Hello friends.
We’ve taken the plunge out of institutional Christian living into the kingdom building effort known to some. There are a variety of challenges facing us.
Like some dear friends said to us a while back… we’ve moved into a different kind of life but are struggling with a replacement plan. Perhaps there can be no replacement like we once knew.
It’s kind of like the first day I used hairspray in junior high. The days when I had hair. You feel self-conscious. My extremely dedicated Christian family (immediate and inlawed) is wondering about us, Christian friends wonder the same, the pastors where I work as a custodian are no doubt wondering where we’re “attending,” and it all feels a bit weird.
The following is from Wayne Jacobsen’s “Our Passion” page. It helps me place some feelings in context.
Only as we live in his love and freedom can we even begin to experience the power of life in Christ as he brought it to us. Specifically, we help people discover the freedom…
- To live in the love of an awesome Father, free to respond to him as he leads you, even if that means you make mistakes now and then.
- To walk without guilt or condemnation. Recognize that transformation is a life-long process that Jesus works in us by our security in his love, not something we do for him out of fear.
- To be real. To feel what you feel; to ask what you need to ask, to be wrong where you are wrong, and to extend that same freedom to others.
- To be liberated from accountability to human leaders who seek to take the place of Jesus in the church by telling others what they think he would have them do.
- To love other brothers and sisters freely, serving them the way Jesus leads you and not trying to conform to their expectations of what a ‘good Christian’ should do for them.
- To live free of bitterness and hurt, even where religious institutions (and those who run them) have failed you. We’ve all got plenty wrong with us, so there can be no end to the generosity we can extend others in their weakness.
