Remain in Me

 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” -John 15:91-10

Before school started, we had an official Family Meeting. We typed up an agenda and printed one for each attendee. It included topics such as being responsible, setting priorities, having a good attitude, and choices having consequences.  The boys got to add their own topics of concern and discussion as well.

Our goal was to have a set apart time to do a general life check-in as a family before the boys headed back to school. And it worked. There were tears and laughter. We talked about attitudes, friends, conflicts, worries, hopes, and more. 

Now remain in my love.

Ok, but how, Jesus? 

If I were to explain the concept of “remaining” to my children, it would pretty much be exactly what we did. Continue to come to me with all your questions. Process life with me. Let me be your safe place where you can bring your worries. Take my wisdom and live it out. And then do what I suggest is best. 

Do my children do this perfectly? Not by a long shot.

Neither do we. But we keep coming back. 

Jesus what do you think?

Jesus what are you doing here?

Jesus what am I supposed to do here? 

And in this process, He loves us with an infinite and everlasting love, one that cannot be erased by our mistakes or imperfections. A love that forgives and brings us back again. The same love the Father has for Jesus, Jesus has for us. 

I recently heard it said that we should stop calling our time with Jesus a “discipline” or “devotional time,” but instead we should call it a “lover’s ritual.” Reading, listening, and practicing the presence of God should be anything but dry disciplines. They are lover’s rituals, bringing us together in perfect harmony. 

Therefore, may Jesus be your safe place where you process life and find the next step on the path of light.

May your couches and homes be warm safe places where holy conversations can happen.

May you remain in Him, today and always. 

Suffering and Purpose

“It is in the quiet crucible of your personal,

private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born,

and God’s greatest gifts are given.” -Wintley Phipps

Thinking about these things…

Thankful that my suffering is an opportunity to be closer to Jesus. This may not seem to be the case when in the depths of suffering, walking the valley of the shadow of death. For a time, it may seem as though the lights have gone completely out. And so we cry, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” 

But even there, or perhaps mostly there better than anywhere else, we find Jesus. The suffering servant, acquainted with deepest grief. Friend of all who feel forsaken by God. He is with us. It is enough.

And if we can accept it, He will turn our greatest suffering into great purpose, just as the darkness of the cross gave way to the great purpose of resurrection. But we will all, at some point, find ourselves living in those three days between blackest death and glorious resurrection. All may seem lost. In the sludge, in the fire, in the valley, we might have to die a hundred different deaths. The locusts may devour all things.

But look! Your faith is being revealed, of more value than gold! For you will find that you are not holding onto Him, but He is holding onto you, and with a grip that will not let go. Here your faith has a resting place, and somehow you can suffer while also resting in His arms. 

And so you dig in a stake and you dig it in deeply, contending to believe that all is in fact not meaningless, but filled with the purposes of God. You must fight to believe this, because the enemy swiftly comes to steal and kill and destroy all things, including your faith, if possible.

Lay your personal suffering, then, on the altar, and surrender it to the God who brings good out of what was intended for evil. Only with Him are we saved from the sweeping cascade of despair; only with Him can victory shine out of sorrow. So give it all to him and trust that all will be made well in time; if not in this life, then in the next. 

It is well with my soul!

Why I Still Go to Church

I began to be awakened by the Holy Spirit in a different way around 2016. Up to that point, I had been taught about Holy Spirit and I had certainly had encounters with Holy Spirit. Even so, God began awakening me to deeper realities and taking me down a new road.

I was awakened to New Covenant realities - Christ in me, the hope of glory! I became aware that in Christ, God has made his home in us. He doesn’t go away and come back, he simple abides inside his children.

Continuing on, I was awakened to the reality that God speaks to us. Not just that He spoke once in a book I can read, but that He is still speaking. He wants to commune with us.

The experience of these revelations also led to a mad quest of learning about the gifts of the Spirit and how they operate - a topic that had been completely left out of my religious training up to that point. 

Naturally, this all led to a new understanding of the priesthood of all believers, the hierarchy of the church, and of course, my own calling into the ministry. To be honest, I knelt before the altar on the night of my ordination with some hesitation toward the theology behind such an office. Even so I went forward, based on the calling I knew God had given me.

Book after book, mentor after mentor, experience after experience I exhaustively deconstructed church as I had always understood it. It was disorienting, but exhilarating; stressful but freeing. 

During this time I felt led to plant a church with a few good friends. We would operate in the Holy Spirit. We would help each other listen to Jesus. We would give away most of the money we brought in to those in need in our community. We would largely be free of pastor-centered ministry and church bureaucracy. We would be a source of encouragement for other churches that were hungry for a different way.

And we did!

And we were!

We set up camp in my basement and functioned as a small Holy Spirit oasis for several years. It was a joy and I would do it again!

So I’ve experienced an array of church expressions. I grew up Catholic and spent some time with the Missouri Synod Lutherans. I see the value of liturgy and ritual. Later, I would come to Jesus among my Nazarene arm-raising friends. I see the value in their emphasis on the fruit of the Spirit. Later still, I found myself at home with pentecostals and charismatics, and organic church wanderers. I see their emphasis on simplicity and Holy Spirit as a much-needed correction to the church today. 

Today, I find my home among believers of all different types. Some I only connect with on Facebook, they are organic wanderers. Some are in institutional churches, some have given up on the institution. Some are pastors, some are on the fringes. 

But all of them are attempting to follow Jesus in their own way. I guess I’ve also been awakened to the fact that in our quest to be “right” about church, we can miss the beautiful variety of Jesus-lovers available to us.

Circle back.

After years of awakening, deconstructing, reconstructing, serving on staffs, preaching, church planting, and wandering, I now find myself back at a great, big, institutional church. 

This begs the question: Why do I still go to church? If God is everywhere and no one really has it right, why do I keep participating?

Here are my best reasons.

1. I need help believing. Yes God is everywhere, and no we don’t need to sit under 25 minute talk every week in order to be saved. But friends I am simply not strong enough to keep on believing out here on my own. I NEED someone other than me to preach me the Gospel consistently. I need to hear it in word and in song, and I need to hear it in the presence of other fallen human beings who are likewise clinging to its saving truth.

2. I believe in people. Do I think the institution with its politics and hierarchy and bureaucracy has some problems? Sure do. Do I think pastor-centered ministry has its own problems too? Yes I do. But friends, can you also see all the good? So many sincere, Spirit-filled Christ followers fighting the good fight of faith! So many loving and praying and contending for one another! I want to be part of that!

3. The church needs us.  This is not meant to be an arrogant statement. The church really does need the prophets, the artists, the dancers and the wanderers, the people who ask good questions and work to shift the cultural tide. The church needs people who question how the sausage is made and who seek for deeper things. If that’s you, friend, please don’t abandon this imperfect thing we call the church.

4. Jesus loves the church. After all, it is his bride. And his bride is not made up of institutions, titles, or positions, but of people, individuals. Beautiful, struggling, faith-filled people who are following Jesus through this difficult world. Let’s not be so busy being critical of what’s wrong that we miss what Jesus has gotten incredibly right.

Receive this prayer: No matter where you have wandered and what weird places your journey has taken you, may you continue to find beauty and sustenance in the varied expressions of the gatherings of Jesus’ people.