Come to Our Missional, Emergent, Post Charismatic, Bible, Barbeque, Worship Center

So I have spent almost a year on the internet reading, researching and pondering what I believe and what others are saying. The people I read are varied – to say the least. I read Calvinist, Reformed, Charismatics, Emergent, Post Charismatics, Atheists, Cult survivors, and so many others. Some know exactly what the ‘Church’ is supposed to look like, some aren’t sure and others just hate the whole institution.

Husband decided last May that we were not going to do anything for a year. We were going to detox and just let things settle. And we have. But there is a shifting in our spirit somehow coming into the Spring season. May is not that far away and we realize that we are no closer to having an idea of what we will do then than when we left a year ago.

One of the first books that we read last year was ‘So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore,” by Wayne Jacobsen. In the last few nights we have revisited the book and read it again with somewhat fresh eyes. Eyes that have had the scales of the institution fallen off. We love the heart of this book but have more questions now than before.

The main question is this; seemingly, in the New Testament, the Body of Christ did intentionally meet together on what appears to be a somewhat regular basis. In these meetings, in whatever format, there was fellowship, teaching, music, encouragement, prophecy and eating together. I think you will agree that to do this, takes some intentionality. It takes someone to ‘lead’ and others to participate. I think that what Wayne puts forth in his book of really letting the Holy Spirit put these gatherings together has to have some purposeful direction from a human being also involved. I don’t think he would disagree.

But to be purposeful in trying to start something scares us to death. The minute you do decide to start something you have to decide what to start. Does that make sense? In the very act of beginning something you have to decide 1) what to begin and 2) what not to begin. Decisions have to be made to decide what to include and what not to include. You can say that you will start something that will have no true purpose other than meeting but I can’t see how that would really happen. Just in deciding to have the meeting, boundaries will naturally be erected.

So, what do you start? Do we call it missional, emergent, bible centered, just fellowship, a gathering for worship, a barbeque, a charismatic fellowship, a home group or what?

A very wise pastor wrote to us the other day. He said this. “In looking around all the church plants before we started our church here in our town, I pondered all that I had seen. It seemed that those churches that deviated from centering their congregations around anything else other than to Love God and to then in turn Love each other, in time became sidetracked and shipwrecked.”

As I thought about this it became so clear to me. To create a fellowship, say around ‘signs and wonders,’ produces either a desire for more of them or a pride in the fact that it is happening and thus became off kilter. It becomes about signs and wonders not about Him. To create a fellowship around gifting and hierarchy produced my story here at this blog. To create a fellowship around the prophetic word produced churches that became unbalanced in their chasing after the newest prophet or making everything a prophetic word and results in the disillusionment of many Christians. It again wasn’t about simply loving God and others.

And here is where I hope I don’t offend many who read here. I’m wondering if even the striving for a more missional model or a emergent type of a structure will again end up in another ditch – just off to the other side of the road. It seems in trying to distinguish ourselves from another group or distinguish ourselves even to ourselves we just build another rigid structure – just out of a different material.

What if our structure was the non structure of having a group of people who gather together to try to encourage each other to love God and love others? Could you take what is true of each of the other camps and include it when appropriate? In other words, if someone is sick then, of course you would anoint them with oil and pray for their healing – but you would not hold healing services. If someone is dealing with a demonic force in their lives, of course you would pray for the spirit to depart and for the Holy Spirit to fill the empty place – you just wouldn’t open up a deliverance tent the next week. If a need became evident of finances or help to the poor that the group could have an impact in, of course a missional model would be seen. And when a couple of guys or girls with a broken sexuality decided to be brave enough to have us love on them, we might even be seen as emergent.

But none of the above would define us. The only definition would be to Love God and Love Others. Whatever flowed in or out of the group would be an example of that statement and not the definition of our group. (One key thing would to not let our statement be rooted in pride or it would become just another structure.)

What do you guys think? Could it be done? Could there be humility in facilitating a group like this? Where are the pitfalls? Am I being too simple? Too naive?

WWJDWTC – The Samaritan Story Retold

Sunday night Husband and I were asked to attend an Aids Benefit Dinner in our town. They are a group of people who have formed a way to help people who actively have the aids virus here. We jumped at the chance. It was so fun to be in a group of people, eating good food and laughing with some newly formed friends (thanks to Best Friend).

I never expected to encounter a story from Jesus lips though….

During the presentation of the evening, there was an interview done of a woman in our town who had become infected with the aids virus (her identity had been shielded). They wanted her to tell her story because she was not gay and had not been an intravenous drug user. It was clear that her life had been hard and was probably not exemplarily but she also was not the norm in the spread of aids.

What was interesting though was as she talked, I kept thinking that I had heard her story somewhere else….

She had gotten very sick - so sick that she was almost dead. A friend had encouraged her to be checked for Aids and then her life really started falling apart. People started going around her. They ignored her pleas for help. They fired her from her job. They refused to let her live with them. She was desperate and left for dead. Then this organization stepped in. They got her medical attention. They paid for all her bills. They found her a place to stay. They stayed in relationship with her when everyone else left. She is alive today because of this band of people here in my town. This band of people does not go by a name that we Christians would recognize….they are gay or lesbian or politically to the left. Most of them have not been in a church for years if ever. But they had stopped and helped this woman.

I wonder if any Priests or Levites passed her by. I wonder if she even knew any of us. I wonder if I ever knew her.

Mostly I wonder if Jesus was talking about her and I didn’t understand or care or listen.

Wait a minute Jesus, what was the name of that Samaritan group?

WWJDWTC - Week 7 Threads of Grace

WWJDWTC – Week 7

Haven’t updated much about this. Fellow syncrobloggers have posted about what Jesus would do with the church- and then go out and do it. Glen Hagger on his blog Re-dreaming the Dream, asked today to share our reflections on this time we have spent. I started here on October 15th with my first post. Mostly about walking away from the wreck and walking out into the unknown of what my life is going to be now. You can link to my past posts if you want to read about this portion of my life. Just click on the WWJDWTC link at the bottom of this post.

So my reflections: I could say that it has been a wonderful, spinning, fast, miracle laden, signs and wonders kind of existence since then.

But I would be lying.

The truth is that it has been mind numbingly slow. We have had a few wonderful kingdom-kind-of-conversations with friends and our children. I got to feed a few of my daughters friends one evening. Some encouraging posts from the blogging world came in the past weeks. I got to sit by the ocean for a few days. But that is it. Looking back I can see bits of Father’s grace weaving their way in and out of our lives. Slow. Almost seemingly deliberate. No hurry. No immediacy.

See, in my old church (CLB) we were busy. We were always going to this or that. Most nights were full. Some with good things – I’m not discounting those. But some of it was sorely un-needed. But we were busy and I got used to feeling good about being busy. We were all about “Building the Kingdom of God”(you have to say it in your best impression of Sponge Bob Hall Monitor voice). There were prophecies about it each new year how this New Year would be AMAZING. But it never turned amazing. Just the weaving of God through our lives. But that never seemed enough. So the next year we just moved on to “Another Amazing Year Where God Would Do Amazing Things.” (come on – do it in the right voice). Trouble is that no one had the guts to ask what had happened to the previous year and why it mostly sucked with regard to the prophecies and except for the weaving of Father’s thread of grace that always prevailed we would be lost.

I grew tired of the “Another Amazing Year” prophecies even before we left. But I did not know what to believe in their place.

Until now.

Now with this mind numbingly slow season of life in the Kingdom of Father I find that the bits of threads of his grace being woven in and out of my life and the lives of those around me are precious. They are really what it is all about. They are the “What Would Jesus Do With the Church” and what He has always done with the Church - lived his life in and through us.

Maybe at the end we will see the tapestry of our lives….and the thing that will stand out – the thing that we will probably miss if we don’t pay attention to it now – is the brilliant hand of Father as he weaves.

And that is what I believe now.

WWJDWTC - 4 Week Update

Since I decided to walk away from the wreck of my life in the institutional church four weeks ago I have actually done some things. I have had lunch (by myself) and then dinner (with Husband and her husband) with a follower of Jesus that I met at the bank where I bank. We also invited out another couple for dinner who have been severely abused by their CLB. I met her online after she left a comment on my blog and we found out that we only lived about an hour and a half away from each other. I have also visited the diner where my daughter works three times now. I have talked to some of her friends, her boyfriend and met some others.

So how did it go? In all of the encounters there has been a feeling of…..ineptness. I have a hard time coming up with the right word. But the word inept I think describes it best. I feel inept. For the first time in my life I really don’t have a plan for any of these lives. They are not coming to my preplanned program. I have no time to prepare anything. I feel inept to be a friend to the bank lady although I would love to. It seems like such hard work to even get together without all the crutches of church life. When we have, it has been wonderful. God seems to be present. I walk away encouraged. I think she does too. Our stories are fun to share. But what do we do now?

In the dinner with the couple that I met online, I felt like I walked away more encouraged than I left them. They were wonderfully warm. It was healing to share our story and hear theirs. I wish I could come up under them and help them bear their hurt. They truly understood when I described getting an invite back from my daughter’s wedding from a formerly dear, dear friend and having a Zero placed in the “How many would be attending” line with no explanation. They understood the hurt and pain and that was a salve to my heart. But I felt inept at helping them bear their own pain. Maybe just having someone who understands the feeling is enough for now. I can do that.

In the late night visits to the diner I have felt the most inept. Here I am, the mom of one of the waitstaff – sitting and drinking coffee for a few moments. I got to talk to one of her friends who is on his way to San Francisco to try and find some sort of happiness. I asked him a little about his plans and wished him well. Mostly I was interested for a minute in his life. I walked away feeling that it was one of the most awkward conversations that I have had with him and wondered if my going there was really of any value. But a few days later another daughter told me that she had run into him and he said how great it was to talk to me and actually had tears in his eyes. From what he told her she thought that we must have had this wonderful heartfelt conversation. (He must have been remembering another conversation than the one I was a part of.) So maybe my time there is less inept than I thought. We will see. I won’t give up yet.

I never felt inept at running a program. When I invited people to my “thing” (whatever it may have been) I was pretty good at it. I could run a program. With people I feel inept. But really that may be a good thing because if they come away with anything I will know it was a God thing and not a Me thing.

WWJDWTC - Update on Week 1 - Operating System Cannot Be Found

Week #1 of my effort to participate in the syncroblog of What Would Jesus Do With the Church was not, um…….stellar, in any sense of the word.

I had made the decision in my mind to stop just looking at the church and trying to discern what was wrong with it and go out and DO or BE the church instead. It sounded so noble. It sounded simple, easy.

Now I know why I did not want to leave the comfort of judging (discerning the problems) in the church. It is scary out there (here).

Yes, I had a few wonderful encounters where God said something very profound to me. I shared it with some of you who read this. But, in all honesty, that was the only thing that happened.

Now if I were God, I would have read my blog (He does read this, right?) and been so pleased with this woman writing (me) that I (God) would have planned tons of stuff for her to walk into as soon as she left the comfort of her own self. I would have had that lady at the grocery store that she helped, turn to her and ask why she was so kind, giving her an opportunity to tell her about Papa’s love for her that day. I would have had many divine connections lined up for her that week just to express to her how proud I (Papa) was of her decision. People would have been saved, healed and delivered! Surely God would not have let me just deal with the un-direction of my life while only saying a few things about seeing and separating from Him. Doesn’t He know I want to DO SOMETHING!!! That is the whole point of this month.

So by Saturday I was pretty despondent. I had even gone to the book store to find something to read and left after about an hour with nothing but a new copy of The Message. All other books, books that have been reviewed and that I had wanted to buy and read did not even begin to interest me. Me. The one who loves to read. And on top of that I could not even make eye contact with anyone in the store. They were all busy in their own worlds and did not care that I wanted to be the Church in their presence.

So I sat on my front porch. I had my laptop with me but it was sitting on the side of the swing playing music. Not even Christian music. Just a musician by the name of Ingrid Michaelson that I’m love with. Her music that is. All of a sudden my laptop stopped. I knew it was charged and so I looked over at the screen. It simply said, “Operating system cannot be found.”

I laughed. Hard. My computer was prophetic. My operating system….that which I had based my whole life off of…was no longer to be found. See, in church, I had a job. I knew what I was to be doing. Pretty much they told me what they needed and I did it. If my husband agreed, I was busy. My operating system was intact. The church gave me direction and purpose. It was my operating system.

Now I need to implement a new operating system. I want Papa to be this. I want to do what he wants me to do and be what he wants me to be. I can’t make this work off my old system. (Circuit City says they can’t either. My hard drive crashed….they think. They can’t even keep it alive long enough to test it.) The system cannot be found. The old way is dying. Or dead.

WWJDWITC – Redefining Sin

The eyes thing the other day has stuck with me. I can’t get over the feeling that I felt Papa’s pleasure in looking at a brilliant tree.

Later that day I was “future tripping.” (HT to "Willie at WindRumors) No- this did not involve drugs - just my imagination. I was imagining another person and my exchange with them. This was not really happening. But in my head it was. I do this a lot and I’m really good at it. I’m so good at it that I can really get into it before I have to pull myself back and realize that I’m not really in that world at all. My blood pressure goes up, I get mad, anxious, and annoyed or whatever the situation calls for. All this is over an imagined exchange with someone that I am not actually having!

But this time I felt something. I felt Papa pull away. I stopped and in the middle of this day dream I realized that God could not look at this person in the same way that I was looking at them. He could not join me because even though I was really mad at this person, he was “especially fond of them.” He was not mad at them and so he could not join me. I lost the feeling of being able to participate in his “being” or in his presence in the same way that I could when I looked at the tree earlier in the day.

The loss of us being able to be in agreement, was palatable. I could feel him draw away. Not out of judgment towards me but out of sadness that he could not see in the same way that I was seeing. We couldn’t agree. He couldn’t participate.

I realized that sin was just this - Him not being able to participate with me in a way that He desires to and the loss of that in my life.

Maybe in all my rules to keep myself from sin, I have missed out on the one reason that may actually change my heart -- His loving, kind presence and sheer enjoyment of sharing life with me.

WWJDWTC - Lesson #2 My Eyes - His Eyes

Note: I think, from the decision that I made a few days ago, that my posts are going to get much more simple, more personal and maybe more often. I know a lot of you who read are interested in looking at the bigger picture of the church. I also know that you need to expedite your time that you spend on the blog pages. Therefore if you need to delete me from you reading and you no longer comment on my pages, please feel free to do this. I write mostly for myself and the few who resonate with my personal journey. If the direction that I am taking still interests you, please come along. But if you find yourself no longer connecting, please feel free to excuse yourself.

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So as I was drinking my second cup of coffee this morning in a pause between the morning rush and the deciding what is for dinner and planning for the rest of my day, I looked outside my large picture window in the front room and paused. I breathed deep taking in the vibrant yellows and orange hues that are adorning a lovely old tree across the street. In that moment I paused and asked Papa what he was doing today and could I be a part. I distinctly heard in my spirit, “I’m enjoying the sight of that beautiful tree, Isn’t it stunning?”

Wait…..God is enjoying the sight of something I am looking at? In my enjoyment I can also sense His enjoyment? He is entering into my space in time here and interacting with me over a simple beautiful tree?

Now this may sound weird to you. But I let the thought run. Ok, if Papa could enjoy what I am looking at and if I could feel, somehow, his enjoyment, then could I also do the same when I looked at a person today? Could my enjoyment of them somehow mirror his enjoyment of them? Could I sense his delight? His excitement? His frustration? (Surely he gets frustrated too.) Could my compassion somehow tap into His compassion? Could I use my eyes today to see what He sees? Can my eyes become portals through which I can find out His heart toward people or situations? Is this what Jesus was doing when he said that he only did what he saw the Father doing? Maybe Jesus saw something, knew that the Father was seeing it also and then asked the Father what he was feeling about it (or just immediately sensed it) and what, if anything was to be done.

Maybe this is basic to you. Nothing, no thought, is new. But today, this thought blasted through my world and made me change my perspective. I like walking with Papa. Especially on a beautiful Fall day.

And, I can't wait to see my kids tonight.

WWJDWTC - Lesson #1: Having a New God

I don’t plan to update this new phase (experiment) of my life (walking away from the wreck) every day. But when something happens, I will post about it.

This morning after several cups of coffee and while folding laundry I remembered that I was going to ask the Father to show me what he was doing today and if he showed me and it was something for me to act on I was willing today. So I did. But as I started to address Him, I inadvertently called him Papa. You see I had just read this excellent post by “Willie,” author of The Shack and the name for God, being Papa, what “Willie” calls God came to mind and to my lips.

Now, calling God, Father, is ok by me. I can see that. I have done that often. It is a common name for God in my head. But frankly, the name of Papa as a name for God seemed kind of hokey to me. It is ok for a novel, or for someone else like a friend that I know who is kind wild and free, but not for me.

But today, in walking away from the wreck of my life in the institutional church I found that somewhere in standing around and looking at the wreck another God had replaced the one I went into the wreck with. This God was so different that I could not even refer to Him with the same name.

I realized that I did not want to walk away from this wreck with my old God. That God was demanding and I never measured up to his expectations – nor did anyone else. My old God would have wanted a plan. A plan for today, tomorrow and don’t forget to work on the 5 year plan too. “Without vision the people perish,” or something along those lines. My chores did not change nations. I would have felt worthless and looked for something that appeared more like his “will.” Mostly, I felt that my old God loved me but was not fond of me. He just wanted me to get to work.

This new God was fond of me and when I called him Papa this morning I saw him smile gently. Not really saw it as much as sensed it. This God wanted to walk with me. He was not so concerned as to the direction we took as that we were walking together. Nothing made Him happier than for me to ask Him where we were headed and could I tag along. He was not too busy for me. He did not care if I had wash to fold, phones to answer and dinner to cook. Those chores were not substandard to doing his “will.” They were what he wanted to do with me today. He was content. My Papa was content. Wow!!........Did you read that? Can God truly be content? Can He be content with me?

Ok, so lesson #1. I have a new God to walk with. I hope He does not mind. I sure don’t.

WWJDWTC.....Or….Walking Into The Unknown

(PLEASE NOTE #1: Right off….for those who hate the whole – What Would Jesus Do – theme, bracelets, jewelry, bumper stickers and way of thinking…..I’m right there with you. I’m smart enough to realize that I have NO idea what Jesus would do in any situation. I’m enough of a Pharisee at heart to realize that if Jesus walked through my door today he would probably shock, disturb and stretch me and if I were not careful, humble and teachable; I may eventually want to put him to death.)

That said; Let me tell you why I am participating in a syncroblog entitled; What Would Jesus Do... With The Church. Erin invited those of us who have been looking at the church to spend a month and DO some of the things that we feel the church is not doing. Go here to see the guidelines for this and please participate.

There are two other reasons I am participating.

Best Friend said something to me the other day. She reads my blog hesitantly. I say hesitantly because she is super sensitive to all the negativity that many feel during this time. See, the reason she is my best friend is because she is able to look beyond my faults and sin and annoying bits of personality and actually love me. The only problem with that is that she is able to do that to everyone. Even those who hurt her desperately. So, knowing those that I sometimes write about is a source of hurt for her if she senses that I do not love them in the same way she is able. She misunderstood something that I and another commentator said the other day and told me that, at some time, those of us who had left the church would need to get on with their lives and just live. Even though she misunderstood what I had said, I took what she said and chewed on it. Did I need to move on?

The last thing that happened was something that Wayne Jacobsen said. I was listening to his series on his website called Transitions. He was speaking of sins and those things that we are addicted to. He said that our obsession with anything other than this life in Jesus, is bondage. Our desire and involvement IN sin can be bondage but so also can our desire and involvement to be OUT of sin. Whatever ties up our hearts other than walking each day with and in the love of Father can be bondage. What I felt the Spirit saying was this - being in bondage to leaving a church system and focusing only on that is just as damaging as being in bondage to the system in the first place.

Let me explain, here is the picture I get. Last May, my family and I were in a terrible wreck. (This wreck was all that happened when we left our church.) Everyone involved, everyone, walked away with injuries. Those on each side were affected. It was a terrible wreck. Nothing is or will be the same.

I was not prepared for this wreck. I had no back-up plans. I had not decided to leave with a direction in mind. I had no other transportation ready in case of a wreck. I was left, standing on the side of the road just looking at this mess.

I hate wrecks. I hate that so many had gone before me and experienced the same things. I hated that I had looked the other way and not stopped to help them. I hated that I had blamed them for having the wreck. I hated that I was so much to blame.

I found others who had experienced wrecks just like mine. They were and are invaluable voices for me. They assured me that the injuries I had sustained were not just my own sin. They gave me hope that, in time, the memories of the wreck and those involved would fade. I was grateful.

I did leave the scene of the wreck for a while to ask some people to forgive me. But you need to understand….I had no idea what to do next. Do I look for another means of transportation for me and my family? Even if we found one, where were we to go? Could I ever trust another driver or another mode of transportation? Were we even supposed to have these contraptions that we (the church) travel in?

I started to evaluate everything. Were we supposed to be in this kind of transportation to begin with? What about those who designed the transportation that caused the wreck? Were they to be held accountable? Were there any new designs that would protect us for future wrecks? How about the big transportation companies - the ones who kept producing types of transportation for all kinds of people and the wrecks that they caused? Could we change them? Could we get them to see our point? Was it only the drivers of these vehicles or was it the vehicles themselves? Maybe it was just the direction they were traveling. Maybe if we just went another direction then the wrecks would be eliminated. What really did the original authors mean when they described the modes of transportation that they used? How about we just tweak the accessories on the transporting vehicles? Would that make it better? Maybe different tires, different windshield wipers, different brake systems, different air bags, different forms of fuel. There was so much to evaluate. I could stay here forever.

At Watchman’s View From the Wall’s on What Was That All About, I wrote in the comments last week that it is easier to look backwards and evaluate than it is to walk away into the nothingness of not knowing. In some ways, I have walked away from the wreck but I find that I have walked away backwards, with the wreck always in my sight. And in many ways, I have not walked away at all but only circled it. Kevin says at the end of this very timely article for my life that, “Change can’t occur until we get tired of staying in the same place.” Brilliant stuff huh?

So this month, and hopefully from this point on, I am going to purposely walk away. It is not that I will never look at it again. If it helps someone else to look at my wreck or theirs, I will.

But I need to walk into this nothingness and find out if Jesus, if the Church is really there.

Here is my overall, very simple commitment for the month:
I am going to ask Father at least once a day to show me what he is doing around me that day. If he shows me and if I can be involved I plan to try to act on it.

I have two concrete plans:
One is to make an effort to meet other believers. I have one that Father has urged me to ask out for coffee and I plan to do that this week. I have a few others that He as asked me to make appointments with to see what their lives are involved in now. I will call this week to make those appointments.

The other plan is to go and sit with those who want to be loved. My daughter works at a downtown, late night diner. Many of her friends, who came by our home when she lived here, work there also. They know me. I’m going to go down once a week or so and drink a cup of coffee and see if Father is doing anything among them. It will mean being out after 11:00 one night a week. But I like coffee. And I love these kids.

That is my plan. I will update the blog this month as I walk away. You are invited to read along with me and I hope to also participate.

Please let me know in the comments if you read my blog and are going to participate. I would like to also keep up with your stories.

PLEASE NOTE #2: Father has us each on our own timetable. This happened just when I needed it. Do not participate out of guilt. I could not have done this last month. You may just need to read along and be encouraged for the time when Father asks you to walk away too. The day will come.

PLEASE NOTE #3: If you feel called to look at the way we do church and evaluate it, please do not take this post as a judgment on what you are doing. I am grateful to you who are doing this. I just don't think that this is my platform for right now. There are better and brighter minds out there already working on this. They don’t really need me.

The kids at the diner do though.

Living His Life