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Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled Looking for Real Body Life has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com.

During my recent trip to South Africa I met with many brothers and sisters who are in various stages of transition from the system of religious obligation and sorting out what it means to live as God’s people outside of institutional approaches. My experiences there provided an excellent backdrop for Brad and I to discuss further the transitions many of us go through and how some are finding meaningful expressions of body life around the world.

We’re also introducing some new changes with this podcast and would appreciate any suggestions or thoughts you might have on those.

During the last week of my stay in South Africa I got three emails from three different people with three very different reactions to my article, Why I Don’t Go to Church Anymore. I thought you’d enjoy a chance to read over my shoulder, because some of you might have very similar questions or concerns. The first is from Timothy:

This was my response to Timothy: I’m afraid you may not have read my article carefully enough. My point was that none of us really go to church, even those who think they do. I think the New Testament is clear that the church is God’s people on the earth not a building or an organization.

The reason I didn’t use ‘references’ in the article is because of its format. It’s not a treatise but a letter of explanation. Proof texts can be used to justify just about anything, unfortunately, and I much prefer to think Scripture through in context not in individual quotes that are distorted from their original meanings.

As to the Hebrews 10 passage to which you prefer, there are many of us finding far more effective ways to meet together by sharing Jesus-centered relationships over the whole of our lives, and not just attending a meeting once or twice a week with a roomful of strangers where participation is left to only a few up front. I realize it isn’t for everybody, but there are lots of people who are finding that the church is a living group of people who share the life of Jesus together as they grow in him.

There are some wonderful ways to discover God’s life with a group of people, outside the systems we’ve inherited over the generations. If those systems work for you, I don’t have any problem with that. I hope you can also make room for others who have found ways that are more effective for them in living out the reality of the New Testament.

Jesus is the head of the church after all, and it is far more important that we are following him than just fitting in to other people’s expectations.

Then I got this one from Lisa:

And finally I got this from Nancy:

This was my response to Nancy: It always amazes me what God uses to bring people to Lifestream. I had a good laugh at your entry, though I’m sure it made sense to you. Someone else got here simply by searching for, “Am I nuts?” Funny!

Anyway, yes I still don’t ‘go’ to church. In fact I continue to meet hundreds of people who are thriving outside the structures of organized religion and are finding life in God and connections with other brothers and sisters to be greater than they ever imagined. What a deal! I am sitting in Atlanta airport at the moment connecting home from my trip to South Africa where I met hundreds of out of the box Christians who are growing by leaps and bounds…

It is interesting to discover that these are not focused at all by their ‘not’ going to church, but on the simplicity and joy of living as his church in the world… I hope that’s what you were asking. I don’t know what kind of journey you are on but pray that God continue to lead you closer to himself and free you to know the fullness of his life and joy.

In Africa someone asked if I read Your God is Too Safe by Mark Buchanan. I was ambivalent about the title, because I think in the Father is the safest place to be to be in all the universe. But the book wasn’t about that. It was about making God in our own image, so that we never think he can lead us into risky places or does things we don’t understand. I get that! Living in the Father’s reality is one constant adventure that frequently pushes us to our extremes. But that’s not because he isn’t safe, but because we trust ourselves more than him. I was able to read about a third of the book and loved what he was saying. Here’s one story from that book that is painfully true, unfortunately:

I’ve been home for a few days now, trying to get my head back in my home time zone and trying to process the incredible experiences I had in South Africa. First of all, let me thank those of you who helped make this trip a reality—those who kept us in prayer and those who shared with us financially in the expenses and ministry of this trip. It was awesome in every way. I have posted some photos at Ofoto.com if you want to view them.

On my last Friday in South Africa Phillip and Vicky took me to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. What an awesome experience. This is more than a museum—it actually invites you into the experience of what apartheid felt like for oppressed and oppressor alike and allowed you to experience the triumph of its end and a fresh new hope for a country that faces incredible challenges in transitioning to a democracy that all can participate in equally.

I was struck by a number of things there—how easy it is to justify, even in theological terms, what serves our own self-interest, the oppression on indigenous peoples that European civilization exported to the world, and courage it took for the disenfranchised to stand up at great personal cost and demand liberation for the oppressed. Everyone hails Nelson Mandela as a gift from God to help build a new South African society that includes all races. I am reading his autobiography to understand how this man could have suffered so much and come out with heart for reconciliation and not vengeance. It is great reading

As we drove away from the museum that day I was greatly encouraged by those who put the ideal of freedom above their own personal expedience. Mandela spent 27 of his prime years in prison for treason because he dared to try to overthrow the apartheid regime. Many more were imprisoned, persecuted even killed for challenging the status quo. I was reminded of the many people I’d met in South Africa who have struggled to leave the religious institutions that have become such a part of Christianity to seek a greater life and freedom in the reality of Jesus. Many felt the were alone and one man said leaving the institution he’d been part of for life was like ‘crucifying his mother’. Many of you reading this know what it is to suffer the rejection of family and friends, maybe even mentors to you in the faith because you felt you could no longer fit in with a system of religious obligation that you found lifeless and empty. It is those first few years that are most difficult, and, yes, it can be painful to experience disapproval and judgment by people you care deeply about.

But in the end, it is just disapproval and that is an incredibly small price to pay to find your way into the life of God. No one is putting us in prison. No one is killing us, torturing our children or burning our homes. As people remind me often, “Do you realize they were killing people only 400 years ago for writing the things I write?” Yes I do know.

If people can give up their own self-interest for freedom in this age, how much more can we lay ours down for the freedom that supercedes all other freedoms—life in Christ? I know it may be difficult for a season, but no one I’ve met who has broken free of the system of religious obligation and discovered the life of God beyond it, has had any regrets. The life deeply lived in him is worth any cost or risk in this age. Let us pursue him with firm resolve, laying aside any thing that entangles us and love him more deeply than anything else. Who knows? We may yet suffer again for doing so, but the wealth within easily overrides any pain without!”

We have reached the day of my departure. In a couple of hours I will be heading to the airport and the long flight home. I honestly can’t wait to reconnect with my family there. This has been an awesome trip and the last weekend in the Johannesburg and Pretoria area has been no exception. I have met so many believers hearing God say similar things about escaping the clutches of religious obligation to live in the life and freedom of Jesus. It is truly a call that has gone out over the whole world. We need to live to him a lone, and not be seduced into any system of man that seeks to replace his living presence with rituals, traditions and regulations.

Yesterday morning I met with a large group of Christians in Pretoria in a lovely home overlooking the national government buildings of South Africa. They had left the reformed church they had all grown up in some years before at God’s leading, even though they were misunderstood and rejected by close friends and family. They were seeking a place in the reality of God’s presence they had not found yet. They had a copy of an earlier incarnation of The Naked Church that had spurred them on from more than 15 years ago. When I came in they were in a large circle with pens and notebooks ready asking me to share with them how to live in the affection of the Father of all! I now know just a little bit what Peter felt when he showed up at the House of Cornelius. The four hours I had with them flew by and I could hardly pull myself away. What an awesome group of people, and I hope to cross paths with them again.

Then I spent my remaining hours with some out-of-the-box believers around Johannesburg. Last night we were in a coffee shop exploring the power of the cross. This morning we went on an hour and a half walk through the bush and then spent a few hours cooking breakfast on portable cookers and sharing our lives together. They do this ever few weeks as God leads and it was such an amazing expression of body life. Young people and unbelievers joined us as well because they just enjoy being together and sharing life. What a great way to hang out as the body! As excited as I ham to get home, I have been deeply touched by my many experiences here and the people I have met. May God lead them with his great grace into ever-deeper expressions of his love. I do hope to return someday. They have all said I must bring Sara when I do. Amen!

After my > South African Adventure II Blog, Jason wrote to ask about how people might give to the need here. Her’s his comment:

There are obviously lots of agencies, but I am convinced that God works through relationships and connects us with people he wants us to know and through whom we can channel our giving. The poverty and AIDs pandemic in Africa is not an easy problem to sort out. You just can’t throw lots of money at it and fix it.

I know some people now who work on the front lines of care in the township of Tzuma near Durban and some people near Ladysmith who help feed families whose provider is no longer alive. If anyone wants to help them you can send money to Lifestream and we’ll ensure that it gets to Africa and that it will be used to care for those who are suffering and that these people do it with the love of the father and not by manipulating people into religious constructs. While we were in Durban we saw people combine their funds to buy a truck for the outreach in Tzuma. They had no way to get around to help people, in a township of 500,000 people or to get people to medical care or gather supplies to feed the children that they feed weekly. If you’d like to direct any money to that group of people, please designate it for Tzuma and we will be able to pass it along. It will be greatly appreciated.

Or perhaps God has given you other contacts—people to support or food to buy. Don’t think God has related you to anyone by accident. Through those he has given you, freely share his abundance that we all in the West so easily take for granted.

In my first few days in Johannesburg I got to know a couple from Zimbabwe who had come down to meet me during my stay. They are an older couple, hot on the path of living out the life of Jesus and we enjoyed so much swapping stories and the things God has shown us in our journeys. They were such a joy to be with, especially given the dire circumstances where they live.

The revolution in Zimbabwe has been devastating. Now run by a dictator who bulldozes the homes of anyone who disagrees with him, the economy has collapsed. Crime is rampant and today the Zimbabwe dollar trades for $30,000.00 US and it costs more than a million dollars just to go get groceries and food is incredibly scarce. Over 90% of the white population has fled the country in recent years to find better conditions elsewhere.

They told me a story about a friend of theirs, a dentist that had moved to Australia some years earlier as the country was collapsing. After he was there a few years he felt God ask him, “Why are you here?” As he thought about the trouble in his home country and the better life he was able to make for his family in Australia. Then the Lord continue to speak to him. “You can live in a first-world country naturally but spiritually it is a third world country. Or you can live in a third-world country in the natural but in actuality is a first world country spiritually.” Within a few months he moved back to Zimbabwe where he remains today.

The courage and passion of people who are led by God to stay in a country so broken, when most of their friends have fled was inspiring to me. Pray for them and others throughout Zimbabwe who live in the midst of such incredible need yet continue to grow so deeply in the life of Jesus.

Our latest edition of The God Journey entitled The Gospel Jesus Preached has just been posted on our sister website thegodjourney.com. This was recorded before Wayne left for South Africa

So many of our institutional approaches to the life of Jesus are formulated around a truncated gospel—one that is incomplete and thus focused on the wrong priorities. Jesus didn’t preach the gospel of the church or even a gospel of salvation. He taught the gospel of the kingdom—where his Father reigns over all. When we lose sight of that we end up with incomplete pictures of his work in us and the world and invest our time and energies into that which matters little. We introduced you to Tom Mohn in our fourth podcast and in this one we use more of Wayne’s interview with Tom to help us focus our hearts on that which counts most. I think you’ll really enjoy this!

I’ve moved on from Ladysmith and am spending my last six days in South Africa in Johannesburg and Pretoria with a lot of different groups of believers who are in various stages in this journey. If the taste yesterday is any indication, I’m in for a lovely time.

I love the grace God gives for me to be away from family for times like this. But every day I think of Sara and going home. I miss her terribly and can’t wait to be ‘at home’ once again with her. I’ve taking to telling people who ask where my home is, that it is wherever Sara is. And that’s true. If she were in South Africa right now, this would be home. But she’s not, so I anxiously anticipate my arrival there next Monday.

I want to share with you a letter I received Sunday from a woman in Ladysmith. She read it to me first and then gave me a copy. It brought tears to my eyes and I share it here for two reasons. One, it captures the passion of my heart and says volumes about why I do the travel I do. I am so grateful that Father touches people in this way as I travel about. But also, I know others who read this may just share her struggle and might be encouraged by her discovery to find him in their life as well:

I am continually amazed and blessed by the people allows me to meet as I journey through this life. On this trip I have met many believers who are finding freedom from religious obligation and learning to live in Christ’s life. Some are just beginning that journey, and others are far along it. I love the insights I gain from all of them and the greater appreciation I have for God to make himself known in the world to whomever wants to know him in truth and follow him no matter where that might lead them.

On Wednesday I met a young man who is just finding some freedom from obligation to meetings and activities that was not nurturing his life in Jesus, but actually distracting from it. He told me something wonderful that God had showed him. He was expressing his concern to Jesus that he used to have far more people to fellowship with than he has now. God reminded him of the story of the 12 spies Moses sent into Canaan and then asked him. Would you rather have fellowship with the 10 spies who were captured by their fears and unwilling to follow God, or Joshua and Caleb who had seen the great trouble in the land, but knew a God greater than them all?

What a lovely picture. Of course, most of us would rather have 10 people willing to keep walking in God’s things than two, but if there are only two, then enjoy those two. Jesus hasn’t called us to live with the majority, but to walk with him and whomever he gives us at the time—whether a lot or a little! If you need a lot of people around you to affirm your walk, you are in the wrong kingdom. Enjoy what he gives you, even if for a time it is only a couple of others. Because our focus is not on how many are going too, but which way is he leading us.