Our little group began its life in 2001, following the demise of the
small house church that we were all part of for a number of years.
We came together to support and encourage each other during a very
challenging and difficult time. It was a bonus that we all loved Rugby
and most things All Black! both in sports and politics, and most other
things in life, which has lead to many stimulating discussions.
To varying degrees we were all hurt and disillusioned with our
experience of Christianity as we had come to know it. It wasn't for a
lack of trying however, as some of us had been committed to church
life for over twenty five years up until that point, and carried various
leadership responsibilities.
As for me (one of the group members), I came out of that time wondering if I was actually nuts, and seriously considered getting some professional Christian counselling. My trust levels in that area however were at an all time
low, so I looked to my friends, and particularly my gratefully disillusioned friends for support, advice and some light relief. I
must admit that the light relief content of our meetings together often
took up the majority of our time, but that in itself was healing. We
have laughed A LOT over these eleven years, and it has been
good for our souls. The bible says something about laughter, I seem to
recall, well I have to say we have proved it true.
The first book that we read together was called The Safest Place On Earth by
Dr Larry Crabb. Dr Crabb is a well known psychologist, conference and
seminar speaker, Bible teacher and popular author. This material proved
to be an ideal start for us, as it laid a foundation of openness,
acceptance and trust for the group to build on. The sub title of the
book is Where People Connect And Are Forever Changed,
and that has proved to be what has happened over the years. The change,
at times, has appeared slow and somewhat frustrating, but looking back
over these eleven years we know change has occurred and we are forever
grateful.
We are told that transformation comes from the renewal of our minds.
It is our experience that the renewal process is an ongoing, daily one.
One of the key challenges that we have confronted is the need to be renewed out of false, wooly and often deceptive thinking and teaching
that we received over the previous twenty some years. The key area that proved to need major transformation was our understanding of the nature of God and the nature of Man, but more of that later.
Over the next couple of years we moved onto a number of other Larry Crabb books, including Shattered Dreams, The Pressure's Off, Soultalk, Finding God and The Papa Prayer. Each
of these books added a little more to our understanding, and chipped
away at our old religious thought patterns. You can see in the Other Books section of this site, overviews of each of these books and we would recommend each
one.
After a number of years (we are not fast readers) we were a little
concerned that we may become Crabb freaks and so decided to mix
things up a little, which was very brave as we had found a nice safe
place with Larry.
We were then introduced by Larry Crabb to Brenan Manning, a Catholic would you believe...perish the thought! Brennan is a writer and speaker
who leads spiritual retreats for people of all ages and backgrounds. He
has authored over ten books, including The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, The Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba's Child - (sub titled) The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging.
Larry Crabb, in his recommendation of Abba's Child, states the following:
"With prophetic zeal, Brennan speaks to our heart's deepest
longing and manages to keep the focus on the One who meets it. Hearing,
really hearing, this message - that we 'belong' - has and will continue
to revolutionise lives"
So Brennan began, gently, to introduce us to the Father and his
unconditional love. Well it was a nice idea, but it has taken me / us another five years to really believe that.
Next we came across another Catholic by the name of Henri Nouwen and his amazing book entitled The Return Of The Prodigal Son.
I must say at this point we began to wonder if the Protestant tradition
understood anything about God's Love and the Father's heart. A year
later we were to have a very pleasant surprise, but more of that
shortly.
In seizing the inspiration that came to him through Rembrandt's
depiction of the powerful Gospel story, Henri Nouwen probes the several
movements of the parable:- the younger son's return
- the father's restoration of sonship
- the elder son's vengefulness
- the father's compassion
It is a wonderful book and we probably spent a year reading, thinking
and processing this amazing parable that Jesus shared with his
disciples. I think The parable of the Prodigal Son, should be renamed The parable of the Incredible Father.
And then along comes The Shack and the protestants begin to reclaim some ground!
The Shack is a phenomenon, and has
obviously struck a cord for people, selling more than twenty million copies
to date. Apart from challenging many mindsets that we had about God,
the key thing for us about the story was the way the authors painted a word picture that depicted the wonderful, warm and friendly
relationship that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have among themselves
and how they long to bring us into that same intimacy. It was also great
to be reminded that He is especially fond of me, something that Brennan Manning and Henri Nouwen had been trying to convince us of, in the previous couple of years.
The other major thing that resulted from coming into contact with The Shack was the introduction to Wayne Jacobsen, a collaborator in the writing and publishing of The Shack. Wayne
is a teacher and conference speaker, the author of a number of books,
and in a previous life pastored a number of churches.
However, the thing that blessed us the most about this man was his
humility and desire to help fellow believers find their Father and
begin the journey of Living Loved.
Click on the link to his web site and you can read all of his bio, but I just want to highlight
a couple of things that really speak to me about him.
"I enjoy helping people discover how to live loved by God and to live
freely in healthy friendships with other believers. As we learn to do
that, we'll also find that we will quite naturally become a conduit of
God's compassion to a world that is broken and devastated by sin."
and
"I consider myself a brother on a journey, willing to share what God
has given to me in any way that will help others discover the joy of
life in him. As you will see the Lord has been gracious to me, and
everything he has done in me and through me is by his mercy, because I
have never, nor will I ever, deserve anything Jesus has brought into my
life."
Wayne has written a number of best selling books including So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore and He Loves Me. As
with all the other books mentioned here an overview is included by clicking on the Wayne's Books tab. They are both fantastic books, in their own
way, and really challenge the old religious mindsets. He Loves Me,
up until the last few months, was by far the most influential book that
I have read as it relates to living in rest and peace in Christ.
But Wayne is not just a writer, he is a great teacher and speaker who
has developed, over the years, a huge resource base of teachings that
are all available on CD and Video (see Transitions and Sharing in the Fathers Affection). He has also developed a fantastic resource and networking website and with his friend, Brad Cummings, runs a podcast show called The God Journey.
At the beginning of 2011 we all started to get increasingly
frustrated that we knew lots of the unconditional love of God in our
heads but that it still hadn't penetrated to our hearts. I think Father
started turning the heat up a little to encourage us to incarnate some of these fundamental, and often very, simple truths. They just need
to be believed.
Then in the middle of 2011, Father bought another wonderful teacher and writer by the name of Dr Andrew Farley across our path. Andrew Farley is the lead teaching pastor of Ecclesia and a bestselling author of two wonderful books The Naked Gospel and God without Religion (sub titled - Can It Really Be This Simple?).
Andrew serves as the Faculty Adviser for InterVarsity Christian
Fellowship, and he frequently speaks to Christian university groups like
Campus Crusade for Christ and at churches around the United States and
in Canada. Andrew is also an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics
at Texas Tech University.
Both of the above two books have helped us to see that Jesus really meant "it is finished" and that we are seated with Him, right next to God, at rest. It's
a great perspective to be living from. Since that time my daily response to Papa is "what do you have for me today?" and "help
me to listen for your voice". That is currently the full extent of
my prayer life, well we are chatting a lot more as well. When I hear
His voice, that releases all the faith I need. Long may it continue!