Healing Our Event Addiction

The Lord wants to heal the Church of an event addiction. We have filled arenas and stadiums at great expense. We have heard the word of the Lord and worshipped with great freedom, and yet our culture has remained largely unchanged. God is inviting His event addicts outside these terminal events with ever-increasing bright colored marquee into the unredeemed parts of our culture. We have allowed a good thing to divert us from the main thing. Revival without reformation is not the intent of the Great Commission. Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.”                              

A new move of God is already in play. A few insightful ones are beginning to see its potential. The great financial investments we have used to feed our event addiction will be redirected by the Spirit toward more creative and impactful ministries. This redirection will transform the environment of corporate boardrooms, media empires, educational institutions and every place of significance within the culture.                                                         

We have entered a season similar to drug rehab program regarding our mission and calling. God will not throw out our past efforts that led to our current addiction. We meant well, but those efforts fed a debilitating model. He is moving us beyond those terminal event models into something new and mobile. That mobility will deliver us into a new place where a great move of God is waiting to take place if we can get clean.

Standing on Truth

This is a photo I took of a steel grate that covers a hole a dug by a prospector during the southern Oregon gold rush of the 1850’s. The pit is deep. At the bottom, an old antique car rests in a dirt tomb along with various discarded articles like an old miner’s stove and tin cans. A few years ago, a young deer fell into the hole so those who manage this public hiking area thought it would be wise to cover the pit and install a plaque describing the history of the area. 

The steel grate reminded me of God’s word. The pit the grate covers is like any place in our life that a trap of sin is present and uncovered waiting to lure us forward to step over its edge into the depths of deceit. Like uncovered mining pits, there are some things in life we should avoid. These unprotected places become dangerous pitfalls in a journey of faith.

Some reinterpretation of our original understanding of Scripture is healthy and needed. Much of this is because we have assumed things through tradition that were never part of the original understanding. In this quest for truth, we must be careful. This is not a trek to make alone. We need community and wise counsel to study these issues in an attempt to bring clarity and return us to original intent. An unhealthy and unwise reinterpretation can remove the steel grate of God’s word and make us vulnerable to the dangerous depths theological fads fueled by a culture, and, in some cases by believers attempting to redefine historic truth to avoid the confrontations and challenges that truth will bring to our conversations and relationships.

Just before I continued on with my hike, I jumped on top of the steel grate and looked down into the depths of the pit. I would only attempt this from atop the security of the steel grate. I felt safe standing on bars steel bars like a believer would feel standing on God’s word and looking down into a deceptive pit of sin. As I looked into the dark shadows, I saw the rusted hulk of the old car and the rubbish. I would not want to stumble into the hole and try to get out on my own. 

Jesus went into the pit of sin for us and came out victorious. His victory allows us to live free from sins imprisoning depths. The Lord and His word now cover the pits of sin that line the trails of our lives. That is a comfort and security only available to those who have their weaknesses covered by the strength of truth. From that place, God can offer us a protected perspective only if the steel grate of truth remains firmly in place. That unique perspective will give us wisdom and discernment, two things critical to living a life of faith.

A Safe Shelter

When I was on the football team at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, our coach asked if any members of the team could help a friend. The coach’s friend was a doctor who lived in the northern panhandle of Idaho. He was a sheep rancher. In the winter of 1969, a deadly snow storm was killing his unprotected sheep. The early storm caught the doctor off-guard. He was halfway through the construction of sheep sheds. The roof had not been installed in time. The doctor needed a few football players to help his Basque sheepherders finish the roof to get the sheep out of the weather. I had a free weekend and the pay was good, so I volunteered.

We finished the job, and the sheep were brought in from the storm. The rest of the animals survived. On the final evening, we sat down to dinner with the doctor and his wife and the Basque sheepherders we had worked alongside. The dinner was a victory celebration of sorts. A Basque feast filled the table. It was amazing. On the drive back to Spokane, my belly was full and so was my wallet. It felt good to have helped create something that allowed life, not death, to prevail.

When I recalled that memory from long ago, I thought of the Church and how important it is to create a safe place for people to survive the deadly storms that blow into our lives from time-to-time – storms of betrayal, division in an unsettled culture and the subversive works of demonic powers. Real sheep, like the ones in northern Idaho, need shelter from natural storms and so do the followers of Jesus Christ who are defined in Scripture as sheep and will encounter deadly storms in the spiritual realm. 

Our place of shelter in these storms is not found in the structure of our ministry or in fearful places of isolation. Our shelter is found in a person – Jesus Christ. He is our only sure shelter when the winds of darkness and division begin to pierce our soul. Any other protective enclosure will not have the insulating properties needed to keep the cold of a loveless faith away from our hearts. Shelters built around preferred theologies, political ideologies or unrestrained human emotions will always put sheep in jeopardy of dying a premature spiritual death. 

Examine where you and your sheep are grazing. When the personal and cultural storms come, where can the sheep under your care run for shelter? When the storms arrive, you have been called to give people a place free from the bone-chilling winds of deception that can easily hide behind a mask of religion. Entry into this place of safety does not require agreement on anything but the person of Jesus Christ. All other shelters will put people in a position of unnecessary vulnerability. 

If you help to build a place of shelter, you will someday sit around a table of fellowship when a storm has finally passed, and the sheep are safe and warm. At that moment, you will know you did something right and good.

A Shot to the Heart

Recently, during worship at a large gathering of pastors, I looked across the sanctuary and saw a friend. He is about my age, and I know he is processing his legacy. He and his wife have a beautiful family and have become grandparents. As the worship deepened, the Lord revealed an image of this man’s prayer life. Like all people of faith, he has been praying for his family and their future.

As the image developed, I saw all his descendants lined up in a single line by age. The line extended far into the distance and disappeared off into generations yet to be born.  I saw him praying. Each word of his prayers became like heavenly projectiles fired in faith. As the prayers were released, they entered the heart of the youngest grandchild and passed through each heart lined up by age, one after the other. The impact and power of these prayer projectiles did not lessen no matter how far they traveled through time. None of the prayers missed their mark. Each one struck a heart and accomplished its intended mission.

I was enjoying what I saw in the vision so much that I began to pray for my family in the middle of worship. A Spirit-inspired confidence came over me. I became emotional knowing God would be faithful to perform what He had promised. 

Ask the Lord to expand your understanding of the power and impact of your prayers. Envision your family lined up, one after another off into the distance of what is known, and beyond. Begin to pray in faith trusting that you are releasing miraculous projectiles of transformation empowered by the love of God. As you pray, confidence will rise up within you knowing that hell cannot knock these prayers off course. God will be faithful to deliver your prayers deep into the hearts of those who bear your name, both now and far into a future yet to be revealed.

The Passion and Purpose of Our Lives

These two books have sat on the shelves of my library for over 30 years. One book is filled with John Wesley’s sermon notes published in 1847, and the other contains Charles Spurgeon’s sermons published in 1855. I pulled them off our bookshelf and held them in my hands contemplating the value of the legacy each of us will leave behind. Like you, I want to leave behind the evidence of the same passion and purpose for God's Kingdom that motivated these two great men and others like them. 

Each of us will leave behind a record of our life. Our choices are what will determine the quality of our life message. In certain seasons of life, each of us will be surrounded by very challenging circumstances. The challenges do not determine our legacy. Our response to the challenges is what will create the script of our lives. 

Someday long after each of us are gone someone will hold a book or share a story that will describe our time on Earth. When we live for the glory of God, we will leave behind the evidence of a life that was empowered by a passion to pursue a higher good and a greater purpose. That is the kind of life that will be remembered and emulated in the distant future whenever someone hears a story or holds in their hands a record of a life well-lived.

When Access is Denied

A few weeks ago, I was hiking on a freshly cut trail in the hills above our home. When I got to the end of the trail, I entered a new development of high-end homes. A few weeks later I went hiking on the same trail and discovered a “No Trespassing” sign had been put in place. While I didn’t like the fact that the trail had been closed, I realized I was given a preview of an entire area that others will not have the opportunity to experience. 

This early access to closed areas has been granted to me on several occasions in the last 16 years while living in our home and hiking the many miles of trails that surround our small town. Over the years, new real estate developments have been built, and some of these developments have restricted public access to areas once open before the “No Trespassing” signs went up. I carry an image and understanding of terrain of these places not many in our small town possess.

Access into certain relationships in your life might resemble the trails I once hiked upon. Your previous access enabled you to see and understand what others cannot see. Now, you have been forbidden reentry. At first, you thought the closure was a theft of your freedom, but God has another plan. 

While the closure has been a shock, it actually contains a hidden gift. You now know in great detail what these closed environments look like and the intimate details of the lives of people who still live within their restricted enclosures. You are not without recourse. You can pray with wisdom and insight for those living behind the signs of closure because you have hiked the spiritual trails of their lives. 

You carry an image of what life was once like when these relationships were an open place. That image is your map of prayer and a place to invest your faith in the health and wholeness of people you know and love. God made a way for you to see inside these enclosures so you can work with Him to bring freedom to those who lives have been cut off from outside contact. Your faith will show them the pathway to their freedom.

“I will make a pathway through the wilderness”(Isaiah 43:19). 

Moral Disgust and Anger

Capturing an image or a sound bite of a person’s moral disgust will always be misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who have no morals. There is something called righteous anger. This kind of anger must be disciplined when it arrives or it will take you to places you do not want to journey. This emotion is not a sign of weakness or intellectual ignorance.  To not be disgusted and angered over things that harm individuals and the larger culture indicates a numbness in our soul. This is a more perilous issue than a display of moral disgust or righteous anger.