I can say. Papa will have to bring to your heart the understanding of how powerful your book has been in my heart and my life. It has changed everything. Even that is a big understatement.

Wayne, one day we will meet in heaven and I just to warn you, I am going to be the one who jumps up and down telling you about how Papa used you in my life. We are now studying your book in our Bible Study and the women are loving it. Thank you for the remarkable work he doing in my life because of finally understanding HIS LOVE.

I think God did let me in on what happened in her heart. I teared up reading this. I can only imagine what it must be like for someone who has never known love to find for it full and free inside God himself. Isn’t that what the gospel is all about? We all have a Father that loves us more than anyone on this planet ever has or ever will.

Can I ask for your help?

Windblown Media has been approached by a doctoral candidate at Regent University to help conduct a survey of readers to gauge the impact of this book on the population. The book has now reached its 43rd week at the top of the NY Times bestseller list and over 7 million copies are in print.

They are looking for a broad cross section of people to respond to this survey, so please feel free to post this request and the survey link on your blog or forums that you regularly participate in.

Here is their request: “As researchers, we would like to understand what you think of the best-selling novel by William Paul Young (Copyright 2008, Windblown Media). Your answers will be extremely helpful in helping us to understand the story’s influence and appeal.”

You can take the survey here.

Take a minute, and help them out, will you?

It’s flying time again. Tomorrow morning I am headed out to Georgia for a few days to hang out with brothers and sisters who are growing on this journey. I’ll be at a weekend retreat in Woodstock, and then heading out to I’m looking forward to what God might have for us there.

This has been a crazy week here, meeting with some wonderful people and checking out some new doors that God seems to be opening. Yesterday we met with some executives from Walmart who want to take on “He Loves Me” and “So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore” as titles they want to promote in their stores. Who would have guessed? They said “So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore” has bounced around between #10 and #6 on the religious fiction bestseller lists for the last few weeks. I had no idea.

I have noticed that my email load has ramped up tremendously with the increase readership brought to these two books because people enjoyed THE SHACK and wanted to see what else Windblown offers. Honestly, I wasn’t initially thrilled with “So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore” being so prevalent in the culture. That book was written for a very specific audience, not so much for the general public. But maybe God knew better than I did. (Imagine that!) I’ve been shocked at how many people have resonated with the message of that book. I even know congregations whose leadership are studying that book and rethinking how they view church. Pretty amazing! Oh, yes, a few folks hate it, but what are you going to do?

I got this the other day from a Christian church pastor in Texas:

I just wanted to say “thank you” for your book, “So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore”. God has been moving me on a journey for several years, and I am coming to a point in my journey of a transition (but am waiting and trusting God to be clear of timing and opportunity). I wanted to thank you not only for the book, but also for the way in which it was written and the Spirit behind it. It has been a God-send for me, and especially at a time where I had many of the same questions. Several books I’ve read just seem to wreak of bitterness and control in another form. Yours, however, was easy to read (well, in some ways), but also got to the heart of the issue for me and opened my eyes to things that I wasn’t even aware of. I so appreciated it and will recommend it to people as God leads. It’s amazing how God does connect you to people on a similar journey as you are moving through your own.

In any case, those books are gaining a wider reading and our publishing partner has made arrangements for a publicity campaign that will go on for the next couple of months to help people be aware of those books. I am thrilled with the opportunity to make God more widely known in our culture. I’d love your prayers about this, not so much for the success of the books (what does that mean anyway?), but for people to find them who need them most at this moment of their lives.

I’m just finishing editing work on two other titles that Windblown Media will release this fall. One is a novel called “Bo’s Cafe” by the men who wrote Truefaced, and it is as amazing a story about a man confronting grace as I’ve ever read. His marriage is in trouble and his attempts to fix it is only driving his wife further away. Will he learn to embrace the only thing that will save his marriage and himself—God’s extravagant grace? We’re also doing “The Misunderstood God: The Lies Religion Tells About God”. It is a remake of Darin Hufford’s book, “The God’s Honest Truth.” Those will be out this fall and I can’t wait for some of you to read them.

OK. Gotta run. Bags to pack. Family to say goodbye to. Blessings on you all.

I’ve had numerous people ask me to reprint THE NAKED CHURCH because they want a hard copy of the book. It is already available as a free PDF download, but some people just like the feel of a book. While we’re not reprinting the book, I have placed it with a Publishing on Demand service and it should be available at CreateSpace.com and soon it will be on Amazon. Cost is $13.99 for the book and actually the quality is quite amazing. You can order it here. We will NOT be selling copies at Lifestream, so you will need to order them direct. Hopefully that will help those of you who want to read that text in book form. I love the content and spirit of that book. We just decided, however, that a lot of the illustrations were too dated to ramp up for a full reprinting here.

Above are just a few of the pictures that were sent to me in the last couple of weeks by the brothers and sisters in Kenya that we have been helping over the last year. They include pictures of various outreaches, food relief, and some of the more than 30 students we have been able to help attend secondary school, which the government does not provide.

To date we’ve given over $30,000.00 from Lifestream and the generous support of both readers here and listeners at The God Journey. Most of that money has gone for food, clothing and bedding to help those who were displaced by the tribal violence and its ongoing effects in the culture. More recently, we sent money to help enroll over thirty students in secondary education that is not provided by the government. We’ve been blessed at their continued expressions of joy and gratefulness. Here are excerpts from their recent emails that they wanted me to pass along to you:

First thing, I would like to send our gratitude for all of you with your family and the entire body of Christ who have stood with us in this time of need. I would like to appreciate very much. (I know it )does not mean that you don’t have the needs there or those who are in need but we count it grace from the Lord for your heart towards our people. We give all glory and honour for God who has made it possible to join us together. My brother, some times I fear even to ask any support since you have been standing with us since the whole of last year up to now and your support has been a great blessing to our people here. As you know, we network with many people here in Kenya and other parts of Africa and your encouragement as well as support has uplifted many souls back to life.

The last months, I have been going around for mission trips to encourage brothers and sisters in the Lord just to hug them and to share with them the love of Christ. I thank God for the material you sent, I am now making the few photocopies and pile that I may distribute for the leaders. And some you may see when people are holding and we appreciate very much because there is a great transformation through these materials. I am continuing asking God that I may too be used as a vessel for reflecting the image of Christ.

We are still praying for you that one time God will allow you to come and join us for this big harvest in Africa. I am seeing the great transformation through the message of So You Don’t Want to Go To Church. Our brothers here are being led by the Spirit of God. So continue praying with them because I have seen the transformation is taking place and my home church which we started last year I want the guidance of them to start the fellowship in their area. This according to what they have passed through the material. So I need your prayers that I may continue leading them in this truth.

Also continue praying for us that there are some areas where the body of Christ are being affected especially for women and children because of the hunger. There are areas where people are deeply affected with diarrhea and other diseases. Sometimes I feel sympathy, nothing to do but only to encourage knowing that the Lord cares much. I will send to you the needs including medicine that you may also pray for provision.

About the students, they are happy and I am waiting to receive some few pictures then I will send to you. They are praying for you for the heart of compassion. May the Lord bless you so much.

As you can see the need is ongoing and if you’d like to help, we’ll be happy to send any gifts God puts on your heart their direction. Nothing will be taken out for administration on this end or that one. If God puts it on your heart to send something, please go to our Invoice Page and click on the ‘Pay Invoice’ button. You can then list “Donation for Kenya” and the amount you’d like to give. If you use the ‘Donation’ button you will need to also send me an email letting me know you wanted this to go for Kenya and not for Lifestream. All donations to this cause are tax deductible. Or, if you prefer, you can also send a check to Lifestream • 1560-1 Newbury Rd #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320.

Sara and I are not much on watching the Oscars, but we did see a bit of it go by the other night, and appreciated the quote Jerry Lewis used in accepting his lifetime achievement award.

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.”

I have heard it before, and I really like it, especially if we read it as a glorious invitation, not a guilt-laced obligation. At it’s heart is a mindset that lives in the present, that celebrates the unique moments God places before us every day with a convergence of people and circumstances, and that invites us to live generously and kindly with all others, even if only for the moment they pass by us.

That is a life of grace. When I checked on the quote this morning I was surprised and blessed to find out that it was from a quote by a Quaker missionary from France to the United States, Stephen Grellet (born Etienne de Grellet du Mabillier) (1773-1855).

How cool is that?

This is one of the hardest questions I get. At this stage I get to live full time in the midst of some of the creative dreams I had as a young man. I can appreciate others wanting to as well, though I will warn them that it is not all they think it is. That said, I hurt for the hundreds of thousands of people who have a creative talent and desire and want to at least find a way to vocationally live off of their art.

Here’s a question I got this morning in my email:

I have been listening to your Transition. I have been searching for this message; living in Jesus, in His love,  and your understanding of the cross; Christianity is not just following Jesus or believing in Him, it is Him living in us. It is so much more radical than any other message.  My question is regarding surrendering our agenda. I want so much to live in trust and in His love. I am a musician, accomplished and persevering and ambitious but the biggest boulder between me and Him is my career. Although I have had moments of satisfaction, mostly it has been frustration, unfulfilled dreams and disappointment and I’m not getting any younger. Why would God give me the talent, the desire and ambition, the work ethic, the perseverance and then frustrate the fulfillment? How does ambition and dreams reconcile with your idea of letting go of all our agendas to live freely?

I know so many people who struggle with the same disappointed hopes. Here’s how I answered this email:

I certainly resonate with your struggle. It was one of the hardest struggles on mine. Our the ambitions and the application of our creative dreams as vocations are the hardest bits of our agenda to give up. It was a huge struggle for me in my first 20 years out of college. I thought God had gifted me to do what he hadn’t opened doors for me to do. I was frustrated all the time. About 15 years ago, I began to learn to live in that space of living loved. The frustration evaporated over a period of time. Instead of looking for bigger doors than the ones opened to me, I just began to use my passions where Father created opportunity. I think the pressure to live off of my talent and ambition kept me from the simple doors he had right in front of me. I thought I had to figure out a way to make my living from it.

I’ve learned since that God doesn’t frustrate fulfillment of our gifts. When we’re frustrated it usually means we are looking at the wrong doors—those that are closed, not the innovative or creative ones he has already opened to us. I know that was true for me for way too many years. The podcast we did last week, Stop Doing, starts with some opening reflections from some of my sharing in NY city with a group of artists and entrepreneurs. That might help. The reality is for every one person that gets to live their dream creatively, there are hundreds of thousands of people who would like to. It’s just what our society rewards, big scale to a tiny few. There isn’t much we can do to make that happen, and those the doors open for are not necessarily the most gifted or the most healthy. It’s part of the chaos of our world and its distorted priorities.

We all want to be ‘discovered’ and fulfill our dream that we think others are living, instead of touching the lives that are already in front of us. We can do that with art, music, writing, encouraging and in every other way, right in our own community, inside the relationships we have already. As they bear fruit, God may open other doors. Or, he may not. But I can tell you that this much is true. You will find more joy in one person being changed by something God has done in you, than walking onto a stage and being the superstar of the evening. The latter is 90% ego and the fruit of it will not endure.

God can certainly put us in that space if he desires, but I’ve found there’s not much we can do to make it happen. So serve him well where you are. Do what he gives you to do with the best talent and hard work you can muster. Creative living is not for the lazy. And live deeply in him so that you know that your loved. Someday your creative dreams and ambitions will be consumed by the shear delight of living as his son in the earth, then you can live at peace, enjoy the doors God does open, and feel no frustration about trying to make something happen that is not in our power to do.

That’s probably not what you wanted to hear, but I think there is life in it. Luke 14 has a great story about those fighting for the best seats at the banquet, and Jesus’ quiet instruction was for us all to take the last place, and if the Master of the banquet wants to give you a greater place, he will come and get us. That Scripture was given to me by numerous people over the first 20 years of adulthood. I hated it. I kept thinking God was telling me I wasn’t humble enough to have one of the front-row seats. Instead he was loving me enough to help end my frustration at the back table and to simply enjoy where I was at, knowing that further opportunities were in his hands no mine. I’ve been able to rest there the last 15 years, and I love it! And I’ve found the best doors didn’t open overnight, but resulted from very small decisions to love or serve someone that had consequences I didn’t see at the time.

But I do now that God has to win you to this. This is not a matter of us just changing our minds about vocational success. This is knowing his love deeply enough, that if you would truly know that if he wanted you to have a different opportunity, you would have it by now. I know how much I would have hated someone saying this to me twenty years ago, but I still wish I would have listened if they had.

After my most recent blog post, Kent Burgess, a good friend of mine who blogs at Faithfully Dangerous, sent the following quote. It was part of a longer quote published the same day. I love it, and tragically it is too often true of many people:

Love is always about giving up control, and people are trained to think of taking control—even of God. In my experience, most people would sooner be afraid and in control than in love and out of control.

Catholic theolgian Richard Rohr in Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety.

But I guess this begs the question, how much control can you be in if you’re so afraid? Isn’t control for all of us only an illusion that time will eventually unmask? Perhaps it is far better for us to find our peace in learning to live loved rather than in the frantic activities we employ to prop up our illusion of contro.