Koinonia Killers — http://thegodjourney.com/wordpress/2005/09/29/koinonia-killers/

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. Well, we want to welcome you back to another edition of The God Journey. We're kind of doing this one back-to-back with the one we just did last week because of our taping schedule. So we don't have a lot of feedback from last week's show, but we might up the road. But boy, did I get an interesting phone call yesterday. What happened? I got a call from, actually started with an email. Someone from Time Magazine wanted to interview me, which I thought was one of my many friends out there. Man of the year? I don't think that's it. I thought it was one of my many friends around the world just trying to pull my chain. So I looked up the person's name who claimed to report her for time, and lo and behold, they were actually reported for time raising. And she wanted to talk to me about some house church stuff. And we arranged a phone appointment, and she called me yesterday. It's kind of coinciding. They wanted to interview me. I picked up my name from some website things about house church. So really wanted to interview me about house church. I thought I was one of the leaders of the house church movement, which I had a good laugh about that. She said, do you attend when? I said, no. She said, do you help people form them? I said, no. And so then she thought maybe she had the wrong person. But actually the conversation we got into is what she really wanted to talk about is what's happened to all these people that are no longer feeling like institutionalized Christianity is working for them. And this is in concert, I guess, with Barna's new book, which we've had some advanced talk about, some new book that Barna's doing called Revolution that's coming out, George Barna, about that, about people who've left the institutions. And 23 million of them, they've identified who still are passionate believers but outside the box. So Time Magnet is kind of on their radar screen and they wanted to know about it. So we talked about why people leave, a lot of reasons for that, and then what people are doing when they leave. Are they just jumping up into another system? And some are, calling house church. And maybe house church is a good transition for folks coming from one thing. Maybe it's kind of like the way you get from pre-trib to post-trib, and you kind of hang out at mid-trib for a while. I do think there are people that pass through. Some wonderful people, and there's some people who do house church, they're trying to do it incredibly well. But we got talking about beyond that, not just people who are creating new things, but people who are really trying to live as brothers and sisters in the world. It's a great conversation. Again, I'm so jaded with media. I've done media interviews for bridge builders and other things. And usually what you read when they actually print the thing has very little in common with the context or content of what you said when you actually made. So there's no telling what I could be saying in Time Magazine in a couple of weeks. Or I could end up in the cutting room floor, and there'd be nothing in there. So I don't know how it'll come out actually. But we were talking about the interview a little earlier, and you had mentioned where she had asked you a question, is this happening in Judaism circles or in Islam circles? What was your response to her? Well, I said I'm not aware of it, nor would I think I would be aware if it was happening of it. I don't know where the links to that would be, but my gut feeling is probably not. And I would say that because I think those things are really religious systems that are really tightly wrapped to the protocols and demands of conformity in the institutions themselves. Christianity has a little bit of a different start because Jesus wasn't an institutional guy. He didn't fit in. He didn't encourage us to fit in. He encouraged us to live a life in him, and he was a bit scandalous around those that wanted to pack anything into a religious box, especially the Gospel of the Kingdom. So I think Jesus didn't come to start a religion, but in fact came to free them from us all. So I think Christianity, when you get back to the primitive view of it that the founder had and the early brothers and sisters, it's not a high institutional, high obligation-based environment the way Jesus talked about it. The way we've inherited it, it has become that. And I think that's part of the disillusionment people are feeling. They're feeling disillusioned that I'm tired of all these burdensome obligations that don't bear the fruit they're supposed to bear. And so people go off looking for something else, and hopefully they're going to find it not in Buddhism or hopefully they're going to find it in the reality of Jesus Christ because this Jesus is real. His kingdom is a real kingdom. It's described in Scripture as brothers and sisters who are really learning to walk together is findable. It is real. It's wholly attractive. And it allows you to, as we talked about in the last show, it allows you to engage brothers and sisters wherever you find them. I sit down next to a plane, somebody that's an elder of one of those machines that I'm not nuts about, but you know what? Most of those people have a heart for Jesus somewhere in there. When we stay on that and focus on that and talk about that, there's an anybody I can't enjoy talking to about this journey and about who Jesus is and what he's doing in our lives. Now when we get on how we do church, that's always a bit confusing, but talking about him is not difficult with anybody, even unbeliever. He kind of kicked open the whole sheepfold gate and let in the whole bunch of the herd out. Well, he said you've already got the shepherd in it, and when you know his voice you're absolutely safe no matter where you wonder. He wasn't always nuts about people getting them together and making them do the same thing every week. And I know it's challenging for people. If people have never seen this Christianity live outside those systems, then people are very focused on trying to maintain those systems and keep people in it. But the language is always, you've got to be there. You should be there. And the language is not, hey, this is great, come join us. It's always, this is our obligation. We owe it to God and Jesus. Was it one of the articles in Christianity Today about spring that said you must die here with the rest of us, which I did a bit of a stretch for me. See on the beach. I think there's enough dying without doing it in fellowship with one another. But then learning, I guess what I wanted to talk about tonight is learning to fellowship then outside the box. As one man said to me at the thing I was at Friday night, just a group of Christians were together celebrating some things. And I met a man there I'd never met before. And the first things he said to me when he found out that I kind of live outside the box a bit and do some of these things, as he's not currently in one of those things committedly, but he's saying what he really had problems with is household fellowship kind of thing is the people who come in and ruin it. And you know, we've joked about calling them God's awkward squad, but I really think we probably get down to the coin and the killers and we all know who they are. You know, you get into a group of folks and because of different ways that they're maybe because they're relationally challenged, maybe for other reasons, it just sucks the life out of a room. And religion says you just got to keep meeting with them. You just got to keep coming week after week. But most people in time will not. Most people will just kind of drop out and stop coming and you're left with the faithful and these coin and the killers that I thought might be interesting to talk about that. Not only for not only for the sake of identifying them, maybe identifying us in them, maybe at some of the baggage I carry to into a time with other Christians and it might be good for you to shake free of that, but maybe also we talk about how to how to work with that, how to deal with it so that we can find ourselves if we're going to. I'm going to be together with other Christians. I want that to be the deep kind of fellowship that's life giving and nurturing. As someone who has led, held, instigated meetings of all shapes and sizes, I've often just sort of joked as God always sends that one somebody to the group that is the challenge for everyone else to love. We're joking about that. Well, maybe it was a devil that sent him in and it's like, you know, you said that, man. This sounds like gossip, bro. And I was sort of wrestling with, it's like, well, Lord, it's like, you know, I do know there's the call to love the unlovely, but it's not just the unlovely that can mess things up. It can oftentimes be that super gifted guy that just sort of kind of takes over and he has his agenda, but it's like these dynamics and the sending. It's like if we would deal with them honestly and openly and call them for what they were, perhaps God could use that to absolutely change all of our lives. But so oftentimes because of politeness, though, the church's own little version of political correctness, the elephants in the room, we put the rug over them and we all try to have the meeting as if he's not there. And he's going like, because we don't address these dynamics or we talk about them afterwards, we never bring these things to the cross with Jesus, with us there to just go like, look, this is how all of us get changed. And it's not just that person, but it's how we relate. I mean, I've never been in a meeting where the elephant was ever talked about and dealt with. Oh, I have, but usually I'm the one doing it, which is a bit scary. And I want to just make this comment. I don't ever find it difficult to be in a meeting with struggling people or what you might call the unlovely people. You know what, if people come that are really needy and need to be put back together and come to be helped and made whole, man, that never bugs me. We can have a million of those. I'm more thinking of those people who by their very presence in a room have to dominate that room. And I was just, I was in another state recently and we're having a meeting. And there were probably two or three folks there that were a bit on what I would say, coinea killers. And every time we got a decent conversation going, people are really starting to open up their lives. And then one of these people would jump in with some outlandish vision or thing they'd seen that really no one in the room could figure out what they were talking about. I'm sure you look at people around the room and some glaze over and some look at me like, save us from this. And then some other people launch off and do these theological whatever's, you know, some, they can't, they can't say anything without quoting 27 scriptures and stringing them together in a way that doesn't make sense. And or somebody that's trying to, to build something. And so they've got people in a room that got an audience and they're trying to get that going. And well, I thought was fun about this. I was there with a friend of mine and his, his adult daughter happened to come with him that evening, who's kind of had a bit of a tough journey. And she's just opening up to the things of God again, after kind of being real away from it for a long time and gotten into some really ugly things. And she's just starting to come back and she had read, he loves me. So she wanted to come to this meeting and she came and sat down and she sat down and they came in a little bit late. There's people already talking. One of these people is just waxing in eloquent about something. And I kind of glanced over at her, just as she turned and looked at her dad and she actually maled the words, I hate you. And fortunately, I got to ride home with them. So I actually got to hear a little more about what was going on. Probably a flood cover season. Yeah. The last thing she wanted to end up with was in another meeting with a whole lot of religious gobbledygook, double talk, you know, all that kind of stuff. Leads nowhere. It doesn't. And so she wrote me this week over some other issues that were going on in her life. And and she's talking about trying to find fellowship. And she said this, she said, I'm not sure what I'm looking for right now. So I'm just trying to be open. I'm lonely and starved for other people who are like me. I so don't want religion or eloquent talk about how wonderful it is to be saved. I want to hear how normal people who live in this world can actually know father. Isn't that. Oh, that's that's that's it. That's the ticket. And I think I can hear a men's being shouted all over the world. As people said, that's what I was global podcast. A man is that what we want? We want to sit in a room full of people who aren't playing theological games. You aren't just, you know, look at how much better I am than you because of all the things I've done in my life. But are actually people who are real, who struggle with things going on in their life, who have moments of doubt and moments of great joy, who who struggle with this life and are coming to know who father is in the reality of what it means to live in the 21st century. That's all fellowship is. Why is it so hard for us to find it? This is not a simplistic answer, but I think so oftentimes whenever we gather, you know, I kind of would divide the group of people into two people. There's some that come with an absolute passion and a heart that it's alive and beating and they really have something to give. They're a blessing. They're they're a thrill. I love when I'm there and someone has genuine life that they're just going like, I got to share. It's this is neat. It's not like I have to. It's not like I'm better than it's just because it's genuine. It's life. And then there's other folks that they're there because they have an agenda. They're going to get something. And it's it to me, it's almost that simple. It's like, you know what, we were called when we're supposed to get together. I think it's in 1st Corinthians where it talks about, you know, when you come together, one has a Psalm, one has a hymn. One is it's like, we're supposed to be bringing something to this table. We have something to offer and we have genuine life to share when people come into that that whole arena and their one agenda is to get but not because Jesus was surrounded by tons of people that needed things. But when they try to get that need from that group, they're going to manipulate that gathering to their end and they may not get what they need. And they may be totally unaware that that's what they're doing. I think most time they are or they they probably, you know, stand back and, you know, change course because they might feel, you know, very insecure and they might feel like maybe this thing isn't really working for them. And so they come for validation. And so they're going to share these great miracles or things going and what they're really looking for is validation for themselves from the group. But people see through that. What I think is so amazing about we talk about coin and neokillers, this is not rocket science. You can look around a room full of folks when somebody's going off on one of these days. Everyone has the same look. Everybody in the room knows that except the person doing it and maybe one or two others who are waiting for them to shut up so they can talk. Everybody knows what is and if there's really two groups, maybe we get name tagged, you know, blue ones for people who can talk and red ones for, you know, please don't. It's not going to work that way, obviously. But but I do think that finding a way to have that kind of life together and it really almost argues against just kind of open meetings because open meetings are just y'all come and we're putting it in the paper or wherever and people come with all kinds of baggage and things without relationship. What kicks in is that we're kind of just nice to everybody versus, you know, folks that I see God putting me with and even some very needy people. I just thought, boy, those are people I want to walk alongside for a while and then finding ways to get together with them. It's I know a few years ago we tried one of these California regional meetings for some people who are kind of thinking outside the box. And I tell you what, 95% of the people that showed up were the kind of people that are on this journey, growing, learning, living, experiencing the reality of it. And there were probably three or four people that had to dominate. We're talking about more than a hundred folks. They had their genus. Oh, they did. Oh, someone's got, you know, shut them up. Yeah. Stuff to sell, a ministry to launch. There's one guy there just I think saw himself as the grandfather of the house church movement in the world and tried to exercise that for the rest of us and had someone there who couldn't just time of singing and praise had to sing three octaves higher and 500 decibels louder than anybody else in the room so that everybody's attention is drawn to them. And it was very distracting. You can see it distract the entire room. And the only person not aware is this person. And then at some point of sharing, they actually get up and say, you know, it's been hard for me. I've been kicked out of places because people won't respond to who I am and we know why. Well, I think everybody in the room did know why. And here's a broken person because the system has chewed him up. Never mind that they were kind of a co-conspirator in that. I mean, because just it's difficult to be in a room with those kind of people because they will take the center stage. And unless something else is done to mitigate that, to redirect it, I think most people get discouraged. I mean, we haven't done one cent. So a lot of people talked about doing it again, but we're trying to figure out how to do it without sending out an open invitation. See, but, you know, I don't know. I don't see in the, and maybe I've missed something in all of my study, but I don't see this mandate for open meetings and to go about it the way we do. It seems to me that when Jesus had his disciples, he called some spoke, some folks to specifically be with him. And then they lived life together. And then when the early churches gathering, it's like, well, they lived in homes and, you know, someone off to work and others did this, but they lived life together. And there was a naturalness to their fellowship in which they shared. And at certain times, sure, maybe they all came together. But it wasn't as if what we've inherited is this habit of meetings. And we've got to have them to be valid, or somehow I'm not doing the Christian thing. I mean, it is such a foreign concept. It's like one of those like, ooh, forbidden sins. I mean, we have a Nate, we have a neighbor. They'll know who it is, but I don't think they listen. This person, I mean, they are a lovely churchgoer. And it is their lifetime habit. It's how they were raised as a very little one. And the thought of somehow not going. It's like there's relationship that has been connected and they enjoy us in our family. But the thought that I'm a former pastor and somehow I'm cutting the grass on a Sunday morning and they're coming back from church. And you just see every time their car comes back, they just have this conundrum of, oh, this this doesn't make any sense. This is not right. You move a lot on Sunday morning. Yeah. Some cool soccer's on Saturday. You've got to get it in when you can, I guess. That's what I'm available. I actually had that question at a meeting lately. Is it okay to mow your lawn on the Sabbath? I'm just like, what? You know, if it, what I said was Saturday, I didn't do it on Saturday. It's not okay with you. It's not okay. But Jesus said, you know, some people see one day special. Other people see them all the same. So a lot of freedom for that, but. You look at what's going on and I do think that because of this somehow not natural and normal dynamic of just relationship and life flows out of that. I think because we have this, you know, it's like, what are you trying to do at that meeting? And people go to meetings because they try to do stuff. I think so oftentimes as opposed to just like having a barbecue and enjoying people when you have that sense of formal meeting, that's when the agendas pop up. And agendas are the most suffocating influence in this. Let's talk about that. We come back in a minute. Focus on this agenda thing because I don't know of anything that for me is more exhausting. Even when I travel or when I'm hanging out around here with other believers, people with an agenda with something to sell, some concept you have to see or they're just going to feel like you're going to hell in a handbasket. To some agenda to have a need met or have a ministry expressed. I think I find that to be the most exhausting thing now. And I say that as one, I gotta tell you, I think up until probably 10, 15 years ago, I carried a ton of agenda everywhere. I went everything I did. It was moving this people there, trying to get that to happen, becomes very manipulative, but it is a total relational disconnect and the only one who doesn't know it is the one with the agenda. I'm not so sure they always don't know it. I think when... Well, I didn't. Okay, you didn't know it. Well, I knew I had an agenda. I didn't know it was such a relational disconnect. That's what I meant to say. Because I do think when when you're gripped with something that you know we've got to do or there's a sense of a vision that God's given, I think what's so... I don't know what the word is, but what's so frustrating to everyone else is it is I'm imposing my will on you and this thing. And without inviting others to perhaps come alongside, compliment, do whatever, it's the imposition of a voice, a will, that is not allowing God to direct their heart. I'm going to do it for him. And everybody in the room knows it. Right. I think those are the kinds of things that Paul warned people about. And he wrote to Timothy in Titus. He talked about no get caught up in what controversies and speculations and what do those mean? I think controversies are just like pre-trib, post-trib. Are you free will or are you Calvinistic or Arminian? Are you eternal security or believe in hell or not hell? I think all these theological controversies which have absolutely nothing to do with how I wake up and live in God tomorrow, has nothing to do with listening to his voice and following him and becoming more like him in the world because my relationship with him is growing and through that my trust in him is growing. It doesn't have anything to do with those things. So it's just someone's theological agenda. I think that's part of it. I think someone's need. I remember in the middle of a wonderful study we were doing through Matthew 5 with a group of people and talking through some of the Beatitudes. And it was we don't have been 10-15 minutes talking about this. And there was a there was a gal there, a single mom, and she finally said is it time that we talk about me now? You know if we'd have been real. Refreshingly honest. At one level it was. The problem is no one else in the room was that honest. I mean I find you see you know why don't we come back to maybe what you need to share in a little bit but let's stay on this for now. So I kind of redirected it. Later a lot of people joked and laughed about how shocking it was but you know no one broke out laughing at the moment. And then you look back at it and go because we've really learned in these meetings that nice is better than honest. Yes. When Ephesians 4 directly says the only way we're going to all grow up is if we're going to speak the truth and love to one another. We just say well sister excuse me moment. I didn't know we were all meeting for you. I mean you can do it. You can do it kindly but I think it needs to be done and if it's not done a person like that and I've got great compassion for this person. Rape as a young woman single mom not married you know she's raised your kids without welfare or any kind of stuff work two jobs at times. This is a woman who really has some needs. And yet the honesty would help her learn how to live with those needs in a way that really allows people to come alongside her instead of shoving people. We actually had people stop coming to the meetings because they didn't want to put up with her. All right. And that's what so often happens. With that black hole. I think that's what this guy was saying to me last week. Those meetings because people take over and without people honestly in a room just saying hold on a minute. Is this where we want to go or do we want to stay with what we're already talking about. But I don't know that it's just the direction of the meeting. I think it's the whole centrality of where does Jesus fit in who we are and how we gather. I don't think I knew how to. I mean I don't think it was clear to me. I think where the God where God has brought me in this journey. I can look back and go oh man I wish I understood those things better than I would have been more equipped to deal with some of these dynamics. But I do and that genuine hunger for relationship with normal life and how do we find Father. I now look at some of Jesus's comments to people. He just cut through it and just went right to the dead issue. And I'm just going like I haven't met many people who are that clear about what is and what needs to be done. And gracious in doing it. Yeah I mean I've seen people slam people and never communicated the love of God. I mean the courageous people are scary people because they kind of shred folks but he you're right he had the ability to be very discerning cut through the garbage and let it be what it really is. But he could do that with such a graciousness that people didn't feel put off. And I think if we're going to if we're going to have koinonia we've got to relearn how it is that we're together whether it's a group of friends talking whether it's some kind of meeting we want to have and other folks are there. Here's what I found in Australia I think was so refreshing the first time I went there there was a group of folks 120 of them from all over Australia getting together. And one of the first things they did when I got there and they'd already been they've been together for 10 days they're in a prayer meeting. And they said we're only tonight going to pray for things we can all agree on. I went well how are they going to do that? So what would that be? And what they said was we've noticed in some of our prayer times that somebody will pray something and then someone else prays to balance that they call it shooting prayers across the bow. So then people actually praying to each other trying to correct everybody's theology and really we're not and so I said you know what God's asked us to agree in prayers here's what we're going to do. If you have something to pray about why don't you just tell us what it is. We'll look around the room and if uh most of you are nodding saying yeah you can agree. We're looking like for 90 plus. If you're nodding and saying yeah you could agree with that then we'll have you pray. If people kind of shake their head no I don't think so. I'm going like this won't ever work. I could not imagine that working with any group of Christians I'd ever been with. I really couldn't but I tell you what for two hours in this prayer time they live that out. Some things they said yeah we can agree on that. And they were really gracious to say hey if no one agrees with what's on your heart we could all be wrong and you could be right. So we're not saying you're wrong. We're voting on this stuff. We're just saying if we can't agree on it then it's yours to pray about. We'll find something that we can't agree on. So it wasn't you know who's more spiritual not spiritual but I noticed one kid that night shared a kid in his young 20s probably shared a couple things and and they were you know nobody agreed with them and kind of shot down. The next morning we're in a meeting time of praise and people spontaneously kind of sharing some things I think God's saying. And after every time somebody shared something like that they would stop and say how does that sound to us. Just right on the moment you know I've grown up in those meetings we're so concerned about flow you don't want to talk honestly about things. But you say how's that sound to you and people would say yeah that sounds great or more you had something similar in my heart or people would say I don't know I didn't bear witness with me. And I couldn't believe they did it and one of them you know was this kid again and he shared something and pretty much everybody in the room said I don't think that's God. And I'm feeling I'm feeling. It's Drake do. No this was two prayers. Oh my gosh I sat down with him at lunch just because I wanted to find out how he was doing. And so we're sitting at this cafeteria a bunch of people were there and as people left it just didn't turn up being high. He and me and I said can I ask you a question. I said maybe really personally you may want to answer it and I said I won't be offended if you don't but I'm curious. So go ahead. I said last night I know she had a couple of prayer things and people didn't seem to agree today you shared something and you know it didn't go anywhere. I want to know if you're okay. And I'll never forget his answer he looked at me and he said Wayne I've been a believer less than a year. He said how am I ever going to learn to hear the voice of the father if I don't have brothers and sisters like this you're going to be honest with me as I'm sorting that out. Wow. Now I thought first of all his heart is just an amazing thing. Wow. But secondly I thought wouldn't we have all loved to grow up in this journey in an environment like that. Yeah we're not going to be honest with each other if we're just going to be polite and nod and let people wander off in their own agenda or wander off in their own little heresy or be sidetracked by some theological controversy they think is so important to divide between the sheep and the goats and the family. If people aren't honest with those folks then they're just going to keep falling off into this pit of their own doing and yeah honesty serves the group it serves them to just say it serves life it serves life. I mean I think of the whole silly pretended Christian niceness that in in the institutional dynamics that people sort of feel like they've got to put on you just go like that shirt doesn't fit most people at all you you can see through it doesn't have the ring of genuineness. They got their little plastic little pasted on smile they're trying to make but you realize it's not there and so the pretense of it is what makes this whole dynamic seems so shallow so so futile say what's the point everyone's pretending. I know you really hate it when you found out later you were sharing with somebody who's grinning smiling just you know acting like it's the best thing they've ever heard. To find out later they thought it was horrible and you were manipulating them and I you know I just those are the things I say you know please let's be honest when it's unfolding I know it's risky I know we risk that you know those old Bob Newhart sit comes where I hate your tie in your face is ugly. I mean I certainly don't want to see body life to generate to that but I do think we've got to get to a level of conversation in this journey that's real that has Jesus at the center in fact I'm reading a book that a friend recommended to me this is a this the guy's helping me write the Jake Coulson book on online it's called Soul Talk it's Larry Krabs newest book and I actually enjoy a lot of what Larry Krabs writes I I love the content and the heart of what he writes and then toward the end of the book he gives you like six easy steps to this or 90 and that's usually all publishers you know manipulation it never works and he does that in this book too there's this five-step dance that you do to get Soul Talk which anybody's ever had okay explain Soul Talk. No it doesn't work but he contrasts self-talk which is for Christian people is here's the difficult thing I'm going through fix it for me how can I act better so that God will then have to bless what I'm doing and it's it's still all about self and we get together we get people advice and we shove them back into their lives with more obligation and performance and no one is helped by that the other thing he talks about is helping people move from I'm at the center of my life how does God want to bless me to I'm living in the center of his life Father how are you making yourself known in me through the very situations and circumstances I want to tell some great stories of his own bout with cancer of some other folks that he was near one woman that was so focused on trying to get into a size eight dress to be the the mother of the bride that she was totally freaking out and ruining this wedding for her daughter because she couldn't see past herself and you know everyone's trying to encourage her on the diet instead of someone saying to her you know what maybe it isn't the most important thing in the world on that day for you to be in a size eight dress and to really think through what is it that illuminates God I'm telling you this is the best book content wise I've read on moving our conversations with people from just self-talk and kind of religious encouragement and all of that too cutting to the heart of a matter which which isn't five easy dance steps it's it's the harder work maybe of knowing God and walking with each other enough to get past our selfish pursuits and embrace his but I think it's a book worth reading I think people that want to have a look at some of the ways that can happen might be really blessed to check into it that sounds fantastic and maybe something we'd want to talk about down the road enough people read it and blogged us back on it or wrote on maybe it'd be something and maybe you got a chance to read it it might be something we'd want to talk about because I think there's some real quality there it sounds like it what empowered Jesus to kind of cut through stuff you know the whole how do we really become honest with each other it sounds like in and you know having not read Larry's book in the whole dynamic I think Jesus so loved those people as opposed to some other thing that he was doing that he was able to see what was really going on get past their self-talk into the soul and the heart of that issue that person that enabled him to speak so directly to it because he loved them I know when I've done meetings where it's like you know my little I have my agenda I we're talking about this and this is important and thinking this will bless everybody when someone else comes in and they're not on my wavelength well then they're an irritation they're a fly let's swat that and I recognize that you know what the heart of Jesus he didn't have an agenda yeah the kingdom was coming but the king in our midst his agenda was people and he loved them I mean how did he always have a laser beam ability in the midst of throngs in multitudes to take time for a person we have so many of those stories in the gospels we're just going like wait a minute and the large things I did we didn't have time for people we had to be we had to be about our thing and and really seeing even as he got with people seeing beyond the external need or beyond even their sin I love that story the woman at the well where you know here's a here's a woman that's been married five times divorced five times now living with a guy she's not married to and she's carrying all this shame for that and what Jesus sees is here's a woman who's so thirsty and doesn't know where to drink that she keeps drinking from all the wrong wells and I'm going to take this afternoon at this well outside Samaria to give her water that if she drinks from it she'll never thirst again so he I think that soul talker that which I you know I cute little terms but real koinonia maybe we'll say it that way real koinonia gets beneath just the felt things the the the observable and gets down to the heart what is somebody really looking for and how does God make himself no thank you right Jesus had the amazing ability whether it's that woman Zacchaeus the woman cut in adultery Nicodemus on and on there's these individual encounters where he's he's not even just answering their questions kind of as an answer guy he's cutting through to the heart of what's going to help them know the living God right where they are today now those conversations going back to this quote from the scale that wrote me we started the broadcast with they said I so don't want religion or eloquent talk about how wonderful it is to be saved I want to hear how normal people who live in this world can actually no father how can you say better than that I mean isn't that what we all want yeah yeah I think that you know you go back to the garden and the initial point of fall and the you know the propensity to hide what I hear in that self talk soul talk thing is where real fellowship happens is when I'm not hiding anymore I don't have any pretense you know our agendas are like our fig leaves I mean they're the thing that I I so value and I find value in so I want to present that because that way I'll be important or that way I'll be valued and you know I think some people are like chameleons depending on the meeting they in they'll just adapt to whatever is valued by that group and then they'll want to be that because at the end of the day they want to be valued and that's that's what I think is going on so often times it's like even and you know it's like well if I'll put out all my needs and someone hears my sob story it's like whether it's going to get fixed or not at least they'll realize I went through a lot and somehow I'm valuable even in my junk and somehow in our misplaced compassion for those people we let them do it yeah give them the validation that really won't work anyway because until we they find our validation in him and him alone it's that's I love what Larry Crabb does in that book because he keeps bringing us back to it's it's the relationship if if the relationship with father isn't the most important thing in your life nothing's going to make sense anyway you can keep trying to get God to fix that and trying harder to jump through that hoop he's not the most important thing instead of my success or my healing or my ministry or my whatever we're going to constantly have this relational disconnect that doesn't allow us to get to coin ania but when he is at the center of it when that's what we want and I think we help each other get there I think that kind of speaking the truth in love will grow up into all aspects who is to him who is the head that we are saying at points my goodness I think you need to maybe look at this from a whole another angle and do it not as people who are pointing out the errors of other people but doing it as people who are also struggling on this journey we're we are co laborers and we've got the same issues going on in our life and finding that reality is a constant struggle for us all I'm going to ask you a question you use the word coin ania and I'm sure a lot of people know what it means but for those that don't speak Christian or Hawaiian what is it what is coin ania how would you just without using that little phrase what is it I would say coin ania as I'm talking about is the depth of relationship that brothers and sisters get to experience in this kingdom it's all that we've talked about it's not overlaid with agendas and theological battles it's knowing each other heart to heart not having to pretend being honest in the midst of our honesty finding God's reality see because what I hear in the last like maybe five minutes of what we've been talking is you have this dynamic which is our life centered around me and myself and then you have this incredible life that is God his life we can either be focused on ours and all the things we try to do to work it manipulate it and make it happen get blessed be blessed to be able I mean all this stuff that it's all focused about us but what I hear when you talk about the word coin ania is we're sharing his life the thing that takes two total strangers that know him and allow them to meet in an airport or for coffee and all of a sudden get along as if they they've been family forever is him and it's his life and I think so often times it's because we haven't seen his life as central and as the only real option to having this we think that somehow I've got to get me some place where you're going like you know what when I when I stop hiding and I'm naked in myself and I'm just all of a sudden I recognize his life when I stop trying to run for mine I recognize I want his and that's what enables me to be more honest and whatever is going on yeah people who are seeking that find fellowship as simple as sitting down and talking yeah and people who don't want that I mean you can have and that's I'm just tired I don't want to be in roomfuls of people who aren't seeking that I mean I don't mind being there if I'm helping them see that right but the people I gather with regularly and want to share this journey with I want to be right on that page and how does God make himself known in us and that's because that's that's life and there's nothing else beyond it you know we'd really love to invite your feedback on this whole dynamic of fellowship because I think that's the thing that all of us are really hungry for so whether it's joining us on the dialogue that's happening on the website and you just sort of enter in a blog and response you know you could do that at the godjourney.com or you can call the hotline which is 805-626-4212 that's 805-626-4212 because Wayne and I are not wanting to just have a conversation amongst ourselves we really are excited about the dialogue that father is leading globally and worldwide and bringing his children together 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