I Love The Church

I don't know about you, but I love the Church. Jesus LOVED the Church, and said the gates of hell would not prevail against her, he said that we are his bride..., what a wonderful image, I love the Church.

Jesus also said that where two or three are gathered together in His name he is with us, in our midst!! I guess that is not such a big deal because He is in us and we are in Him, from the day we invited and accepted Him into our lives.

I love journeying with friends who are daily discovering Papa's lavish affection for them and the incredible realities that Jesus accomplished on the cross,  then said "It is FINISHED", the work is done, enter in to the freedom my life will bring.

I love the life that is given and received, when Christ followers meet and share together the things they are hearing and learning from the one who is "especially fond of them". I love the life and worship that is generated from those who are learning what it means to offer their lives as "living sacrifices". From my experience, as those realities are shared when believers get together, Christ is glorified, and the world gets to see.  
What I am not that keen about, is what many people in today's world frequently think of, when the "c" word is mentioned. My experience is that the institution that we often refer to as the church,  has not delivered what it has promised. It promised what I have attempted to describe above. It has however largely delivered, programs,  to do lists and building projects. All were offered with the best intentions, but they never seemed to lead me into a closer more intimate relationship with my loving Dad and His amazing Son.

We need to dis the illusion that many of us have come to think of as the church, and embrace the Church as Christ described her. I think Wayne Jacobsen's description of the institution that many people today call the church  is one worth contemplating. It may help dis your illusion, it's helping me.

Extract from "The Naked Church"

"How easily Satan must have thought he could snuff out the light of God’s kingdom in the world once Jesus had ascended to the Father! Only 120 followers remained, and they were huddled away in fear. Though the Day of Pentecost must have been a setback for him, he soon responded with a new strategy – bring in a heavy dose of persecution to extinguish the flame.

But it didn’t work. Centuries of persecution followed, first by religious leaders in Judea and later by the Roman emperors, but the church continued to thrive and expand. People discovered the power of the Risen Lord and at great cost surrendered their lives to him.

Sometime late in the third century Satan must have called a conclave. Hades I, he might have called it. Since persecution had failed so miserably, this diabolical council needed to develop a new strategy to undermine the life of the church. The solution it produced has done far more to render the church powerless than any persecution ever has.

The objectives were clear: The plan would have to diffuse the self-sacrificing love that carried the church through conflict, distract it from intimacy with God, and devalue the importance of the individual believer. And, since the church had already prevailed over direct assaults, the plan needed to be so deceptive that it could not be recognised as coming from hell.

A few suggestions were offered, but they were so weak that they didn’t even invite discussion. After a painfully long silence, someone, perhaps Srewtape, came up with a very simple idea: “Trying to keep it small hasn’t worked – let’s make it big!”

All the other devils gasped, thinking that old Screwtape had finally bolted his sanity. “Make it big? What do you think we’ve been working so hard to prevent?”

“Hear me out, colleagues. We can kill it with its own success. What would happen if the church suddenly became acceptable?”

“Lots of people would go to it idiot.”

“But what would all those people do to it?” Srewtape replied with a smirk, then sat back as he watched their minds churn. One by one the others began to see the brilliance of his scheme. “Many would come just for social reasons. They would quickly dilute those who are really in God’s clutches.”

“And imagine all the programs and activities they would have to plan to keep those people happy. Nothing chocks out intimacy as well as busyness’.’

“A crowd like that would have opinions so diverse and disruptive that the power of the gospel would be compromised in just a few short years.”

“The church would eventually become a machine, chewing up individuals instead of loving them. Programs would take over where personal ministries now flourish. And everyone knows how easy it is to kill with a program.”

“Hear! Hear!” they all yelled.

“They couldn’t possibly teach all the followers to walk with God personally, so they would soon substitute rules and guidelines for his ever-present voice.”

“the machine would have to be run by professionals. The others would become nothing more than spectators and bill-payers.”

“And that leadership would waste most of it’s time tied up in administration, which we know benefits almost no one.”

“Who would have time for individuals? They would have to try to disciple people by regulations, and the cracks in that are so wide we could go on vacation.”

“And best of all,” Screwtape spoke up again, “they wouldn’t even know what had happened to them. They would think themselves successful beyond their wildest dreams. They would be pillars in the community and stand before huge crowds. We would let them keep all their Christian terms, but we would substitute our own meanings. It’s foolproof!”

“But size alone won’t do that, Screwtape,” Satan himself finally said. “they could still teach all those people what it really means to follow God and they could still love people one by one no matter how big it got.”

“True, O Wicked One.” Screwtape waggled his index finger, “but do you think they would? Do you think they would risk losing all those people or would resist the corruption that such power and influence would give them?”

Satan smiled in whatever ecstasy hell allows. “Of course not!” He slammed his fist on the table, “let’s do it!”

Wayne Jacobsen  - The Naked Church,  page169 -171

What might the Church that Jesus is building look like - The Life of a Pilgrim

Wayne’s conversation with Jack Gray, a Scottsman who has resided in New Zealand for almost 50 years. They continue their discussion from last week on the life of the church and Jack’s journey to find the church Jesus is building, rather than the one man is building. They talk about a Swiss theologian from the mid 1900s who pointed out that when the love and power of the Spirit faded in the early church, we replaced him with dogma, doctrine, and institutionalism. They talk about Jack’s rich experiences with church life as a relational reality and how people cannot resist the desire to put things into a box, rather than continue to embrace the unfolding work of the Spirit.

You may like to listen to the conversation by clicking on this link 

God without Religion

 - can it really be that simple?  is an amazing book that has dissed a number of illusions for us. 

We first met Andrew Farley when we read his wonderful book called The Naked Gospel. In that book Andrew communicated the gospel in such a simple way that even a child could understanding it, or should I say only a child could understand it.

Dr Andrew Farley is the lead teaching pastor of Ecclesia , serves as the Faculty Adviser for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Texas Tech University. 

His initial experience as a Christian was characterised by self-effort as he tried to please God at any cost. His ruthless religion resulted in spiritual fatigue and disillusionment with the church. Only then did he discover what relaxing in Jesus means and how enjoying God's intimate presence can transform everyday life.

Through tales of robbery and extortion, laps around the Indy 500 track, tapped phone calls to a psychic, and a grandma's late arrival at her own funeral Andrew invites his readers on a story-filled adventure to discover the beauty of God's grace.

These are some of the illusions that Andrew has helped us to identify; to see the Gospel message from a hopeful perspective as opposed to one that divides and separates. To see the true meaning of walking in the spirit. Clarifying the facts around the judgement, rewards and God's discipline, and highlighting the problems around the popular challenge to Christians  to die to self. 

Although Andrew is is an incredibly well educated man, he communicates the Gospel message with such clarity that you come away from listening to him or reading his books saying, why haven't I seen it like that before.  

Darin Hufford, author of the best selling book, The Misunderstood God says of God without Religion. "This is a book that every Christian simply must read before going one more step in their walk with Christ. Don't waste another day living under religious bondage. Stop everything you're doing and read this book now".

And Leonard Sweet, best selling author, professor, Drew University and George Fox University say's "Andrew Farley is one of the best young writers yet most mature thinkers in the church today. Read God without Religion to hear the voice of a 21st-century Bonhoeffer who shows how to ring in the good times when Jesus (not religion) is the cantus firmus, the enduring melody, of our lives"

If you haven't met Andrew, or read either of these books, I've attached links to an excellent two part interview with him, just click on the following links part one and part two , happy viewing, (and reading) :-)

Let's Dis the Illusions

I have been thinking and processing a lot over the past few of days, following the amazing five days that we had with Wayne last week. 

We took our name gratefully disillusioned from the statement that Wayne frequently makes in his sharing - "We are gratefully disillusioned because we have all had illusions about God that need to be dissed". One of the wonderful aspects of Wayne's gift is his ability to reveal the illusions that we are often living under. 


I shared in the last blog a couple of those illusions, one being the idea that we can successfully live out our Christian life through others, leaders, friends, organisations etc.. when in fact Father wants us to take full responsibility for our own lives and fly our own plane. Then we will have His life to share with others.

Another one is the idea that the institutional church, as many of us have come to know it, is like getting on a 747 and going for a ride. I must say that my experience of the 27 years that I spent in the institutional church was very much as a passenger on the 747. Probably a more accurate description in my case would be a DC3, but you get the idea. 

No one, leaders or otherwise, that I met during those years ever talked to me about the need to "learn to fly" for myself. Neither did they sit down with me to show me now to do it. To be frank, I don't think the people that I was around during that time knew how to do it themselves, ie to live in the Fathers affection, and therefore most of what I encountered was merely religion. When I became a leader, for about 20years of the 27years, I passed on to those around me the same unreality that I was living myself, how sad!! 

Thinking that I can actually fly, while sitting in the 747 is an illusion. Actually learning to fly my own plane (life), daily, in my Father, with Jesus, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,  is the reality that He wants for all of us.

Another illusion that I have been reminded of over recent days is the fact you can only really understand the purposes and heart of God if you are an "expert", the pilot in the 747 illustration. That the bible is so complicated you need to attend a Bible college and do a three year course in Theology before you can really understand it. I read this yesterday by Jeff Turner, and it Dissed that Illusion  :-)

"The Gospel is not so simple that a child can understand it, it's so simple that only a child can understand it. For that reason, Christ declares that we must become as Children in order to experience the Glory of His Kingdom. That being the case, if our theology must be propped up and held in place with scholarly terms, pseudo Greek and Hebrew, textbook gibberish and seminary speak, it cannot be the Gospel. Our theology must be able to survive and not crumble when oversimplified. So much of what we call orthodox, however, turns into absolute chaos and nonsense once simplified into childish terms. 

The point?  God has made it ridiculously easy, we've made it ridiculously complicated...and weird...and downright ridiculous. Let's stick to the simplicity of the Gospel. :)" - Jeff Turner (see Jeff's website)

What A Great Conversation

What an amazing time we all had conversing with Wayne last Saturday.

The topic for the day was learning to live in the Fathers affection. Really knowing that we are loved by the Father and then out of that reality embracing daily life in the assurance that God (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is right there with you.

Wayne likened that process, to learning to fly a plane. You can have been in the classroom many years learning the theory, studying the planes design, looking at the weather maps etc etc, but until you get in the plane with an instructor, start the engine, taxi to the runway and take off you will never experience the thrill and reality of actually flying.

He also highlighted the fact that the flight instructor (The Holy Spirit) always responds to us when we ask for instructions and personally take full responsibility for the flight. The Holy Spirit is there ready and willing to teach and empower us when ever we ask Him to do so. However he will not manipulate, control or force  His will on us. God's goal is to get us to fly so that we can be set free to live our lives "in Him", not just in theory but in practice.

In a separate meeting, Wayne also gave us another flight analogy in relation to the way a large percentage of the institutional church operates in our day. It's like we think that we are flying when we board the biggest and best 747 in the fleet. We pay for the ride, a professional pilot fly's the plane, the crew looks after us and we are taken to the destination of our choice, unless we are hijacked along the way of course, which as we know happens all to frequently. If we don't like the  passengers, the destination or the plane, then we just jump on another one and pay another fare, anything that will make us happy and give us the illusion that we can fly. However, we never learn to really fly, we just think we know how. We then spend our lives needing "professionals" to do the real flying so that we can get from A to B, in the belief that we are making progress. How sad, but how true!!

All Sessions are now available on the "Downloads" page.