https://vimeo.com/142288083

We live in a world that's more isolated than ever before. You know, cars drive in the driveway, close the garage door behind them, they stay in their house all day, all evening long after going to work all day. It's easy to be isolated. I would think that that could present challenges for some people. There are extroverts in the world, there are introverts in the world. What would you say to the introvert who maybe isn't feeling like they need to be in a structured church? They want to live the life of church out there, but it's very difficult for them to make that connection with someone. Yeah, it's difficult because it's not spoon-fed to you. If they're genuinely introvert, then they're not going to mind being alone. They actually will enjoy being alone and they may casually cross paths with people. If they're hungering to connect with people, then I just think you... I tell people to start loving the next person in front of your face. Just start loving the person in line. And by loving, take an interest in. Just say hi to. You start being a more congenial person. If someone just genuinely can't do it, then don't. I'm not telling this is what you have to do against everything. Just live with open eyes and heart in the world. And to the degree that you can love and reach out and do, you'll find people, friends, you'll find there's a lot of people who are hungry to be loved. It's how Sarah and I have done it. We've moved three times in the last 15 years and we just keep meeting everybody around us. We make room for them in our lives. And now that we don't have 15 committee meetings to go to every month, we have room for that. We actually have room for our neighbors and our friends and our relatives and out of that some great community happens. You don't need a thousand friendships. You have three or four good friendships in your life. You're a blessed person. That's why I tell people you don't need a big group. You don't have to form a group and get people to come to your house. But you can do that. You can open up your home and just say, hey, why don't you guys come over Friday night if you're that kind of person? Most people aren't. But there's always ways to go. And God has a million ways. So ask Him. What we think is we got to do this ourselves and don't because we're paralyzed instead of God, how do you provide this? And then follow whatever nudges on your heart over the next week or two or three or four and see what happens. I do want to touch a little bit more about the community. Do you feel then that it is important for maybe that introvert, he or she needs to find someone? Can they make that walk alone or do they really need to commune with someone? I don't like to put community in the language of need. I struggle with that because once it's a need, I've got something I've got to get from you and now community's not going to happen because love's about giving, not about getting. I'd rather say this way. I think everyone genuinely following Jesus will find themselves falling into the gift of community because it's a gift he gives. So I think they will. It may take a while. It may take some time. It may need that hunger to grow. I think a lot of the dry people have for community is basically a loneliness that comes from, I'm not really filled up on Jesus yet. So I'm trying to get people around me to fill me up or having many couples make this mistake in marriage. I want my partner to complete me when their partner can't complete you on your best day. It's got to be God who meets those deep needs. Loneliness is not a sign that we're outside of fellowship. Loneliness is a sign we don't really know who God is yet or who we are in Him. So let's learn that. And then we turn to each other without all the needs. I don't need you to be X, Y, or Z to me. I just get to have you as a gift in my life. And friendship grows a whole lot easier there than it ever does out of, I need you. Will you be my friend? And it's like that really needy guy trying to find a date. It's just a big turn-off when the need is so great. So I have to get out of need. I'll just say you will. Community is irresistible. Community is engaging. The big fear of obligation-based church is fellowship is not its own reward. So we have to create a need and you must. Instead of saying, no, no, no. Once you experience the community that's inside God, Father, Son, and Spirit, you'll have a hunger for it. God will provide some people around you. And as you're looking to love them, that community will grow around you. So none of us were designed to make it alone. We all know in part and see in part. So is it important to walk alongside others? Yeah, it's important. But I like talking about it more as a gift than a need because I think that's the way it comes to us. I'm going to use the A word here. Accountability. Yeah. How do you feel about accountability? Do you think that community is necessary to keep a person accountable to another person? All I have to do is ask you, how often do you go by a cop on the road and want to take him out to lunch? You know, everybody driving safer when the cop's behind them or behind the billboard or whatever. But accountability is not about community. It's not about friendship. We've postured the Matthew 18 language in the first Corinthians five and we've called it accountability. Scripture doesn't. Scripture says we're accountable to God. That's where my accountability lies. Once we start making ourselves accountable to each other and to the community, then we have, again, we've distorted these relationships. It's not now about love and affection and care and concern. It's about guarding each other and guarding me from you if you start doing wrong stuff and using the community's benefits as an incentive for people to do what's right or we'll kick you out. And I think everything Matthew 18 and first Corinthians five talks about is really an expression of love. If I love you and you're astray or caught in something sinful, then I'm going to come to you and seek to restore you. And love does all of that. We don't need accountability and I know many congregations have staked their whole reason for being on accountability structures and keeping people true to the faith. I think it's the wrong discussion to have because then you're not a community. In an accountability environment, people learn to hide. In a love environment, people will be genuine and be open, even open with their struggles. And then you can really help each other. You can really do the first Corinthians seven, Matthew 18 stuff. So I just think, and I know it really ticks people off when I say that because they've just learned that local congregation is all about accountability and that's what it provides. And if we don't have accountability, if we can't kick people out, then we can't be the church. And I just don't see scripture having that angst over accountability. We were told to love one another as I have loved you. That we were clearly told to do. I can't find anywhere in scripture where it asks me to hold you accountable or ask you to hold me accountable. And honestly, I've been in a lot of accountability groups in my younger days. I've never seen people change in an accountability group because it's not through accountability that we change. It's through love that we transform. And accountability is a conformity based process. It's trying to get you to do what's right even if you don't want to by some external punishment or reward. That's accountability. Transformation, the inside out, is a love based reality. And people sin because they don't know they're loved. And when they know they're loved, they'll live differently in the world. So that's what I know about my own sin and struggle. Wherever I sin, have anxiety, fear, struggle, what I know is something about God's love I don't know. If I knew it, those things wouldn't even be temptations to me. So that's where I want. I want to draw deeper. And I pray that prayer all the time. Father, what is it about your love I don't know that if I knew it, I wouldn't act that way in that situation. And that to me is the growing edge of transformation. And it's such a more beautiful process than conformity and accountability that I don't know why anybody does that. Everybody uses that language. I think you're hard pressed to say you really know God as Father and really know what it is to live in the love of God and always talk about accountability and following the rules and kicking people out. I just say something about God you've missed. You might go back and have a look. What would you say to the person who has decided to live church outside of the walls? They've grown up in a very structured situation where they were raised in the church. Their family has attended church and they're feeling it, maybe not the whole family is, but that individual is feeling the need to live outside of the walls. How do they approach that topic with their, let's start with their immediate loved ones. How do they approach that topic? It's a hard decision to make I think in the beginning to say that what Grud's really asking of me now is that I not go to quote unquote church anymore but I'm going to live this outside. That is danger signs all over just in terms of the very communication you're suggesting. I wish hope the language would be more, you know what, I feel like I've been in a conformity-based thing for a bit and I think God's inviting me out to live with him in a little bit different way. I'm going to experiment with some more relational aspects of community. When people talk that way it kind of sets people at ease but when it's, I've decided the church is bad and it's wrong and I'm not going anymore. Now you threaten everybody in your life who and for many who go they've been trained to think this is their security. I know the term is a little bit demeaning maybe but it's like the security blanket a little kid has. They're really convinced that blanket keeps them from the boogeyman it comforts them at night and the first time you take it away it just freaks them out and I think people who've been taught this is your security if you're not here on Sunday morning you will fall into error you will wither up and die spiritually and so when they see someone they love just saying you know it's not fitting me anymore they really do freak out because they're pretty sure you're going to hell and now the conversations are really different and everything's threatening to them and so I pretty much, I've never said to anybody you know I quit going to Sunday morning and I'm never going back because they're evil bad things for right now I have found a way to live this life of Jesus that's more challenging to me and more helpful to me in more relational ways with other people and I thought even most church people go well that's interesting they talk about house church and I'll say not really I mean I did house church for a while but that just proved to be another system it just was in a different venue it's more about relational life brothers and sisters living together as a community living inside God listening to him growing in him what I find when I get with people who are a little bit suspicious about I'm not sure you can do that and get away with it one I think they're rooting there's a part of them that roots for it I've had people 18 years later come to me saying man when you left I thought you were out of your mind but there was something in me rooting for you because I'm a little bit bored here myself it's not providing what I hoped it would and some are rooting for us others are just that's the only thing they know and I just I try to be really generous with people like that I try to affirm hey I'm glad that's meaningful to you I'm not trying to trash on that I'm just I feel like God's nudged me in a little different way I could be wrong I'd invite you to pray with me about it but I but also would ask you could we love each other even if I'm seeing that a little differently for now because I don't know where this is going to end up for me and if you make it more of a process and a journey people relax a little bit when you make it like I've made this decision and I'm not doing this anymore that just freaks them out so they have to take people on your journey with you you can't surprise them with the conclusion that they're not prepped for and so I just I'm I'd be incredible loving my dad asked me one time and I'd been a pastor for 20 years and I was outside of it he came to me one day and he said are you okay doing what you're doing and I said dad to be honest with you I feel like for the last 20 years I've been I've walked around the prison with keys making sure everybody's locked in their cells and for the last four years I feel like I get to wander through that same prison with that same set of keys but now I'm unlocking doors and setting people free to know God that they've always wanted to know and he just smiled and he said man no that's all obviously that's a lot better and I said it is he got it even though he's going to be a church man all his life he's 90 years old his community enjoys it it's not something I would enjoy going to on a weekly basis but I celebrate the fact that it's nurturing him and he enjoys it and he celebrates the fact that our family's found a way to live it differently and I hope that's the bigger conversation we get in again it's not about whether you go or don't go what matters is are we learning to live in the fullness of the life of Jesus however he's inviting us to do it and if we encourage people to that it's just so much better and then people don't feel judged and they don't feel threatened we were talking about this earlier today there's people who have left institutions and they're hurt because these people now don't talk to them don't invite them to weddings they're just kind of out of sight out of mind kind of thing so there's a hurt here like I guess I didn't mean anything to those people no one's called me no one's scared enough to check it but these people are like those people are here over here in a different way and it just takes someone to bridge that someone just say hey I miss you can we get together and talk and particularly if there's a friendship there that friendship will revive if it's not a conformity base like I can't be your friend if you don't go to church well then you're going to have a problem and some parents will draw a line like that and you just have to be an adult and say yeah I'm sorry you can't see it this way I'm having the time of my life I just hope you can love me anyway but you know some well-meaning mothers will still manipulate that little jarring comment now and then they just can't stand a thing of the little boys no longer in church but you know when I get with people like that I always try to steer the conversation to what Jesus is doing in my life where I'm involved with in Kenya or someplace else in the world and just talk about the things God's doing in my life and that sets people at ease because what they really expect you to do is now you're going to care about football when you talk Jesus with them and you talk the things that you're learning and then people go wow maybe this will work for you and that's all you need use that little space of maybe this can work for you not for everybody but son we love what you're doing I find a lot of parents come around in time but early time yeah it's challenging particularly if you make it feel threatening and I think some of the early language because we've always talked about going to churches and obligations so we've made it about right and wrong we have that right and wrong fight which is the thing that divides us as the community the larger community of Christ and so I think it ought to be more about you know God just invited me to something different I hope that's okay with you and you get into much better conversations with that than you will you know what I think church is just the harlot of Babylon and we all need to leave it's a corrupt system you start down that road and people for whom it's still a treasure they won't know how to talk to you at all they'll just reject you the term living loved a lot can you expand upon that a little bit tell me what that means yeah I live 42 years of my life I'm a little kid growing up in Sunday school believing that God would love me when I would earn it when I could do enough to be on his good side because you know God is love and God loves us that's theological certain language but I think most people live as if they're not loved it's disappointed in them they haven't done enough every failure is another sign every need in their life every sickness, every financial need is obviously proof they're not in God's blessing so God doesn't love them and so I think most people live with a sense of being unloved even if we can draw the theological lines to God is love and God loves each of us they gave his only begotten son we got the language but the reason I use the word is there's a big fight in Christendom right now so who is God really? Is God the angry judge who's always disappointed in humanity and Jesus had to come and die to kind of protect us from God or is God the lover in the universe who is in Christ reconciling the world to himself is God the lover in this equation and it was us being lost in our shame that made God seem like the bully he wasn't because we were afraid of him and he wanted us to be the most often repeated phrasional tense was don't be afraid, whenever God shows up don't be afraid fear was never what God wanted of us and first John 4 says perfect love casts out fear the whole idea of the incarnation was that we would no longer need to fear God again that we could be loved by him and that love would do more to transform us than any of our fear based obligation based performance ever could so I like the term living love and the idea of knowing your love and drawing the theological construct and having a principles of God as judge over here and the principles of God as love here and then try to crash those together in some way which always leads to I get God's love when I'm good and I get God's judgment when I'm bad instead of I'm loved all the time by this father the prodigal is a great story where that boy is loved even when dad lets him go even when dad's waiting for him to come back the kid is still loved doesn't know it his runoff into sin wasn't because he wasn't loved it was he was living as if he wasn't loved and so in that environment that's where all of our sin anxieties fears come from living love is not just the biblical principle awareness it's our engagement with God as God makes himself known to us and he does that in a variety of ways but I think the purpose of the incarnation was so that God would win us through a relationship not just through theology or doctrine so how do I engage God in a way that I begin to know him and that demeanor sense his love and affection for me even when I'm doing stupid stuff and falling to temptation and performing poorly and knowing I'm loved by this God even at my most broken that begins to change you it's the traditional so the living loved really gets not to I'm not talking just principle and theology though I wrote the book he loves me I can make the principle argument but where it really becomes transformative is when I know God as a presence in the universe and know that God is absolutely purely loving from the depth of his being loving me waking up in the morning knowing I wake up as the beloved of God not trying to be loved by him already as his beloved and that reality I think it's square one in this Christian journey and unfortunately most of us skipped it we got saved the night I did nine-year-old boy went forward to Billy Grand Crusade I got the book of now all I'm supposed to do to be a good Christian but no one said to me Wayne just take the next two years and let God sort out with you how loved you are I wish I'd gotten and I've said that to audiences all over the world don't you wish you'd had that opportunity oh yeah man I didn't get that either and I'll just say so why don't you take it why don't you take the next two years and you just wake up every day and say God would you show me how much you love me would you let me know how loved I am would you give me eyes to see and a heart to hear and I say take two years it doesn't always take that long but it takes a while God's got to rewrite so many scripts in here of identity and his affection it takes a bit of time for God to rewrite our hearts in a way that we can recognize that affection when we wake up in the morning when we're in a dire situation of some kind we've just had an argument with our wife or our husband it's the living in the reality of father's affection that is where all transformation comes from without that nothing else happens without that community doesn't happen and so that to me square one and I think those of us who feel like God's called us to be equipers in the world that's the number one thing you want to help people experience how do I help person A B or C find an engagement with the most affectionate presence in the universe if I can do that their lives will be transformed in and I trust that mostly not to my ability to equip I trust that to the Holy Spirit's ability to invite people into that affection but for me until you know that if you're every day trying to particularly if you're praying for a really intense need and you're thinking well I've got to act better today or I've got to give more in the offering Sunday I'm doing these little things to endear God to respond to my desire then you don't know you're loved yet just don't have a clue God's blessing is never dependent on our performance it's nice he loves us he wants to be in our lives in the good places and in the pleasant places and walk with us and it's the security of his affection that sets it at rest in a broken world and it's not anything other than that and that's a real connection that I hope people learn when I love how you put in one of your podcast you mentioned how you feel and you just touched on a second ago how you feel like the story about the prodigal son was really the focus is in the wrong place that it's more the father and how and his love for his son through all of that yeah we made about salvation for the rebellious which it's in there but he's telling the story to the Pharisees they're the older brother there's two brothers in this story and we forget the older brother who's outside who the day his younger brother comes home and the day his father's heart is the most excited what which is lost is now alive again the older brother's not sharing in that joy just like what I've been slaving here my whole life and and I think that's really the meat of this parable there's two ways to run from God you can run from God in the rebelliousness of your own indulgence yeah you can run there you can also run in the performance of religion you can work so hard for God that you don't know God any better than the person lost in rebellion and neither one of them are in the father's house and the younger son gets home first and now it's up to the older brother are you going to come join us Jesus leaves the parable hanging right there because the Pharisees are standing right there are you going to make it? and some did, Nicodemus did others didn't but the invitation's there I think the whole basis of the incarnation is that now God's going to win by love and affection but fear and obligation could never win and that's hearts that are endeared to him and hearts that are endeared will be transformed by the power of that love it's the most powerful thing in the universe we focused on the wrong thing there we missed that this parable is really about a father whose love can find no matter how you run from God he can find you and invite you into the house and come celebrate with me as my child and I love the image of the father running to the son too that he's so excited and so in love with his son and so excited to see him that he runs to him a lot of things happen there there's not only the running for an older man in that culture but he's taking robes hiking them up and running is a deal first of all and it's very dishonoring to an older man part of what he's doing is taking the shame of the son onto himself they're mocking him of course the rich kid goes away and does poorly who doesn't celebrate that stupid rich kid he got what he deserved well the father's trumping that he's running to him he's making me much more inclined to kind of perch myself on the porch and watch him walk in from a long ways off and let him grovel for a bit dad I'm not worthy what son I can't hear you you know because I want to make sure he's really learned his lesson but not this dad this dad as soon as he sees his boy he's off the porch running down the road and I like the way Max Lucata looks at it about five yards away he leaps into the air and grabs him in mid-flight and takes him down into the dirt and if you've ever had a wayward child or anybody you love to come home you know there's nothing there's nothing you want to do to punish that the punishment's all been done he's already lost everything ate pig food coming home shamed and debased what do you want to add to that you just want to unpack it and I love the whole of the Incarnation whoever Jesus is meeting woman at a well Zacchaeus, woman caught in adultery Peter, James, John, they're being a little goofy whoever Zacchaeus whoever he's meeting he's unpacking their shame to give them access to the father that's what the cross was about because that's why we don't have access to the father it's not on his side it's on our side the cross takes that shame off so now I can behold God with unveiled face and realize I'm loved I've always been loved it's a great story it's one we've missed I've missed it for 42 years in my life and then when I was 42 I came to a fresh awareness through the teaching of the atonement actually that I heard in Australia that absolutely redirected my heart back to first time in my life realizing I was already loved the love I'd been working for for 42 years I already had and that from the last 20 years it's been so transformative I've watched love change more in me than all the performance stuff and I was a good performer I wasn't a bad Pharisee I was a good Pharisee I worked hard I did more than anybody I knew Bible reading prayer meetings anything you want to name and yet it didn't transform me didn't change me from the inside I got good at repressing my sin but I didn't watch God change it now I see God change it and it's still an ongoing process and I love it I love the process you mentioned a second church can you tell me a little bit about what happened with that second church that you then left? Yeah it began with such great hope we were going to do it differently 27 year old arrogant got a way to do this it'll change the world we were learning while we went through it it was like everything that's got humanity in it it's a mixed bag there's some wonderful things God does and then there's some things that we project from our own needs that we think is God and find proof texts for so we can even more justify it we were trying this real relational thing and it was more about connecting with each other than it was sending meetings and but we had a Sunday morning celebration and time that took over everything and early on everybody that was part of our Sunday morning was part of a midweek house church and that those were a real autonomous relational growing kinds of things to where we had less than 20% 80% of people just wanted to be at our Sunday morning show because it was a pretty good show and still a mixed bag for me I look back same as a lot of wonderful stuff that happened there we taught some things that I still really love but in time because it was based so much in our human effort because it wasn't coming out of being loved it was coming out of trying to be loved and we were working hard for God and we were kind of putting a lot of pressure on people to perform well it wasn't it wasn't a full on performance treadmill trying to keep the ethics it was really about trying to walk with God but it had a whole lot of human effort in it and it turned out one day there was a growing after 13 years of working with a co-pastor that we were just best friends and things were great and we just never had a major skirmish of any kind we didn't always see things the same way but we resolved them gently and gracefully and then we came into a period where just like we've been through the tower of Babel it just seemed like we weren't even talking the same language we were using English but the words meant things differently and a whole lot of underhanded stuff going on behind the scenes and people not quite being honest about stuff and I'm wondering what I'm going to do about this it's very difficult for me I didn't want to get involved in something that was just going to be a whole lot of background noise of drama between the leadership and competing objectives and agendas and one day my co-pastor announced my resignation one day while I was speaking out of town somewhere else yeah that was a moment a little coup about four of the elders stage during that about 18 elders and I was devastated I mean this is this was my claim to fame this is I was going around the world teaching about this particular system we were using this is going to be the answer for a better way to do church and now I'm outside of it and I can get it back I've got the political authority I've got the popularity of the people I could have gone back expose the lies in fact I was fully planning on doing that and in the midst of doing that I felt like I had this phrase running to my heart that Sarah and I later identified as being something God was saying to us and that is I have more to teach you if you walk away than if you stay and I had no idea what that meant it began out of reading some of the David and Absalom language from Samuel and David walking away from the castle saying I'm not going to stretch out my hand for this kingdom if God gave it to me once and give it to me again I'm going say I don't want to be that guy either God if this is where you want me then you've got to deal with Mark I'm not going to do with that and so we really came to believe me I'm the third or four boys that grew up on a farm I don't walk away from a fight not then I'm willing to have the fight even if I lose I'll bloody you up good and even think about walking away and I was one night just sitting there just saying how do I let Mark get away with this I feel like I'm having this phrase I've got more teach of you walk away than if you stay but I don't know what that means and I don't know what walk away means and at least going to go there and really let them have it know they've been lied to and yeah Sarah and I are going to grab our hole here then dial cloaks and walk away and dust the push the dust off our feet or whatever and yet I just kept feeling like every reason I was thinking of going just sounded selfish and I'm singing my study ten o'clock on Saturday night as I say I've got three hours I go back tomorrow and have this confrontation and take it back over I go back tomorrow make this beautiful last stand statement y'all a bunch of wretches and I'm never coming back here again or I just don't go back and make it look like what Mark said was true which I didn't want to do that and so I'm singing the only unselfish reason I think to go the letter they read announcing our resignation blame my wife for things that wasn't weren't even true and so as I'm negotiating with God say well he's got to go back for her I mean I'm the man I got to protect my woman and she's been defrauded and so I'm getting to the point in prayer going that's the unselfish that's where I go back and make the last stand I really want to make and just about that time Sarah knocks on my study door and she pokes her head in and she said I don't know what you're praying about in here tonight she said but I'll tell you if you're thinking at all about going back for me tomorrow I don't want it I don't need it and I'm not going with you and she closed the door and I was like that's really stinks so I chased her out the kitchen I said what are you talking about and she said I'm done man I think what you've been saying all week I think that's God I don't know what it means I don't know what we have more to learn but I'm going to do that if you want to go back tomorrow and make a last stand whatever go I support you I love you I'm just not going with you and then it just seemed fully absurd for me to go for her when she didn't want me to go for her so we stayed home and what was the most painful day of my life to that point and everybody's waiting there's 14 elders hoping I'm coming back to take it over there's four that are going to try and keep me out of the I don't know how it was going to work I just didn't have the heart to go use the body of Christ and break it up for my own whatever so we stayed home and that launched us on a bit of a different journey people around us a lot of people came said hey let's start over I had numerous opportunities to pastor numerous job offers everybody without a church within 200 miles of us was calling say are you not there anymore we'd love to have you at our place and I'm going you know that part of my life's done and so we did try some house church stuff there's some people on a different congregation which I said you know we'll hang around because we love you guys but if you're looking for me to have a place to teach every week I'm not going to be that guy so I'm going to be teaching in other places as I'm traveling around but I don't want a place here that's dependent on me I can teach other places because I leave I go home at the end of the weekend and so there's no dependency issues and but it was out of that was the next two years learning how much of Wayne's ministry to that point had been based on Wayne's need for significance not because I was at rest and who God saw me how God saw me so that changed understanding the cross what is to live love that changed so what God had to teach us was all of that living love learning to not live by Wayne's need for significance but really just be at Jesus's disposal in the world and to do to lose what I think Paul described so well in Philippians 3 I put no confidence in the flesh up until that time I put a lot of confidence in my fight a lot of abilities a lot of gifts a lot of things I could use to build the body of Christ in my own image which unfortunately is what I was doing all of those things changed and began to change in those two years and been changing ever since and as we got comfortable in that journey other people were alongside us and we were just sharing relationships that had meaning and growing and then we kind of just found ourselves inside a more relational way of living it while we were still trying to sort out how we would do church because that was an interesting question and a friend of mine said when do you talk about the church all the time and I said you know I don't care if I don't get it back to it for 20 years I want to learn to live in this love and help other people do that and then we'll worry about what the church is after that it turned out to be a godly thing I think that's what we get wrong we don't learn to live loved first and then see what church emerges we start with unloved people and obligate them to things and then wonder why that doesn't take on the dynamic we hope for so it turned out we did learn a lot and most of what we learned is it's not by your human effort Wayne that I want to do these things I want you to just be my child in the earth and as you love me and let me love you I'll take you on a journey and some amazing things will happen and I will build my own church which is always what I promise to do Do you think at all that there was and maybe you've been asked this question before if there was bitterness in your heart that caused you to not want to go back into a structured four walls building and wanted to live the church outside of the church building was there bitterness that instigated that? You know unfortunately we've been asked the question yeah lots I think those are part of more traditional congregations who see people they love leave and usually they leave over something that they're dissatisfied if you weren't dissatisfied you wouldn't leave you'd stay and I think the popular conclusion is that people leave because they're bitter and they're hurt and they're independent and they didn't get their way and they're a bunch of whiners and complainers and yeah I've heard the accusation was it part of it? I was definitely hurt I was wounded I but I never made a decision to say I was hurt by that guy so I'm never going to church again I haven't made that decision part of it what I said at the time I remember saying to Sarah was if this is a thing that God wants he's not equipped me to be a leader in it we made it going to one if that's what I conclude is the only way to do church I won't pastor again I decided that and I decided not so much out of the bitterness of it but out of the I'm not wired to play the political games you have to play to manage people the way I have to manage people and so we started on a bit of a different journey and it came out of great pain as most people do but I think the accusation that people are just whiners and couldn't get their way are spoken by people who do get their way and so that's how they see this contest and well you're the loser you should just shut up and go along which is that the answer really we want you just to shut up and go along or do we want you to really sort out what this journey is and I ask people the time hey if you think I'm bitter and if you think I'm just being independent you're welcome to pray for me if God changes this in my life I'll be back I don't mind being wrong I even told God if I'm being this independent bitter person then show the whole community I mean I was well known in the community I've written articles for the paper I just said God show everybody I want to know what it is to really follow you so if I'm that and I'm reacting out of that then show me what God showed us instead was that there was a whole other way to live this and it's been it's not a reaction I think the real danger is we get hurt and then we live as a reaction to that hurt which and you're still controlled by it that will still shape you in some way so if you if you've left something because it's been painful or hurtful let that hurt bleed out let it have time for God before you make a decision as to what I'm going to do next just let it let him marinate that in his love and affection until it goes away and then you'll have clarity about what it is that God's inviting me to do I know now that what Sarah and I live every week and every day and every year in the past 20 has been incredible it's been everything we hoped for as a young married couple wanting to experience the life of the church and found all these frustrations in trying to put it into a conformity based system now we live it in more transformational environments I watch people change I watch fellowship be deeper this is everything we it's not perfect man it's a mess people are struggling it's not neatly organized it's a bit of a mess but it's got the reality to it we'd always craved and so man we wouldn't change that for anything so did it spring out of hurt yeah absolutely did do I think that's the cause of it now that drives it I really don't I don't think our human managed systems can do anything but that's the new wine old wineskins analogy Jesus kind of knew that the and I guess the old it when our religion when our faith communities are structured the same way businesses and the same way the military is we've got to ask is this a human run institution or is it the way Jesus intended for his family to come together I think the new creation puts us in a place to live alongside brothers and sisters without the same accoutrements we use in a broken world and I guess that community if she could take on that shape in the world that would be so compelling to the rest of the world to say here are people who love each other and live alongside each other in that love but there's no outwardly controlling force making that a reality that's the community I know now and I wouldn't trade it for anything