Category Archives: Church

Following God’s Presence

August 2, 2009 By in Church, Jail, Ministry, New Wine, Prayer, Tears 14 Comments

Today in the jail, after two hours of powerful ministry between the men one to another, they stopped and said they decided earlier this week to do something for me. They then stood around me, laid hands on me, and prayed the most wonderful, tender prayers of blessing I’ve ever heard.

I cried as I realized what they were doing, because they’ve learned – maybe with some of them for the first time in their lives – to give rather than always take or receive.

After months of mentoring them on “being” the church (see my blog, The Church in D Pod), they heeded God’s gentle call to new pastures. As a result, they now “get” it and wonderful life is flowing between them and from them – even to me!

How many church leaders – who so closely guard the microphone and the prerogatives of their front podium as they try to direct even God himself during their closely scripted and controlled Sunday services – have ever experienced the joy of being just one of many?

Do they realize they have no monopoly on the many spiritual gifts God wants us to give as acts of worship, to Him and in fellowship one with another?

If not, then they are missing the blessing of letting life and ministry flow under the prompting of the Holy Spirit – not simply from them, but to and around them.

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Discovering Our Motivational Gifts

July 28, 2009 By in Compassion, Gifts, Mercy, Ministry, Prophetic, Validation 10 Comments

Each of us is born with a personality that’s uniquely tailored to what God created us to do with our lives.

OptionsUnderstanding God’s calling, and the associated personality He’s gifted us with, is not difficult: Our calling matches our gifts, and our gifts match our passions.

Furthermore, when we use our gifts and fulfill our calling according to God’s will, we feel His pleasure – in addition to our own.

There’s a problem, however, when our validation comes from using our gifts or pursing our calling, instead of pleasing God. Rather than being content with God saying “well done, thou good and faithful servant,” we seek legitimacy in who we are, what we do, how others react to us, or in the results of our actions.

Such validation comes from and is focused on us, rather than God.

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The Church in D Pod

July 26, 2009 By in Faith, Grace, Jail, Joy, Kingdom of God, Mentor, Ministry, New Wine, Organic Church, Sovereignty 8 Comments

This Sunday, like most Sundays, I will be fellowshipping with the “Church in D Pod” at the local jail.

D Pod is a unit housing around a hundred men, and God has been pouring out his new wine in an exciting way among those inmates.

A couple of months ago, I started shifting my focus from “conducting” church services “for” the men. God was challenging me to start mentoring and training them instead to “be” the church by learning to minister one to another.

At the same time, God sovereignly arranged for two brothers from Africa — where Christians generally are way ahead of their American brothers and sisters on these issues — to be jailed in that unit. They, too, understood the concept of ministering one to another and started fostering authentic fellowship among the men.

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The Sunday “God Show” at Your Friendly Podium Church

July 19, 2009 By in Church, Community, Ministry, New Wine, Repentance, Tears 4 Comments

When did “church” become a podium-focused “God Show” watched by passive spectators for an hour or so each Sunday morning?

Where do we even find that in Scripture?

I believe that the days of the “podium church” and the Sunday “God show”are passing — where we gaze each Sunday past the back of the head in front of us to passively watch carefully scripted ministry delivered from a front podium through a tightly controlled microphone.

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The Growing Idolatry of Civil Government

July 17, 2009 By in America, Church, Faith, Family, Liberalism, Obama, Politics, Self Government, State, Truth 15 Comments

“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” ~ Margaret Thatcher

Some may think we’ve not yet sunk into the clutches of socialism — Unexpected Slipwhich happens when we have a state-run economy. But consider this: In 2009, federal and state governments will consume 40 percent of the United States’ TOTAL gross domestic product.

This means that nearly half of all the wealth generated in America this year will be taken by civil government to fund its ever expanding control over more and more of our lives and our economy. As a result, we have run out of money while undercutting the means for producing future wealth.

Yet the federal government seeks to expand its reach even more.

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New Wine Sucks

July 7, 2009 By in Community, Faith, Joy, Kingdom of God, Leadership, Ministry, New Wine, Organic Church, Pastors 3 Comments

As God brings forth new wine in a new generation, there’s a fundamental dynamic that can’t be ignored. To put it bluntly, new wine sucks!

In my younger days, I was an amateur wine maker. So I know what Jesus means when he says, “no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.'” (Luke 5:39)

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New Wine And Old Skins

July 1, 2009 By in Community, Faith, Jail, Joy, Kingdom of God, Leadership, Ministry, New Wine, Organic Church, Pastors, Sovereignty 1 Comment

Here’s an interesting article, reprinted below, on how people will stick to what they believe or think even in the face of contrary facts or circumstances. As I’ve watched people react to challenges and controversies Something Newover the last couple of months, and to God bursting old wine skins as he brings forth new wine, I can believe it!

Isaiah 9:6-8 tells us that God’s Kingdom, from the incarnation onward, has been and will continue to be ever advancing. As such, God is constantly fermenting new wine — and providing new wine skins to contain it — as his progressive plan of redemption moves forward from one spiritual generation to each successive spiritual generation (which can include individuals of all ages!). God’s active and ever expanding intervention in history is clear, and his tendency to discard the old while bringing in the new is repeatedly seen in Scripture.

Yet it never failed to fascinate me, as a graduate student in church history back in the 1970s, to see how — time and time again — most Christians reject God’s new wine of new anointing for new generations. Instead, they choose to stick with their old wine and old wine skins.

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New Covenant Fellowship? Beware!

June 30, 2009 By in Abuse, Abusive Pastor, Church, Cult, Faith, Fakes, Manassas, New Covenant Fellowship, Pastor, Predatory Leaders, Sin 6 Comments
New Covenant Fellowship? Beware!

New Covenant Fellowship in Manassas, Virginia, started out as a great church twenty-five years ago under a gifted pastor who’s since left. Under Robin Bayles and the current “pastor/elders” (the term they choose for themselves), massive numbers of additional people have left as the church sinks into cult practices and cult doctrines. As a result, attendance has plunged from thousands to barely thirty adults on Sunday mornings.

  • Robin Bayles, the current senior “pastor/elder”, has been secretly enriching himself with around $200k annually from church funds for a sizable salary, a generous housing allowance, numerous benefits and various other perks amounting to somewhere around a million dollars in total Phonyover the last several years — despite the tiny size of the congregation and the fact that he doesn’t even work at the church but works for an unrelated organization. When his self-enrichment was exposed, he denied it and falsely claimed to have taken only a small fraction of the true amount.
  • Robin Bayles has personally acquired and gained wealth from numerous investment rental properties purchased with funds taken from the church. He also has been employed nearly full time for many years — and earns a significant income — from his separate employer. Nonetheless, he has tried to manipulate his shrinking congregation and justify his self-enrichment from church funds with false pleas of poverty.

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Confessions of an Excommunicant

June 20, 2009 By in Abuse, Impropriety, Manassas, New Covenant Fellowship, Pastor 11 Comments

Yup. It’s true. In 2009, I was “disfellowshipped” from New Covenant Fellowship in Manassas, Virginia – and in an odd sort of way I felt deeply honored!

I first posted this for a few months on my old blog in 2009, but decided to dust it off and make it public once again under its original publication date. Fortunately, it migrated over – with its original publication date and original comments still preserved – when I set up this new blog in late 2009.

I’m re-posting my story because many others have experienced similar fates as they try to deal with abusive leaders who hide their leadership sins behind a wall of unaccountability and by intimidating – and then expelling – all voices of integrity from their church.

I hope my experience encourages others to have the courage to raise legitimate concerns under Biblical procedures, even if it means being kicked out of your church. Stand firm, because there is life after “excommunication”!

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Dealing with Chronic Fatigue

June 17, 2009 By in Burnout, Fatigue, Grace, Healing, Joy, Pain, Scleroderma 6 Comments

My closest friends have seen me walk through some very difficult times with my health over the last several years. Where others see the “together,” upbeat and accomplished Jim, they see the reserved, careful and slow-paced Jim who is learning to live with chronic fatigue.

This all started several years ago. I had founded and was running a number of successful international businesses, including a law firm and a cutting edge scientific consulting firm. But in 2006 I had to walk away from it all due to debilitating chronic fatigue that began more than a year earlier.

Stress As a Factor

At first, I thought I was struggling with routine burnout – which I now realize may have been a factor but was not the full story. In early 2008, my doctors discovered that I had been suffering from a very rare autoimmune condition called systemic sclerosis (sometimes known as scleroderma).

Initially, I was relieved to know that my fatigue wasn’t “all in my head” and that I really hadn’t gotten lazy. But that didn’t make the fatigue or the impact it was having on my life any less devastating.

Eventually, as I researched systemic sclerosis and talked to my doctors, I learned that stress – as typically is the case in many autoimmune diseases – was a big issue. It doesn’t necessary cause the disease, but it can trigger the onset and then exasperate the symptoms.

With me, those symptoms – which on top of the fatigue also included mild depression, chronic pain and joint stiffness – had become so bad that in 2007 I couldn’t function anymore in the basic aspects of life. By early 2008 I was reduced to walking with a cane due to the fatigue and the overall pain, and my prospects were bleak.

I ended up losing everything: my marriage, my family, my businesses, my wealth and eventually my sense of self.

Since then, God has been bringing resolution to many of the stressful relationships that were making things worse – sometimes by giving me the grace to let folks go who couldn’t otherwise handle my deteriorating situation.

As I began to find my validity in how He defines me – rather than how I and others were defining me – I’ve seen great improvements. As part of that process, I’ve also been learning to manage any stress that still occasionally surfaces by understanding, more and more, that God – rather than some circumstance – is sovereign over my life!

Overall, as I’ve been re-discovering the joy and wonder of life, most of the more severe symptoms of the disease have abated. The pain has lessened (although I still need various medications, but at greatly reduced doses) and since early this year the intensity of the fatigue has decreased.

Nonetheless, I still have fairly constant, low-level chronic fatigue.

Running Out of Energy

To those wondering about chronic fatigue, the best way to describe it is to contrast my life with “normal” folks.

Most folks wake up each morning with essentially a full reservoir of energy. Think of it as a big gallon jar (although the size of the jar will vary from person to person) that’s filled with stamina and spunk.

Someone who is healthy uses and replenishes the energy in their jar throughout a typical day. They do some things that are a net energy drain, but they also restore their stamina by doing other things that energize them. Those things vary from person to person, but their jar very seldom runs totally dry and after a good night’s sleep the jar usually is full again and ready for a new day. (And please, don’t tell me how drained you are at the end of the day — unless you have experienced chronic fatigue, you have no idea how much energy you really have even after a particularly exhausting day!)

Someone suffering from chronic fatigue has the same gallon jar, but they struggle with all of the expectations – both their own and from others – of what they once could do each day with their normal reservoir of energy. But now the gallon jar is never full – it is partially empty even when they wake up from a good night’s sleep. More significantly, as they participate in the activities of life, those things that once energized them can’t replenish their energy as quickly as before.

Two Kinds of Fatigue

With my systemic sclerosis, I’ve experienced two kinds of chronic fatigue. With one kind, the valve used to draw energy out of my jar is very, very constricted. I can’t suck much energy out at any one time. It’s like stepping on the gas pedal, but the car barely sputters along and lacks power. There’s gas in the tank, but I just can’t get it flowing fast enough to run the engine at full speed.

That’s what it was like when my fatigue started and I ended up divesting myself of all of my business and professional interests. I just couldn’t get enough energy flowing to do much of anything. The simple, routine tasks of life were nearly impossible — even when I was motivated and wanting to do more.

With the second kind of chronic fatigue, the valve is able to handle a full flow of energy and I rev up my engine just like normal people. The problem is, there’s just not as much energy to keep that flow going. In this example, I step on the pedal and the car accelerates to 60 mph just fine, but it’s just not going to go very far before the tank runs dry. To use another analogy, I am “good in the moment” and full of spunk and life, but when the task at hand is finished, so am I! This is more like my life now, although I’ve learned some important coping mechanisms.

Pacing Myself

Under either type of chronic fatigue, I’ve learned to pace myself if I want to keep from depleting my energy jar. I don’t have as much energy in my jar as most folks, and even if I’m able to get a good flow of stamina going, I know I can’t replenish that energy fast enough to take on the whole day at a “normal” pace.

This means I need to carefully regulate my activities throughout the day so that I don’t use more energy than is needed for the entire day and it’s expected activities, while also protecting my ability to do those things that energize me (howbeit more slowly than normal) – which may be a nap, lunch with a close friend, taking a quiet walk, reading a good book, generally just chillin’ out, bass fishing or whatever.

For those suffering from chronic fatigue, and those dealing with this condition in friends and loved ones, accept what’s happening. Denial is deadly! Everyone involved needs to adapt to an entirely new reality. If you have chronic fatigue, don’t beat up on yourself because you can’t do everything you once did at the pace you once did it. Such guilt only causes more stress and makes your situation worse. Rather, find joy in simplifying your life and learning to focus on what’s truly important. Also learn to let others do some of the things for you that you previously did yourself – for me, allowing this remains very hard but I’m learning to adjust.

Most of all, learn to monitor how much energy you have left in your jar at any given time, how much energy is needed (and how quickly you need it) when evaluating what you should and shouldn’t do, avoid over-doing things, and find time for the things that uniquely replenish your energy reserves (while factoring in the reality that it will take longer than normal).

Adjusting to Reality

When dealing with chronic fatigue, you will feel guilty and struggle for a season over what you can’t do. Others may not understand your slower pace, or why you can be perfectly “normal” when doing one thing but then need to excuse yourself from further activities. But if that relationship is worth keeping, they will learn to accept and understand your limitations. But most of all, take joy in learning all of the new things you can do as you re-order the obligations and responsibilities of life. If you let it, that will be a wonderful journey of discovery.

The bottom line is that you need to get comfortable with figuring out your own pace and activities so that you minimize how frequently your energy jar runs dry. It will take some time, but I’m learning that it certainly can be done.

Despite it all, I have found that a slower paced life – where I can take the time to relish fulfilling relationships, focus on the truly important things of life, and enjoy those things that renew my energy – is more fulfilling than my past life. For that, I’m grateful and I can’t imagine ever going back to the hectic, stress-filled existence I once fought so hard to foolishly preserve.

In an odd way, I have become a better and a happier person.

~ Jim Wright

Related articles

Post-Release Community

June 5, 2009 By in Church, Community, Conversion, Faith, Jail, Ministry 5 Comments

I’ve been meeting with various brothers who also minister in the informal Christian networks I’m part of, along with others, to discuss starting a weekly fellowship (possibly in my home) for ex-inmates. My burden is for men whose lives are dramatically captured by God in jail, but then stumble when they get out because they can’t find authentic Christian community in our churches.

Stuck in a RutI’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but health issues and distractions over problems in my local church prevented me. The church problems persist, but my health has improved and my heart is stirring once again over this. That’s causing me to ask whether it’s time to stop putting the Kingdom of God on hold while waiting for some who hold local church offices to climb out of their seemingly perpetual leadership ruts, to begin moving forward, and to trust that God’s provisions will follow.

Maybe, my heart is saying, the best outcome is to provide an opportunity and a motive for churches in general — including mine — to get their acts together and start being the church, rather than doing “church”, by showing what’s possible when people of vision become engaged with each other and engaged in what God is doing in the earth today. After all, the Kingdom of God is much, much more than “church”, although hopefully each of our local churches are part of that progressively advancing Kingdom!

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Fellowship and Light

June 1, 2009 By in Church, Faith, Forgiveness, Grace, Healing, Impropriety, Leadership, Repentance, Truth 1 Comment
Self Delusion

Self Delusion

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:5-9 (KJV)

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Church As Starbucks?

May 26, 2009 By in Church, Faith, Leadership 5 Comments

I’m not sure about who did this parody, or know anything about them, but it’s too good to pass up. No church is perfect, and each has its problems and quirks, but I suspect we’ve nonetheless all experienced something like this video.

So the question I’d like to pose is whether “church” as we’ve known it needs to morph into something different, and if so, what?

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Leadership Abuses: Private and Public Sins

May 20, 2009 By in Abuse, Impropriety, Leadership, Ministry, Pastors, Predatory Leaders, Repentance, Sin 25 Comments

“Peace if possible, truth at all costs.” – Martin Luther

“Church” can often be messy, especially when ongoing sins and improprieties begin to come to light – maybe even among our leaders. Yet God, I believe, is calling us all to a new level of collective integrity.

Incomplete Man

So how do we handle leadership failings, especially when they go beyond merely personal sin and involve an abuse of position or trust within a church, movement or mission, and hurts others?

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Leadership Burnout

April 27, 2009 By in Brokenness, Burnout, Grace, Healing, Pastors, Woundedness 9 Comments

Many leaders – including church leaders – suffer from burnout due to emotional and spiritual wounds which they mistakenly rationalize as Godly brokenness. But it’s not; it’s just profound hurt.

In their despair, they often become soothed by God’s love in their woundedness and want to stay there. The problem with unresolved wounds, however, is that they ultimately debilitate us, but Godly brokenness can bring new life – and sometimes literally a new life – if we let it.

That’s because true brokenness goes beyond hurt and changes the core of who we are – and if we’re willing to meet God there, He’s able use our burnout for our ultimate good.

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Woundedness

April 21, 2009 By in Christian, Counseling, Faith, Grace, Healing, Joy, Truth, Woundedness 12 Comments

On Sunday I taught men in the jail, using Psalms 116:5-7 (ESV), about moving from woundedness to life. I challenged them not to settle for mere comfort when confronting hurt, but to embrace life instead.

Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
   our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
   when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
   for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

When hurt and wounded, too often all we can muster is a desire for God’s comfort or soothing presence. Although he’ll sometimes do that, what he really wants is to move us past woundedness into brokenness – that low place where we are willing to surrender to him. Only then can we hope to experience the bountiful life, both in us and around us, that comes from finding and finally doing God’s joyous will.

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Been Hearing God Lately?

March 25, 2009 By in Epiphany, Gifts, Grace, Life, Redemption 11 Comments

joy

Life and Joy

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how Jesus fellowshipped with Adam.

It was in the garden, where the two of them walked side by side and talked face to face in the cool of the evening. Jesus met Adam in his full humanity, where life sprang forth both in and around Adam.

It took me a long time to learn that it’s OK to be human and that God wanted to meet me too in my full humanity.

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Them Dry Bones

March 22, 2009 By in Burnout, Christians, Church, Elder, Emergent, Leadership, Mentor, Pastor 9 Comments

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning here in Virginia, but I’m stuck with a lingering cold and sore throat. That gives me a good excuse to skip church and my ministry commitments later this afternoon in the local jail.

So what to do? I just let my ADD dog out and he’s happily occupied digging a new hole in my otherwise nice green yard, there’s some good coffee brewing (I’m partial to Gold Coast from Starbucks – two level scoops per 14 oz.), the light of a crisp blue March sky is streaming through my sun room windows, my favorite worship music is playing in the background on my iPod, and I’m relaxing in my over-sized Lazy Boy recliner thinking on the things of God.

I guess that makes this as good a time as any to bang out some thoughts on effective New Testament leadership.

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God is Not Passive

March 21, 2009 By in Brokenness, Church, Conversion, Faith, Kingdom of God, Repentance, Sovereignty 4 Comments

I’m seeing others who also are quietly moving forward, with fire stirring in their spirits, to proclaim true repentance, Christ’s Lordship and the Kingdom of God rather than conformist, complacent Christianity.

These co-conspirators are being compelled by God to preach outside our churches because too many of our pastors have been unwilling, so far, to be jarred out of their desire for peace, stability and the comfort of long-standing personal relationships. For those pastors, complacency has become a hindrance to God’s progressively expanding Kingdom.

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Ukraine Trip Report

February 17, 2009 By in Faith, Great Commission, Missions 9 Comments

ukraine_map

Ukraine

I wrote this report in early 2007, following an extensive ministry trip in Ukraine. Ukraine previously was the western-most region of the former Soviet Union, where it bumped up against Europe, but is now an independent nation.

With all that’s happening in that part of the world, I thought it might be interesting to post this on Crossroad Junction. Please be in prayer for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. Since this trip, the situation in the country has deteriorated as Russia continues to challenge Ukraine’s fledgling democracy, the economy is in shambles, and political infighting grips the nation.

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God Shows Up

February 13, 2009 By in Bondage, Counseling, Grace, Healing, Jail, Ministry, Repentance 20 Comments

As “Mr. Analytical,” I’m the least probable person I know to be doing pastoral counseling, but God seems to have given me a special grace to walk with people to those places where He wants to meet them in very powerful, transforming and healing ways. I guess it’s one of those spiritual ironies that God uses to confound us. He works through the least likely to ensure that the glory is His.

Whether in the jail or in my home study, I deal weekly with issues that – believe me – exceed anything you might imagine. But the Lord meets us in amazing ways, and folks find freedom in just one or two sessions from decades of emotional and spiritual bondage.

God shows up!

Restoration

The Lord patiently, lovingly wants us to go to those places in our lives where we need his healing. Those places are at the core of our beings, where all the accumulated “yuk” lies. But it’s hard to go there, because there’s pain and hurt there.

My job is to help people get there. When we do, I simply ask Jesus what he has to say. The Lord then dramatically speaks to them in real, personal ways and brings healing and peace to some of the most unspeakable experiences and issues in their lives – including sexual abuse, child prostitution, occult oppression, abandonment, drug and alcohol addiction, sexual compulsions, anger and fear.

I’ve done this hundreds of times, and have never needed a “re-do” session where God has spoken his gentle truth. When God speaks (and He always does if there is a willingness to expose what needs to be healed!), the lies at the center of the hurt and the pain – which have caused bondage and been so controlling – immediately die. Simple and complete; wholeness and health. It’s wonderful to see.

Too often we forget that God wants to restore us to health, and have fellowship with us, because he loves us in deeply personal ways. After all, God valued Adam so much that he walked and talked with Adam in the garden during the cool of the day. God values us just as much, and desires a relationship where we can once again commune with him, and He with us.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I value the historic tenets of our faith, but we can’t major on correct doctrine to the neglect of the personal relationship God wants with us. Doctrine and Biblical truth provide a context for our day-to-day faith, but are not a substitute for intimacy with God and learning to hear his voice. We need both.

Hurt or Health?

It’s sad but true – too many churches have become a refuge for hurt people, led by hurt people, rather than a place of health that reproduces health.

It’s OK to be hurt – there’s no condemnation in that! But we have an obligation before God to seek his healing and restoration.

Perpetual Hospital Ward or Health?

I’ve had lots of challenges in my own life: emotionally crippled close family members, the death of several very close friends, a degenerative and potentially fatal autoimmune disease, an unwanted divorce, and the need to start over again financially. But despite it all, I have chosen life, not hurt.

Too often, as we go through the motions with our day-to-day routines, we forget why God redeemed us. Instead, we slip unawares into a rut of accumulated hurts and emotional pain, and start believing that’s normal.

I encourage those who are burdened with hurt to choose life and seek help.

True Repentance

Jesus, in his parting instructions to the disciples, told them to go forth and proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:44-48). That “great commission” applies to all believers, even now!

We have distorted repentance and think it simply means saying we’re sorry, or else we confuse it with confession. That’s not repentance – although authentic confession and forgiveness often are essential components of repentance.

The Greek word for repentance, as used in the New Testament, means to change the way we think so that we then change the way we act. In my experience working with and mentoring lots of men as they get out of jail, it is rare that someone can change the way he acts unless he lets God change the way he thinks. Having the will power, dedication and commitment to change how we act, without letting God change how we think, is seldom enough.

Changing the way I think means much, much more than believing correct doctrine or precepts in the cognitive, rational part of my mind. It also involves changing what the experiential and emotional side of my mind believes. You may rationally believe that “all things work together for the good of those who love God,” but when you lose your job or your daughter comes home drunk or you get a deadly disease, your emotions and reactions demonstrate your true belief. Our emotions and how we react to things spring from, and point to, our true beliefs.

Exposing the Crap in Our Lives

Life’s Septic Tank

For God to change the way we truly think, we need to be willing to open up and expose those beliefs, and their source, to Him. To help make this process understandable, I tell guys in jail that our lives contain a septic tank, and it holds lots of crap and stink. Although God forgives us, He still wants – and needs – to replace that crap and stink with health and wholeness. But to do that, He needs us to remove the septic tank’s lid so all that nasty stuff inside is exposed.

This process of removing the septic tank’s lid and exposing the crap and the stink is confession and repentance – and it often does not involve sin (although it can)! It may simply involve wrong beliefs based on lies that took hold in our lives through no fault of our own – often before we became Christians and often due to experiences during our childhood when our lie-filled belief system formed about ourselves, others, the world around us and God.

Emotions Show Beliefs

Our emotions – based on what we really believe despite cognitive facts and logic – are pathways that lead back to root lies. If we want to allow God to change the way we think so that He can then change the way we act (and react!), then we need to expose those lies to God by taking the lid off of the experiences and emotions that contain them. Once we expose those lies to God, we can invite God to speak His truth to us. In the jail, as God speaks His truth to men about themselves or about things that happened in their lives (as opposed to me giving them a cognitive to-do list of right living – which may be needed, but that’s another process for another time!), wholeness and health floods in and replaces the crap and stink!

This, then, is what we’ve been doing in the jail. God shows up and changes how men think by speaking to them His truth about them in deeply personal ways. And when he does, His truth sets them free!

His Truth Will Set You Free!

God’s Truth Displaces Lies

When God speaks His truth, lies are displaced. Horrendous memories and experiences that were a source of pain, hurt and bondage become places of righteousness, peace and joy. Our job in the counseling sessions is to simply facilitate the ministry of the Holy Spirit as the men take the lid off the septic tanks of their lives and let God pump out all of the crap and stink, then bring health and wholeness by speaking His personal, loving truth to them.

Sometimes it’s not easy for people who come to me for help to do this, because they don’t want to expose the pain and the emotions. But when they do, God speaks his truth to them in tender, loving, personal ways and the lies that previously held them in bondage disappear.

Sometimes, after these counseling sessions, I have to sit quietly to let the glory of God’s presence subside enough for me to reconnect to the so-called “real” world.

Reproducing Health

Our churches were never intended by God to be hospitals or way stations, and our Sunday gatherings are not places intended by God to perpetually sooth our hurts. My vision is that our churches and our lives become places of health that reproduce health.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have problems or have issues, but do we have the zest to confront life and let our sovereign, personal God continually transform us, even through hard times, into the people He calls us, and created us, to be?

Are we willing to repent by opening up the crap and stink in our lives so that God can speak His truth to us and bring His transforming peace and joy?

That’s what the world wants to see – not perfect people, but imperfect people who can traverse life’s issues with God’s grace evident in us.

God is not about covering over or burying our hurt and pain, like old wounds under thick callous scabs. Rather, He calls us to repentance so that He can get at the lies in our lives and heal us through His truth – which means not only doctrinal truth but also truth about our past, who we really are, how God really sees us, and who He created us and wants to empower us to be.

That process not only changes the way we think, but also can’t help but change the way we act.

~ Jim Wright

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Pentecost in the Local Jail

January 7, 2009 By in Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Healing, Jail, Ministry, Repentance 12 Comments
Pentecost in the Local Jail

In 2007 over 75 men in the local jail – comprising more than a forth of those incarcerated in the “modular” building – had a dramatic encounter with God.

For some time, I’d been feeling that we were falling short with the men who were coming to the Lord or re-dedicating their lives through various outreaches in the jail. God was bringing men to salvation on a weekly basis, and over the previous months I’d been involved in scores of men becoming Christians. Others involved in ministry at the jail were having similar reports.

We were being successful in leading the men to Christ and were doing a good job teaching them God’s principles. The men had a heart to follow the Lord, and a basic understanding of how God wanted them to act and live.

The problem, however, was that they lacked the power to do so effectively, and when they got out, they were falling prey to old habits and circumstances. Although they had hearts that want more of God, and had understanding, they lacked the power to be overcomers.

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