Here are a few opportunities to hang out with me if you’d like. Two happen next week, one is just a podcast, and the other is in February 2024 in Israel:
The Jake Colsen Book Club
Learning to follow Jesus as he reveals himself in each of us is the adventure of spiritual life. Institutions are afraid to encourage that pursuit since it may not fit in easily to their preplanned activities. One of the strangest things about Christianity is that we have invested all of our chips for helping people follow Jesus in religious institutions that can transfer information while rarely transforming lives.
That comes up in the penultimate chapter of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore as the conversation explores how best do we help people to learn how they can follow Jesus.
Highly orchestrated experiences cannot show people how to live each day in him through the real struggles of life. That’s one of the strangest things about Christianity locking itself into an institutional box. Who would choose to be raised in an orphanage? Our hearts hunger for family. That’s where children learn who they are and how they fit into the world.
This congregation is like an orphanage revolving around the convenience of the whole. You survive best in it by following its rules, but that’s not how Jesus connects you with his Father. For that, you need a family—brothers and sisters who can respond to you in the moment, not wait for a meeting or to schedule a seminar.
That’s a key topic in our next gathering of the Jake Colsen Book Club, which will be held next Saturday, April 22, at 1:30 pm PDT. Anyone is welcome to join us, even if it’s your first time. We will also stream it live on my Facebook Author Page, but if you want to be part of the conversation, you can get a link to the Zoom Room by emailing Wayne and asking for it.
You can view our last discussion on chapter 11 here.
Trauma Conversation – Good Riddance
Our next Wrestling with Trauma conversation will meet next Sunday, April 23, at 10:30 am PDT. Among other things, we’re going to explore what it means to let go of the hurtful things that have happened to us and the process God uses to help us find out how. Sara shared that in a recent podcast if you haven’t heard it.
If you’d like to join us, please email me for the Zoom link. We’ll be limiting it to the first twelve who request a link. These are not teaching sessions but a conversation to serve those who join us and help encourage them to the Way Jesus wants to lead them through the pain of trauma into his increasing freedom. These conversations are not streamed live or recorded. They are for the personal benefit of those who can join us. You can even join in anonymously if you prefer.
Israel
We’re about 60% full for our upcoming trip to Israel, so please get signed up as soon as you can if you want to join us. The last day to register is May 31, but that’s only if we still have space left. We’ll be going February 1-11, 2024, with an optional visit to Jordan on the way in for those who would like to extend the tour and spend a day at Petra.
MiDentity Podcast
And if you can’t do any of that and haven’t heard my conversation with Daron Maughan over at the MiDentity Podcast, you can listen here. It aired this week and is a good summary of our story over the last year if you haven’t listened to the podcasts Sara and I recorded last year.
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