Jesus at the Fringes

February 4, 2012 By in Church Planting, Fellowship, Great Commission, Institutional Church, Jail, Organic Church 21 Comments

It’s amazing how ekklesia takes root in the fringes of society when you empower Christ in existing community rather than trying to bring “church” to them, take them to “church” or do “church” for them.

Why Do We Make It So Complicated?

When some of us started changing our perspective, we started seeing dynamic, participatory, indigenous fellowships emerge in the jail, among the homeless, and with ex-offenders – as well as other improbable existing communities.

The life of Jesus that is evident in those fellowships at the fringes of society is now attracting “normies” to come and be part of their times together. It is amazing to see the spread of the Gospel through those whom society scorns, for the redemption of society.

When you introduce people to the freedom to find and express Christ in them and through them – and thus allow them to relate together as a fully functioning and participatory Body of Christ – Jesus just naturally happens!

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We Have Met the Enemy

January 17, 2012 By in Culture, Postmodern, Worldview 2 Comments

Losing Our Way

While killing time waiting for an Apple tech to look at my trouble-plagued iPhone, I browsed the racks at an adjacent bookstore.

There was a section for “Philosophy/Humor”.

That was bad enough to make me feel sorrow at our cultural malaise.

But then I saw the section “Faith/Self Help”.

Sigh …

Double sigh …

We have met the enemy, and it is us.

A Multilingual Jesus

January 16, 2012 By in Church, Community, Faith, Love, Truth 2 Comments
A Multilingual Jesus

God speaks to some subjectively, and to others objectively, and each often forgets that Jesus is multilingual. Regardless, His subjective love is rooted in objective truth, and He never limits Himself to just one or the other.

When we become so focused on one, to the exclusion of the other, we are not really relating to a complete Jesus. Rather, we often are seeking self affirmation – a Jesus who simply relates to us on our own terms and within the confines of our own comfort zones.

We need each other in the context of the whole Body of Christ if we truly want Jesus as our wonderful and multifaceted Lord and savior – who then transcends our individual limitations.

As I work with fellowships and minister to individuals, I see that an overly subjective perspective (or, if you prefer, “heart” and feelings) eventually becomes mired in unhealthy sentimentality.

Those, however, who are overly objective (“mind” and logic) eventually become mired in a dry impersonality.

When we together find both the subjective and the objective Jesus, however, we find mature health.

Different Spiritual Languages

Each of us will naturally tend to speak in our own God-given spiritual language of the heart or of the mind, and that’s as it should be. But we nonetheless need each other.

In my own life, God has given me a wonderful wife who relates to God very subjectively. He speaks to her through feelings, while I, on the other hand, hear God very logically and rationally.

When we started dating, we almost didn’t make it because I thought my spiritual language was superior to her’s. I kept insisting that she communicate with me about the Lord in my own language.

She, in turn, couldn’t understand that relating to Jesus through my logic and reason, and my need to figure things out, was just as intensely personal and intimate as her way – even though it was very different.

Where she primarily felt the subjective heart of Jesus, I primarily pursued the objective wonder of Jesus – with very different spiritual languages that matched our different natures.

Several months after we started dating, she broke up with me – through my own fault – because of those differences. But the Lord used our time apart to teach us to honor and value our differences, and to start learning to become bilingual.

For me, it was gut wrenching – literally and figuratively! When the Lord finally allowed me to “figure” out what I had done – by not accepting the validity of how God spoke to her and related to her and thinking my way was superior – I was deeply humbled and I asked her to forgive me. Fortunately, she did!

For the subjective “feelers” among us, though, don’t start cheering because your side won! Trust me, I’ve seen too many instances where insisting that everything is about subjective, relational feelings is just as tyrannical and abusive (often in a seemingly sweet but passive-aggressive way) as insisting that Jesus is only about objective truth. Health and maturity in Christ comes through us learning to hear from, and value, each other.

God speaks things that you need to hear, but won’t hear, except through those who’s spiritual language resonates with His objective nature. Likewise, you will hear things that I won’t hear unless I affirm your subjectivity. And when my objectivity finds unity with your subjectivity, we experience Jesus more fully.

Now that we are married, my wife and I laugh over our very different ways of hearing from, and speaking to, the Lord. But we both know, at the core of our beings, that the other’s spiritual language is just as valid and profound as our own. And when Jesus speaks to my wife via subjective feelings, I listen! Likewise, she listens when Jesus speaks to my logic and reason.

You see, the Lord primarily relates to her in a beautiful language of subjective love and feeling. With me, it is through the wonder of objectively understanding Him and His creation.

Yes, I can be subjective and passionate, but the fact remains that Jesus gave me a very different spiritual language than my wife. And yes, she has logic and reason, but that’s not her primary spiritual language. Yet those differences are fascinating, and we complete each other!

Healthy Communities

Like in a marriage, a healthy community of believers must learn to understand and value each other’s different spiritual languages. Only as we develop the ability to truly hear and appreciate one another, and not be threatened or express impatience towards what often seems so “other” and foreign, will we experience all of Jesus – through each other!

Too often, I fear, we turn “church” into isolated enclaves of sameness, where we retreat into our mutually-affirming comfort zones by seeking to related only to those who speak our own spiritual language.

Only as we affirm the different multilingual voices of God in each of us, is He wholly expressed among all of us.

I thank God that I found this in my marriage, and in a fellowship of diverse brothers and sisters who value the fact that Jesus is multilingual.

Planting Churches

January 3, 2012 By in Church Planting, Great Commission, Jail, Missions, Organic Church 8 Comments

This morning, as I was pulling out of my driveway to meet with some guys I had been discipling in the jail, I felt the Lord say it was time to plant a church among them.

Indigenous Church in the Local Jail

I’ve been mentoring and building relationships with a group of thirty or so men in the jail, as we periodically meet to discuss the things of God. Some are believers, and some are believers in the making.

This morning, I was prepared to share with them about slaying those giants in their lives which stood in the way of God’s promises.

But I felt the Lord say, instead, that it was time to actually start an indigenous church in their housing unit.

Church Planting

This sense that it was time to plant a new church among them did not strike me as the least bit odd. I am part of a fellowship that has planted various sister churches that are thriving in other housing units in the local jail, as well as in other improbable places. So the sole issue for me was simply being receptive to the Lord’s timing, by acting only when and how He says.

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Room at the Inn

December 24, 2011 By in Community, Compassion, Faith, Grace, Great Commission, Jail, Mercy, Ministry Leave a comment

Is there still no room at the inn?

It’s not too late:  Invite to your time of Christmas family sharing, or to your Christmas meal, that man or woman who recently was released from prison, or that person who has no family in your area and is alone, or someone who is destitute and living in the woods near your home (trust me, they are there).

Embrace

You and your family will bless them, and be blessed, more than you can ever imagine.

If you don’t know anyone to invite, call your local homeless shelter or battered women’s shelter. Ask for the staff person on duty. Tell him/her you want to invite someone to join your family Christmas morning, or to share a Christmas meal at your home.

Let them know if you are interested in inviting a family, or maybe just an individual or two, and ask for their recommendation. They will know the residents, and will do a good job introducing you to an appropriate person or family.

Some of my most enduring friendships have come from reaching outside my comfort zone to those who are destitute, abandoned, imprisoned or just plain alone. It will change you far more than them.

And please, don’t try to “fix” them – just be a friend. The rest just sort of follows naturally – including them fixing you as you open your heart and your life to those who you previously treated as “other” or only “helped” through impersonal “programs”.

Take a chance. Open your home and your lives to embrace the Joseph’s and Mary’s of our age.

This is true church. This is true religion. This is true grace.

~ Jim Wright

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Redemption

December 21, 2011 By in Redemption 4 Comments

If we are not about redemption, then what hope do any of us have?

This is my passion.

This is my cause.

It ain’t neat, and it ain’t tidy.

It’s raw and sometimes ugly.

But if Jesus doesn’t work for the worst of us, then He works for none of us.

I Am Content

December 15, 2011 By in Flying, Grace, Gratitude, Healing, Love, Redemption
Marianne

Marianne Wright

I’ve advised Presidents and heads of state,

And ministered forgiveness

To murderers and inmates,

In Your name.

I’ve been rich,

But know poverty.

I’ve plowed the earth

And wiped sweaty dirt from my face,

Yet poked holes in clouds.

I’ve seen the world,

Stood firm against oppression,

And dodged its secret police,

While dancing with gypsies.

I’ve changed laws

And the course of nations,

While counting the homeless

Among my closest friends.

I’ve led the march of thousands,

And brought stadiums to their feet,

Yet walked with death and a cane.

I fought the mob and won,

And quietly saved my daughters

From their threats,

Yet been broken and used up.

I’ve known the joy of hopeless battles won,

And the brotherhood of warriors brave,

Yet cried alone before their graves.

I’ve spoken truth to power,

Hugged the brokenhearted,

And helped set the captive set free.

For all these things, Lord, I am grateful;

It’s been a life well lived.

But most of all,

I thank You that love did not pass me by:

For the joy of Marianne’s embrace

And the wonders of her grace,

I am content.

~ Jim Wright

Related articles

About Justice

December 8, 2011 By in Abuse, Christ Chapel, Compassion, Courage, Justice, Predatory Leaders, Sex Abuse 5 Comments
About Justice

Jesus comforted the afflicted, and afflicted the comfortable.

Compassion for the Afflicted or for Evildoers?

When, through your silence or denial, the afflicted pay the price to maintain your comfort zones – in your personal life, your church, your community or your nation – watch out!

Justice, in its most basic terms, is making sure that evildoers – rather than their victims – bear the cost of their evil.

Injustice is when we impose those costs on the victims, often because we are unwilling to be discomforted by admitting to – or dealing with – the evil among us.

Jesus, because He is love, is also about justice.

And so, even today, He comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

~ Jim Wright

Christ Chapel: Pastoral Sex Abuse

December 2, 2011 By in Abusive Pastor, Christ Chapel, Justice, Predatory Leaders, Sex Abuse

Eventually, the truth comes out as people see with their own eyes see the arrogance, victim-blaming and lies that surface when a church and its senior leadership desperately try to deny responsibility for repeated instances of clergy sexual abuse.

Christ Chapel in Woodbridge, Virginia

Eventually, people – who may have been hesitant before – become very motivated to step forward and bear witness against the evil that occurred.

Eventually, tyrants through their own arrogance dig their own graves.

Just like what we’re seeing in the sports world and in the political world – where sexual predators and the institutions that supported them are becoming exposed despite initial denials – so it’s starting to happen with Christ Chapel Assembly of God, a large local church in Woodbridge, Virginia.

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The Mythology of Tithing

November 26, 2011 By in Institutional Church, Tithe 57 Comments

Did you know that tithing is never mentioned once in the New Testament, except for a few references in the context of Old Testament practice?

Money or Life?

I’ve been wanting to write this blog for nearly a year now, but just didn’t have the energy to face all of the likely rage from those who have a vested interest in promoting the tithe as a sacred cow of the institutional church.

So here’s the simple fact: Tithing is not ever mentioned in the New Testament as something for Christians to do or as a valid practice within the church.

Nope, nada, zip, nyet, just not there!

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Old Covenant Church

November 25, 2011 By in Church, Institutional Church, Leadership, Ministry, Organic Church 14 Comments

I think I’m slowly comprehending the profound cleavage that’s occurring today in how folks understand “Church”.

Old Covenant Church

The Old Covenant was a revelation about God – His nature and precepts – with a tabernacle/temple where people could go to find His presence and a priesthood to help get right with Him.

This is like many churches today, which do a wonderful job teaching us about the Lord, providing a place and an environment for us to experience His presence, and serving as a bridge between God and His people.

Many are content to go to church to learn about God, feel His presence, and have an anointed and appointed pastor and his worship team mediate from the front. It would be dishonest to deny that those can be truly amazing, life-affirming pillars for one’s faith.

But in the New Testament, is that God’s perfect will?

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The Road to Grace

November 21, 2011 By in Confession, Forgiveness, Grace, Institutional Church, Mercy, Organic Church, Redemption, Repentance 11 Comments

For the institutionally religious, the road to grace is the toughest journey they’ll ever face.

For me, this certainly has been the case. And although the road to grace has been a wonderful journey, there have been many bumps and detours along the way. But slowly, I’m finally starting to find my way forward.

It’s Jesus in me and Jesus through me, so that it becomes possible to have Jesus in us and Jesus through us.

So much of my life over the last five years has been about the Lord reducing me to that simple truth.

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Ordained to Fail

November 16, 2011 By in Burnout, Faith, Leadership, Pastor 17 Comments

Life on a Tight Rope

I feel sorry for those who claim the mantle of “Pastor” – a position and a title never bestowed on anyone anywhere in the New Testament. For example, where did Paul or anyone else ever appoint or recognize a “pastor” over a church?

Over the decades, I’ve seen great dis-functionality among such men and women. They are operating within a framework, and on assumptions and traditions, that God never ordained.

How can someone seriously believe that the Lord intends for anyone to bear that burden or take on such prerogatives over His people? It can’t help but twist you, and eventually you will fail.

A Hollow Gospel

November 14, 2011 By in Bondage, Institutional Church, Jail, Ministry, Redemption, Spiritual Disciplines 36 Comments

Sometimes I get angry and need the Lord to settle my spirit.

I am so frustrated over the shattered lives of man after man who I help find the Lord in jail, who then go to some on-fire, podium-focused, pastor-centric church when they get out.

worship-band

The Show

Inevitably, I will see those men back in jail again a year later, or I’ll hear that they have relapsed and fallen back into addiction or bondage.

Why are they back in jail or back in bondage? Because that “church” is little more than glory-halleluiah feel-good meetings with exciting sermons framed by manipulative emotional intensity which masquerades as “worship” – all deliberately designed to serve as a platform to showcase the gifted pastor and his gifted team.

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Herman Cain

November 9, 2011 By in America, Culture, Politics, Sex Abuse, Society 6 Comments
Herman Cain

I’m a generally conservative Republican, so it pains me to see presidential candidate Herman Cain stumble. But even more so, I am appalled at the blogs and comments supporting Mr. Cain from folks who, I suspect, were on President Clinton like white on rice when allegations first surfaced about him.

Herman Cain

As Christians, we must speak truth to power, but with integrity and without applying double standards!

I’ve seen this same phenomena in pastoral sex abuse cases that I’ve handled. Folks will defend a pastor who – under the Biblical standard of two or three witnesses like we now have with Mr. Cain – is a confirmed sexual predator, simply because they like him or he helped them in the past. The fact is, sexual predators of all stripes are the most charming, charismatic, and capable people I’ve ever met!

Let me repeat that: Sexual predators are the MOST CHARMING, CHARISMATIC AND CAPABLE PEOPLE you, too, will ever meet.

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The Question of Leadership

October 31, 2011 By in Elder, Institutional Church, Leadership, Organic Church 11 Comments

Choices

When folks start re-thinking institutional “church” and consider the idea of simple participatory fellowships, the first thing they often focus on is the question of leadership. That was true for me.

That’s an important issue, for sure. But the incessant focus on who will lead – and on creating proper leadership structures – typically comes out of the whole institutional paradigm they are trying to leave.

What we fail to realize is that elders (also called pastors, bishops and presbyters, depending on your translation) and deacons emerged in the New Testament from fellowship, and not fellowship from elders and deacons.

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Crossing Jordan

October 24, 2011 By in Institutional Church, Organic Church 13 Comments

As folks progress from institutional podium churches toward organic participatory churches, they often allow themselves to continue being defined by the institutional church (“IC”). This arises not so much because they retain the attitudes and practices of the IC, but because they are still holding onto the disillusionment that emerged when they began to see the IC’s shortcomings and unbiblical traditions.

Organic Church

For many of us, when we finally leave the IC there is a season where we perceive and react to things not out of freedom, but rather out of not wanting to be like the IC. When we remain in a reactive mode, however, we remain in bondage to our past IC experiences.

In that place of reaction, our reality is still shaped by the IC rather than by who God wants us to be and by His promises for us. By reacting to the past, we are not able to grasp the future.

The best analogy is Israel’s journey out of Egypt and slavery, into the wilderness, and finally into the promised land.

Eventually, in my own life, I had to get to the place where I not only was delivered from Egypt, but was willing to let God take Egypt out of me. Like with Israel, that happened in the wilderness. It was hard, and took several years, but it was necessary in order to then cross over the Jordan River into God’s promises – where there is life and freedom and joy.

The resulting fellowships that are emerging in our area, among those who also have made it to the other side of Jordan, are renewing and refreshing and were worth the journey!

For those still in transition, don’t expect to be able to bypass the wilderness. The wilderness is dry and scorching, but God uses it to burn out of us those things from Egypt that otherwise still define us. It is part of God’s plan, because it is not enough to take a person out of Egypt. Rather, we also must allow God to take Egypt out of us!

I Saw Satan Fall

October 20, 2011 By in Bondage, Confession, Counseling, Forgiveness, Redemption, Repentance 1 Comment

On Tuesday evening, I understood how Jesus felt when his disciples finally “got it” and reported back, after He sent them out to minister on their own for the first time, that the sick were healed and darkness conquered. In His joy, the Lord said He saw Satan fall from Heaven because of them.

On Tuesday I’m teaching and mentoring a class of students on how to minister in the areas of confession, forgiveness and repentance. After seven weeks of foundation laying, the students this week started doing ministry sessions on their own and – wow! – it was amazing what God did through them that evening.

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