Conservatives Creating Atheist

Conservatives that have God logic. A stagnate way of using religious tyranny, has a way of creating atheist —  or doing well at pushing people away from organized religion as well as faith as a whole.

I have a family member that visited an old church that he used to go and heard what he described as a scientist as a guest. A guest as he puts it, “agreed with what they already believe” and only surround themselves with people that think like them.

There is no growth without discourse (or other points of view).

The real ‘idol’ of growth is … how many people can we get in this church. The best way to do that is to ‘sell people certainty’… no need to think and ponder a belief or dogma — because it is fixed. If you can ‘brand’ it, then you can sell it. Just package up the Jesus you want to sell and you’ll fill your church to an elevated level.

I’m not saying don’t do it. It is up to you.

Just know this. Just because you are a recovering fundamentalist, doesn’t mean you still aren’t — it’s just fundie light. But it is how churches statically will grow is in size and in money. Most of them do grow spiritually.

Another thing that was share to me by my new atheist friend is that. When he “believed”, he was told he was eternally saved. But now that he express a change of heart, the theological new view was that “since he doesn’t believe now then he never did believe”….? I now know the true power of christianity — christianity owns the dictionary. They can un-save a saved man. I thought it was just the Assemblies of God that did that. But Baptist really believe the same thing.. they get: Once saved always save, except B where eternal salvation really isn’t.

Now personally, I don’t care what other people believe as long as you do the simple things and ‘love your neighbor as you would yourself’. We can do this with faith, but we never address it. The bible gives us examples of changing God’s mind, but we won’t take the time to wrestle with God to have a new way a living. And we preach it until the atheist does not need to be saved, the gay christian does not need fixing. I’ll have to give it to Joel Osteen, he comes the close to being a peaceful preacher. I don’t agree with his ideas about gays fully, obviously. And the war that is in the heart of great preacher and local preacher alike — is they want to do the right thing. Sometimes they can and sometimes they can not do the right thing. So, get cast out because their ideas of faith change.  It is called the Sunning.

The shunning is the way the flock take care of problems. I don’t thing it is an effective tool to make a better Church. But it happens. And nobody in church body takes the time to “think it all over again” and do the right thing. SO… we aren’t a growing Church. I haven’t seen that in a longtime. There are a few cells of new growth. But you have to go looking for heretics to find some truth – because if you are following Jesus, you are looking for a heretic.

So are you afraid to be call some of the names Jesus was called?

-Ryan Nix

That’s So… Gay?

That’s so…. gay? Really?!

The phrase “That’s So Gay” has officially become the descriptive negative substitute of our times. Somehow, we have dumbed down our society and in the process given reassurance to those who use this kind of behavior as acceptable – of such little effect that we are blinded by the hidden meanings to our words when we spell it out.

With this post is a graphic I’ve included that begins to spell out that we should buy a dictionary and spells out some of the many negative meanings that people are using the phrase “That’s so gay”. Stupid, dim, unfortunate, idiotic, trashy…. or that’s so gay. The list is endless.

There is a lot of awareness being promoted about the casualness of how gay people are treated and the use of this phrase is a specifically good example of how people get so numb to the use of the phrase and that they loose the ability to see that it is demeaning to a whole class of people – and sometimes this comes from people you call friends. 

In a non spiritual setting, when I’ve pointed out that the phrase is just negative substitution, people understood quickly. They get it. They get it right away and see the oppressive tone to the phrase’s use. In religious settings, I’ve had a much different experience. I’ve been met with a fleshly… ‘protect the organization at all cost’ mentality. It is a serious ‘character flaw’ for spiritual leaders to defend this kind of behavior and not take corrective action. Leaders that can’t or won’t take action will also use correction in the wrong way. Spiritual communities that can’t get issues of justice right will not grow spiritually. 

Don’t get your hopes up! If you too are dealing with a church that hold to the idea that those who are gay are sinners specifically because you “love” differently they as straight people, then you should not expect any level of respect that affords you dignity. There may be pleasantries at the start, but when there is a wall of theology between the two sides and entering into a truthful place of spiritual unity. That lack of unity will exist in their communities until the word “gay” becomes beautiful in their meanings and in their hearts. To get their will require deep soak in the water of the spirit to soften hearts – awaking the heart and mind.

On that note, some people claim to understand greek and can’t even apply truthful meanings to their first language. In the spirit we are in a time of spiritual movement – moving and turbulent waters that will create change, some will run to shallow spiritual waters and grow in religious flesh and others will crave the depths of the waters and grow. Those that cast out to the deep will call unto others and gather together in great numbers and share in a new understanding of relational ministry.

~ Ryan

Blind and Deaf Swinging a Cain

What your ears can’t hear, eyes can’t see, heart can’t feel.

The old saying, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me’, isn’t the truth. The truth is people get hurt by words every day, this is especially true for the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community. The trick of the old saying is that it encourages people on both sides of the attack to fall into a dissociative state of mind. One where the LGBT person becomes numb to those that attack with words and their attackers disassociate their words and positions from being harmful.

So, what is the harm being done?

By no means is this a comprehensive list, but lets begin talking about the harm to the LGBT community. Words are used to he humanize. I can think of no greater issue of harm than those that harm and cause people to be dehumanized and for the attackers to feel justified in themselves. In the blindness, inflicting various forms of abuse and the blind seeing themselves as acting in love. The kind of abuse that lowers a person’s self-esteem, demoralizes, oppresses and leads the suicides and deaths of more LGBT people than any other demographic. Was it Jesus that said that we keep the doctrines that bear good fruit and not bad? Still as spiritual communities we continue to do harm and attach the name of God to it: a tree we should not eat from any longer.

Take your beatings like a man/woman?

The blind and deaf person with white cain in hand (with the red strip at the end) walks down his usual road. He knows this is his path and he walks it everyday. Tossing his cain as he is able to and fro. One day, walking the same road his cain hits a large object. As he is trying to navigate his path, he uses his cain to figure out how large the object is that is on his road and swings and swings. It moves a bit when he hit it, so he swings again before taking a step down his road. The blind man is able to step forward and is making way down the road as he twacks the object it give way and he is able to continue at a regular pace. At then end of the block a friend who is seeing and is able to communicate with sign language into the blind and deaf mans hand begins to speak. After the conversation is done, the blind man having no voice, gasps and puts his hand up to his mouth as to gasp. Only then does he realize he has been beating a person down his road. Before he was able to understand, everything felt and seemed successful as he dealt with this strange obstacle on ‘his’ road. LIke in this story, LGBT people are expected to take their beatings like a man/woman. The one doing the beating is oblivious to the harm being done. In the mind of the blind man, the road is his and he is successful navigating it, just has he has always been – stepping out in confidence into the world without ears to hear or eyes to see, swinging his stick confidently along the way. What the blind man later realized is this was actually a busy road. With is vicious swings people would dodge him everyday and one day a wise man simply stood in his path, was pushed down the road. Until the day that someone spoke his language explained what he had done. Some people with jump out of your way, because there is no reason for them to put of with the fruit (shit). And there are others that will stand in “your” road, because there is no reason for them to also put up with the bad fruit.

The broken and unbroken.

Some people want to transfer their brokenness unto you. In spiritual communities our message should transcend the natural world and extend of vision to the spiritual. The lie we believe is that we are broke; the spiritual truth is that we are whole. We can preach that people are broken; you’ll end up with broken people. Or you can teach that no matter what your circumstances feel like you are whole; you’ll end up with people who are told they are children of God and are on a path to believing it. Their is a scripture where God is speaking in first person and calls us “elohim” and “sons and daughters”. Elohim is God’s name and even God can see the divine within us and project what is unbroken as our identity. As people and communities of faith, we seem to rarely do that. Because that means we would have to look at a gay (LGBT all included) and take the time to see Jesus in them. The problem for most people is that is one step too close to being human by seeing the divine in them/us. That is my challenge to you all, see others as God sees you. Look long enough to see the divine; else you take good fruit and bruise it/them until they look the way you’ve always seen them…. as damaged or broken.

Singing Amazing Grace with a Drag Queen

Most of my blogs have been a focus on exploring spiritual things without including gay inclusive ideas. My general thought was that we as believers can find a place were we can find freedom to explore our spirituality without letting our identities get in the way of the topic at hand.

More recently, I’ve been trying to include the narrative of my life into my blogs. A phrase I’ve heard and been sharing while going into scriptures is to “go into the narrative of the story.” When we go into the narrative of a story, especially a personal story that we’ve lived, it is then that we paint a picture that includes a creative mental image that includes more of our senses; visual, emotional, auditory and the likes. So, that leads me to the story and the title I picked, Singing Amazing Grace with a Drag Queen.

I was just sitting down with my pastor the other day. We sat down at the table just to the side of the kitchen as my husband was helping the pastor’s spouse get prettied up with hair and nails. As we sat chatting, we were talking about what seemed to be a set of random spiritual things; worship in the church, atheist that proselytize, Irish Christians that meet in pubs over a pint of lager. It got me to thinking about unconventional worship places that people bump into the presence of God.

It was on a weekend at a local gay club – the time of night was about 11pm and the end of a set of songs being performed by various drag queens was reaching it’s end before the dance music started back up. The club was full as most weekends are – people winding down from a long week and enjoying a drink, a laugh with friends in a safe place. Oddly enough the club we were at is called “Tramps” – a sort of a dive of a place of gay bars with a casual atmosphere and known for making the strongest drinks on the block. Little did anybody know one of the most beautiful things was about to happen.

Beautiful things happen in the strangest of places. As the master of ceremonies, a well liked local drag queen takes the stage for the end of the set of performances – this time there would be no lip-syncing. As she took the mic one last time for the evening, we were informed as though it were a proclamation, “We’re about to have Church”  and just then a man in drag started the last song of the night, starting with the words ‘Amazing grace how sweet the sound’. Just like clock work the packed room of gay people began to join in. Before the first line of the song was breathed out the room was loud enough that the drag queen pulled the mic away from her mouth as she was no longer singing a song, but joining in with the resounding chorus. Just then a sense of awe struck me and I’m sure everyone in the room – a special moment was unfolding. This wasn’t just a song being softly sung – voices resounded in high praise – voices ringing out – with what seem to be a special emphasis on “that saved a wrench like me”. Oddly enough, we sang my favorite verses of the song, the 1st, 2nd, 5th and ending with the first verse to close out the song. The final lyric rang out with “I once was lost but now am found, Was blind, but now, I see” and just then everyone erupted in applause, shouts, whistling. A holy and special moment like no other had just happened. Throughout the song I took the time to look around – I didn’t want this moment to escape me without capturing all the sights and sounds and looks on the faces of this scene. I remember after the song saying, “Wow!” There was more participation and invocation of the presence of God than I’ve seen in most church worship.

After the song was over, I realized my first thoughts before the song got going was shock, as if to say, ‘this isn’t going to go well.’ I completely miss judged what was about to happen. I guess my thought was that gay people are generally none spiritual people, except me – I learned very quickly that I should not judge my fellow gay family by the stereotypes I had built up in my mind. I had a moment of unlearning and that changed my spiritual world.

It is my prayer, no matter if you are gay or straight, that you are able to see that the presence of God fills the earth so deeply. He can be found in what seems to be the highest of places and even what seems to be the lowest of places.

There our no boundaries to where God can go. After all we no longer have God in a box, in a temple or behind a curtain – I’m not even sure that God was limited to those places back in biblical times. They were somehow sure of it and sometimes we are still too sure it is still the same now. Let’s challenge each other to expand our thinking and reach people in unconventional ways and places.

~ Ryan

Mission Failed & Jesus Wept

The holidays have passed and we are all well on our way to our New Year’s resolutions. Personally, I’m not big into new years resolutions. The failure rate of New Years resolutions is 88 percent, according to Wikipedia. Although I’m not big about making resolutions at the beginning of the year, I do take time to reflect on the year and give time to wonder the next year might go. I guess the lesson to learn is that we’re all going to fail and not let the knowledge of our failure rate to keep us from trying.

During the holidays there is a push for giving to those in need, as there should be. After the holidays are over and our guilt has waned to a dim, so does the giving tend to fade as well. The people in need continue to be in need and many are helped though live-in organizations like The Mission also known as The City Rescue Mission in Oklahoma City.

As with most of these organizations, they are all being helped in the name of Jesus. Much of the work they do is certainly have qualities we can attribute to Jesus; they provide shelter to the homeless, they provide food to those who are hungry, and have bible related classes among other. Their mission statement says, “Our mission is to lead our community by serving the homeless and near homeless with help, hope and healing in the spirit of excellence, under the call of Christ.”

In light of all the wonderful things I’ve said about The City Rescue Mission headed up by Rev. Tom Jones, President/CEO, I am about to also share with you how it is a “Mission Failed”.

I had a friend the lived on the street for a longtime and eventually we took her to the City Rescue Mission. She was there before and through the holidays. We even told our family that were weren’t giving gifts to the family and that we were adopting a couple of families at the mission and were going to spend the little we have for gifts for them. Which amounted to a couple of gifts for two female adults and mostly for the child of one of those adults. We made sure that the little girl had a bag full of things to keep her busy and feel special. They weren’t expensive gifts – a doll, flash cards, lots of coloring books, a bible and such. Our family understood, everyone said we have plenty and this was the right thing to do – so we did just that.

Because of our continued contact with our friend at the mission, we learned some things that didn’t settle right with us – things that were unjust and down right not Christlike of Christian organization to be doing.

A morning within the last couple of weeks, Robert and I both woke early with a burden on our heart. I knew when I got up something was wrong and I couldn’t place my finger on it – I just knew the Lord wanted me up and it was about 5:30 in the morning. I walked into the computer room where Robert was sitting. I immediately knew that something was stirring within him too. It all centered on how the City Rescue Mission was treating people and how Jesus would do what we’ve been hearing about them from someone who lived on the inside. Although they tout with pride their service of compassion, that at the very core of the way they work with people they fail at compassion, they fail miserably at representing Jesus.

We’ll call this person we know “Emma”, which is really the name of one of my dogs. I’m using the name of my dog to personify the other side of the mission – because sometimes when helping people we treat them like dogs and not people.

As Robert was telling me some of the things that was happening to Emma at the mission we decided that we would caller her and get some details of he experiences there.  Emma has some serious medical conditions. Conditions that need regular attention, that affect being able to stand, work, fatigue. Here problems include having diabetic neuropathy, which in part effects the feet, legs and hands and the feeling in them – not to mention other problems from being diabetic – nausea, vomiting, timely medication and the list really goes on and on. Matter of fact, her daughter picked her up tonight to take her to the emergency room because some issues came up.

The City Rescue Mission does not know how to treat people with medical issues with compassion. To live there you have what seems like an endless set of rules – rules that give no consideration to the sick people they are helping and I’m sure the healthy people too.

As we had Emma on the phone, we asked her question and I began to take notes about her daily life there. I’ll do my best to make my notes make sense: Only free time is from 11-2, part of which is lunch, lunch is 30 mins, breakfast is at 6am, usually doesn’t go because of being too early, has to work during dinner and is given 15 mins break to get food and that includes walking time from across the street at the warehouse, extra 5 mins for taking insulin, so that’s 20 mins to eat dinner walk over and take insulin for all that. 10 mins for walking time and taking insulin for extra times from across the street.  Needs time to lay down due medical conditions but rarely gets the chance to rest maybe once or twice a week for 2 hours. Isolate person to room for being sick and give 30 mins out of room for meal time when sick and isolated as punishment and we are not talking contagious sick, the isolation is punishment style. No snakes made available for those who are diabetic, with not income, vending machines are not an option. General required activities / classes: exercise, study books of bible, addiction class, 2 hours of classes 6 days a week, 30 mins of music each day. People with mental memory issues get punished for not memorizing verses, jobs class for people going on disability seems pointless. (Sorry for my messy notes about our phone interview with her)

For people who have health issues at the mission and shouldn’t be dealing with stress, they are doing a good job at making sick people sicker…. in the name of Jesus, I might add. This is the kind of stuff that gets under my skin. So, lets say you are a person with a mental health issues and have issues with memorizing verses of the bible – well screw you…. that gets you 10 hours of manual labor, if you had labor that was easy, they put you in an area that is more difficult and harder labor, as well as not being able to leave the building – you know like leaving the building to uses your food stamps for you diabetic snacks since you don’t have money for a vending machine and it is not provided for you – as it should be. Personally, I think a lawsuit is in order. This is just the short version of the story and it is detestable.

City Rescue Mission – You Fail – You fail in treating people with dignity, fail at assessing individual peoples needs and have systems in place to react responsibly to those individual needs, you fail in forcing a diabetic with leg problems to sleep in a top bunk and she falls and has to go the the emergency room – you fail with the others as well because the frequency of the ambulance showing up in regular, which means you have full knowledge of health issues in your facility. I call that negligent, chances are gross negligence. Because what is negligent is for organizations to support you without having this personal story echoed – and all the other stories echoed that haven’t been told to all the financial providers and donation providers. Because then the force of your real god the dollar would make you bow and while your head hung low you might just see the face of Jesus and start acting like Him. You’ll probably never see this post, but if you ever do – review yourself. Because the last time I got treated poorly from a hospital that I still get treated at that gets government grants to pay for their work – I followed the money trail up to the top and my doctor got a call from Washington, DC from the government office that pays her.

What can you do when you see “Justice Waiting”? You make justice stop waiting. So, what Robert and I did was to tell Emma at the end of the call to be packed and ready for us to picker her up. That if it was okay with her, we were offering to take her into our home. That Jesus would not treat her like they have treated her and neither would we. She took us up on the offer. No more punishments for being at the ER during time to recite bible verses, which blows my mind happened.

What in the world are we doing – attaching the name of Jesus to such things? Who are we when it is easier to write a check than to know someones name? If you write a check, someone can be an evil Jesus on your behalf. They can demoralize the people you desire to help — all because we’ve make Jesus into a ‘brand’ that you can sell and package up instead of being personally invested in someone.

And all the church wrote a check and said…. “Amen”… and Jesus wept.

~ Ryan

I don’t exist when you don’t see me

When I was a young teenager, my aunt and some of my other relatives were talking about freewill and predestination. While I understood that they were isolating the conversation to the topic of salvation or eternal damnation, the scope of the topic goes to the very nature of every event in our living days as well.

The truth is that I felt sorry for them – their minds were confined by such a limited understanding. As any brilliant young teenager I attempted to expand their minds on the subject. I chimed in, “Freewill and Predestination are the same thing.” I’m sure they immediately felt sorry for me as they tried to explain why they were not the same.

Each of the adults had their positions and expressed to each other why they were right. And the core of the conversation really wasn’t about exploring the idea of freewill and predestination, because their point of view or kingdoms of ideas were already formed and had boundaries that could not expand. Or at least it seemed from my point of view.

As I was saying – As any brilliant young teenager, I took the stage and explained the third point of view. One of the many ways I tried to explain why they can be the same was to simplify time travel to them and that God being beyond our three dimensional living – was, is and shall always be beyond our ideas of time.  From our perspective, time moves in one direction like a straight line. For us, something first has to happen before we can record is as a fact of history. We apply this kind of thinking to our theology as well. We pull mostly from human experiences of God and most of those are experiences of others. So, we apply that kind of thinking and put it upon God as one of His characteristics.

If you believe in predestination, it is like you believe that God wrote a book and we are destine to live each of those events out. If you are a believer of freewill, it is like you believe that God watched a movie history in chronological order and then wrote down what he observed.

What I’m suggesting is that God is more like a time traveller and is not limited to a chronological existence except for coming down as man and living among us. We can only move forward in time and live in the present. God is still the I AM, the God who was, and it, and is to come. From God’s perspective, you could look at time from the top, left, right, front, and back – moving at will like time were a thee three dimensional object, while we experience life and time as one dimension and in one direction.

My aunt was unable to comprehend, but I have to give them credit for letting me take the stage and speak. My mom, dad and grandparents and many other relatives were taking part of the conversation. There was one thing that was sure around our family – We never agreed to disagree, therefore silencing “the other”. Everything was open for conversation, everyone was welcome to the table, everyone was family even when they were not family – when you ate at our table you became family and you always had a voice. Everyone was both seen and heard, even if you were a young kid.

I know that people get so easily dismissed in the local church scene. There are so few places where faith is explored. Instead an established thought process that is taught is so well established that exploration has become an evil thing. There is one thing about biblical Jewish church I can give credit, the synagogs were a place of bouncing ideas back and forth. Even Jesus as a young boy took part of this process. This process moved the church forward before, during and after Jesus was here. Somehow, it rarely seems to take place today.

People cry out for a move of God. If it came, would we even recognize it? Would we partake in the movement? Would you participate in forging it, or will you be silenced? Even better yet, if God speaks to you through someone, will you be the once silencing them? What we have to be mindful of is people want to be “known”, I don’t exist when you don’t see me.

Thinking of you Ali, because I can relate.

~ Ryan

Faking Authenticity

Authenticity is difficult to come by these days. It is so easy to respond to people in a superficial way. For some people, having a transparent heart is simply a hard thing to do. A glass of clean water comes to mind when I think of transparency. Transparency or authenticity can so easily be clouded in our lives. Although, I don’t just go around sharing every problem, difficulty, or sorrow that comes my way, there are times when I am able to open up. The problem is – I feel as though I’ve been programed by society and even the church to put on a mask when it comes to sharing my pain or sorrow or just being real with people.

For several years, I was attending Westmoore Community Church (WCC aka the flock that rocks) in Moore, Oklahoma. I started attending this church after an exchange of emails with the head pastor. I addressed my concerns about how we would be treated by attending there, my husband and I being gay. The pastor stated his position on what he believes the bible says about being gay and gave a blanked statement that we are all sinners.

I made it clear in the emails we exchanged that I have come to a different interpretation of those scriptures. I was not specifically attempting to change the pastors mind on the topic. I just wanted him to know where I was coming from in my belief. So, I was not wielding for a theological battle, but I did want to be known for who I am and what I believe. I wanted to be known, therefore, I had to be transparent in an authentic way as made my attempt to reach out and make a connection. We started attending the church for a few years.

The pastor commonly greeted people before the service. One of the things I told the pastor is that I liked the transparency of his heart he shared in one of the services. His response was that kind of transparency was difficult. This is one of those things that I figure most pastors try to avoid. As a pastors fight the authenticity of the heart, they will produce a heartless flock.

While being greeted by the pastor before a few of the services and being asked how I was doing, I responded with something like, “Having a rough week, but I’m hanging in there.” There were a few weeks I answered with variations of that response. It seemed uneventful and we entered the service. Little did I know, the pastor was about to take the time to educate the flock on the right way to respond to “How are you doing?”. His cold response and way to put things into order was to tell the people the correct way to respond to such a question is, “I’m fine. How are you?” – Wow! The authenticity I had previously thanked him for was apparently out the window. We were well on our way to the fake church of the petrified society. I’m sure my husband and I weren’t they only ones that greeted him and express our burdens. Overall the church was okay to attend; good rock style of worship music and decent preaching. Due to getting a home further away we eventually stopped going to The Flock that Rocks.

When we moved, we were within miles of about five gay affirming churches. We considered attending one of them. I guess the reason we did not attend one of the gay affirming churches was that we were looking for a church that was integrated more. It makes me think of the black and white segregation and Jim Crow laws – the “separate but equal” feeling did not set right with us. We most just worshiped on our own and kept our faith intimate and personal. Looking back, I see that God wanted us to have the season to teach us. Even when we come together in groups of corporate worship, if we loose our focus on direct intimate worship, then we create barriers between us and God.

Authenticity in faith comes from going where Jesus would go in faith. Jesus faith was authentic because it was direct fellowship of His humanity to His Father. When He took that fellowship to the weak and the broken hearted, the presence of God was there. He told us that when we are authentic to those who are poor in spirit that He is there in the midst of that pain and brokenness and He shares not just time, but His presence with us when we do not turn away the burdens of others. When we have sorrow, He shares in our sorrow and gives us hope for the a future.

Even when I’m going through joyous times, my personal worship time includes worship songs that say things like “Sometimes, I can not hear your voice, my God.” We have to connect emotion to our worship and our fellowship with God. It gets too easy to worship with songs that show no human emotion. Some of those songs are very beautiful say things like “You are Holy…. like no other … You are Holy … there is no other like You”. And we need those kind of songs too.

Our fellowship with God, as well as, our fellowship with others has to reflect both our emotions of being lost as well as our thankfulness of being found, else it will become hollow over time. When we begin to connect our emotions back into our faith, we will over time undo the emotionally dissociative disorder that has held so many churches captive all over the world.

~ Ryan

Heaven and Earth Become One

When Jesus taught, as He was walking the face of the earth, it would probably be an understatement to say that He was a trendsetter. I was about to say that he was ahead of His time, but that’s not exactly true. When a movement in the Church happens and you hear someone preaching from a unique or different approach, then you might be called a person that is ahead of your time — ahead of the thinking and mindset of the people. So, it is more accurate to say that Jesus was ahead of the times and the thinking of people in which He lived — and probably way ahead of our times, even now. It’s sort of a bell-curve that seems outside of our capacity, maybe. It may be said that the central subject of all His discourse, ethics, and theology were focused on the Kingdom.

In the scripture there are two phrases about the Kingdom, “Kingdom of Heaven”, which seems to be unique to the book of Matthew, and the “Kingdom of God” found throughout the rest of scripture – these two phrases are used interchangeably in parallel scriptures. One reference is in Luke 16:16, where Jesus says that since the time of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:2) “the Gospel of the Kingdom of God has been proclaimed.” The reason I point this out is because many times I can get caught up in the study of Greek or Hebrew words. I believe the important thing Jesus was trying to teach us is a new idea — or a series of ideas about this Kingdom of Heaven and of God.

Luke 17:20-21 (NLT) One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom of God come?” Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs. You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or “It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you.”

As Christian believers, we put things like heaven and God in a variety of places or with various feelings. At times we think of God as being far away in a place called heaven which is somewhere that is also far away, tucked safely away it seems to me — mostly out of fear, fear to be near Him. In a previous post called The In Between Priest, I talked about how there was a tradition of having priest between us and God in the tabernacle system and how Jesus came to do away with that by becoming our High Priest. However, there is a valuable lesson to learn about how they worshiped, and to do what they did which was good about it — they came together around the presence of God – for God, to seek Him. Today we do the same, we come together for God, not for a system or a building. His Kingdom is among us, near us, even in us – Jesus tries to get us to perceive the Kingdom in scriptures in so many ways. Even saying that it is like yeast in flour, which can not be separated from the dough once incorporated.

Matthew 13:33 (NLT) Jesus also used this illustration: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”

We are all worshipers, worshiping all the time – Believer or not, we all worship something. It is either God or something like success, achievements, fear, our self-esteem, jealousy – insert your favorite idol here. “I know that I’m always right”, so there’s a simple idol for me. Sometimes I even make an idol of Jesus, especially when I create an idea of Him and find it difficult to let Him reveal Himself to me in a new way. Although, it has been my practice in life to cast down my idols. When our focus gets turned to the presence of God, even if it is only from time to time, we blur the lines between heaven and earth. I’ve been saying we are worshipers 24/7 since I was a teenager – yet there is something special that happens when we set aside time to worship. I’ve heard it said that the best minister of the Good News is a new born Christian, because that is the place where there is no shame and idols get cast down. As we continue on in our faith we need to set aside time to worship in an intimate way — a way that has nothing between us and the Father.

The question is not if the Kingdom of God is here or even His presence. I’m more concerned that we have brought this physical problems of perceiving the Kingdom that the Pharisees had, and isolated God’s presence to only a specific feeling. We need to be able to see the presence of God in an “Awe” or an “Ouch” moment. An example of God being in worship in an “Ouch” moment is a powerful song called, “Dying Star”, where worship leader Jason Upton gets an evaluation from God about trashing his idols.

At its simplest, a core value in worship songs should be intimacy and hunger for God, simples songs of love and devotion. Songs that are simple, that say what you want to say to God or in a prophetic sense what God wants to say to His people. Most churches have a well thought core values of faith. However, I would guess that very few churches have a well formed core values for worship. I would recommend reading Vineyard Worship Values. Vineyard Churches started out as home bible studies, people that were passionate about worshiping God with an intimate focus. The Vineyard exploded in growth and now have churches worldwide. I’d venture to say that every great movement of God across the land is directly linked to His presence alone – passionate focused people shining His light into the darkness.

My prayer is that your worship life is a place where heaven and earth become one, that your joy may be full, that your light would shine brightly for all to see this King of Glory, who shall come into our midst in a greater way as we take the time to welcome Him into our lives more.

 

~ Ryan

Related Links:

Song Dying Star by Jason Upton, Vineyard Worship Values by Jeremy Cook

 

Heart of the Word

John 1:1 (NLT) – In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

What is the word? Who is the Word? I’ve had this conversation many times before with people. In the verse John 1:1 the use of the “Word” here comes from the Greek transliteration “logos”. When checking out Logos on Wikipedia it also says, it is Greek for “word’, “discourse” or “reason” and points out the divinity of Jesus Christ. If you ask any Christian believer “Who is the Word?”, you’ll very easily get the answer Jesus. In short I would simply agree, but there is always more to an answer then the short version. Because the characteristic of God being a Trinity of three in one to just say that Logos is Jesus is way to simply of an answer. In all the descriptions of the use of Logos one thing that is common is that all of the definitions refer to an utterance, words being spoken but not words being written down. Most of the time people get the difference between how the scriptures “Word” as compared to “word”. Theologians in their wisdom in translating the bible into English capitalize it like you would a proper name.

I was having conversation of discourse with a pastor that had another pastor sitting in and listening about the difference between the bible being the word of God and God being the Word (or Logos). The first pastor wasn’t getting the difference. Then I asked two questions, “What is the word?” and “Who is the Word?” The second pastor who was taking a passive role in the conversation spoke up to say, “Jesus is the Word”. “Finally!”, I exclaimed. So, now we were getting somewhere.

The conversation continued with what level of divinity we give to the bible as compared to the Word (Logos or Jesus). The conversation was not an easy one. I believe the reason that it is difficult is how much we lean on our limited understanding of God because His nature is far beyond our ability to understand with our human spiritual capacity. When we have “discourse” about things of faith we are experiencing a lesser form of logos. Conversational discourse should be used in exploring and changing or challenging our thoughts and beliefs. In those times, we should welcome the tension of different ideas.

1 Corinthians 13:8-10 (NIV1984)- Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

Often called the “Love Chapter”, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us some important things to consider in theology or our thoughts of the Father, although prophetic word, scripture, or even special revelation from God will always be less than God. It is all childish play in comparison for seeking His face or even better yet when the times comes that we actually see His face, then we will be seeing the Word.

It has always bothered me when I hear churches proclaim we are a bible believing church and there is very little value placed on seeking His voice in the present. I’ve heard other pastors pray right before preaching, asking for God’s blessing and for Him to speak “even in spite” of what they have to say during the service. It has been my experience that no matter how good or bad someone does a preaching that the Father is speaking at the same time delivering a message of His own. I’ve heard many people say that, “It was like the pastor was speaking right to me.”

There are many kinds of words or spiritual impartations I could talk about, but the one that comes to mind is another Greek word “Rhema”. The way I understand, Rhema is a teaching or utterance in which God through someone declares the heart of God. Generally, I think of a Rhema as also being a revealed word; a new revelation about a scripture or concept of God that opened your eyes and ears in away that made it come alive like never before. In some evangelical church circles people give a prophetic word in a public setting. I don’t think that we should get overly mystical about hearing from God. Just recently after a service someone came up to my husband Robert and I and said God had a word they wanted to give us. They acted like we might be offended or weirded out by it, but this is the spiritual world we try to walk in everyday. So, we listened and walked it out. It was just a message to pray and meditate for the Holy Spirit to speak a single word to our heart and that would lead us to a verse we needed.

People of faith operate in the gifts of the spirit all the time without even knowing it. When it happens people usually use words like, “Maybe we should start a Church”, as my husband said one day. Immediately, I sensed the prophetic-ness of it, and a holy fear came upon me. I didn’t understand it, “You know how complicated it is to start a Church”, I said. But I knew it was real word in the spirit. It must have been less that 48 hours before we were contacted by a friend of Robert’s that is a pastor about helping to start a new church plant. So, we know the Holy Spirit has plans and we are prepare to be awed and be apart of the mystery of it all.

The Heart of the Word or Logos is something that is living and moving. It can be unpredictable and exciting at times, it can be fearful in an awesome a Holy way. It can call you to be softened, broken and healed. It can take you through the mountain and through the valley. I’ve heard it said, “New levels of glory are usually a step down before they are a step up”. As spiritual people we have to expect change if what we really want is to really hear His voice. So, fear not, because He is with you every step of the way. We need our faith to be conversational so that it is more of a faith of relationship.

~ Ryan

PS. As with most times when I sit down to write, I was not sure how to begin or structure my thoughts. So, I wanted to also share my process briefly for this post. The main thing I do seems just practical as a Christian, I go to the Father in prayer. My faith is very worship centric. So, I turn my Roland keyboard on and my recording software on and begin to play the keyboard and sing my prayer to God. I’ve been using this musical prayer process for about 30 or more years. Worship leader, Kent Henry, said it this way, “Anything that can be spoken can be sung.” Most of the time before writing a post, I’ve been meditating on it for weeks for months before I put my thoughts down. To listen the prayer / song that I sang just before writing this post, click here for song.

Even In These Times

The holidays are fast approaching. It seems like it was just thanksgiving, a time where we calling to our minds the things we are thankful for, people we are thankful for, situations or even the posture of others hearts towards us and ours towards other people. In the midst of times we are trying to recall our thankfulness, it can be difficult to be thankful with the circumstances that surround our life. Even in times when we can find thankfulness in simple things, questions can arise because we ask ourselves, “How can I be thankful, fully thankful with loved ones in the hospital, friends, relatives passing into the Father’s arms, pain in my body, or the ones we love?”

One of the things the Father has been teaching me is to see Him in both the good times and the bad times; the highs and lows, in the joy of love and in the pain of love. It is so easy to see the Spirit of the Lord, especially when things are going great. How much faith does that take? Very little really. There will be times, times of truth, spirit and truth times, were things seem very dark for a season. A time when Jesus turns out the lights and calls us to trust Him in the darkness we are going through. A time were we just reach out our hand in the darkness, reaching for His hand in a worship called “trust.”

We have a problem as believers with really giving the Father our trust and I’m not sure it is completely our fault, at the same time it is also our fault too. We’ve just been following long held tradition of generations and generations of the church. There have been some circles of believers that have breakthroughs in trust, not the church as a whole though. During the time of the church of the enlightenment the people of God really stopped using the creativity of our faith and traded it in for logical thinking for formulas like A+B=C with our ideas about God. Even when Jesus walked the Earth, it was already happening, He would tell the big thinkers of His time, the Kingdom of Heaven is right here, right now and you don’t even perceive it. The problem is not with our ideas about intellectualism or even our lack of it, because they can both be wrong. I’m finding myself, more and more, in a place where I’m casting down my theological ideas and being satisfied with not knowing where I’m going, just as long as I have my heart calling out to Jesus. Letting Him take me on the journey in sickness, pain, loss. Barren and dry places where I find myself uncomfortably trusting Him to show me that He can be found even in these times. What does it look like to really follow Jesus, a living God that shares in our lives, even when they are not pleasant times.

Here is a truth, Father God, You are Holy; there is no other like you. There is no other that is Holy and I say that to draw a comparison to all the ways we use holy. I’m finding myself thinking of scripture as “wholly” when I think of the holy bible. Because the bible tells the whole story; even the disciples told the whole story, the good times and the bad times. Jesus didn’t restrict the disciples and tell them to say a certain thing about who He is. More often He would ask more questions then He gave answers to like, “Who do you say that I am?” His teaching style comes from the core of the Jewish teaching style. In the western world we give answers for weeks and weeks, and at the end of the semester we test and ask questions. In the Jewish culture the teaching style the rabbi (or teacher) would ask questions about a verse in the Tora and the students were expected to respond with a question. Because they knew the scripture so well they were taught to respond with the a question about the verse either before or after. So, the åteaching style of asking questions when teaching was a very normal style for Him. When we mix our culture of giving answers of certainty in faith, our faith facts, distract us every so slightly from being okay with not knowing the answer. Sometimes, it is easier to know the answer than to hold our hand out and ask the Spirit of the Lord to lead us.

Difficult times still come our way. With all our certainty it even feels awkward to even ask  questions anymore. As American Christians we either don’t want the questions, or in some circles might even thing it is a sin to not know the answers. As we read the gospels, we need to go into the narrative. Like the narrative of “water into wine”, if we take life like Marry, Jesus’ mother, when she comes to Him and tells Him the problem that “we’re out of wine”, but she never told Him how to fix the problem. She just let Him deal with it the way He wanted to deal with it. In the gospels we see miracles Jesus did, as well as so many other times He could have done a miracle and He left things just as they were. He wasn’t just there in Spirit, He was actually with them. There will be times like in Psalms 23, where we are going through a valley and instead of fixing things with a miracle like we want Him to, He is just going to “MAKE” us lay down in a green field and find rest in it. I’m learning to find Him in days I feel good and days I feel sick, in pain, or loss. Can you find Him there too? Let’s go on a journey and find Him there together. Because God lives even in these times. ~Ryan