It was the last thing I wanted to do-be around a group of people.

I was bone-tired and emotionally spent. A desperate phone call the night before had left Judy and me sleepless. Two of our very best friends had been killed in a car accident in Oregon. Not only did this news break my heart, it also drained me as it pressurized my insane schedule. Somehow I had to find time to fly to Portland, do a wrenching memorial service, fly home, and get back to everything else I had to do. (On that list was taking my teenage daughter to the DMV for her driving exam.)

“I’m not going to small group tonight,” I reported to Judy. “This is nuts!”

“You don’t have a choice. We’re baptizing Brian and Lori (two new believers) in the pool. Everyone’s expecting us,” my bride protested.

“You go if you want,” I replied. “I’m not going; I have too much to do.”

(Though I didn’t say it, I was also thinking that the last thing I wanted to do at that moment was be around a group of people . . . even if it was our church small group.)

(more…)

One of those guys who reads the books others have written and then tells everyone why they’re wrong “reviewed” my latest book, Reborn to Be Wild.

Hey, I’ve been a pastor long enough to develop some pretty thick skin, so I’m okay with someone not disagreeing with me or even attacking me.

What I take issue with is this man’s warped view of recent church history.

He maintains that the simple New Testament truths I say explained our revival, the Jesus Movement of the 60s, have all been tried. “It’s just the same old tired recipe–faith in Christ, make disciples, preach the Word, equip the saints, ask in My name.”

I admit that this recipe of simple truths from the New Testament have been around since the First Century.

What I won’t admit is that they’ve been tried much.

In fact, the last time they were embraced by thousands was about forty years ago.

During the Jesus Movement.

It’s simply not true that New Testament Christianity is full of tried and failed truths. Our problem isn’t that we’ve worn out Jesus’ simple commands through overuse. It’s that we’ve worn out the church with our strategies and theories.

Could it be that in this age of frantically-seeking-leaders trying to start a movement of desperately-disappointed-followers that we all should take a deep breath and…

Try it Jesus’ way?

Question: Why do you feel most churches are not involved in disciplemaking?

He didn’t want to be a casual Christian, and he wasn’t.

With his friend, Eddie DeGarmo, he wrote some of the iconic tunes of Christian Rock.

My Jesus Movement heart loved the words, the beat, and the spirit of this guy.

I’m sad that he died young–56.

But he did something so few Christians do: He made his mark for Jesus.

He said it himself better than I ever could:

Got my ticket

To ride that train

Cause I believed!

I think my favorite DeGarmo and Key was Rock Solid.

How about you?

Question: What was your favorite DeGarmo and Key song?

The music in heaven just got a little bit better!

In his Letters to Marc, Henri Nouwen says, “Success has isolated a lot of people and made them lonely. It seems sometimes as though meetings between people generally happen on the way to something or someone else.”

We live in a world where we’re all on our way to something else and someone else.

Just last month I asked Judy if there was any way I could love her better. She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Eddie. You could put up that stupid iphone. Sometimes I feel that I’d get more of your attention if I were an app on your iphone”

Ouch!

It’s true, isn’t it? We’re hardly ever present with the one we’re with. We’re always on our way to someone else or something else.

The message to our hearts from early on is, “Nobody really has time for me. They’re all on their way to someone else or something else more important than me.”

“Stop interrupting me, can’t you see I’m on the phone…or watching the game…or on the computer? Go in your room and play, or put on a video. Just find something to do!”

Message to child? “I’m on my way to someone or something more important than you.

Those messages just keep on coming for the rest of our lives.

And then we meet Jesus.

Who is never in a hurry, never preoccupied, never impatient.

In fact, what He wants most of all is to spend time with us.

He gathers us in communities called churches.

And what do we do?

We turn church into the busiest place on earth where everyone is on their way to something or someone else…more important, more spiritual, more significant, more worthy of my time.

Just one more place where lonely people gather wondering, “Does anyone have an app for me?”

“Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well. You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had” (Philippians 2:3-5).

Question: Can you remember a time when you felt alone and isolated at church? What would you have wanted to say to your leaders?

How do you reach into a heart with the grace and truth of the Lord Jesus? My thoughts:

Speaking the Truth in Love from :redux on Vimeo.

This blog is to all the “anonymous” readers of When God Breaks Your Heart. Please know that all of your comments are forwarded to my personal email account and I do pray for you. I try to filter the remarks on this blog so your pain isn’t becoming a curiosity piece for casual readers. But this blog is the only way I can communicate back to you, to assure you of our prayers, and to let you know someone is listening.

My primary lesson for you is this:

God isn’t as distant as you think!

As you know from reading the book, I believe Jesus’ is screaming against your pain as tears flow down His holy face.

Trying to be as much a part of your life as a blog allows.

One of the reasons I believe the Jesus Movement stopped moving is the same reason most churches lost their momentum:  We didn’t love one another well.

We divide over theology, spiritual gifts, politics, and the  just plain “I don’t like him or her” sins most believers are all too familiar with.

Sometimes our excuse for divisiveness is, “I just can’t get along with that kind of Christian!”

Really?

Peter would disagree. In his first letter he says that when we obeyed the truth of the Gospel by believing in Jesus our hearts were purified (1 Peter 1:22). He uses the perfect tense when he speaks of this purification of our souls. The perfect tense means that the work was completed the moment we believed.

His application?

Our souls were purified so that we could “love one another fervently with a pure heart.”

The next time you begin to think you can’t love that “extra grace required” Christian in your world, picture Peter standing next to you and saying, “Yes you can! God made it possible the moment you believed in His Son!”

Life on earth was a hopeless cycle of misery and pain.

Men and women were helpless to do anything about it.

Then, something happened.

God broke through the pain and misery by sending His Son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus called it “mercy.”

And when someone calls out to Him crying, “Have mercy on me,” He always does.

That cry for help characterized the Jesus Movement. We knew we needed mercy.

Every parable illustrating mercy in the New Testament occurs when Jesus is talking to self-righteous people. His message is consistent: Your confidence that you don’t need Me is your undoing. It’s the whores and tax-collectors who know they need Me who receive God’s mercy.

Maybe that’s why they called us “Jesus Freaks.”

Question: Do you remember the day God’s mercy broke through the pain and misery of your life?

There’s a definition of faithfulness I absolutely reject:

It’s the idea that a faithful man or woman is that Christian who has sinned a little less, hasn’t embarrassed Jesus as much, and has generally measured up a little more to churchy standards of “faithfulness” than others by giving more money, coming to more meetings, and looking good on Sundays.

Two Problems with That:

I have two problems with that concept of faithfulness:

1) I suspect that the self-proclaimed faithful Christian has a secret life. Really, I don’t suspect it, I know it. There are no together people. And the least together people I’ve ever met are the ones churchianity assumes have it together the most.

2) The truly faithful Christians I have met in life are those who are acutely aware of their failures, their shortcoming, their sin, and their weakness and have learned to cling to Jesus.

One of my favorite writers, Brennan Manning, says this about faithfulness:

“Faithfulness requires the courage to risk everything on Jesus, the willingness to keep growing, the readiness to risk failure throughout our lives. [When we risk] everything on Jesus…the gospel says we can’t lose, because we have nothing to lose.”

I think that had a lot to do with the success of the Jesus Movement. We came from the streets, from the mess of our lives, we had nothing to lose…and Jesus had everything to give.

Question: Does that smug definition of faithfulness bother you as much as it does me?

Before the Moral Majority

I met Jesus in the 60s.

Before the idea that some Christian moral majority could make people behave right so that we could live comfortably in this world.

We Were Pilgrims

During the Jesus Movement we knew our status: We were pilgrims living as aliens in a hostile land.

I remember times in classes at the University of California at Santa Barbara when we Christians spoke up. The venomous wrath of the professors and our fellow students let is know they didn’t think we belonged there.

That was okay with us, because we knew they were right.

We didn’t belong there.

Still don’t.

None of us do.

We’re aliens, living for a while in a place we don’t belong and longing for home.

And along the way, experiencing the full measure of His grace and peace (1 Peter 1:1-2).

Question: When was the last time God reminded y0u that this world isn’t your home?