Man!  I am embarrassed by how little I have been writing on this site.  I have a lot of good excuses though.  Here's the biggest one:  I work on the computer all day long and as soon as I'm ready to stop working for the day, I shut the laptop and don't really want to look at it again.  But I do promise to get better.

Here's something I read recently from my good friend and coach, Charlie:

The First Commandment of Jesus

This is really good, thoughtful stuff.  I appreciate Charlie's heart for following Jesus so much.  There is barely a person I know with a bigger heart and a greater desire to see the generations behind him truly following Jesus.  Charlie's got nothing to gain from it - no organization to grow - no personal ministry to market and develop - He just wants to see people free from religious bondage and following Jesus with all their heart.  I can get along with a guy like that.

If you would have asked me if I am into John Eldredge, I would probably have said, "Not really."  I might still say that, but my wife is in a book club that is reading his book, Waking the Dead, and I have been reading along with her.  The title is interesting to me because it is exactly what I sense God calling us to do.  I felt like He clarified this for me through Ezekiel and the dry bones.  If we are going to have a church within my generation and those behind me, they are going to have to be resurrected from the dead.  There is no congregation in waiting - just wanting the right pastor to come along and lead them and teach them and start programs for them.  They've already been to church and seen it at it's best and worst and have decided they don't want it.

So I was intrigued... I wanted to see how he interpreted this call to raise the dead.  Honestly, the book is pretty good.  Even when I don't really agree with the way he gets there, I usually agree with main points in the book.  In one of the last chapters he writes:

God is calling together little communities of the heart, to fight for one another and for the hearts of those who have not yet been set free.  That camaraderie, that intimacy, that incredible impact by a few stouthearted souls - that is available.  It is the Christian life as Jesus gave it to us.  It is completely normal (Eldredge.  Chapter 11).

I've been saying this same thing - life is lived in smaller circles.  We cannot possibly live out the Christian life in the large circle of the congregation and its programs.  Even when (and if) that larger circle becomes a necessary tool in the disciple-making process, it cannot be allowed to be the circle in which we live.

Jesus seems to have brought His disciples along in this way.  He kept them close to Him in relationship and continually equipped them to think differently about the kingdom He was establishing.  Then He sent them out to be givers of that kingdom and "equippers" of others, even when He knew they didn't fully understand it themselves. 

I've got so much to stay about all this.  The foundation of our church plant here in Northwest Indiana is all about this concept of living life on smaller circles.  I'm going to try to write more regularly about all this in order to put some expression to all these ideas.

Sorry for those that look at this site and find nothing new.  I'm in a "pondering" phase, I guess.  I'm reading a bunch of things though and maybe you'll enjoy some of it:

Next-Wave - my favorite publication (web or otherwise)

Divine Nobodies.com - Jim Palmer's blog.  Extremely thoughtful stuff going on at Jim's place.

ReclaimingtheMission.com - I just came across this site recently, but I'm enjoying a series of articles about building community and planting churches among a generation that does not come to church.

Peanutbutter and Jelly Boats.com - that's not just a shameless plug of my wife's site (like she even needs it!).  I just really do read her everyday.

I'm also reading and rereading 1 Corinthians.  There's probably no better place to be submerged when you're trying to navigate the start of a new church.

And I just finished two great books in the nonfiction / military history vein, Never Surrender, by Lt. Gen. Boykin and Ghost, by Fred Burton.

Luke 15:1-3 (NKJV) "Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him.  And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, 'This Man receives sinners and eats with them.' So He spoke this parable to them, saying..."

I love the three parables that make up the bulk of Luke 15.  I think about the story of the prodigal son nearly every day.  I have shared in the past how I sensed the Lord speak to me from the context of that parable saying,

"I want you to get better at recognizing people who want to come home but are still a long way off."

Each story that Jesus tells has a special significance to me and I've sensed His voice correcting me and shaping my thinking through each of three at various times.  But looking back at the start of the chapter helps to drive home the reason behind those three amazing stories.  Jesus told them as the response to the challenge:  This Man receives sinners and eats with them.

Someone asked me recently about this "new" (I don't see it as new, but that's the word he used) thing we're doing and why we are not planting a church in a more traditional sense.  "What makes you so sure it will work?"  He asked me.  Here's my answer:  I'm not!  At least not by the definition of "work" that I suspect he was driving at.  I believe that we're doing what Jesus has invited us to do.  I believe that everyday He unfolds the bigger "plan" behind that invitation but this is where we are for now.  I do think that what we're doing every day will some day turn into something public, organized and called "church."  But that is the not the "goal."  It will happen when it becomes one of the necessary tools for going into all the world and making more disciples.  In the meantime, there is a lot of mission to keep us busy.  My friend and mentor, Charlie Wear has asked for submissions to our list of "traits of a disciple."  I encourage you to participate!

What I love most (at the moment) about the Luke 15 stories is that they were brand new stories, used by Jesus to help define the true nature of the Father and the true atmosphere of the kingdom to the existing religious community.  Some of them may have even gotten it... some.  I know that there are people who love us that just don't understand what in the world we're doing.  Think of it like this - we're following Jesus into some new stories that will help define God and His kingdom to a generation that has badly misunderstood Him.

It suddenly landed on me one afternoon, not too long ago, that I had no idea why Jesus said, "Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand."  That feels silly to admit after having taught classes around that verse and the bigger concepts of repentance and kingdom, but it's the truth.  I just didn't get it.  What did those two things have to do with one another?

Part of my difficulty was my understanding of repentance... I guess I do know that it is more than this, but when I read the word, I read the meaning:

Confess your personal sins and become a Christian

But there's no way that's what Jesus meant and there's no way that's what His first century, Jewish audience heard.  Well, with some help from N.T. Wright, a different picture of what Jesus was saying came about.  In the culture that Jesus traveled, everyone already had ideas about the kingdom of God.  Again, I was reading the verse with an assumption that "kingdom" was Jesus' message and that no one had even thought about it until John the Baptist came along.  No, all the Jews knew about and thought about the kingdom, I would guess.  It was all a matter of how they saw that kingdom coming about.

Again, with Wright's help, I see three observable approaches to kingdom as Jesus came on the earthly scene:

1. The escapeists - These were the people who lived in the caves and the mountains and ended up writing what we call "The Dead Sea Scrolls."  Their approach to kingdom seemed to be, "avoid the evil world at all costs."  They literally hid themselves away and devoted their lives to study of Scripture and prayer.
2. The permissives - This is king Herod's approach.  He seems to come from the angle, "This situation is what it is and God knows what we're dealing with down here.  We might as well make the most of it."  He built a huge palace and worked to get all of the wealth and luxury out of the Roman occupation that he could.  Herod looked at his own kingdom as the kingdom of God.  He's rich so God must be blessing him, right?
3. The zealots - Their approach to kingdom was a more militaristic one.  They would actually attack Roman soldiers on the road and sabotage supply routes.  These were the people who eventually took over Herod's palace and committed mass suicide rather than being conquered by the pagans.  Their idea of kingdom was that God wanted them to violently rid His people of unrighteous rulers

So with this as the backdrop when Jesus comes along and starts talking about the kingdom, I see repentance in a totally new light.  Instead of talking to people about their personal sins and their need to believe in His tenets of doctrine, I think Jesus was talking specifically about their approach to kingdom.  He was saying, "Give up on your idea of the kingdom and how it will be established and trust me that the kingdom is now being established through following me."  In fact, if you're only reading the words of Jesus and skipping over the rest in Matthew's gospel, you read:

Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand... Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

My conclusion in all of this is that we need repentance in the same way and for the same reasons as the people Jesus originally spoke to.  We are still looking to establish the kingdom (or you could saying "doing church") in one of the three ways listed above.  I sense the Holy Spirit saying, "Give up on all that!  Forget your ideas of how this is going to be done and trust.  Follow Jesus and He will make you."

What do you think?