A Journey into Renewal — http://thegodjourney.com/wordpress/2005/04/28/fifth-webcast-now-available/

You're listening to The God Journey, an ever-expanding conversation with those thinking outside the box of organized religion with your hosts and fellow travelers, Wayne Jacobson and Brad Cummings. Hi, Wayne. How you doing, Brad? I'm doing fantastic. You were just up in Sacramento. What were you doing? I was. I was up there last week with a group of folks, and I actually went up through a bridge builder workshop, but then got to hang out with some folks I've been with over the last four years, five or six different times, and they're a group that's deconstructed their congregation. Five years ago they were a traditional congregation, and today they've got no staff, they've got no building, they've got no regular meetings. It's an incredible story, and they gave it up willingly. It wasn't a church split, it wasn't a collision of some kind, it was some people that felt like God was leading them on a journey, and they went with him. Wow. Talk to one of the key guys up there that was part of that whole transition, Dave. In fact, we did an interview, and I'd love you to hear it, because I think some of the things that he talked about would be a real blessing to you. So I thought maybe we'd play that interview out. It's probably about 40 minutes, so it'll take a bit of time, and we'll use it as most of this show. We'll come back in and do some commentary. How's that sound? That sounds great. I've known a lot of pastors over the years talk about working themselves out of a job, but I've never known very many to actually do it. I'm with Dave Fredrickson, a good friend of mine and brother from Sacramento, California. And Dave, you and the bunch you hang out with have been on an interesting journey. Have you not? Yes, we have. And take us back, I guess, five, six years ago, tell us about what body life looked like back then for you guys. Well, I'd say five years ago. We had a fairly traditional type of service or meeting situation. And we had, of course, Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, we had a lot of programs. We had kids programs, teens programs, all those different kind of things. And although we did emphasize the relationship a lot, we found out that we were usually too busy to get too involved, too deeply involved with one another. So you were hoping for a lot of relationships in the context of this more institutionalized congregation, but it's pretty hard to do, isn't it, when you've got five nights out a week for various meetings and programs and committees? It really is. It really is. In fact, there were some of us that had been together for quite some time, and we loved being together, loved doing things together. There was an openness and transparency in lives, and yet we were so busy that we found ourselves always hungry for time just to fellowship. And what I liked about your fellowship before is I've heard stories about it. You guys were fairly missional in terms of your approach. It wasn't just a little bless me club that got together. You guys were involved in street kinds of sharings. You were involved in juvenile hall, and you were involved in things. So it wasn't just an ingrown bunch of folks. You felt like you really had some wonderful priorities. You were part of a network of congregations. Were you not? Yes. There's a network of, just a small network of churches that were quite mission-oriented, and we did a lot of what we see as missions. There was a lot of work in India and Mexico, and about maybe 14 different nations that we traveled and spoke and ministered in. And also in the neighborhood there, we would go on Sunday nights, actually just as whoever came to Sunday night service. We would go from door to door, not really to advertise the church, but just to see if people needed prayer or whatever. We had twilight theaters, you know, where we would do mime and music and stuff like that. So you weren't a traditional congregation in the sense that it wasn't just a program for the few that came together all the time, but you were a growing congregation, had your own building, and how long had you been meeting in Sacramento together as a fellowship? We actually, let's see, five years ago we would have been meeting about ten years. Ten years, and this grew out of a fellowship over in the Bay Area. As I understand, kind of a plant from there, an extension of that. Right. The fellowship we were with there in the Bay Area. So some of you had been together longer than, say, 15 years, right? Some of us had, yes. Today, describe what your life is like today as a fellowship. Well, today. This is what's interesting, very interesting. Today we no longer meet in a building. You no longer have a building. We no longer have a building. We have sold the building, and we no longer have studying morning services. In fact, you're no longer the pastor of anything. No, I'm not the pastor of anything. We gave up all positions. You were full-time salary. As of a few days from now, you won't be deriving anything from that income stream. Is that right? A while from now I'll have no income at all. Well, you'll have income. You just don't know where it's coming from. As far as from the ministry stream, no income. So you've really worked your way out of a job. Yes. I think that's a good way to put it. It wasn't that the church fell apart and you got fired or anything like that. This was a conscientious series of decisions that you guys made. You didn't see the end from the beginning, I'm fairly certain. No. But you began to make some steps five years ago that's led you to where you are today. It wasn't really a reaction or a problem, so much as it were some satchel obedience as I understand it. I've been hanging out with you guys, gosh, what, three or four years? About four years now I think. About four years. So I'm not responsible for this. No. You guys are well on this journey before I showed up, but as I've been around with you guys and watched your story unfold, and I had no idea we first got started either, that you guys would eventually dismantle yourselves out of existence institutionally. At the same time, your fellowship and life together has thrived spiritually. Would you say that's true? Definitely. Yes. There's obviously people that never did catch this vision or this journey that we're on in the same way that a number of others of us did, but there are those that have been through the whole process in these last five years who have come to a whole different way of thinking about what church is and what fellowship is and what priorities are in our relationship with the Lord. I'll walk with him. So let's kind of go back five years ago. How did this transition begin? What were the things that first began to stir in your heart or among the people? I don't know where the prime, I was going to say directive, but that sounds very star trekky. I don't know where the prime motivation began to come from, but what were the things that first made you feel unsettled about where you were? I began feeling unsettled probably not very long after we first began the church there because I had come from a place where I was longing for a deeper relationship with the Lord. I was wanting to see something happen with his people in a powerful way, wanting to see the lost come to Christ and wanting to see people go into real maturity where they walked in the end of the sea with Christ. And what I found is that no matter how I preached or what I felt I sampled what we did, no matter what kind of discipleship programs, there was only always just a few people that seemed to really get a hold of the Lord and begin to walk the way that you, that at least I imagined, would be the way that someone that was in love with the Lord would walk. I didn't think I'd hear pastors, I was a pastor for twenty years. I hear a number of pastors say similar things, that there's a few people in here who really seem to live my heart's reality. And there's a lot of people that seem to just, I mean they may be faithful attenders, they may be there just about every time you meet, they may be faithful givers, they may fit into that whole system very well, but as far as having a relationship in Christ that thrives or a relationship with other brothers and sisters that's real and authentic and growing, it just doesn't seem to happen. Is that what you're talking about? That was exactly it. Everything seemed to, oh people were faithful, we had so many comments of people that would come and speak at the church of what a wonderful group of believers was and so forth. But as you got down to the realities of life, you found out that people struggled in the relationship with the Lord, they struggled as far as prayer life, devotional life if you want to call it, that's what we called it then, in the word and belief and faith during the week. And so all the things that were taught and seemed to be excited about, excite the people concerning Sunday morning meetings didn't really seem to have an outworking in that relationship with the Lord during the week. And so you began to say, are there other options? Is that how this started? I mean, are there other ways to think through this? At first I was just frustrated, I had no idea what it might be, I thought I was just praying for revival, I kept saying, but this has got to be revival, we've got to pray the Spirit down somehow. So I prayed more and fasted more and led the congregation into more prayer and fasting and so forth. And then you feel the self-doubt of I must not be the leader, they need to get there because we're not getting there. Yeah, there must be something wrong, you know, so I pray more and more and more and fast more and more and more. Is that why you're so skinny? That's maybe what I'm not doing right. And I thought, I thought it's just, you know, I would hear people say, you know, at seminars and so forth, as you are, so does the church go. And the Lord, I have a prayer life and yet the people here tell me they don't have prayer life. You know, I live such and such a way. I seek you, you know, but I don't see that happening. So how is it? What am I supposed to do? And what did you begin to see that began to move you towards some transitions? Well, what happened is we finally just decided, let's just shut down everything for a week, or not for a week, during the week, what goes on during the week, let's shut down everything but Sunday mornings and take a couple months and just begin to seek the Lord together. And so we did that. We just left Sunday mornings go and we shut down all the programs, except two. But during that process, during that time, those got shut down too, even though it wasn't our idea, but something happened with the people running them. So it just worked out that we had no programs going on. We began to come together about four nights a week, just for non-agenda prayer meetings. We just began praying, just seeking God and asking him what did he want. He began to work in our lives. He began to show us some things where we were not walking in reality or integrity or openness and different things like that. And so after the end of that time, I expected God to revitalize the programs that we had set aside. I thought that this was just a work he needed to do in our lives. In fact, he did a good work in many people's lives and there was a change in their lives. So I thought, well now, now he can revitalize these things and they'll have life and there'll be a whole new... So you weren't giving up the programs. You were really just taking a break from them hoping that something would re-energize. Right, we were just taking a break. So here we were thinking now that it was time. And so as I began to seek the Lord, I felt a strong impression that he was saying, don't restart the programs. Whoa, I shared with the other leaders and so forth and they seemed to witness with the same thing that we're not to restart them. And so... And when you say that you heard the Lord say, did he like, Dave, don't start the program. Was this a voice out of nowhere? Was this more a growing conviction over time? And how would you describe when you say that God made that clear to you? How do you make that clear? It's just a sense of, I guess, a lack of peace of every time you begin to move in a direction. A feeling like, well, now I guess it's time to do this just to check. Just, no. You can't do it. You can't do it. And the people this time, the leaders you were sharing with and the others, pretty much supportive of what you were discovering and struggling with? Yes, they were. They were supportive. They were very hungry as well. And knowing that God had something and not knowing what it was. And what about the network of other pastors that you might have been connected to? Saying your fellowship of congregations with some of you were sharing with them? Were they supportive, not supportive? I was trying to be a little silent about it that time because I wasn't sure how they would take it. And as they did begin to learn what we were doing, they became quite concerned. And finally called me to a meeting with a couple of them and tried to convince me that I was not doing the right thing. And you were unsubmitted in that sense? Well, yeah. And I said, well, I appreciate the way you feel, but I feel strongly that this is what God is doing. And so we left it that way at that point. Later, it became a little more tense when they saw that I wasn't changing anything. And changing back to the way they wanted it to be done. They felt you had to have programs for certain things. And it wasn't just programs. When some of it was, you were beginning to redefine your role as a leader in the body. Isn't that true that that was different from those senior pastor I know everything model to? And at the first time, the first time they called me together, I wasn't so much operating in that role. It was just a programmatic thing. That's when God, I felt, had really indicated somehow that we should not continue the programs. And so I hadn't even explored the idea of leadership at that point. And so far, I was able to kind of move along with this other thing, even though they were unhappy about it, until I began to explore and rediscover what I felt the Bible was saying about what is the role of leaders in the body of Christ. And that brought me into a time where it began to be redefined to me. Can you describe a little bit of that? How was it redefined for you from being a senior pastor, kind of the head direction guy, head vision guy, I guess? Was that pretty much it in the tradition you were from? How did that change? How do you see it now, maybe? Well, I began to see that we were all brothers in the Lord. I began to explore some things that actually, some scriptures even, that had come to my mind many times when I was in that role, and wondered, why are these scriptures saying? Where Jesus made it clear that you should call no man father, or rabbi, or teacher, because he only had one among you, and we were all brothers and so forth, and the older should serve the younger. And he said, he just made it very clear in the scripture that there was not to be a hierarchy, and that there were not to be titles and positions that brought honor to a person. And those scriptures were very clear, and I'd always heard them interpreted some way. Well, he's just talking about the spirit of it, do not lord it over people, but never dealing with the parts of the verse that would just say, don't lord it, or have, or exercise authority over them. And that was something that was very common, where you very much exercise authority over people. It's not that you told them what to do, but you were definitely exercising authority over. And I began to see there's something different and what Jesus is saying and what I practice. It's always amazing to me when you do things that you've kind of inherited from religion. You can be doing things exactly the opposite of the way Jesus talked about them, and you can even talk about servant leadership as a theology, and not live a bit of it. Absolutely. And still be the king, still be the guy in authority, and but talk like you're the servant, and trick yourself and most other people, not everybody as I found out later, but tricked a lot, and to find out that, boy, Jesus really did define leadership in a whole different way. It makes us servants, and it's not, and even leadership isn't even a role, or it isn't a position. It's just whatever God calls any of us to have some leadership function for a time, it's just a serve, and it's just a function, and it doesn't make you a different person. Absolutely, and that was the whole thing. It was like there was a great separation, no matter how much of a servant, humble servant you tried to be. And one of the things I did try to do way before coming into any new understanding was I tried to be a coach, stand the background, to the point where there were visitors at times that said they didn't know I was the pastor, because I tried to push everybody forward and let them do their things. I tried to disciple people up and release them and their gifts and everything. And what I couldn't understand is how, even when I tried to take a background role as much as possible, that people still lean on me, that my word was the word, that if other people, they would not respond to other people the way they would to me, they still followed me, they still depended on me to be affirmed. And I thought, why is this? When I'm doing everything I can to release people and their gifts. And even when you're trying to share decision-making, there are some people that are still deferring to you. Absolutely. I remember people saying to us at the time we were talking about we didn't want to use the term pastor, and we weren't, that we were all brothers together, and people would say, oh yeah, we know what you're saying, but you really are a pastor. I mean, just blow right past the reality. Absolutely. And there was another reality that was in their hearts. And so, yes, they treated me differently. They talked to me differently. They did not act around me the same way they did as others. I found that out as it comes around the way. Yeah, later. I was the last one to learn some things, the first one to learn others. So for five years, part of this transition was you becoming more a brother among the body, but that wasn't easy. What I'm hearing you saying is people just didn't let that happen easily. Even if they agreed to it mentally, they didn't know how to live it. No, it was not an easy thing. In fact, I took a couple classes where everybody came together just to teach on what the word said about leadership. And it actually was very well received. You know, I tried to do a very thorough study and question and answer time and everything. So it was very well received. There was not argument as far as the theology to the scripture, and yet, people continued to tweet me differently even though I said I'd rather not be called pastor. You know, they continued to call me pastor and to defer to me in that way. This is a good lesson because I think for all of us, there's a real difference between mental ascent to something and knowing how to live the reality of it. So part of what you're going through that, part of it during this time, you had a more open, your Sunday morning gathering became much more open. You were no longer the focus or even the teacher every week, right? Or even most weeks. Yes, and that became more and more so. At first, most weeks I would present the subject. I'd throw out maybe give a foundation of five minutes and then we would discuss it and people would come up with different things and different illustrations and that's where it'd go. And as we went along, there were many times where we would go three weeks, four weeks without me ever even speaking. And more people were having input like during the worship time, it was less structured and people were more spontaneous. Kind of some of that open church kind of deal where there's a lot of input. And you had some wonderful gatherings that way. I mean, as I've heard things that really flowed together, things where God made himself known and a variety of things that happened, none of which were pre-planned, but really fitting together like a puzzle of some kind. Yes, there were some times when it just was, it seems like everything was flowing in the spirit that everybody was in one heart and one mind without having planned anything. And the evidence of the Lord was just, His presence was very evident. The worship was spontaneous. There was a reality there. There were other times when it seems like certain people would ramble on or whatever and you kind of thought, well, I wish this would get over with. Yeah. So how did you, I guess what we'd look at is how you get from there, having the Sunday morning time, maybe that's all the program you've got, but you've got something there to finally giving up that too. We're gonna talk about that when we come back in a moment. This is Wayne and I'm with David Fredrickson here in Sacramento. We're talking about some interesting transitions this fellowship has gone through in the last five years here. And let's pick up where we left off. We talked about you've got this Sunday morning thing going. And now you don't have that at all. So how did you get, why did you give that up? How did you give that up? And what kind of draw the lines there for us? Well, we felt like something was happening in the Sunday morning meetings. It's sometimes it was wonderful. There were other times it wasn't so great. And yet people were learning, people were learning how to share, people were learning how to be for one another. There were many things that were learned, but there just came a time when I don't know how else to describe it, except that it seemed like some of the life began to seep out of it. And it was almost a sense of we were trying to do something that was natural, maybe in an unnatural environment. That's the way it just seemed to us. So that was one thing. The other thing I found out is that people were still leaning on Sunday morning. They were leaning on that rather on the relationship with God during the week. They were looking at that as their spiritual time, their spiritual fix, the apex of their spiritual life. And so, and they would even describe it when we would discuss it on Sunday mornings. They would describe it as, well, when someone had mentioned, well, maybe we should skip a couple of Sunday mornings to not have them for a while. People had mentioned that. And someone would say, well, yeah, but we work, we have a tough week all weekend. And sometimes we just need to fill up, this is like getting gas. And I thought, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is not good. If we're still depending on Sunday mornings, if this is what people lean on instead of a 24 seven relationship with Christ during the week, then this has become an obstacle. So we began to discuss that on Sunday mornings and get feedback from the people. Is this a substitute for what people aren't finding? Yes, we're gonna have a relationship. Is this a substitute? Is this something? And people began to say, you know, it's true. There's times when I feel like, you know, I should call so and so. Somebody needs me right now. I need to get together and then think, oh, I'll wait, I'll see you on Sunday. So even with fellowship, instead of pursuing fellowship, they were waiting until Sunday. They could go without praying or reading the word, oh well, you know, I'll get it on Sunday. And so they're beginning to realize, yes, they were leaning on a time and a place rather than a person, rather than a relationship with Christ to be their feeding. So out of these discussions, and these went over, I'm sure, over months or even maybe years. Well, many of the discussions went over a period of a couple of years, but as far as Sunday morning and the consideration of maybe we should do something about that, it was only a couple, a few months. And then they decided, I mean, we all decided to stop meeting on Sunday morning. We all decided that we would take an eight week hiatus. Okay. And so, and at that time we had a missionary returning from Mexico and it'd be nice to kind of have a reunion there. And we thought, well, let's take this eight weeks and see what happens and see what God says at the end of that time if we can sense what his heart is at the end of that session. Give us a feel if you can for the percentages there. Was everybody excited about taking an eight week off? Some people excited, some people willing. Were there people that were going, no, please don't, I'm going to miss this? Kind of chart that out for us. I would say, I would say that probably as close as I could come, it wouldn't be exactly accurate, but approximately maybe 30, 30 some percent of the people were very excited about it. Probably 40 percent of the people were willing and not didn't have a problem, but like they're excited. And then there were actually less than 30 percent because I know we're only up to 70 percent now, but less than 30 percent that were not feeling good about it. There were not very many that weren't feeling good, but probably a percentage in there that were just one way or the other. They really didn't know. Right, and no one was overtly hostile. They didn't want to do it, but no one was really, we're doing the wrong thing, we must stop this, sir. No, no one stood up and said, I don't think we should. It seemed like by the time we made the decision, everyone felt that it was probably right. There were some things that some were gonna really miss that they were just, they were sad about, but no one seemed to actually object to it. And you encourage people to do things on their own to find ways to be together. I mean, during that eight weeks, was it just we're all gonna stay away from each other or was it just let's live this without the Sunday morning? We wanted to encourage the people to live it without the Sunday morning. We'd talked a long time and just even practical things of getting together and how do we just share life during the week? How do we share life with one another? How do we work this out in God? And so that was the goal, is to see how we could walk with him and with one another without a program set time. I know a lot of people have talked about giving up the Sunday morning thing. I can probably name on two hands and a few toes the number of groups I know that actually stopped it for a time and actually some who have stopped it as I wrote about the group from Fairleigh, New Zealand that we met on my blog this summer, a group that disbanded in a similar way to what you guys ended up doing. So you came back after eight weeks, you had this reunion time. How'd you get from there to let's sell the building? And let's kick our pastor off staff or whatever. How'd we get to those two things? Well, during that eight week time, of course we'd ask the people to pray with us as we'd all be praying together and finding out what, you know, trying to sense God's heart for what he wanted after that time. And so during that time I felt strongly that God was saying to lay aside my salary, that that was separating me, you know, from the people that was putting me in some special place. And so through this five years, you were still being paid your salary. Yes. But a lot of your quote unquote ministry, you were also doing a lot of other things beyond this fellowship. You're doing things in the city with other pastors. You're doing things, we traveled in Australia together. You've been to the Philippines, Mexico, Central America. You've done quite a bit of things that God, as an individual, just sent you to be part of. Yes. Is that right? And the body was part of sending you out. Right. And then you felt like this last November or so that you ought to resign the salary. Just lay it down. Yes. And actually the bookkeeper had come first before that and said, you know what? I just feel like I need to resign my salary and I'll keep doing books, you know? And this was during the whole time that God was speaking to me about it. And I thought, boy, this is interesting that she would come first. Maybe I'm dragging my feet a little bit. So I turned it a little harder. A little fire under you there, huh? Wow. And then what about the building? How did we get there? Well, when we came to the end of that eight weeks, actually the board had also been praying. And we had come to the conclusion when we met that every single one thought, you know? I think maybe we should sell the building as well. We had also filmed that out to the body. In fact, months ago that it had come up in a discussion with the rest of the group that. Because now you were only using it once a week anyway when you were meeting on Sunday. Right. You were renting it out to another congregation on Sunday, right? Yes, Sunday afternoons actually and so forth. So pretty much you weren't getting a lot of use out of it. It used to be a daycare facility. It used to be a lot of things there. There was a lot of things going on. And now we weren't using it that much. And so we had discussed, you know, do we really need the building? Is this a waste of money? Because it was a lot of money to maintain and mortgage payment and everything. And so it got to the point too where it was difficult to keep up. It seems sometimes, you know, when things are supported, their season is over, things don't work like they used to work. It was hard to get people to clean. It was hard to get anything done. You know, it's hard to keep maintenance up. So we're spending all this time, money, on something that we weren't using that much. Vincent Parvitt, when you take the focus off of something, if the building is the center of your life together, it's easy to pay the price to maintain it. When it's not the focus, if your focus is gonna become on relationships and Jesus and life, now the building really becomes unimportant. Exactly. So who wants to, let's go down there and vacuum carpet today. That's right. So I think that seed had been planted in the people for some time. And so then during this eight weeks, we also asked them to pray about the building. And so when we came together at the end of that time, I shared what we as a board had felt like we thought God was leading us, the way we felt God that was leading us in. And then threw it out to the rest of the people, how, what do you feel? And it turned out that the same thing, that most of them were feeling the same way. And then of course we took a look at some of the financial picture. And it was kind of interesting that this was after the fact. It was after we had made this decision. You know, I looked a little deeper, you know, because when I knew that we were gonna be talking about this on Sunday morning, I wanted to be able to give the people a clear picture of everything, including finances, because that was one of the things that people were praying about as well, was the financial picture. I realized that the building was costing even more than we thought. And so that was another thing that came into the picture, but it was not the decision maker. You know, and so it was interesting that it all came together that way, but we began to realize that obviously something needed to change here. So Dave, over a five year period, you went from being a group that was a bit unsettled in your life together and asking you some questions about how this could be more real and effective to a group that no longer has a building, no longer even has a name or an identity. Doesn't have a hired staff of any kind. And now describe your life together. You're just brothers and sisters in the city and surrounding area. And what's that look like now? Well, it's a very, I feel it's a very freeing thing. I think we operate, as families operate, there's times we get together, several of us, you know, just on a spontaneous basis. There's other places that a few of us, you know, we just got used to meeting in a bagel place to eat breakfast together. For Cold Stone, as I've been up here now, which is my favorite. Yeah. We had to get some ad space for them on our God journey here. That's right. So there's more spontaneous reasons to get together. And mostly it's just pursuing fellowship and other times, you know, people have a burden for prayer and so we'll come together to pray for a certain thing. And it just happens as, you know, people feel like there's something they want to share or share with the body or come together without. But usually it's not the whole group getting together. There's no consistent basis on which the whole group gets together. We'll come together for special reasons or for certain times that people get a heart to do that and there may be anybody that just says, you know what? And they'll put it out on the internet, on the email and say, you know, we're getting together to do such and such. We'd like to do this in a community center of an apartment complex or whatever. And they just put it out. Whoever wants to come, comes. And so people look forward to those times usually there's a good response when that happens. How do you see from your, I know you can't look behind every bush but as you look at the people whose lives are now involved living this way how would you compare their personal growth in Christ to what you saw five years ago when you said we talked about a lot but only a few really lived it? How would you say that? I think that's one of the most, that is probably the most exciting thing to me about all of this because not long after we began the eight week hiatus even before the building was gone and so forth, you know, people began experiencing a fresh relationship with the Lord because they were, they realized that they were leaning on other things. They were leaning on other people. They no longer had that to lean on. And some felt just drawn to seek the Lord in a way that they hadn't before even though there were opportunities to get together with people. I mean, nobody wandered away from one another but they almost felt like God was calling them apart for a little bit just to learn to know him as their only source, to depend on him and to really know him as their rock. And so something happened in their relationship with God where they began to get excited about God in a way they never had before. They began to lean on him and trust him as they never had before. This kind of underlines that substitute thing. You take the substitute away and you don't have that crutch to fall back on anymore. It really makes you ask the deeper questions personally. That's what I found for myself. Absolutely. Those crutches aren't there. Suddenly you're saying, now where am I really with God? And what do I want? And how do I draw nearer to him? Oh, that's so true. I mean, in Psalm 62 and some of those Psalms where David talks about God being his only rock. He uses the word only so much. You alone are my rock. You alone are my salvation. My honor comes from you alone, you know? And that word alone began to be very meaningful to me and others in the body. It just became very meaningful that God is our complete source. In fact, you had made a comment once that you said, we don't need one another. We get to have one another. And the first time you said that, I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, no, no, no, no, we need one another. This is gonna, you know, but I learned a whole new dimension there. And I understand that as far as the church goes, obviously Christ and birthing the church is necessary for there to be people but to be the church. And in that context, we need one another. The hand cannot say I don't need the eye. But as far as our basic fundamental need as a human being, our only need is God. And I think until we learn that, our relationships with that one another are not whole. Yeah, I think sometimes we try to make each other a substitute for Christ. I'm trying to get from you what I'm not gonna get from him. Instead of our relationship as brothers is, we're to encourage each other to live more deeply in him. That's right. Greatly benefit from things God's shown you or vice versa from things he's shown me, but we don't turn our lives to say, well then I'll follow Dave or I'll follow Wayne. We still wanna follow Christ. That's it. And fellowships gotta be encouraging one another to do that. Now did everybody get through this process with you that started five years ago? Did, I mean, is this community that's living in this amorphous, informal relatedness? Did everybody get through that with you? Did some really miss some of those things that congregational life was before and find their way back to it? Or how's it side of that, sort of that now? No, they absolutely, not everyone did get through it at all. In fact, a large portion of the people ended up drifting back to other places of worship and they felt like they, some just miss things. They didn't really say that they were lacking anything in their spiritual life, but they missed instrumental worship and some just like a lot of people around. Others absolutely admitted, just plain admitted that, well, I'm the kind of person that I need something structured, I need a kick in the butt in order to do what I should be doing and in that kind of thing. And so they went to other places and. How do you look at that now? Do you look like these people are wrong and they shouldn't have gone back and they should have stayed? I mean, how do you, I guess should every congregation do what you guys did? Do you guys feel that? This is what everyone should do? No, I think that if there was a way everyone should do something, it would be in the scripture. But. I think it's true too. I think that there's just an individual relationship with God that is so different for different people. What may be bonded to someone is not bonded to someone else. I don't think that, I don't think that buildings are bad or wrong. Obviously in our situation, it was as a hindrance, you know? But it may be different for somebody else. Other people may be able to use a building in a tool in a whole different manner. I think that as we follow Christ individually, He's gonna lead us in individual ways because He's so individual. And even seasonally, I don't think there's seasons where God, because obviously the building at one time was a blessing and a part of your life together and something God used and then it's something God asked for to have back and you all were willing to do that, which I think is just amazing. Because I think a lot of us, we lose that sense of seasonality with God. We get stuck in routines and we live in those routines long after God has moved on and then we talk about being stuck in dry times and it's so miserable here and we just don't realize that God goes on. God doesn't do the same thing the same way all the time. Yeah, and that's just a good statement, living in routine because it seems to me that routine, it's not only boring, but it destroys relationship because once again then you have an expectation that you have already set the way that you're gonna meet that expectation. Instead of relying on the Lord day after day, walking with him day after day to see things different every day, to grow every day in a new revelation of who he is and a new experience of his love and find a new dimension of who he is every day. But if you have a routine, then you can go through that routine without thinking, without listening for the heart of God. It's easy just to go about your task with your mind somewhere else. And that's even true and virtually anything is primarily relational. Take a marriage relationship for instance. When a marriage just becomes, we eat together, sleep together, watch TV together, but we're no longer relating at a heart level, then a marriage can become very, very empty even if you're together all the time. I think the same is true of our life in Christ, our life among the body. Relational life is not ever routine. Routine is the death of relationship. That's it. And the reality is every day I wake to this God who loves me and how is he asking me to walk in him today? Who is he relating me to in the body of Christ? And how do I live that out? And that's why I've just marveled at your journey. And we wouldn't offer it here on the God journey, saying, hey, this is a model, every group should do this. But I think you're not alone in the fact that there's a lot of people who maybe the whole group doesn't go with them. But they begin to have an unsettledness about the structure they're in and a sense that it is in some sense, competing with a relationship they want with Father. Or maybe it's an obstruction too, the kinds of relationships they want with people. It's a substitute. It's a, yes, we say hi on Sunday morning, but do we really know what's going on in that life? And so it's just marvelous knowing kind of where you guys have come from and you're still in the middle of the story. You're not sure even yet how it's gonna get out. But we're gonna come back in a moment and find out is there any regrets from what you've been through in the transition of the last five years? And we're back with Dave Fredrickson. And we've just talked about a marvelous journey that the group you've been a part of has been on these last few years. And you've had some detractors. You've obviously had some people internally and externally that have said you can't do this. In fact, the fellowship eventually kind of forced you guys out of it or you guys willingly left it or whatever. And I think this is what's really hard because these decisions you're making are not in your self-interest. They're not best for your position. They're not best for your salary and financial security as a family. And yet you continue to follow to giving up your place in the body, finally giving up your salary. Any regrets? As you stand here, I mean we're, you have no idea where your income is coming from for the next little while. You're trusting that God's gonna provide that any regrets at all? There's definitely no regrets. There's been hard times. There's been hurts. There's been things that I'm still working through. You know, there's been disappointments. But regrets, no. I would never, you know... Would you go back to five years ago and make that look better rather than have gone through what you went through? No, no, no. I would never do that. Watching people become free, free in their relationship with the Lord, watching them even now, just they can be away from people not being hearing any extra teaching about this or anything and yet the things that are happening in their lives, you can see that the teacher is there every day because they're just every day when I meet with people, talk with them, they're learning new things. They're finding another area in their life where they were bound up and God's showing them a whole new thing. They see where they were religious, where it was in their devotional hour, their prayer or whatever it was, they're being freed up and coming into a relationship with Christ that is becoming a continual flow rather than putting it in boxes. One common theme I've heard is I've talked to, I've known some of these folks over the last four years and talked to most of them really specifically as you've been to the latter part of this transition which when I first met you, I had no idea. This is where you all were going and I certainly didn't recommend it. One of the themes I hear from people is pretty similar to what you just said. Has this been difficult? Yes. Do we miss some things that we enjoyed from before? Yes. Would we want those back? No. We are growing. We are experiencing it. Some of the youth we talked to last time were saying when the youth used to get there, we had a youth group and we did our Jesus stuff together in youth group and then we'd go out and do things as kids together but we did things as kids together. We almost never talked about Jesus or we never talked about our journeys. Now we don't have a youth group but when the kids get together to do things together that Jesus is just about the only thing, well not the only, they do some other things too but Jesus is always a part of it and their journey, so I said yes this has been hard, yes this wasn't easy but the growth it's resulted or we wouldn't trade it for anything. That's right and that's what's so wonderful because that's what the goal is, to walk with Jesus and you can hardly say that you sacrifice anything when you gain Christ. How can you sacrifice and what would be the reason for being in this anyway? When we first began in this group 15 years ago I had said something to the Lord that he took me up on. I said you know what, I'm tired of the old stuff, the old routine, the old church scene. Even way back then, not knowing what I was saying and so I want to go for the gold, I want the reality and I felt it was so strongly impressed in my heart. It was almost as if I could hear him speaking saying it's gonna cost you, it's gonna cost you and I didn't realize it would cost me but I said that's okay because it's either that or nothing and finally all this time later, 15 years, it's come to that and I didn't know that the journey would lead here but it certainly is not something that I didn't desire, not knowing what I prayed but this is the answer to his prayer, that Lord I don't want anything that's not of you, I'd rather have nothing. Some people say well where are you now? What if I didn't have anything good to report? What if there weren't anybody that we're walking together at this point now? I'd already told the Lord I'd rather have nothing than what's not you and so even at that dimension, even at that level I'd never turn back but as it is there's freedom, there's people growing in the Lord, there's joy, there's real relationship. So this has fulfilled some of your hungers from 15 years ago or 10 years ago or five years ago. This is beginning to fulfill those hungers. Definitely. And you have great hope that where this leads down the road will even be more so. Yes, I really do, I really do. I feel people are still, people are still unlearning, they're still in transition and it's just so fun to get together with people and see some things come together in their understanding of God's heart and what he's saying and to see some new vision come forth in people, things that they've been wanting to do for so long but they felt like a box kept them out of those goals and those things that God had put in their heart. And what I like about this is even some of the people that maybe aren't not quote unquote part of the group anymore or have gone back to a more traditional congregational environment, relationships don't get caught off because of that. When you don't have a club that you belong to anymore, then you're free to relate to folks and have good friends with people who may still be worshiping a different way or living out body life. And I even think for some of those folks that God's inviting to maybe a little bit different freedom and maybe for now they're finding security in a substitute even if it's that for some of them, their story's not done either. That's right. God's still working with them and if we keep the relationships alive, so many people when they change the nature of church, they cut off relationships. And I love the fact, I've heard you talk about some of the folks that even were with you in some of the leadership roles who've found themselves in other places right now, they're no less part of the body of Christ with you just because we're not doing it exactly the same way or in the same place, right? That's right. And that's what the freedom is. There's no boundaries to relationship. It's in him. And there's no box that you have to be in in order to have relationship with people, but it's family. In fact, you stay very relational really, excuse me, you stay very relationally connected with some of the other pastors still in this community. You're still connected. Some of them are in this transition. Some of them have watched over your shoulder like some of your priorities. Think you're nuts for what you did with the institution. Am I right? Yes. But they're still good friends. That's right. Very good friends. And they're still asking the questions and you're still having the conversations and their story's not done either. Absolutely. And I have wonderful friends that are just sincerely love the Lord with all their heart that are believing in a totally different way. And yet what I see in almost every pastor I know is a hunger for something more. And I see more and more pastors, even some that are pastoring, quote, churches of 4,000 that are dissatisfied and they're not satisfied. They're not proud of their growth or their size. They're wanting something more and I've seen a great hunger in them. So it's a privilege to be walking with people who are just hungry for God. Even the best-selling books for pastors all have to do with church renewal. That's been true for 30 years and we've had 600 books on how to fix the church all the way from purpose-driven to intercession-motivated to missional to emerging to house church. I mean, we have all that and the fact is we're not gonna find renewal in things. We're gonna find renewal in finding Jesus Christ and living with him in a real way and risking whatever he asks us to do to follow him. Well, Dave, thanks for sharing your story with us today. If folks who are listening to this would like to get in touch with you for some reason, can we put your email address up on the website so people can get ahold of you? Will you allow us to do that? Sure. And if you wanna talk to Dave and he'll have, we'll put his email address up there and if you wanna get in touch with him and find out more about their story or think in other ways his life might be an encouragement to yours, I think it'd be really benefit to get in touch with Dave. Thanks for being with us. Thank you, it's been fun. I get to be with some of these people tonight and tomorrow morning is I get to be a little bit apart of their story. I'm up here on other kinds of business but when I do, I get to kind of touch. So I've been with this group probably more than any other in terms of repetitive times. That may not be a blessing to you, but it's been fun to me. I was just gonna say it's been a real blessing for us. It's been such a help and such an encouragement. Ah, Crud, now I have to pay you for the interview but thanks Dave. And boy, we'll keep you in mind as you guys continue on this journey and maybe we'll check in with you again up the road sometime. So what do you think, Brad? What a fantastic story. I so appreciated just listening to, I mean, I don't know David, but listening to his heart and having gone through a similar journey myself, not so much by choice, but more having it foisted upon me kind of. There was just a peacefulness in him that I don't really minister to me because I know what it feels like to stand at that precipice and going from a sense of security and provision to all of a sudden going, oh God, where now? Where are you, Lord? And the peacefulness that was in his soul, I just, I could really feel it. I could, you know, you could just hear it and you're just going like, wow, what a neat thing for them to choose to go on this journey and to walk it out. How are they doing now? Oh, I was just with them. And it's been now just maybe three or four months since they've kind of ended, maybe four months since they've ended the Sunday morning thing and sold the building. And I think one of the things I noticed this time that I really appreciated, I think all of us who've been in some kind of professional ministry at some point, you just, this is angst of, there's so many people here who, you know, are great listeners and they're going through the motions, but they're not really active learners. They're still, to some extent, living off of the people they listen to regularly. What I enjoyed this time, we had two meetings, a Saturday night and a Sunday morning, just different groups of people in different homes. And I was amazed by the passion in the people, their initiative in jumping in and sharing their parts of the journey. I mean, that was one of the frustrating things early on in this journey, was that everybody was kind of sitting back, being very passive, letting somebody else kind of run the show. Now, my goodness, every one of these folks I was with this weekend is on an incredible journey. And I didn't have to share anything. I could have not showed up, actually. And Dave never said a word in either of the two meetings. We sat there and watched people who were now excited themselves about what they were learning and what they were discovering and what God was doing in their lives to help them live this life like they've always wanted to live it. So even though everybody said, man, this has been tough, yeah? Not one of them would say I'd go back on it. They've had some misunderstanding. They've had some disappointments in the journey. I was amazed at how aggressive and active these were now as disciples of God growing in a journey and growing in the rest of it. It wasn't like working hard, trying to make it happen. It was letting God live in their lives. And they were seeing him in ways they'd not seen him before. So I was fabulous. I bet David had to be excited to be able to come and participate in something that didn't end up relying on him, but rather was relying on the life that the Lord was providing. Yeah, that was the goal at the start. But we all know what it is to even talk about working ourselves out of a job or giving up something that has all the security and sense of success. Some people now look at what's happened there as just a total failure because there's nothing to see anymore. But the life that's going on with people and the touch they're having with people in the community is just incredible. It's a great story. Yeah, it was fantastic. Like I said, hope we'll check with them up the road again. But I think it was the fabulous thing to do. This is an incredible journey. Yeah, and if you'd like to give us some feedback, why don't you either go to the website at GodJourney.com and use our blog or email to kind of give us some response. We also have a new 24-hour comment or question line by dialing 805-626-4212. That's 805-626-4212. We can record your comments or questions and use them on a future show about this webcast itself or about any of the other things we have coming up. So until next time on the God Journey, we pray that God will lead you by His life and grace. Thank you for joining us today on the God Journey. If you'd like more information about this webcast or would like to join in the conversation, you can find out more at thegodjourney.com. It's our hope that this webcast will help us all recognize God as He really is in the reality of our own lives.