The Shack

I have been reading this new book recently... The Shack. I am not finished with it yet (I am up to chapter 14), but I am zooming through it!

This is a great book. It tells the (fictional) story of a man whose young daughter is kidnapped and assumed murdered, and how he deals with his anger and pain... and how he is invited, years later, to the "scene of the crime" by God (as crazy as that sounds to himself) and the resulting conversations he has, show him how God loves him in the midst of his pain and rough life. It brings a lot of insight into the questions like "if God is good why doesn't he stop bad things from happening.. and where is God in the hardest times of my life?

It is a GREAT book... a must read and worth the mere $14 they charge for it. A great pondering book and a great conversation starter too.

When I finish the book I will try to write a more in-depth review of it without giving away the plot!

but for now... go check out the website about the book. I would love to hear from others that have read it too. If you love C.S. Lewis' style of conversations between characters as they learn about God... you will love this book!

http://theshackbook.com

Being a Troublemaker?

I think one of the things that we need to be reminded of is that inside the religious institutions there are people just as starving for grace as those who are not anywhere near God. Some of them are there because religion and it's practice are their God. Some are there because they know no other place to try and find Him, and get sold a bill of goods they were not shopping for.

When I stopped attending a "Sunday club" I wondered if it was my place or was right to go in and "stir up problems" and try to show people and change things in regard to separating a relationship with Jesus from the rigors of religious practice. ... and I separated myself from the idea of going in and being a "trouble maker"... but you know... I don't think God would ever call me to go be a "trouble maker" for the sake of being a "trouble maker".

I think that God might call me to go share his love and grace with PEOPLE who are seeking Him, or who have substituted religious actions and practice for Him. If in doing so I become a "troublemaker" to the guardians of the religious institution, then ok... and I would not try to displace or form a revolt against their earthly kingdom. I would gracefully leave their kingdom alone at their request, but I will not leave alone those who desire God and are tired of eating from the table of religious obligation and guilt.

However, I would not say we should take this on as a new mission and calling unless in fact God has asked you to do so. I think it takes time to vent out the anger some of us felt when we left the institution before we can go into an environment and not bring it all back up. We should return not with a vengeance to "tear down the walls", but rather to introduce a friend to people. If that is the intent and the method, and God has called us to do so... I think God could do amazing things through us as His Church is being salt and light inside as well as out of the institutions of religion.

Recent Conversation

The following is is a compiled exerpt of a few emails I wrote to a friend who did not know we had been outside of the traditional "church attendance" for some time. I thought it covered a lot of my current thoughts of the topic, so I edited it and placed it here on my blog:

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We stopped doing the "attend church" thing about two and a half years ago.

I've come to see that we ARE the church, and we get together with other believers we know and anyone else that God brings our way rather than be a part of some organization or meeting.

We did not leave the attendance of the religious institution because of any "hurt" that they did to us (I just say that up front because everyone seems to assume that is the reason up front)... we left the attendance of the meetings because they were becoming lifeless rituals to us. They felt man-made. we could not find Him there. They were simply duties and obligations of man that no longer brought us closer to God or to other people. We started to feel like we were starving to death spiritually there. It was all about programs and presentation, and meeting for meetings sake. and not just there. We visited other meetings, when we were visiting friends we were invited to "go to church" with them. We even tried out a "home church" for a few months. But you know, religion is deeper than what we have learned from the institutions. I think that it is an itch that mankind tries to scratch with duty, programs and rituals... when the only real satisfaction is knowing the man Christ Jesus.

And quite honestly, after 10 years of being at the church that we were a part of, few people there knew us deep enough to know the inside of out home or for us to know their homes. Not to mention that after the leadership of the church (including me) tried to teach people that Jesus is the head of the church, everyone still thought that the pastor was the head of the church, and why not? that is what we taught in our actions but not in our words! Everyone assumed that the "church" is a tangible man made local organization rather than a spiritual kingdom built by Jesus!

take a look at John 3:8... what does that mean? (what Jesus said ot Nicodemus)... I think I have seen something there that Jesus was trying to explain about the church He would build.

We now live AS the church and go and do what and whom God places in our path. I think that raising my family to live AS the church, going through life with a perspective of walking with Jesus will have a more profound effect than bringing them up in a religious atmosphere. I don't discount the effect that believers had on me when I grew up (inside the walls of an institution), but I was drawn to Him before I ever purposely set foot in a church, and quite honestly I never fit in with the rest of the "youth group". In fact I found most of them to be surface Christians when I was growing up. In only a small handful of people did I ever have a deeper relationship and one where we saw God working in each other. I recall all the programs I got involved in (from the Jail ministry to the youth groups to even becoming an 'elder/deacon' at the church), many of those were good experiences and I even saw God move in them and He did use them, but I think I was slowly being eaten up by the religious ("I'll do my duty") thing.

I was on the road to becoming a pharisee, but I think God had touched me enough early-on that I, like Nicodemus was a frustrated pharisee. I saw the problems in the religious things, but didn't know any other way.

So I had to, like Nicodemus, go to Jesus and ask questions, and get answers that I could not understand from within my religious environment.

You mentioned that relationships outside of the church are harder because you don't see them every week. Well, quite honestly, seeing people every week at a "service" is not really anything that makes getting to know them easier. Everyone wears a mask there. I have had deeper spiritual discussions and fellowship with people I have met outside of the church because the people I talk to are living real life around me and we can get to know each other in a real way.

Not to say that God does not work through other means, but I just know that God has me on a journey to seek Him out more deeply, with everything else that is familiar stripped away, and it is not found in any established church organization (right now anyway). Who knows... some day He may call me back into that realm for His reasons, but for now I am enjoying re-discovering Him in everyday life.


I would not say that my home has become my "church". I think I would say my definition of "church" has expanded beyond the traditional concept. We are not trying to "do church" in our home, or anywhere. I think that even house church groups can simply be miniature versions of the thing they thought they were getting away from by meeting in a home. It has little to do with meeting in a home, or a building, or up a tree for that matter... (now that I gotta see!).

I'm sure you know that, as you said there are people in every situation, in and out of "local churches" that are seeking a deeper walk with Jesus, and I think that is awesome.

So, I don't think that it makes the experiences and the good things that come from people in organizational congregations or from loose knit home gatherings invalid. I think God is working in all of them. ALL. and ALL those who are His. that IS the church.

I guess the concept of a "local church" as defined in todays language is what I have dropped. I see the church as something that Jesus alone is building and shaping, and it is not the shape of the visible groups, gatherings, organizations and buildings that we often think of. His church is like the wind that He equated us to when He spoke to Nicodemus... It is the invisible kingdom that is under His leadership and moves things although it is unseen... like the wind.

I also totally agree with you that God uses people around us (not just the words in the Bible) to communicate His desires, His love and His comfort to us... maybe His love and comfort even more often than his desires -- for he calls us friends, and brothers, not slaves.

Bad Religion

I've seen these bumper stickers and t-shirts for several years now. I really don't know much about them except that I assume they are some modern band. They say in bold white (usually on a black background) "Bad Religion"... something that I suspect the owners of the t-shirts and the bumper stickers see as a rebellion against authority and the stupidity of their church experience. (I wonder sometimes if wearer's of these shirts have ever even been exposed to "church".)

Maybe for most of them... it is just the name of a band they like, not some statement about the "church" of our day. But I think for most it must be a little of both. What that band must stand for.

I know that years ago I would react to this bands name wrongly. I looked at it like an attack on something these people had mis-understood. But now, I think maybe, they were seeing some things more clearly than I was.

You see, most of what is called "religion" these days is nothing more than man-made garbage in my opinion. Meetings... rituals... cloistered little communities that think their spiritual gifts are meant to be use on Sundays (and Wednesdays) inside the walls of a "sacred building". Balony! We are supposed to live our "religion" in the world!

look how religion is descibed in the Bible and tell me how this fits the rigorous and demanding calls to serve programs and men on platforms on Sunday Morning!...


1 Timothy 5:4
But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.

James 1:26
If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.


If we have to use the word "religion" at all... it should describe what these verses are talking about, not the building of some mini-empire for some well-meaning but misguided organization built by human hands!

Personally I think there is more relationship to "religion" than any kind of institution can provide. -- Ever!

Next time I see a kid wearing a "bad religion" shirt, I think I will ask him what he things religion is... or what is so bad about it... and I will probably agree with him if he defines it in the common terms of "religion" in America today! Maybe it will surprise him that a Christian would agree that all of that is "Bad Religion". Maybe God will use me to interest someone in a relationship to God... and learn the real meaning of "religion".

I hope so.