"Isn't it sad that we thought we could press people into spiritual change, instead of helping them grow to trust Father more and find Him changing them? You can't press a caterpillar into a butterfly mold and make it fly. It has to be transformed from the inside."
(I'm currently reading and enjoying this book, and am posting a quote from it each day so you can decide whether to buy it or not.)
“Religion is . . . a shame-management system, often with the best of intentions and always with the worst of results. In the end people are still addicted to shame and bounce between self-pity and self-glory, never finding freedom to simply live in Him. It makes people think God wants a cause and effect relationship with them. If they’ll be good, He’ll be good to them.” (Jacobsen and Coleman, "So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore")
"It's valuable for the body of Christ to find one another and share His life together. Where people are doing that they don't need commitment. They'll bend over backward to be with one another. Where they aren't doing that, it does little good just to be committed to a meeting. I'm convinced that most Christian meetings give people enough of God's things to inoculate them against the reality of His presence . . . Discipline holds great value when your eye is on the treasure. But as a substitute for that treasure, obligation can be a real detriment when it gives you satisfaction just for completing a task."
“If you really want to learn how to share Jesus’ life together, it would be easier to think of that less as a meeting you attend and more as a family you love . . . Anything valuable you experience in your life together will come from your life in him.” (Jacobsen and Coleman, "So You Don't Want To Go Church Anymore." Get the book here.)
“Our biggest messes come when we try to do something for God that we’re convinced he can’t do for himself.” (Jacobsen and Coleman, "So You Don't Want To Go Church Anymore." Buy it here.)
“When we’re looking to the future, we’re not listening to Father. Anything we do to try and guarantee stability on our own terms will actually rob us of the freedom to simply follow him today. We’ll resort to our own wisdom instead of following his. The greatest freedom God can give you is to trust his ability to take care of you each day.” (Jacobsen and Coleman, "So You Don't Want To Go Church Anymore." Buy the book at: http://www.lifestream.org/waynes-books.php?bid=6)
I’m having a terrific time at the AELM Conference, here in Estes Park, Colorado.What fantastic and fun and deep and loving and kind these people are.I’m thinking of starting a commune with all of them as charter members.And with my wife and girls joining us tonight, the picture is fairly complete.We might let a few others in . . .maybe not.
“Just remember he’s not worried about tomorrow because he has already worked that out. He’s inviting you to live with him in the joy of the moment, responding to what he puts right before you. The freedom to simply follow him that way will transform so many areas of your life. He loves you . . . and he wants you to live in the security of that, without having to figure everything out.” (Jacobsen and Coleman, "So You Don't Want To Go Church Anymore")
“. . .Paul (the apostle) saw another way to live in God’s life that was so engaging it transformed his entire life. He knew that our failures all result from the fact that we don’t trust God to take care of us. As Paul grew to know God better, he discovered that he could trust God’s love for him. The more he grew to trust God’s love, the freer he was from those desires that consumed him. Only by trusting Jesus can anyone experience real freedom.” (Italics mine.)
(I am currently reading "So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore," by Coleman and Jacobsen, and I'm lovin' it. I'll regularly post some quotes from it so you can get a feel for what the authors are saying. And so you can decide whether or not you want to pick it up.)
Today I am offering two quotes for the price of one.
"No prison is as strong as religious obligation. It takes us captive even while we're patting ourselves on the back."
"We're not changed by the promises we make to God, but by the promises he makes to us. When we make commitments that we can live up to only for a brief period, our guilt multiplies when we fail. Upset that God doesn't do more to help us, we usually end up medicating our guilt with something like drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, or anything else that dulls the pain, or it creeps out of us through anger or lust."
(I am currently reading "So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore," by Coleman and Jacobsen. I am enjoying it very much, and I'll regularly post some quotes from it so you can get a feel for what the authors are saying. And so you can decide whether or not you want to pick it up.)
My daughters are in on the conspiracy, I’m sure of it.
Almost two weeks ago, the Spirit surprised me with the following words in my head: “I want you to have more fun. . .with me.” Well, I’m having some trouble with that. I mean fun is for weekends and vacation, right? Fun is for kids on a playground and idiot youths on sleepovers. Fun is irresponsible. Fun is not productive. Right? Hasn’t anyone ever told you, with a bit of a sneer, “Hey! You’re having too much fun! Don’t you have a job or something better to do?!” Only they didn’t mean better, they meant harder, more responsible. And more quiet. Probably they meant something like, “Dear God, can’t you get yourself together and act like an adult?!”
The words were drenched with shame on you.
Well, if I’m ever going to live by faith, then, for me, that’s going to mean having more fun with God even around people who might think I’m being, well, bad, or less than the good I should be. Frankly, I don’t particularly like it when people draw the target of disdain on my back—you know what I mean? Have you ever caught a glimpse of someone giving a he’s such an immature idiot look to those who are the audience of your loony moment? It’s like that person is looking around at everyone except you in order to form a gang by shaping their opinion that you are, in fact, an immature idiot. Now, thanks to your looniness, everyone knows what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Let’s get to work, since Ralph, the epitome of immature idiot-ishness, isn’t getting anything done.
Honestly, I adore God, and that often reduces, er, liberates me into childlikeness, which is a really close cousin of childishness. And hasn’t Cousin Childish gotten a bad name? Between those two words, childlike and childish, entire nations have squared-off against each other and gone to war. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but haven’t you noticed how much fighting and shaming goes on by the behavior police over which is which? Over which is acceptable and which is not? I mean, who is to say? Childlike & Childish: A Paradigm for the 21st Century wasn’t a class offered at my college. Yours?
I know, I know. My favorite bible person, Paul, wrote about childishness, telling the Corinthians to knock it off.
9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child (infant), I talked like a child (infant), I thought like a child (infant), I reasoned like a child (infant). When I became a man, I put childish (infantlike) ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:9-12, italics mine)
But Paul wasn’t saying that they should quit acting like kids—stop playing around!—he was telling them (and us) to stop clinging to what we believed when we were imprisoned under the law! If they didn’t, they would be stuck as infants (Nepios, the Greek word) in immaturity—move on! Grow up. There’s a new covenant now where love is the greatest—both the receiving and the giving.
I’d say the church (and me!) is being infantish when it refuses to have fun with God because it’s busy being serious, as if seriousness equals maturity. It doesn’t. Often it means locked-down behavior, the end of funny antics and loony playfulness because The Scrutinizers have spoken. Thus saith The Scrutinizers. Paul meant that we must come away from a faith that keeps us in immature infancy (Nepios); he didn’t mean that we should leave the playfulness of childhood. It is unfortunate that we’ve attached an inaccurate meaning to the word, “childish,” and stuck it into our biblical interpretation. Nepios means “infant,” with regard to what one believes. It usually has nothing to do with behavior and everything to do with believing.
Let’s invite Cousin Childish back into the room, and praise him for his true identity. How ‘bout a round of applause for C2!
Anyway, over the last few days each of my daughters has given me something that has induced childishness in their father. I know God’s in on it, even if they don’t—it’s His conspiracy. First, Emma told me about a video where some guy prays wicked prayers for his former girlfriend, who recently rejected him. (Didn’t see it? Scroll down and look for “New Prayer Tips.”) I loved it, and, throwing off the heretofore well-fitted, I-must-be-serious-before-The-Scrutinizers cloak, posted it all over the place. And then this morning, Ellen gave me a Creedence Clearwater Revival CD with not only some songs I didn’t have (How did THAT happen?!), but one I hadn’t heard in eons—It Came Out Of The Sky. Have you heard it? Come on—it rocks! (Click on the video below.) And I’ve played it eight times already, ripping some fantastic air guitar, air drums and air mouth(!) during at least three of the plays. Maybe four.
So immature. Except that nobody could see. There was no one to scrutinize and shame me. And God loved it. He was on background vocals. He’s pretty good with harmony.
I’m going to go take our dog for a walk, and I’ll be bringing my iPod. CCR is about to be in concert on my head.
"This is no distant God who sent his son with a list of rules to follow or rituals to practice. His mission was to invite us into his love--into a relationship with his Father that he described as friendship. But what do we do? We are so quickly captured by a work-driven religious culture that thrives on guilt, conformity, and manipulation that it devours the very love it seeks to sustain."
(I am currently reading "So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore," by Coleman and Jacobsen. I am enjoying it very much, and I'll regularly post some quotes from it so you can get a feel for what the authors are saying. And so you can decide whether or not you want to pick it up.)
Posts
