Peeking Behind the Curtain (#448) — http://thegodjourney.com/2014/07/25/peeking-behind-the-curtain-448/

Outside the box of religious obligation lies a road less traveled, into the heart of the father's affection. Slinging freedom all over the place, this is the God Jam, the God Jam, the God Jam. Well, I'm almost out of here. One more day here. In fact, by the time you hear this, I'll already be out of here and what that means is not, well, Sarah and I are not moving. We're still going to be in New Bray Park, at least for the foreseeable future, but we're going to take about a month away. Part of that's going to be just moving this whole whatever it is that we do here, about 200 miles north of here, 250 miles north of here. I'm going to hang out with my dad for about a month. I'm going to work for that a couple of weeks and then we're also going to spend some time taking a break, having some vacation, visit some old friends. So we're going to be up near the Fresno area. In fact, on Saturday, a bunch of Fresno folks are getting together and we're doing some talking about this journey. So looking forward to that, but my mom is still with us. Not sure how much longer and we kind of blocked out the space to be up there anyway. So we're going to go spend some time with mom and dad and see how that plays out over the next month or so and get a little vacation time into boot as well as keep finalizing some things on the book. So excited. In fact, we're already back to a whole new cover design. We had a pretty good one with geese and all may still use it, but had some other ideas lately to shape this message of the book and to give it a little more breath. And so we're playing with some new cover designs. You want to keep an eye on the live stream blog when we get a couple of those designs alternatives up, we're going to post them so that people who want to can go, yeah, I like that one. No, I don't like that one. And yeah, we know that's risky. Your favorite cover may not end up on the thing, but it's always fun to see how that kind of thing sorts out. And we're just looking for the right cover that helped shape the message of the book. So thrilled with it. So thrilled how it's coming together. I got it cutting out of 64,000 words and boy, those words work and I love, I love the last sentence. I'm not going to tell you what it is, though, because I just like torturing people, but maybe someday we'll talk about it here. But it kind of wants to get to the last sentence. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of reading the book and that would be bad. That would be bad in terms of making it available to people, I guess. In any case, also starting to plan some travel for the year coming up. Looks like we're going to be going to be in France at the end of June, early July. Haven't totally sorted that out yet. More closer to home early September are going to be in the Lake Tahoe area, helping with this school of mission up that way. And then hopefully still trying to arrange a trip to Kentucky and Ohio early this fall, perhaps a little later because it'll cool off there. But in South Texas, we'll be in Houston area, San Antonio. And then we actually have a weekend open there. We were going to go to Austin that hasn't quite worked out. And so if you're in the Texas area and you see a reason to hang out together, if not I get to fly home early and be with my family. So that's no problem either. But I feel like there's something for a weekend in Texas that we just haven't ferried it out yet. So just make it available. If God put something on your heart, let me know. You know, my email inbox, I don't like talking about what I'm going to talk about today. I forget that occasionally this is such an important conversation to have. And I feel like it is because my email box is somewhat full of people who are at that very fresh stage of looking around, going, something's wrong here. People have been part of a Sunday morning congregation, fellowship, trying as hard as they can to make that work. And then they bump up against something that begins to compromise their freedom. And I just feel like, man, I've gotten so much of that. And I've also gotten some resources here that might be fun for the rest of us to take a look at that I thought, you know what, I'm just going to spend some time before I head out of here. And I may still record some podcasts when I'm gone. So when I said I'll be gone, that doesn't mean there won't be another podcast or two during that time. There may not be, but there also may be. In fact, one, I think next week I'm going to read next week or two, I'm going to read the first chapter of the current book and share that because it's very different from the first chapter I read quite a while ago. But I'm getting email from people who are kind of wondering what's up. Somehow this thing, which we thought was wonderful and good and gracious, suddenly we've hit up against an edge of it that turns it a little nasty and a little conformity based and a little more suspicious. And I just thought, man, for people who are opening to that, a lot of the voices I know just say, look, shut up and go along. This is for your own good anyway. This is good stuff. You're just being rebellious. And it's good now and then for people to realize that when they think something's wrong, it usually is. And if you haven't seen behind the curtain yet to see the wizards pulling all the levers behind the Oz wizard, then you kind of are expecting that those people really wouldn't be there if they didn't have pretty good hearts. And this really isn't about whether their hearts are good or not. This is about whether the systems they employ are kingdom systems or in fact, invite you into darker space. I'm going to withhold the name of this person who wrote and I'm going to withhold the name of the group they're a part of, though they mentioned both of them. But I want to just, some of you have been here and some of you haven't, but here's what she wrote. And this is about someone who's been part of a group and really enjoying the small group part of that congregational life and been real involved in one, asked to substitute, lead it occasionally, wanting to even have one in their own home. And as they started to kind of work on how would we begin to do that, they found out you've got to sign the church covenant. And I put church in quotes, they're air quotes. You got to sign the church covenant or you can't do it. And to their credit, the couple is saying, hold it a minute, why are we signing stuff? Isn't the new covenant enough for us? Do we need another covenant? Well, they were asking me some of that and then the pastors, the powers that be asked for a meeting. Let me just read to you in her word. She said, if we don't sign this paper, we're not allowed to lead a group, just breaks our heart because we love Jesus and we love people. She said, well, two of the pastors asked to meet with us regarding our reluctance to sign the membership covenant. At first, we weren't sure that was a good idea because they wanted to make sure that we are all on the same page. And she puts that in quotes. I love that kind of talk, boy. When that stuff gets happening, and I tell you, these pastors might have the best heart in the world, got involved in this. Probably very young. If they're very young, I could see where they could still have some genuine heart. If you're in your 40s and 50s and you're still doing this to people, you're not paying attention. Or yeah, I've been doing it long, one or the other. But I make sure I'm on the same page because being on the same page is important and we get to control what that same page is. I think if you live this journey long, you realize how much of stuff we don't know with absolute certainty. And so making other people live to your illusion of certainty is never a good idea, especially if you want to find yourself right in the middle of the Church of Jesus' building. Because our conformity-based tactics don't get there. So I'm sure on the same page, which clearly we are not, therefore they call the meeting. And after prayer and consideration, we decided, yes, we would meet with them if only so they could see the new covenant is enough. And I bless their hearts. When you go in to help people see something they're not seeing, it's not like they haven't already thought about it. They've already justified their way past it. And that's where the danger is. So they want to help them see the new covenant is all we need for salvation and all we need for life. And it could help them know better what obviously they're missing. No, they said the new covenant is all we need for salvation. But if they are called to give an account for the flock, then we must have some agreed standards to live by and be held to, otherwise we have no course for church discipline should it arise. Okay, so this whole membership covenant system is designed for the, so that we can discipline. That's, it's not noticed to help people live full and free in the life of Jesus. It's to be able to deal with issues we need to deal with. They were quite offended that I felt holding people to another covenant or signed agreement is unbiblical. They assured us that this is very biblical and they are willing to send us the resources they use to come up with their membership covenant, not to convince us, but to show us how biblical it is. And I should search the scriptures and be able to defend verse by verse why it is not. They acknowledged that they thought we had servants' hearts and others in the church membership expressed that as well, but one must sign the covenant to serve in this church. And she ends with this is so hard. Appreciate your prayers. The enemy is pushing us hard with doubts and fears. Oh man, they found some people they love. They wanna help them grow. Everybody who's met them feels like they have good servant hearts, but that's not enough. We need a signature on a covenant so that we can discipline you if we need to. And all that's built on this Hebrews 13 verse about giving an account. But Hebrews 13 isn't about giving an account to your pastor. It's about anyone who leads or stands before or teaches. They give an account to God for how they treat you. That's what that verse is about. We've twisted it. Suddenly I'm accountable for the people in my fellowship. And if they're accountable to me, I've gotta find a mechanism and they've used to sign covenants and sign covenants are just so old and so unworkable. The people that sign them ignore them. And the people who really have a heart for God are not gonna sign them. And so you really are assuring that we're gonna have people here who are willing to jump through the hoop to please us. But if push comes to shove down the road, they're not gonna honor a signature on a covenant above their conscience anyway. And so people who sign this stuff are gonna leave. And it's always got what we believe and you've gotta believe everything the same way and you've gotta commit to a certain kind of life together. And every group, I don't care how generous it may start out how passionate people are, just love people. Every human group of people, the larger it grows and the longer it exists trends toward control. Why? Because it's an institution. An institution has to have conformity. We have to agree and we have to act the same way and we have to have rewards when you do, like leading a group, punishments when you don't like being excommunicated or marked or shamed by the group. This is just basic 101 conformity based dynamics. And for 2,000 years, we've used those dynamics and called the result of a church even though it doesn't look like the church Jesus is building at all. Because it's a conformity based system people have to do it together. And I love the fact that they're not just gonna, you know what, we should just sign it. It's not that big a deal anyway and that'll put us in a place to be able to love and care for people. They're really going, no, we can't. We believe it's unbiblical. It's asking us to do something that Jesus hasn't asked us to do. And I'm telling you what, if people live this way, our conformity based systems would explode. And honestly, I think that would be great. I think there's an inherent problem of compressing the life of God into a human institution. Now, it doesn't mean people can't be together in a group, cooperate, love each other. But that's different than when we become an institution and when we all have to be on the same page. And when that page has to be the leaders of the group who decide what we do, when we do it, who we honor. That's just, and so if you're pushing up against that, man, let your eyes open to what it is. Now you might say, oh, what are we gonna do? Who else are we gonna be with? We really love these people. Then love the people, hang out. Just don't volunteer for ministry. You wanna form a group in your home and invite people to come to it, whether they're part of that or something else. That's their choice to come if they want to. You don't get on the official literature. You don't get on the official map so people can choose you. But if you wanna have people in your home and share this journey and encourage them and touch them, fabulous. And if those people won't come, if it's not efficiently sanctioned, you know what, God's got other people to give you. There are people who would love to have folks take an interest in them without having to rope them down to covenants and contrasts. My friends at Family Room Media one time did a skit. It was hilarious. It was just a skit of four or five guys sitting around getting ready to form a men's group and accountability group. And needing to have an agreement to sign because they realize how weak they are. Now, easy to be able to give in to their stuff. And so what they do is they finally, all of them but one decide to sign the covenant because that's really important. And they were hard on the guy who didn't wanna sign it. Like, what's wrong with you? You're uncommitted, you're independent. You know, there's nothing wrong. If you're gonna be here anyway. And the guy gives them a call, be here. I'll be here. I just don't need to sign a thing to say. It just feels awkward and artificial. And so he doesn't sign. The other four do. The next week, the only one there is the guy that didn't sign the covenant. And if you've ever been through these kind of hoop situations, that's not just a funny skit. It's funny. It's often true. People who sign it, sign it because they know they're weak and they're not gonna follow through. But they don't follow through with their signature any better than if they didn't sign it. Because this kingdom's really about making a choice. And it's the choices we make every day. And it's not trying to rope ourselves into an obligation because we're afraid that we won't be good enough or committed enough or strong enough. Instead, we wanna go on a journey that lets God shape us from the inside and bring us into life. And that's a much better way to go. Someone else also sent me. And I'm hoping these people, I mean, I love their hearts. I think they're seeing that there's an insidious thing as well intentioned as these quote unquote pastors might be. They are not pastors of a new covenant. They're pastors of an institution and they're putting the needs of the institution above the realities of the kingdom of God in the world. That's what Finding Church, the new book is a lot about. How do we live to kingdom realities and watch the church grow up around us or try to form our own version of it by these conformity based dynamics which may have wonderful intentions behind them but they'll never produce the work of God and in the long run only hurt people as much those who lead it as those who don't. I'm gonna give you another example of that. This is not a letter to me. This was a blog posted on the internet. Someone sent me the link and I'll put it on the podcast so you can go check it out if you want to. Begins with hello, my name is Mike and I'm a recovering true believer. Name is Mike Anderson. He's from the Seattle area. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He said, I spent the decade after high school in single-minded devotion to a church movement that started in Mars Hill in Seattle. I'm now very sorry for my participation. Have you ever sat next to a bug zapper on a warm night and just watched an insect buzzes by and is instantly transfixed. The little light draws him in and then they're fried. This is my own story of getting transfixed by a pretty light and getting fried in the end. I've seen many friends make bad choices in their 20s. For some regularly partying quickly turned into alcoholism for others prescription drugs led them to dark places. For me it was religion. You see I'm what they call a true believer. I really liked the idea of changing the world, sacrifice for the cause, single-minded drive for the mission, a charismatic leader. And as a 19 year old, I was the kind of guy that was the ideal follower for the crazies of history, the Mussolini's and the Hitler's. Fortunately for the world, the 21st century of version of this extremism isn't hyper nationalism. It's mega church in his world. There's less bloodshed than the 20th century version but still lots of hurt. I thought we were changing the world. This was no ordinary mega church. This was the fastest growing church in the least Christian city in America. And I guess that's right from their promotional materials. It had planted hundreds of new churches around the world. Everyone knew us. I got to hang out with ABC News folks, had dinner with Bubba Watson and met about a thousand Christian celebrities. I thought we were a supreme blessing in the world. He traveled all over with Mark. I spent so much and Mark Driscoll is the pastor of that. I don't know much about Mark. I've seen one clip of his when he gave a review of the shack and that was enough for me. You know, people who are, I was gonna say it. I mean, I don't know him, but the video, I watched two minutes of it and I don't even care what the subject matter is. I'm thinking this is one of the most arrogant men I've ever seen. It seems one of the things I've noticed about evangelicalism is that we don't recognize Eric. When you're right, you get to be arrogant. When people are convinced you know what it is, just the demeanor of blustering, bullying other people, making fun of things you disagree with in a vindictive, vitriolic way. Oh my goodness. I watched two minutes of it and thought, you know, he didn't like the shack at all, but we were told by one of his friends that later that most of the folks that morning went out and bought the book to see what he was so upset about. He said, I spent so much time with Mark. This is back to Mike's story because I was the guy who organized conferences, planned and promoted books, directed the online content, later worked directly on all of Mark's project. I was at the center of all of this and I was proud of help making it bigger. I used to joke that my title should be Minister of Propaganda. He talks about being in these big events. He talks about how they're, and then everything began to change. The power structures of the congregation began to change. And he says this, I even co-authored a book with Mark called Campaigns about 12 months before leaving the staff. The idea behind it was to be able to rally Mars Hill and thousands of other churches behind one pulpit. I'm so thankful that this never had the time to get truly implemented. Man, goes on, I spent nearly a decade listening to every word Mark Driscoll preached. I was in, I made a decade of decisions based on his conviction and not my own. That's my fault. But when I saw the decisions being made and saw the emperor had no clothes, my identity and my foundations were completely inundated. So you say, why do we talk about this kind of stuff? It's because people get caught up in it. And I know the people who will hate this podcast the most when their friends send it to them and say, you should listen to this. And they get about this far in going, yeah, he just went to those guys that hate church and he's just a bitter old dude and he's whatever. People defend this stuff the most when it's falling apart in their own hearts because they've laid so much wood to the fire, they feel like they've got to, this has got to work. I'm too far in it, if I to admit I'm wrong would be to walk back all the hurts I've done to people who wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't believe, wouldn't follow, wouldn't do. In the midst of him falling out of that staff relationship because the mission changed, everything changed, he realized things about his wife, he really owns in a wonderful way because they didn't want wives to work and be at home. He discouraged his wife from training she wanted to do to become a lawyer. And now he looks back with just incredible regret that we made decisions about stuff that affected other people because I was trying to conform to someone else's idea of the world which didn't turn out to be gods at all even though the person doing it claims that it is. That's why you've got to be careful. And I don't care if it's Wayne Jacobson, Frank Viola, Mark Driscoll, any writer, any author, anybody you wanna name, and you're following somebody especially when something in your heart is screaming something's wrong here, trust the spirit in you more than you trust any other voice. Will you get it wrong sometimes? Sure you will. But I'm gonna get it wrong sometimes too. So if you're following me instead of him then you're gonna get your wrong and my wrong and that's just a mess, follow him. When you hear things from folks like me that resonate with you, great. But don't change the dependence from listening to God to now. Ooh, I've got someone to follow instead. Keep following him. His dad gave him a book though called True Believer. I've never read it, but he quotes from it. I love this quote. When a mass movement begins to attract people who are interested in their individual careers it is a sign that it has passed its vigorous stage and is no longer engaged in molding a new world order but preserving the present. I think that's a great thing to look at. But even before that, not only when you're more concerned about how you benefit from this, it's over. But the whole idea of we're gonna mold a new world order is as deceptive as it can be. I'm just, we don't do that. On our best day, any group of Christians trying to change the world order, you're out of your mind. This is only something worthy of the head of the church. Can he move culture his way? Oh, he absolutely can. Will he do it through the obedience of his people living on the planet? Oh, yes, he will. Will we'll be better at that when we're unaware of it? I believe we will. Every time a collection of, it can be Christians, atheists, communists, whatever. You get a group of people that are gonna mold the world. It can be people in Washington, D.C. Gonna mold the world to their view of what everybody should do. And then the people in it now, people, and this is a great example here in America, you got the Veterans Administration. Great idea, we're gonna apply medical care for veterans. And then somewhere in the bureaucracy, it becomes far more important that I get a bonus than that we care for sick veterans. It's better for me to lie and get a bonus and someone dies because I'm not getting them care. And so the whole mission that we start out with, even as a country, of protecting liberty, gets subsumed by those who love power and love control. And there's no end of men and women in our culture who love power and control. Whether it's seeking it in Washington or seeking it at the local religious club, I wanna be the guy in charge. I wanna be the one to tell folks what to do. I'm gonna do what's best for everybody. And if they just follow me and they say their own stupid ideas will be better off. And once you go down that road, you hurt people and the bigger you get, the more you hurt. And when he writes in this article, and I'm not gonna read it all to you, I will read this quote from a sermon he took from Martin Driscoll in 2006. That's about a year later when the chat came out. But he said, I'm a guy who's highly competitive. Every year I want the church to grow. I want my knowledge to grow. I want my influence to grow. I want our staff to grow. I want our church plants to grow. I want everything because I want to win. I want to just be where I'm at. I don't want to just be where I'm at. I don't want anything to be where it's at. And so for me, it is success and drivenness and it is productivity and it is victory that drives me constantly. I, that's my own little idol. And it works well in a church because no one would ever yell at you for being a Christian who produces results. So I found the perfect place to hide and I was thinking about it this week. What if the church stopped growing? What if we shrunk? What if everything fell apart? What if half the staff left? Would I still worship Jesus? Or would I be a total despairing mess? I don't know. By God's grace, I won't have to find out, but you never know. Now just listen, on the one hand, there's a wonderful moment of self-discovery here. God is obviously revealing the mark. You're not wired well. Anything you read here about drivenness and productivity and I want to win and it's all about competition. That's the old order. That's the old world. That's the old creation. That's how men and women who manage power think act and work. And it sounds like you're having a bit of an epiphany about, I'm doing this stuff and it's my own little idol, he says, and I found the perfect place to hide, he says. Been a great point to change, but instead you never know. By God's grace, I won't find out. I'm gonna keep driven now. I guess he's finding out because I guess a lot of people have left Marsh Hill. I guess it's in a critical place of crumbling and now will we find out? Yeah, they have this driven little thing that works in another kingdom and maybe I've done that to build great stuff for myself, but in the long run, how many people have I wounded and devastated and destroyed? Now, Mike ends this by saying, and I feel like, gosh, why would you write this? It's all pretty honest stuff about someone and that makes us all nervous, but sometimes if you don't call out what is, what it is, people think it's a good thing. Says, I'm writing this to clearly tell everyone I ever interacted with that I was wrong to be part of this. Religion and manmade movements are my crack. I wanna burn to the ground any bridge that gives me a path back into it. And so he writes this partly for his own self-protection. I'm not going back that way again. I'm not going to where control and anguish and pain is part of the way we try to push the mission of the church forward in the world. I think calling things like that churches is an abomination. And I know we wrestle, do we give up the name church? Cause it's been co-opted by these things. They call it church now. I don't even wanna be affiliated with the church, but then I read scripture and I am absolutely absorbed into the language of the church, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. That there is a church Jesus is building and when you understand how he builds it and what it looks like, then this, not just 10 years into it after it's become this nightmare of a thing, but at its very initial stages, you're going, wow, this smells more like man than the fragrance of father. This is about how we'll build stuff for him. This is the same way the world builds. What he describes about Mars Hill isn't different than any other CEO of any large movement, a corporation. Their movement may be about money and profit. His was about power and influence. It's the same thing, cash, credit in the sense of approval or significance and control. Those are the three identifiers of old creation realities. That's what it's always about. And if that's what you're going to seek, you're gonna end up, and I love that Mike could be honest enough. I'll link you to his article. I love that he could be honest enough to say, you know what, this was my drug of choice. This is where I got lost and I got lost because it was something wired in me to want to be part of something big, part of something significant, be inside with a bunch of celebrities, all the stuff that it drove in him. And I love what he, it makes me the prime candidate for the Hitler's and Mussolini's or Mark Driscoll's of the world. That power dynamic, both of those who want to follow and those who want to lead has continued to disfigure the church of Jesus Christ in the world. It's good for us to step back some time and realize, you know, not everybody doing that stuff is so well-intentioned. Not everything behind that is people really doing their best for God. It's really people driven by their own self-needs and the ability for us to deceive ourselves in that kind of situation is huge. I've done it. I've been in those kinds of things where you just, something's wrong here, but, you know, it'll increase my whatever to do this, my position, my influence, my job security. And so you compromise your conscience to get along and then you come to regret it as most of us have. But the good news is, there's a life beyond all that. There's life for my, I wrote my own note. Just said, rooting for you, man. Love what you've seen. Hope you find Jesus on the other side of this and how real he is in spite of what this group has done to disfigure it. I also got this article sent to me. It's 10 pastors I'm concerned about. And no, Mark Driscoll's name isn't here because he doesn't use names. What he uses, this is from Scott Postma. Scott talks about different pastors and he talks about, not by name, talks about it by character. Said I'm concerned about the pastor who's better at managing church programs than he is at making disciples of Jesus. I like that. I'm concerned about the pastor who makes growing the church the goal instead of glorifying God the goal. I'm concerned about the pastor who builds his ministry with people instead of building people with his ministry. I'm concerned about the pastor who cultivates a culture of dependency on himself instead of cultivating a culture of community within the church. I'm concerned about the pastor who contributes to the culture of consumerism instead of combating idolatry. Christianity isn't a smorgasbord where people get to pick and choose what they like or don't. It's a community of believers on a journey of faith who live with others for the glory of God, the blessing of his people and the advancement of his kingdom. You know, as I read that article and I would resonate with that, I still think as generous as you can be with a conformity-based environment. And I know few churches, quote unquote, who live long, who don't make that jump from conformity, from loving people in Jesus and growing together to, we've got mission activities, we need you to participate and we move down that road of control. But of the ones I read, you and I didn't read all 10 of them, but the ones I've read to you, and the reason I read those particular ones to you, other ones would have a different commentary on it. But on these, notice all of them are asking the pastor of these various entities to act in the opposite of what would reward them most personally. I don't think I even said that right. In other words, better managing church programs than he is making disciples. But you know what? His pay depends on managing church programs. I don't know any pastor that's rewarded for making disciples. I mean real disciples. I don't mean having a large program and getting a lot of people in classes that fill out notebooks and jump through certain hoops. I'm talking about people who are taught how to live and listen to Jesus and follow his work in them. You do that and you know what? One, it's very inefficient because you can't put that in a lot of classes. That's a lot of conversations. That's a lot of sitting with people. You can't make that financially expedient and your financial platform rides on managing the church program. Growing the church is important for the program. It's important for a personal sense of success in the way we've done church and the way we've set it up in this world. And I mean man's kind of church, not God's. Building the ministry instead of building people. You know, again, the economic reward. And here's Upton Sinclair said it. One of my favorite quotes of all time, it is difficult to get a man or woman to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. We talked about a book on the podcast. I'll link it here as well about mistakes were made but not by me. That's a great title for a book. And the object of the book, it's about cognitive dissonance. When I'm getting into a situation and bad things happen, I have this vested interest in rewriting the story so I look good and someone else looks bad. And as I rewrite that story in my own self-interest, what they talk about is we have this amazing capacity as humans to write a story in our own mind that we then become to believe and what actually swear to in court, even though it has no basis in fact or truth at all. Cognitive dissonance depends on our own self-interest, our own expedience. And that's made even worse when money or our personal well-being is involved. And the more the money is, the more the money is at risk, the more capacity we have for self-deception to justify the outcome that we want. And when I read Scott's article, what concerns me is these, even if you're a fan of our conformity-based Sunday morning institutions, if you're a fan of those things, you realize we have set them up in such a way that the people that are rewarded are those that have the opposite priorities of the kingdom. Now, we like to think that's not true. I remember being there, I remember fighting these exact same situations and knowing, man, if we do this, which God seems to be laying on our heart, how does this make sense in terms of how do salaries get paid? And then you just, you can talk yourself out of because our capacity for self-deception is humongous, especially when our self-interest is involved. And so we justify things that later, you look back going, man, how did I justify that? How did I make excuses for that part of my life? And that's, so when I read this, we're putting young men and women fresh out of seminary many times in these very situations where what Jesus would ask them to do is the opposite of what we're going to pay them to do. And they're gonna fall victim to the same system. Probably not as exploitive and abusive as the one we just read about in Seattle. But I've got many stories like that. Or with our sister who wrote us earlier about forced to sign a covenant. If you can't sign a covenant, then there's no ministry for you here. And it's not just, okay, well, let's just agree about that. It really is, you are being unbiblical if you don't agree with us. And now what's going to happen to her, to stay now in the group without signing it is gonna have the pastors always looking at an excuse and be worried, are they gonna tell other people how unbiblical our covenant is? And so now we've got to whisper about them. So if they say anything like that, people won't take it seriously. And they may even aim at it in a Sunday morning sermon where you're kind of poking at the person who's in the room but you're talking to a white boy, have I done that? I hope I don't do it much anymore, but man, have I done that? Teach a sermon, have an illustration because you're talking to one person in the room and most people in the room even know who you're talking about. And you're playing this little game of putting them at ill ease because of what you've got to do. Now take that, for those of you who listen to this and say, but Wayne, man, I feel like one of those teacher types, pastor types, I have a calling in my life to help other people grow. I wanna find a way to do it. Listen, this is from Philip. He's 22 years old, lives in Australia. He said, I've been told for my age, I know so much about God and my parents see so much potential in my years to come in the hands of God. And I believe that. Unfortunately, I have a butt that is pressing into my vocabulary. I'm finding it very hard to rest in this place, my parents see in me. I've had multiple thoughts on teaching people my age and of older sorts, but there's a foul stench that lingers around this. I am not sure what to think of it. Is it me being too careful not to fall into a religious cycle trap or is it truly something the devil doesn't want me doing? Or even am I ready? I will add my heart is at a place that only God was able to place it there and for me to only submit and obey. I don't go to church, nor have I felt the need to. If so, it probably was a temptation to satisfy the flesh for a short time before it became bitter and unconscious. In all honesty, I understand that I am to go to God and if I have God, there is no need for me to be taught. I guess being taught these days is an obligation. In fact, the word taught may even mean being encouraged. I felt the need in one sense to express this to someone else that is on the road of real and a passion for Christ like me. This is what is on my heart at the moment. And I get a lot of emails like that. People have a passion to help others grow and feel like they have some insight, but do have a yuck factor about compressing that into the only way we have figured out how to monetize ministry, not the only way, but one of the significant ways is you plant church, you become a pastor, you're going to be a janitor and plant something or you get on staff somewhere and then you get to do, well, sort of you get to do, but you're also going to attend a lot of meetings and you're going to do a lot of stuff, tubes to jump through, programs to manage, that isn't about helping people grow in Christ. Is there a place even for a 22-year-old with a passion on his heart to help other people grow and I want to scream, yes, yes, yes. Does it have to be in the old systems that distort and ruin it? No, no, no. Are there other possibilities? There are a zillion other possibilities of how God can take a gift that is meant to encourage and stimulate others to grow. There'd be a cheerleader for them to be a voice of wisdom when they're reaching conflict or uncertain. Is there a way to do that without creating dependency-based or conformity-based institutions? The great news is there is. Jesus did it. He walked alongside, he encouraged people. He gathered with some for a season of time, but the idea wasn't dependence on himself in terms of the physical human Jesus. It was on his father and the Jesus that would live within us in the future to come. Post-cross, post-resurrection in their day. And I don't want to end this with, look how negative this all is and then people like Philip here think, well, gosh, there's just no place for me because that just all turns into be yuck. And that does often turn into be yuck. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a real way this kingdom makes its way into the world. And there isn't a real way that God would give you. It can be podcast, blogging, writing. It can be inviting some people over to your home and sharing a journey with them. It can just be looking for the friends God wants you to hang out with and make an attempt every week or two to hang out with people and talk about their journey. And you'll find yourself helping and encouraging and learn to teach without having to get a notebook and a podium and line up people and teach them to follow a system even if it's a philosophical system. I quiver when I hear people using curriculum from this, that or the other thing because if we take people through this curriculum they'll be better believers knowing it's not the curriculum. It's coming alive in the new creation and you don't need a notebook for that. You don't need a workbook to fill out. You need people who are alive in the new creation living alongside other people helping them come alive as well. And in the midst of that there may be things to share and teach and put out there and the internet provides so many opportunities to do this part of it. Podcasting, writing books, writing articles there's ways to encourage content in the world but the more important, we've always said this the more important is sitting alongside brothers and sisters who are finding their legs on this journey and encouraging them to something that's so real and I think the best thing we can do that takes care of these false counterfeit, conformity-based people chomping machines is to let the kingdom come in our own hearts in such a real way for people to find that community together and find each other to find something so much more real that isn't based on what man can build. And I love that I see that happening in the world and the last season of my life I wanna give fully. How do we encourage that in the world? How do we encourage it in local areas for people to find ways to connect without creating obligation-based systems and finding ways to encourage and love and let love be enough? And hopefully we'll have a lot more of that kind of conversation up the road. Thank you for traveling with us today on The God Journey. You can join this conversation by visiting thegodjourney.com or add your voice by calling our comment line at 805-539-6980.