In our fellowships, we literally embrace those struggling with sexual identity, as well as other life controlling issues. We affirm our common humanity in the Lord, while showing grace in our common journey towards healing and wholeness in Christ.
Read this blog by Sam Allberry, on How Can the Gospel be Good News for Gays, for a vitally missing perspective.
I’m not sure why some folks make it so complicated.
Take your pick: weird doctrines, “deeper life”, distorted grace, spiritual eroticism, contemplative prayer, existentialism, Christocentricity, higher revelation, mysticism, bizarre “worship”, gold dust, strange “churches”, narcissistic “leaders”, controlling “apostles”, “prophetic” peddlers, and on and on.
Really, what’s the point?
It’s … just … not … that … complicated.
Seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.
True church – ekklesia – in the New Testament is an expression Christ in us, among us and through us as we all use our diverse gifts to encourage and build up one another.
Ekklesia and Diverse Gifts, Part 1: The Motivational Gifts
When a church, movement or religious organization protects itself by hiding the exploitation, improprieties and sins of its leaders, it ceases to be a church, movement or religious organization. It becomes a cult.
Sexually exploitive church “leaders” are not unique to any one type of church – hierarchical, congregational, organic, whatever. Don’t be naïve, they count on your silence. Only zero tolerance and exposing them will protect others. Scripture commands it.
Confronting Abusive Pastors: A Mandatory Public Reprimand
When we teach folks to be the church, God’s Kingdom can’t help but ripple out into all sorts of improbable places through improbable people – impacting whole communities, towns and cities. Here’s just one related, amazing story, among many …
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (I Cor 13:4-7)
The frui
t of the spirit is love….. (Gal 5:22)
The Lord’s kind of love is a seemingly impossible task. No one in themselves is able to sustain this love. I would like to say that this is the way that I love, but that would be a misrepresentation of the truth. My goal is to strive towards it.
Miguel Labrador posted a very important blog this morning on Why Leadership and Effectiveness Are Not Benchmarks of Discipleship. I highly recommend his blogs in general, and urge you to subscribe to his blog feed. Miguel is doing it, and not just talking about it, and always brings great insight.
So you want to find ekklesia? Maybe you’re looking in all the wrong places.
https://crossroadjunction.com/2012/02/04/fringe/
I spit out my coffee laughing when I first saw this. I was so surprised, I couldn’t help it.
I LOVE IT!
What is meant by the “plenary authority of Scripture”?
It means that we must submit everything we think, perceive or feel – even about Christ Himself – to His external, written word of Scripture.
Here, in a single simple quote, is the best explanation I’ve found.
Don’t be so hyper about needing leaders. They will emerge, in God’s timing, and if authentic, will lead by example as ones who are among you and not over you. Until then, just learn to have fellowship where you can minister one to another – as taught in the New Testament.
https://crossroadjunction.com/2011/10/31/leadership/
On Christmas eve several years ago, Marianne and I spent time with about thirty brothers in the jail. During our time of fellowship, one of the men read the poem below.
Here’s the story behind the poem, then the poem …
Earlier that December, I shared with those men how our journey in the Lord is like Israel’s journey from slavery in Egypt, through the desert, and then into the promised land.
God takes us out of the bondage of Egypt, but then uses the wilderness to burn Egypt out of us.
In the wilderness, God prepares us to take possession of the promised land – that place where we are able to own and responsibly manage the things He has created us to both be and do.
Our prayer for you this coming year is this four-part Franciscan blessing:
There are those who promote an insular “deeper life”, which never seems to go anywhere. Have an adventure! Seek Christ’s authentic life instead.
https://crossroadjunction.com/2012/07/20/religion-3/
Marianne and I have never recommended a movie on our blog, but yesterday we went on a date and saw the new movie, Les Miserables.
Twenty or so years ago I saw the Broadway play in New York, and it was powerful. But the movie is … amazing.
I was hesitant to go to the movie, because I expected the original Christian themes of redemptive grace and forgiveness in Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel to be watered down, if not eliminated. After all, that’s the way of Hollywood. They take culture created by Christians and bastardize it.
Even in my sorrow, I also know gratitude. Jesus is able to handle both, and as they’ve merged I’ve touched the very heart of God.
https://crossroadjunction.com/2009/03/30/sufficient-grace/
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This last year has been marked by very painful and difficult health issues. Through it all, however, I’ve been grateful for what the Lord has done for me even as I struggle with the sorrow of diminished capacity.
Purpose was the Lord’s word to me for 2012. I really thought that perhaps He had made a mistake because that sounded more like Jim than me. However, as the year unfolded I came to see that purpose was indeed God’s word for me.
Hyper grace teachers deny the need for confession and forgiveness in the life of a believer. What they fail to understand, though, is that confession and forgiveness for a believer are NOT about obtaining justification, but about obtaining wholeness.
In our fellowships, grace is real, raw and unmerited.
But we also understand that although grace is freely given, it costs everything to accept – because when it is authentically received, we then take up our cross as we die to self and follow Him.
Real people want real answers and real freedom from real issues – not just the tidy platitudes of half truths.
Maybe that’s what has shaped my strong reaction to hyper grace, which is really half grace: It cannot offer real freedom from real issues because it seeks the grace of God’s affirming love and presence, but not the grace of His transforming truth and rule.
Many Christians have lost their way by embracing “hyper grace”, which is really half grace – it robs them of the power to become mature disciples and the confidence needed to go forth as ambassador’s of God’s full grace.
Words have the power to not only define, but to create reality – for good or for bad. Too often, we forget the power of words: not only ours, but of God Himself.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that God spoke the universe into existence, chose to reveal Himself through His spoken Word of scripture, or came to dwell among us as the Word made flesh.
I also don’t think it is a coincidence that God still speaks to us today, or that He has empowered us to speak authoritatively on His behalf.
In Romans 12, Paul lists what Biblical scholars often call the seven “motivational gifts.”
Promoting Our Own Core Motivations
I like that description. After years of pastoral counseling with hundreds of people, I’ve come to deeply respect how God creates each of us with different core motivations. Furthermore, among Christians, those seven core motivational gifts often correspond to God’s unique calling for each believer.
When we tend to elevate our own gift, motivation and calling above all others, however, and think the Church and God’s people need to do the same, our “gift” becomes oppressive.
Lately, I’ve been contemplating what worship is, and looks like, when God’s people authentically gather together as His “ekklesia”.
In the Bible, “ekklesia” is the Greek word often translated “church”. But it means far more than what most “churches” have become.
For Christians, the New Testament concept of ekklesia involves God’s people actively forming community, including meeting together. As a community, and in our gatherings, we then participate – each and every one – in expressing the life of Christ in us, among us, and through us. These days, that ideal is often called “organic” church.
Crossroad Junction 