The Willow Creek Implosion! — http://thegodjourney.com/wordpress/2007/11/02/the-willow-creek-implosion/

It's now time to think outside the box of what we've always known. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the sovereign Lord. I think that's a profound turning point in somebody's relationship with God. And our hope in starting this was that this would become an ever-expanding conversation. Just two real guys talking about life. That's a nice tagline. I'm Wayne Jacobson. And I'm Brad Cummings. And welcome to another edition of The God Journey. You missed the fires, Wayne. You left the country and the whole thing went up in smoke. I got hourly updates, believe me, from all kinds of people asking if I was still alive and the house was okay. You guys were pretty safe where you were. Yeah, we got smoke and ash, but no danger. Malibu got hit pretty bad, huh? Yeah, the church where we first camped out where I was the head janitor. The religious institution, you mean? It burned to the ground. That's where my wife and I got married. Ah, the Presbyterian club. I used to pick Plato out of the carpet. That was near and dear. It was sad. Does that mean you're free from your marriage now? I don't think so. I wouldn't think so. No, I wouldn't think so. You guys get a lot of dust and ash. We did it at our house. Some dear friends were right, I mean, like 100 yards from the epicenter of all that stuff. In Malibu. Yeah. And thankfully, they were fine. I was on the phone with him and I was watching TV and then I saw a helicopter go over the, you know, the ash remains of the church and then I saw it drop its load and I knew exactly. And also to hear this, ah, he just got doused. It was, it was funny. Wow. I guess it was. Where were you? Ten Commandments opens, huh? The Ten Commandments? Yeah, it's out. It's a couple weeks old. It's a couple weeks old. It's got a huge front page color thing in the local paper. You got three stars out of four? Ah, I think we did good. We got a couple of dings from some weird reviewers, which I, you know, I just like, I don't think they understood anything. Well, this one didn't sound like it was ready for a nice guide. It sounded like it needed, you know, so it was one of the things that was marketing. I just, this guide actually makes some sense. Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to just, you know, the big guy up in the clouds trying to whack people. Well, that was a, that was a major effort of mine to, to recast and help people understand. I think, you know what's so fun is watching my own daughter. And the theater, she was mesmerized. My older boys weren't, you know, they're like, ah, it's cool, dad. But they're, because they were their buddies. Taylor was absolutely mesmerized. Wow. And for about a week after the opening, she's every night, daddy, who read me another Bible story. So something touched her heart. It was, it was great. Oh, it's cool. I'm thrilled. It didn't open real strong and the. No, but you know what, October doesn't really exactly, to me, seem like the most amazing month. I mean, you know, I think, I guess there's people with greater experience than I, but the reality is, I think this thing will do fantastically well at DVD sales. And it's just, it's, it's a good, solid portrayal to tank mammoth. Yeah. Did it pick up any in the second weekend or is it kind of stayed up a little bit, but you know, I don't know how it's going to do in the theaters. I think from the outset, we kind of recognize the primary markets probably going to be DVD sales. Oh, well, yeah. Well, you guys thought that initially, I mean, the theater release was kind of a second. Yeah. I was a late idea in the process, I think. But I think they're already underway in Noah. Cool. And I got the script for David and Goliath, so we'll, we'll be playing with that. Well, we haven't seen it yet. I've been in Canada the last couple of weeks, so we haven't even had a chance to run off to the movies yet. So it's good. One of these days, we'll try and get down and have a look. So what were you doing in Canada? Oh, I was hanging out with some wild people. I got punched by an old lady. Great fun. You got punched by an old lady. Please explain. She's going to love hearing that. We were in someone's home and she was telling us this story about trying to buy gas her and her husband. She said, now remember, we're old, and she tells this story of trying to buy gas for the first time through an automated gas pump. And there was nobody at the station. It was after hours or something, but you could pump gas. So anyway, they didn't know where to put the card. So they kept putting it in the slot. It didn't work. And the sign kept saying, stick card all the way in. So they stuck it all the way in. But they were sticking it in the place where the receipt comes out. Ah. Where the card goes? So she laughed and said, I told you I was old. And I said, well, hey, don't me you were old. You didn't tell me you were stupid. These things just pop out. So she took a shot right to my shoulder. Yeah, well, I think she should have shot a little higher. Talked to you in the mouth. Oh, Lee. She came to my mind. She came to my mind. It was humorous. Somebody told me she was 91. But I knew that wasn't true. We got whacked by an 86-year-old lady. That's great. So she comes in the next night because we're doing a two night. She comes the next night and I'm kind of rubbing my shoulder and her daughter, whose home we were in, was going to say, Wayne, are you OK? Is that serious? And I said, yeah, it's pretty bad. And she comes walking and she looks over at me. You keep that up. I'm going to match it on the other side. So obviously she was a good sport. But boy. You don't mess with them Canadians. Don't get you. I seem to get hit all over the world. I got hit by a nine-year-old too. But that was a different story. It was a big sock war. Yeah, a sock war with a nine-year-old. No, the whole family had a sock war. It was funny. Did they let them? Are they tube socks? Are they little rolled-up socks? Rolled-up socks. Yeah, that's the best way to have it. It's like stoning without the blood and stuff. That's awesome. It was a great moment because dad went up. She was the little girl. Stoned him down the steps in the morning and started this little war and then he goes up there and says, OK, he comes down the stairs, he goes, got that fixed and he's slapping his hands. Just as he said that, he got hit in the back there. No, sorry. That's perfect. It was a perfect time. You couldn't have been in a movie, man. I'm telling you. It was perfect. So we had a great time with them. I went by the bookstore in Abbotsford that has sold almost 400 copies of the Shack now. They're on a mission to sell one an hour until Christmas. She just looked at me and said, we are only getting started, but that was a great time. I met some wonderful folks there. They really are nuts about getting this thing out just as far as they can. Well, it has been touching people. I've been having so many neat conversations with folks that have just been being touched by the book and they can't, you know, they want to just give it away. And it's a blast. Yeah, it's been wild. We're already out of second printing and going to a third. Yeah. Boy, that's nuts. Got a hard back under process. So, gee, wonderful deal. Great mail. Boy, mail's been just awesome the last couple of weeks. People really appreciate what's going on. I got this from Eddie. I thought this was sweet. He was saying it about me and I'm not really reading it for that. I just, I wanted other people. I thought I'm going to read this letter because I think other people ought to pass this on to other folks. He was saying this about me. He's quoting from Philip Keller, a book about relationships. He said, There are workers with God who could so handle and explain his word and his ways that his truth became to me spirit in life, life from above that permanently altered the contours of my character and conduct. I'm internally indebted to God, my father, for allowing me to be so enriched in coming to know him firsthand through these friends like the woman at the well who told the village about the living water. These people have eagerly entreated me to come to meet the master. And he was quoting that and he just said, Wayne, I want you know, it's Eddie, a guy I've been with a couple of times in the UK. He said, I want you to know you've been that for me. And I just thought, man, it is really, we don't say that enough to people. And I didn't really say that for me because I get lots of encouragement from folks. But I thought, you know what? If you've got people in your life like that who've just spoken words of life to you and they've made a difference in your life, pass that on, pass on that kind of expression to them. Because it's incredibly encouraging deal. So I think it's, I think God loves to incarnate truth. He likes to wrap it up in people. And I think when it, when there's the disconnect, it's when somehow what's being said is not being evidenced also in a life. Yeah. That's true. I think it's far more powerful when you just watch someone live it out. Yeah. And then we got this from Anniella in B.C., she's a nine-year-old girl. All right. She says, I used to think that God was this big angry God waiting to slap you if you did something wrong. I was scared of him because the church building services I went to didn't help. They just scared me more. Now I know God is not a big angry God. He's a gentle, loving God ready to comfort you. When you are afraid, you can always call on him and he will listen. Mummy and daddy really helped and your podcast did too. I really enjoy your podcasts. That's great. I met Anniella up there. In fact, she was part of the sock war issue. And boy, great little girl growing in Jesus, whole family had a great time with them. So fun folks. Why do we think fear is ever going to work well? I remember walking through the Baptist club I grew up in. If my mom was doing something in the fireside room and I had to go over to the church office, I had to go right through this big, dark, ugly sanctuary. And I remember walking through there, being scared out of my mind. I was like, oh my gosh, God, don't do anything. Don't say anything to somebody. I know exactly what she's talking about. Gosh, I know that God. He's just whacking people for all he's worth. I mean, it's a cheap little tool to try to force conformity in a moment. It is. Think of the residue that it leaves that just, I think, destroys the possibility of relationship. Absolutely. And it's like, why do we use that? Oh, boy, but some people love it. Some of the discussion this weekend in Canada, where somebody at the end was just looking at me going, I got to tell you, man, I like some of the stuff that you're saying, but this is a God that whacks people and quite sad in those terms. But just like, I was kind of taken back. I had this great weekend talking about God's love and how we engage it and live in it. And then people are walking out going, but he's mean, but I've got to say this before we go. I just, you know. The only dings we've really gotten on the shack have been from people who end up going like, you know what, the truth is God is really not that nice. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what they're saying. It's like, you know what, you're trying to tame God. You're trying to take away his meanness and the judgment and the wrath. And it's like, you're sitting there like, nah, I don't think we're removing that, but I think, my gosh, what does that really do for you? But there are some folks that that is their trumpet. That's their flag. This is the rally call. My God is meaner than your God. He just go like, wow. You know what's sad about that? It's because I think what it comes from is people that have only found their motivation in the fear of the Lord. In other words, they're doing what they're doing because they would feel like they'd get into big trouble if they didn't. And so when you start talking about the transformation that grace brings and how God's love engages in a way far deeper than his fear does, they don't know what that means. And they're afraid you're giving license to people, just go do whatever they want because he's just big nice God in the sky. And they really don't know how to live with a God. They don't fear. And so I actually feel bad for people like that because I think they're still pretty lost in this whole fear game. And they still don't know that love is so much better than fear and love's gonna take you so much further if you engage that. Will you get the scripture verse, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom? Unpack that a little bit because obviously the fear of the Lord is a good thing. It's not a bad thing. Why do that in my book, he loves me. So if ever, no kidding. Nice, nice plug. Well, I think there's a difference between the Old Testament construct of how God wanted to engage us. The sovereign to servants, that's pretty clear that that's the analogy coming through the Old Testament. That's what we understood in the fallenness of our flesh. Now, certain people in the Old Testament saw through that, David does, Isaiah does, and realize that God's slow to anger, abounding and loving kindness. So you even see some of that unpacked in the Old, but when Jesus comes, Paul's language, Romans 8, 15, God's not given us a spirit of fear leading to slavery again, but he's given us a spirit of sonship or adoption whereby our hearts cry out, but he really makes it clear that God's switching this whole paradigm. So I say it this way, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but it's only the beginning. The love of the Lord is the fulfillment of it. If you don't love God, you'd be well-served to fear him because it'll keep you out of lots of trouble. But once you love him, you'll never need to fear him again. And to me, that love I did, it isn't cheap in God to some, you know, just nicey, good old manby, panmy dude. This is the God who spoke heaven and earth into existence. This is the God who is in our lives to purify us and make us holy like he is, but he's doing that out of love. He's not doing it out of, I'm gonna work if you don't. Yeah, I mean, you look at the training of toddlers. Well, okay, then there's some little elements of discipline and punishment that will help train them before they have the capacity to really fully understand, but it doesn't lead to intimate relationship, that kind of relating. No, absolutely not. You know, it's like, okay, so you can stop some destructive behaviors because okay, there's a fear of punishment, but it leads nowhere to intimacy unless there is relationship and the capturing of a heart and they love you. And you think of what's gonna keep me on this road forever. It's not gonna be the fear of falling off it. It's not gonna be, oh, oh, because if that's it, then I'm not really attracted to God. Yep, I'm attracted to a whole bunch of other things and then I'm, oh, but I'm afraid if I say yes to those passions, I'll get a worse punishment, as opposed to finding pleasure and finding your passions rooted in the fact that I'm absolutely in love with God. He's worth it in and of himself. Exactly, and I think the fear deal, one of the things that points up to why it doesn't work is that you have to be scared regularly. Fear doesn't last long, it doesn't. I think that's why those revival, what we call mountaintop experience, they drag you up to the woods and scare you with God again so you come back and you're better for a while, but then the fear fades. What I notice about engaging father's affection in my life is it doesn't fade. It doesn't like go away in a few months and you gotta be kind of re-hyped up into it again. And I think fear's like that. I think fear works as long as that cop's driving behind you, it'll work. But when the cop pulls off the next exit, you're going, okay, cool, I can go back up to 85, 90. Like they do down here in LA. Now, of course, I wouldn't do those things, but I know people who do. Oh, wow. Wow, I heard, here's some other letters quickly and I know we want to get on to something else, but in fact, I think this ties into it really. This is from two pastor types. Says, last week, this is Anne in Indiana. She said, last week, our family stumbled onto your website and been blessed so much with all the reading and listening and courage of what father's doing around the world. I must admit, we were feeling a little alone, but we were quickly reminded that we're definitely not alone. We'd read Jake's story first. We're amazed at the similarity of our own journey to give you a short review. My husband was a pastor until 97. We'd already been satisfied with our experience of church and started to question what we were doing and believing. A few years later, we jumped into the house church movement and found that wasn't satisfying either. Then we met some people who were really experiencing community and family life that was completely different from anything we'd ever known. He has been freeing us, but from living by performance to living in response to his love, it's been wonderful. He has been so patient with us and I can look back and see how his kindness has let us fail so that we can find him and learn to completely depend on him alone. As a result, instead of looking around for others who might think like us, we've found we are free to see opportunities to just love whoever Jesus puts in front of us that day with no expectations and no pressure to try and make them see it our way. Thank you so much for sharing your journey. We look forward to whatever may be ahead on this great adventure. And it's signed some more free rangers, former Pharisees, unplugged and in the process of being rewired and then their PS. I love how you and Brad intermingled daily life, i.e. your experience with cats, et cetera, with spiritual topics on your podcast. Isn't that what this life is all about anyway? Jesus right in the middle of our everyday lives, our lives don't have to be compartmentalized. Yee-haw! Yee-haw! That's how she finishes it. Great stuff, I actually got dinged. Somebody I noticed on a blog was referring to our podcast encouraging people to listen to this one that had this topic. I said, you gotta wait through five minutes of garbage to get to the good stuff. I don't think he was doing the burn. They didn't like our 522 burn? Yeah, now going on a 1922 burn, but yeah, that's funny. But I think she describes so well this journey of trying to make that system thing work, it not working, finding a way out of it, and then, oh, maybe the house church movement is it, so let's get in that and try all that. It hasn't working either. And then finally just the free place of loving people. I love that, but not even people who see it my way. That's not even the fixation. I'm gonna live with whoever God puts in front of my path today, and I'm gonna love them in a way he gives me to love them, and then trust that God will out of that bring whatever fellowship life connections that we need. And I think she sums up about 40 years of my journey in a paragraph and a half. Oh yeah, and I love it. Whenever, quote, your spiritual life gets divorced from your normal life, there's a disconnect. You got to, you got a funky chicken and running around going like, what's up with that? Because then God will only be there in moments. He won't be ever present. And it's like, gosh, I love the fact that my kids are growing up without the divide. They don't have a sense of the holy hour or the holy place. They have a holy life. Yeah, that's a big difference. And you're just going like, my lens, I can't wait to see the fruit that just comes out of a whole paradigm of living life as opposed to having it compartmentalized. Now we will be spiritual. Yeah, and I love dinging on the cats. You know, I got a phone call this morning from a guy in South Carolina. He works for Coke. He was driving somewhere that I called and just tell you, man, keep dinging on those cats because you got to teach the gospel of dogs. I just thought it was hilarious. And it was fun because I've been getting dinged lately for picking on the cats too much. So it was nice to have some. I didn't want cats to pick on, pal. You have to dig them up. That's what got to be less fun because you guys are just winging them right and left. Well, well, well. One more from Gary because this is a similar story. Just a quick note to let you, Brad, know how much I appreciate your podcast. I've been searching for something like this program for years and I'm glad Father led me your direction. Up until June, 2005, I was a United Methodist minister for a number of years. I've been questioning the meaning of being in the ministry. Every time I would read a scripture passage about true leadership from the words of Jesus in the gospel, such as not lording it over or not as the Gentiles do, I would pause and wonder if what I was doing as a paid professional Christian was wrong. Came to a head in 2003 when I read a passage in church, looked at the congregation and asked myself, what am I doing here? Hey, this is funny. There's a lot of pain behind this. I've been there, pal. I know. I decided to make the break following an 18 year ministry in the church. I left the church pastorate in June, 2005 and wandering in a desert experience ever since. Needless to say, the whole process has been quite painful because I didn't realize how much time I spent investing my identity in being a pastor rather than a disciple of Jesus. Man, that's a huge hit right there. Oh, wow. He says, perhaps the most difficult part of all this transformation has been looking back at all the time I have invested into becoming a minister and now being tempted to look at that as wasted time and money. I also find the whole process very lonely as many of the people in the community do not understand why I had left, often believing that I'd fallen away from the faith or perhaps perform some ugly moral problem that needed to be fixed in. He goes on, but he just says, you know, really thanks. It's great to know he's not alone in the world, but boy, there's just a lot of people taking a look at that old system freshly and saying, it ain't working. Well, yeah, I mean, it's like, I think there's only so long that you can like kind of beat yourself up like, oh, I'm being critical till you finally realize, no, I'm starving. This isn't working, it's not just am I being fed? It's like, you know what? I wonder if some of this at some juncture doesn't become counterproductive to your spiritual health because you're taking something that should be normal, like breathing, and we've made it like scuba diving where you're in a, you know, I'm now gonna be spiritual. And it's like, gosh, if you put this in another realm, it gets warped, it's weird. It really does, but boy, you gotta admire the courage of people who are making those hard choices saying, this is my life, my identity, my income stream, walking away because I can't keep doing it. I love the, what am I doing here? I remember being in the same deal. I was sitting in one Sunday morning in the deal that I'd help plant and Sarah wasn't with me because of the thing she was going on. And I felt like God asked me that question. What are you doing here? Okay, don't ask me stuff like that. I'm on right now. I've been in the middle of a sermon. I get paid to be here. My answer is I got paid to be here. Why are you here? That was an old cartoon, the leadership magazine. You know, I had the pastor staying behind the pulpit and had a sign above him that said, paid to be good. And then I had a sign over the congregation and pointing to him. It said, good for nothing. Oh, that's, that's not, that's not right. Well, even one of the flagship congregations of the US is saying it isn't working. What do you mean? Can you, Will Creek? Oh, oh yeah. Oh my gosh. They're one of the biggest deals. They've been modeled 30 years. The model of developing a model, the model going all over the world and teaching people how to do it just this. Well, purpose driven would like that. They're the next model. They're a newer fanger model. I don't think they've gotten this far yet, but they've, they've really said this whole thing doesn't work. All the programs that we've put together, increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities does not predict whether someone's becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does not predict whether they love God more or love people more. And that's from the top business guy at the organization. You and I just watched a video from there that we'll link to this podcast so people can watch it. You ought to watch it. Interesting, interesting hit this guy gives. I found it interesting, humorous and disturbing. Oh, horribly, horribly disturbing. Very disturbing. Although I think the guy talking is incredibly sincere. Yeah, but sincere doesn't mean you're right. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Seer just means you're passionately wrong. No, I think, I mean, the fundamental dream was, you know, we want to fundamentally change the way we do church. Now. Yeah. Now. Yeah. After 30 years of saying, okay, we put 30 years and maybe billions, at least hundreds of millions of dollars into something now that we clearly say does not work. What gives them, that's my question. What gives you the authority to try and give us another model? You had 30 years or one to blow up in your face. And I give them code. This is the next generation. This is not Bill himself. This is those who followed after. I give him credit for being honest. I give him credit for doing the research and saying there is no correlation between people's participation in our programs and their growing life in Jesus. Well, yeah. I mean, the basic premise was, you know, our primary goal was we're going to produce more disciples. So the real issue is attendance and how many and it's looking at our services. And we can measure participation. If you do all these things, then the output is going to be disciples who love God, love people. And then they recognize all going all these services, all these classes participating in all these programs didn't necessarily produce any love for God or love for people. In fact, it was producing for many the opposite. The further they grew and the closer they came, the more dissatisfied with the programs and the boxes and the things they became. He says that people who love God the most are the most disappointed in their attendance at church. And he thought that was sad. Yeah. I just wanted to hit pause. Go like, can we rethink your emotion there? Why is that necessarily sad? Is that a bad outcome? Is that a wrong outcome? Yeah, like saying the 18 year old went to college. That's bad. We had them so they would stay in our home forever and we could influence their lives and control them forever. I do think that's one major disconnect is why is that a bad thing? If you've helped people love Jesus enough not to sit through your stupid meetings, I would think you've done something wonderful. You don't even have to call them stupid. Just take meetings. Did I say that? Yeah, I kind of saw a bias there. I'm tired. Things just come out without editing. The reality is when you look at what's going on, we should be functioning in each other's lives in such a way that I'm producing someone that is able to follow Jesus on their own without my support system. And then you've got to even wonder if that's our job. No, yeah, I don't think it's our job. I mean, I think that when he said, we want to fundamentally change the way we do church. I sat there and I went, okay, church isn't a verb. It isn't doing, right? It's like you will come to the realization if you're trying to do church, you're putting that spiritual veneer as another something as opposed to regular life. If you don't understand it, we are the church. He's got a job. He's got to do church. And he's got to validate a paycheck. He does. And they don't see that. No, they don't. And I think that's the fundamental flaw there because the reality is this is a whole business thing and our customer base is not satisfied. So we got to rethink the product we're selling. And so we're going to get all the best minds and the best programs. We're going to do tons of research and I'll sell my research to justify everything I've been doing. And I saw that and then the dynamic is like, you know what, again, you're in the business of selling religion. And it's like, you know what? Until you step out of that and recognize, I don't really think that's the call of God upon us. Yeah, a purveyor of religious goods and services. And I think it would even be, going back to the statement we were talking about earlier, have our programs produce people who love God enough no longer to need us. I think that whole premise is somewhat suspect because I look back at the fellowships where I pastored in and I would tell you the people who I thought were closest to God, living this intimacy and growth and whatever, I knew those people, all people I wasn't responsible for. I mean, they could have grown anywhere. They could have gone here because it was the Holy Spirit they were engaging and it was their life that was being transformed. Yeah, we might have been an encouragement in that process but we weren't the determining factor in that process. Never have been. And I don't think even stuff I do at a live stream, I honestly don't think it's the determining factor in anyone's growth. It may encourage people to see what they're already seeing but to the degree that it becomes a program people copy, they will be disappointed. There is not enough in, he loves me. There's not enough in the Jake Colson, there's not enough to say, okay, these are the principles I follow and I'll be fine. I hope there's enough in there that frustrate you. Say, if I don't know him as he is, if I'm not engaging him, all this stuff is just a bit frustrating because it seems like it's just fantasy land. It doesn't seem like it'll really work. And without him, it doesn't. And to think we could ever design, there's the fallacy behind it. We're gonna take people who are far from God, build a program structure that like a factory or like a car wash puts people through on the other side to come out closer to Jesus. And I'm just saying, that's nuts. And the other thing I caught in his language which is interesting, how he defined disciple. Those who love God more and love people more. And I think, I think you just missed the whole important deal right there because you can't love until you've been loved. And I think the essence of being a disciple is not that I love God more, but I come to a growing appreciation of the ways in which he loves me. We don't know love by this that we were first, but that God gave himself. I think that's all backwards. There's nothing in there about people understanding, experiencing, appreciating and daily engaging this father of great affection. It was known, the other side of this is, we're doing these things. We're loving God more, loving people more. Well, so then what do I do with my golden calf? You can send it to the God's journey. We'd be happy to take care of it for you. I think most people when they quote, approach their spiritual life or they approach religious system or Christianity, the truth is they're making some form of golden calf with my effort. I'm going to worship. All right, and just going like, gosh, if it's just a friendship, relationship, a love relationship, if it's a natural response to an awakening of my being loved, there's no golden calf in that. But if there's a whole bunch of other things, that I've got to do to produce the whole bunch of, that is all self effort, generating spirituality. Yeah. And I'm going like, that is all golden calf fodder. And it's not gonna work in the long run when you're saying, if now the business model they're building is the outcome we want is people more intimate with Christ. We measure people more intimate with Christ by people who do these disciplines. They pray, read the Bible, go to church, whatever. Now we're going to teach to the test. So we're going to skip people engaging God in a way. The heart transformation stuff. Yeah, that makes them, that draws them to scripture, that draws them to communion with him, that draws them. Now we'll substitute the reality, I like to call it. We're going to substitute the disease for the symptoms. If we're saying the symptoms are, they're into the disciplines, then I can see what they're going to do is have a new spiritual survey for people. Where are you lacking in the disciplines? We're going to train you to do the disciplines. And then 10 years from now they're going to have a better set of Pharisees. Because they're more individually motivated and they got checklists they're getting off other than I went Sunday morning and I participated in a class on Tuesday night and I'm in a small group on Wednesday. Now I've checked off the list of disciplines. So I feel close to God because I've got the symptom of the disease. But no one's infected me with the disease. That this father loves me, that I can wake up in him every day, that all of my life is contained in his life and love, the most mundane to the most sublime, live in that reality. Out of that, I think disciples are made. Out of that, people have a passion for scripture, a passion for prayer, a passion for community. But without that first, and I didn't hear any of that in this language. At all. No, it was shockingly absent. Boy, depressingly absent. You know, it's interesting when you, if you just sort of step back for a second and here you got the, let's make Jesus the head of this whole thing. All right? I know that's a novel idea. I know he's fabulous. I like the idea. He basically says to a bunch of people that he's, let's pretend he's even training. And I don't even know that that's a good word. But he says, don't call yourselves leaders. Now just period, end of thought and sentence. Why would the guy that we think is raising up the next generation of quote leaders? Why would in the world would he ever tell them? Now don't call yourselves leaders. Right. It's like, you know, I mean, fundamental disconnect. It's like, I've already gone to seminary. It's like, unless Lord builds a house, they have the labor, labor, evane. What the heck do I do with all my tools now? Yeah. Was it, I going to builder school? That's not just the tools. It's the debt you have now from getting the tools. Right. That's $30,000 tools. It's not a hammer down at Sears, my goodness, dude, or duct tape. I best be a professional in this. Oh. And then you get, John says, you know, don't call yourselves teachers. And you just go like, if there's some. Or call no man a teacher. Don't call anybody. There's primary dudes in this whole thing that we're looking to emulate. And they're kind of laying out things like, don't call yourself leaders. Don't call yourselves fathers. Don't call yourselves teachers for, and why? You have one father and you are all brothers and sisters. Yeah. And anyone stopped to think, why might that have been important or essential to say? Over and over again, to remind ourselves. Exactly. We too quickly jump on these leadership analogies in the New Testament and miss them. We have to use the Old Testament. Don't we to justify our leadership structures? Oh yeah. I mean, I looked at so much of what went on. It's like the progression of the journey of the people in the Old Testament, bringing them to Jesus and the dismantling of quote, the structures that brought them there. And now we're supposed to be an unveiled face-to-face relationship. All of us. All of us. From the least to the greatest. All of us. All of us. And what we have from that way forward is the remantling, the rebuilding of all these things that were dismantled by the guy that this was all about. Right. I'm like, now wait a minute here, what's up with this? And so when I look at the research being done today and the alarming statistics of all these people are leaving, I'm going like, wow, maybe we're closer to Jesus as we return. Because every time he's like really here, everything gets dismantled. Yes. Yes. So maybe he's getting closer because all the systems and structures are falling and failing. And I think that's a good thing. I think it's a great thing. What makes me wonder is, how do you lose credibility today? Seriously. If you spent 30 years and $30 billion offering a service that you yourself are saying, oh boy, didn't work. Not working, not helpful. But we're going to start from scratch with a clean piece of paper and we're going to make ourselves another system and sell it to you for $30 billion and 30 years down the road. Where do people ever stop? How do you lose credibility today? How do people say, okay, you know what? If, if, I'm not, I'm not sure you did. You did landscape. If you, if you, if you've got my backyard for 20 years and $20 million, no trying to build me a patio cover. And then I come out and go, you know, it's not working. I've got a new idea. I'm not thinking I'm going, oh boy, I'm excited now. Let's put another 20 billion into this. I just, I think this whole system, they just credit it themselves. Which I think is fabulous. I love their major revelations. We need to go beyond asking how many. And that was, that was, that was major revelations. The second one is we need to- 30 years. 30 years to get that lesson. We need to listen to the people. And he is going like, oh, this has been a monologue for 30 years and it has. It has. And you're just going like- And, and still- Those are life-shaking revelations. And just going like, and then it's sad that our most mature ones are dissatisfied with, with what we got and they're leaving us like, and somehow it's like, and, and shouldn't you be excited that now you have someone able that is, you know, let's just pretend you had something to do with it. You know, shouldn't you be proud of the fact that someone has graduated from all the training you do? We don't, we don't see it as a graduate. We don't see that as- They've left us. Elementary school. They've departed. No, we see it as the entire- My customer base is twiddling. Particularly as they've gotten older and wealthier maybe. Then you've got the customer base. The bigger fish is leaving. And, and even about that, not counting but listening, and it's still to people. Did you hear anything in here about what is Jesus showing us and revealing to us? It is, what is our market research showing? How do we redesign a new mousetrap so we can keep some of the mice that are getting out of here back in this place? To me, if it seems like, look, the people who live this the best aren't here. Yeah, you get the point. I do. If the people who live this the best aren't here, why are we designing something to contain them again? And why aren't we saying to the other people, you might learn this better out there. You just might. But Jesus said go into all the world. And then most of churches come and you're just going like, it seems to me and even well-intentioned and sincere folks, we have this tragically backward. And you're just going like, gosh, I don't think it's, you know, let's find the new model. It's like, let's blow the darn thing up. Yes. Let's just let the whole thing implode and let's actually find a beginning. You know, the one thing you read that pastor was going like, gosh, I think it was a total massive waste of time. And you know, and it's like, you know what? The one redeeming thing is, no, it isn't. Because until you can actually come to an end of this, my only disappointment in the little video that we watched is in their 30 years of figuring out it doesn't work, we haven't got to a place of bankruptcy. We haven't actually become broken and poor in spirit where I'm willing to quote, quit and give up. Because I sort of feel like that is the one redeeming element of the religious treadmill, is it does make you really exhausted. It takes all your great energy, all your great strength and diminishes it over time, which I figure is a good thing. Because when I was finally exhausted and couldn't go anymore, that's when I actually found that, oh, it isn't up to me. And the way we've created it is that's when you feel like you're failing the most. It's not the system that's at fault. It's you, you're not working it good enough. And when people come to that, and I met some of them the last two weeks in BC, I'm British Columbia, when people get to the end of that, there's the feeling that somehow I have failed, somehow this is not a good place. I don't know how to fix this. I don't know how to make it better. And I agree with you. I think that's the best place to be because now you're open to say, wow, God, what is it that you wanna do instead of, and here, this gal we read, Ann from Indiana, you know, we went from that whole system and we jumped in the house church thing, didn't realize that's just another, it's the same thing in different clothes. It's smaller, it's more family-friendly or whatever. There's some benefits to it. But at its heart, it's still just another system that we're gonna take a group of people, we're gonna impose them a way of doing church, and hopefully that produces a better result. I think what we talked about often in Canada the last couple weeks that rise out of this is there's a way of living in Christ, that when people begin to share that together, there's expressions of church that take reality, not from a model imposed from above, any model, but from love growing up and taking expression in things that God might ask us to do together, that reflects the life of the church. But it's not a system, a modality that we impose on a group of people that produces it. It's love that grows up and finds expression, and that expression can be 100 different varieties. It doesn't have to look like, well, here's a cookie cutter, purpose-driven, secret sensitive cell church, house church. It's none of those things. It's people sharing a journey in Christ together and helping each other and reaching out in ways God gives them to do what he asks them to do. Yeah, you know, here's Jesus and he says, you know, the kingdom of God is within your grasp. And then the next thing he says is, the kingdom of God is within you. Here's the king. And everyone's looking for the kingdom. And the place that he's directing us is into the heart reality of saying, you know what, it's gotta happen there first. First, absolutely. If it doesn't happen there, if the kingdom of God is not first within you, all the outward energy that you will ever expend is flat out pointless. Yes, and if it's not happening in you, a system isn't gonna fix it. No. A brother or sister walking beside you might help you see how God's doing stuff. But that's not gonna be through any kind of system that we can jump in, find identity, find a job, find whatever and be whole. But it's not. Even that, someone walking alongside you isn't enough. No, it's not enough alone. There's no substitute to this happening first within you. And you know, who are the ones that get satisfied? Who are the ones that get filled? It seems the bankrupt crowd. People who come to the end of all the ways they're doing it. Yeah, and it's like until you're, I think, willing to kind of just sit still and go, okay, I'm not doing anything anymore. I'm not, until you recognize that you're not spiritual because you do something, your spiritual will be because you are spirit. And you are loved. You are loved and God's spirit is dwelling in you until that trans acts. I don't think there's anything else to really do because it will flow out of that. Until that is, quote, who you are and you know it, not like, gee, I hope so, life hasn't begun. So here's a great chance to come to the end of something and stop instead or come to the end of something and rebuild and find something new. Part of the conversation by visiting our website, thegodjourney.com