Feeling like a beginner everyday!? (self truth! and question?)

   It may continue to shock people when I say I don't believe in the god I used to believe in, and when I encourage others to clean out the falsehoods and cultural garbage that has accumulated in their own ideas of God. It may still shake up my friends and fellow believers when I admit that following Jesus makes me feel like a beginner everyday and a failure most days (or maybe it won't shake up anybody). But these honest admissions/confessions lead towards the essentials of discipleship and genuine relationships with real Jesus- followers.

Take a quick ride with me.

Imagine that you are traveling with a group of tourists in a bus. The shades of the bus are pulled down and no one can hear or see or touch or smell anything from this exotic country that you are passing through, while all the while the guide is talking non-stop, giving you what he thinks is a vivid description of the smells and sounds and sights of the world outside.....(think on this for a few minutes before you read on)....
The only things you will experience are the images that his words create in your mind. Now, after a long day of travel, the bus stops and you get out. You will no longer be free to experience the one-to-one that God had desired for you and His creation, but your mind will now be filled with formulas of what you have been told to think and experience. It will be contaminated, conditioned, and distorted by those formulas and you will perceive not the reality itself, but the reality as filtered through the voice of the guide. In our case, this could be the pastor or a teacher or some other type of authority.
                                               adapted from Fr. Anthony DeMello, The Way to Love


                                                                                   
                                                                                           2 Corinthians 3:17,                                                                                                   "And where the spirit                                                                                               of the Lord is, there is                                                                                             freedom."






Every day that we come to Jesus and every day that we journey with His friends and followers we're starting over with great grace. What a gift!

"At whatever table you preside always include the excluded."
                                              Micheal Spenser, Mere Churchianityy 


Peace everybody,
Bob

   It is amazing how fast time travels. Even though we are part of the fabric of time, sometimes it feels like it's moving by us so fast that instead of being woven into it we're road-rashed by it by it. I have very much missed sharing from my life and my journey with you all. It has helped me immensely to air out my faith and struggles as I try to make sense of it all.
   The farther I get into my 6 month sabbatical from the church the more alive in Jesus I feel. It's like a great darkness has been lifted from me. A darkness I did not really know how to identify or quite honestly did not know I needed to identify. I knew something was wrong. But "church" culture and "church" leaders have told me for years that I must do it "this" way, or I can't do it "that" way, and I have allowed that to dictate my life and faith.

     As I read and ask the Holy Spirit to teach me, I see a different model in the scriptures, one that Jesus himself works very hard for, and ultimately gives His life for. A model that taught His disciples to beware of the religious elite, the false teachers, and spiritual abusers. (Ezekiel 34)The Message.
                                 
Matt 23;  “Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can                                                          banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like                                                    pack animals.
   These next few paragraphs will, I'm sure, cause some of you to cringe and some of you to possibly stop reading this blog. I understand. This is a hard topic and it's unraveling in a way that is going to be dealt with in these pages in a very raw and authentic way. I don't make any claims that these ideas are truths only that they are very real and heartfelt to me. They are the most genuine reflections of my heart; a heart that to me feels like it has been pumped full of churchianity and counterfeit gospels, a heart that for the many times I questioned these gospels was told I was wrong and misled, misguided, and sometimes told I was in sin, a heart that for many years listened to mans' gospel instead of the gospel being shared by the Holy Spirit within me. 

    I do realize that with this kind of conversation being aired I have the responsibility to be seeking and sharing the solutions and resolutions happening for me.

Jeff VanVonderen, co-author of the classic book, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, defines spiritual abuse like this:

“Spiritual abuse occurs when someone in a position of spiritual authority – the purpose of which is to ‘come underneath’ and serve, build, equip and make God’s people more free – misuses that authority by placing themselves over God’s people to control, coerce, or manipulate them for seemingly godly purposes which are really their own.”

 VanVonderen adds:

“Nothing about spiritual abuse is simple. Those who have experienced it know it is powerful enough to cause them to question their relationship with God, indeed, the very existence of God. And it is subtle too! The perpetrators of spiritual abuse are rarely ‘Snidely Whiplash’ sorts of characters who announce that they are going to drain your spiritual energy. They may be people who seem like they are seeking to guide you to the deepest levels of spiritual maturity.”

   One of the things that I have always wanted to be a part of and relate to are the 1%-ers, the downcast misfits and castaways of society. I don't know how to explain that. I have always had this attitude and disposition to be outside-the-box, to be separate from the norm. I think this is rooted in pride, a part of my character that followed me into my life of faith. Because of my early "church" life I was quickly indoctrinated into being a good charismatic Christian who should 'purge your soul, purge your life of "unsaved" friends, purge your music collection, purge your identity, and your individuality'. The more this went on the more and more I felt unsettled, like I was losing myself and who God made me to be. In reality what I had become felt like a 1%-er Jesus follower, a disciple of Jesus that had become an outcast from evangelical Christianity because I didn't the mold or 'drink the Koolaid'.

Does it get any more "Life is Good"

    It shouldn't surprise you to learn that spending six months with Jesus just as I am, as simply and honestly as I could manage, shook my safe evangelical assumptions to the core. The world inside the Gospels is not the same as the world inside my church(or my head). Jesus doesn't talk like an evangelical. The issues that my church obsessed over (reform vs. free-will, membership, women in ministry, the authority of the pulpit, etc.)aren't on the radar at all.
   Spending six months with Jesus did something else. I was 25+ years into my ministry and for the first time in my life, I realized I didn't understand the Jesus I was proclaiming. I was steeped in religiosity and churchianity from head to toe. But Jesus? Not so much. In the midst of this sabbatical and plunging into the Gospels, I discovered that Jesus was another world altogether, another universe really. I knew Him as an actor in the story as it has been told to me by my church(churches). It's a very raw and naked feeling to admit that. There is just so much more to the person of Jesus and I had no idea.
   As I have pursued Jesus-shaped spirituality, I have been forced to do it on His terms. Jesus wasted no time letting me know that He is not an evangelical, or a Protestant, or an idea, or a doctrine, or a liturgy. He is my master and my Lord and my biggest fan.
   If I(we) are hungry for a Jesus-shaped life, what is it about Jesus that will most shape our lives to be like Him? I feel that in order to answer that question we have to cut our ties to the comfort and safety of traditions, customs, and assumptions. It's time to leave behind our religious programming, that has no connection to Jesus, and begin a real and new adventure.

   The Jesus disconnect is everywhere. My prayer for you and me is that we all feel the exciting tension that comes up when we bring Jesus back to the forefront and put him in the spotlight;. Jesus himself, not formulations of Christian doctrine or church traditions. It will transform our faith, lives and relationships. We can't have an authentic Christian experience, in church or outside one, without Jesus.

Beware! Ongoing Theological Deconstruction and Construction Zone

Hey friends,
If I had to sum up the entire sabbatical in one phrase this would be it:

My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” 
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

 It's so simple and yet I have allowed people and religion to make it so complicated. There were so many years of churchianity and discouragement with me believing the lies that I had to perform or believe a certain way. All that started to peel away like a thick morning fog, letting go to a beautiful sunny morning.
As I sat on the deck at the cabin, I remembered the days when I experienced Jesus as accessible and near. I flashed back to a time when I was in college; every morning I would get up before heading to school and make coffee in my Chemex, pour two cups and sit on the deck or at the kitchen island at our home in California. Every day, Monday through Thursday, this was my routine, one cup for me and one for Him. We would sit and talk about the day before, what's going on today, and the hopes and dreams I had for myself, Holly, and my newborn daughter. The cool part was that He knew I was a two cup a morning guy and He would always let me have His cup for my ride to school. He's great like that.  (Picture above: Jesus and me having coffee at the cabin, the dark blue mug is His).

    Well, my sabbatical was awesome. I hit the ground on the other side of it at a thousand miles and hour.
I haven't even really had time to unpack it all with Holly. There are obviously no words that could really tell the story of what this is like, having 4 days with just yourself, no human contact. Take a minute and think to yourselves, "Have I ever spent an entire 24 hour period without seeing another human face?" In all my years of asking that question, 9 out of 10 people cannot answer yes, they have gone that long. Something amazing happens when you get alone, really alone with God.
   I can say this about my first night, I was overcome with a wierd kind of anxiety about the deafening silence and the loneliness I felt. After my injury, at the end of December, I have not watched as much TV or movies in 15 yrs then I did in the first 3 months after my surgery. On top of that, I have been blessed to be getting my hours in Dispatch until I get cleared to go back on the road, yet with that came the constant ringing of multiple phone lines, multiple radio frequencies,and multiple ambulances and vehicles. So, needless to say my life has been way louder and busier. The world is so so loud and it doesn't always mean noise or volume, sometimes it simply means busyness, a fast paced schedule, and the horsepower of the world pushing against us 24/7, and unless we get away from it and get clear of it we get consumed by it.

   The desire was for solitude and silence with Jesus in 'lagniappe', a creole word meaning "a gratuitous gift of grace, to pass expectations". I made no grandiose plans, no well-structured format, no minimum hours of prayer or reading or meditation. What I did have was a goal to read the New Testament in two days(ya right) and some kind of "awesome felt intimacy with God".
   To be human is to be poor; a painful place of being helpless and powerless to add a single inch to my spiritual stature, to realize the desolation and darkness, to not be able to control, manage, and manipulate God into letting me experience His loving presence and compassionate care. Instead, "Be still and know that I am God." Psalms 46:10.
   My unrealistic expectations are grist for the mill of craziness! Instead of just letting God speak to me and minister to my brokenness, I got sucked into the 'me' instead of the 'Him' of the moment. "What am I doing wrong?" "Why can't I connect with God?" "Why can't I hear Him?" "Why can't I find God?" I was so busy deciding what advice to give God about how He 'should' (I need to learn to stop shoulding on Him!!!)relate to me, speak to me, meet my needs and wants ect.... I'm so set in what I think my needs and expectations are, I am unable to hear God's voice in the things He is trying to say right now. My prayers had become merely an expression of my illusions. But God did show up despite my ridiculousness.

   For three and a half days I was by myself. Me, my pipe and favorite tobacco, enough food and coffee that I didn't have to leave, my Bible, and a few select books that I knew would help me remember how much I loved Jesus. As I sat on the deck of the cabin and the rain showers were  sweeping across the lake, sometimes soft and sometimes pouring, I realized how comfortable I had become with the solitude. It's like a long lost friend, or a friend that you love a ton, but aren't able to see hardly ever, a friend that you can sit in silence with and have it be totally OK.
   Who you are is who you are when you're all alone. What I have realized is that I don't hate myself or fear who I've become. At one point during this sabbatical I thought maybe I would find out that I don't even know God anymore or worse that I didn't want to.
   What I did realize is that I do love Him, that I do know Him, and that at the heart of it all I am still a Ragamuffin, which by definition is someone who recognizes their inability to be or do anything good outside of the fact that Jesus and the Holy Spirit set it ablaze in their heart to do so.

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”   

                                                                       The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

in the dark of the night
i can hear you calling my name
with the hardest of hearts
i still feel full of painso i drink and i smoke
and i ask
if you're ever around
even though it was me
who drove us right in the ground

see, the time we shared
it was precious to me
all the while i was dreaming of revelry
                          Revelry by Kings of Leon

The very last entry in my journal from the trip: 

    If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. 
    If you live squinty-eyed and in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. 
    Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning so you don't get musty and murky

                                                Luke 11:33(The Message)

Peace to all,

Bob

Life's most expensive commodity

   I am quickly approaching my solo sabbatical time this coming week. This is something I used to do every year for many years. I have been off schedule for a few years, so I'm very excited to get back to it. This time has always been a very clearing and powerful time for me. Although, this year I am more torn about taking it than ever before. Every few months that go by it feels like I am more attached to wanting to be with my family, I find myself wanting that more than anything else. When I think back to not so many years ago I remember when I would talk to Holly about how great it would be when the kids were raised and gone, off doing their own thing, so then Holly and I could do ours. She never seemed as excited about it and I took that to mean that she just didn't understand, like I did, the feeling of freedom and the benefit that would be. All those times she would just smile and say, "OK, we'll see." Well, here I am and all I want to do is have my family around. Even as I plan for my sabbatical, it feels more like a showdown with my self than a much needed and anticipated break. I am having to work very hard in my head to keep my heart on task. I feel like at any moment I could find a reason to bail, like I'm almost looking for a reason to say, "Nope, can't do it."
   It's very strange to see the change from when I was younger and didn't fully understand the value of time; I would even say humbling to recognize my former patterns, my selfishness and reckless abuse of that priceless gift. I can see my incredible lack of regard or respect for what a regimented and relentless taskmaster time can be. I wish I could say that I appreciate every moment and don't waste even a minute of time, but that is not the case.

   Time is one of those things that has to capture you. We all talk about things like "finding time" or "I wish I could catch a break". Somehow we have the notion that time is ours to barter, use, abuse, and waste, as if we have a endless supply. This very thought terrifies me more than anything else. Holly and I were laying in bed together last night and she asked me, "Are you afraid of anything?" "Are guys afraid of anything?" I lay there thinking about it for a decent amount of "time" and realized that the thing  I feared most was being without Holly, being alone. And then it dawned on me, that is completely wrapped up in the uncertainty of time. How much time do I have with her? How much time do I have period? How much time have I wasted and squandered and let slip away, or just plain chose unwisely, that could have been filled with relationship and love with my kids, family and friends? How much time have I allowed to slip through my fingers in my relationship with Jesus?
   So, here I am, sitting on the edge of taking time away from Holly and the kids to be alone with God and I am terrified that it will be a bust; nothing gained, no answers, no closer after than right now. Every single minute seems priceless in the face of being separated from those I want to be with.
   How many things in our life end with "I can't" or "I should" but are derailed by time or fear; either it takes too long or we don't have enough? This makes me wonder, "Is time really the problem or does God give us exactly what we need? This question is too big for this post, maybe I will ponder it and write about it at a later time.
   And so I leap. In the face of a thousand "I can't"s and flying directly in the face of "I should", I'm going. I will not be "should" on by me or anybody else. This is a place I know I can come simply and honestly, no role playing.
   Be praying for me please. The goal is to face myself and encounter God. One thing I know to be true about God and scripture, nowhere in scripture was there a time when someone encountered God and Jesus and they were not profoundly changed.

⁵ “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

⁶ “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.  Matt 6:5-6 (The Message)

    

A Scandalous Rendezvous

   Don't get me wrong, I didn't do a pilgrimage with Brennan, or spend months in a cave in Spain with him, or visit a leper colony with him, but I did spend a lot of time alone with him, pouring through the simple and honest pages of his life written every time he put pen to paper. There was just me, my broken self, and and my ragged attempts to know Jesus. I don't really remember when I was introduced to Brennan the author, but I will never forget my face to face encounter with Brennan the ragamuffin. It was at IOSF(Inside Out Soul Fest) @ Loon Mtn. New Hampshire.

   The only reason I went to IOSF that year was to hear Brennan speak and because the program said that he would be holding a Q&A after the seminar. This was of the utmost urgency for me, because I had a question that had been burning a hole in me from his book, Lion and Lamb: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus. In chapter 6, "The Transparent Disciple," Brennan wrote something that absolutely threw me for a complete loop, something that seemed completely scandalous.  It made me angry and upset and indignant. I remember feeling this, "how dare he," attitude,  to the point that I said to Holly, "I don't think I can read him anymore." I thought maybe he had crossed a line. It took me a few weeks to come back to the book after deciding that I needed to journey through this "scandalous God" and not just run away because it didn't fit my expectations or my understanding of God.

So let's get some things set that we know to be true, before I dive into this
 very fringe faith idea. 

1. God is Love; 1 John 4:8
2. We are created in His image; Genesis 1:27
3. The Bible clearly defines 3 different words for love in scripture:
1. agape (unconditional, selfless love)
2. storge (familial love)
3. phileo (brotherly love)

         There is a 4th word for love; "eros" or sensual love
            which is not in the Bible, but the idea of eros is:         

                     Song Of Solomon, Hosea and a big collection of the Psalms as well.

Okay, now with that being said...

    I am at ISOF and Brennan is finishing his teaching in his normal, but heart-rending way; simultaneously crying out for, and powerfully declaring, the ferocious and unquenchable grace of our Abba Father for us. I am anxiously waiting for the Q&A time, when all of sudden, he just finishes. The IOSF staff person enters the stage and says that Brennan will be at the speaker/artist tent for book signings. I was floored, overcome with disappointment, and visibly upset. I stood up and over the noise of the now exiting crowd I spoke out, "Excuse me, excuse me." I yelled for the staff person loud enough that the exiting crowd went quiet. I remember the staff person looking at me, along with everyone else in the venue. I don't remember what he said, but I shared that the event flyer had stated that there was supposed to be a Q&A session at the end of the teaching. "Are we going to do that?" I asked intently. The staff person said that he was not aware of the Q&A time, but that Brennan was scheduled to be at the artist/speaker tent in 5 minutes. I must have looked crushed, because I saw Brennan say something to the staffer and then he made his way out. The staffer came out to me said that Brennan would like to talk to me at the tent. So, I went down and got in line and this is where I got my book signed by Brennan, the one that is in the picture. When I got to the table where he was sitting and signing various items for people, I handed him my book, he signed it, and then said that if I waited for him to finish, he would come and speak with me. So I waited. 
   We made our way to a picnic table not far from the tent. I remember being so nervous and humbled to be with Brennan. To actually have one-on-one time with the author that had profoundly shaped the way I viewed Jesus and my Abba Father. Someone that taught me to define myself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion, and to live by grace which means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means.”

              ~~~~~~CAUTION!!!: Read this next part at risk of being scandalized ~~~~~~~ 

   Brennan asked me what is was that was on my heart so I told him the story of me reading Lion and Lamb and getting to the part of chapter 6 where he starts to unpack the eros love of God. The sensual aspect of Gods love towards us. I told him that it was incredibly hard for me to envision this being OK, that I could wrap my head around terms like tenderness and ferocious and undomesticated but sensual, i didn't know if I could do it. I told him I read that part of the chapter dozens of times and from that, I knew he was trying to convey something that was above me, that continued to elude me, but that I had an insatiable hunger to understand. I wish I could simply just plagiarize that part of the book, but I cant, so I will encourage you all to find it, buy it, borrow it from me whatever you have to do. Just please don't write me off as a heretic until you read it for yourself. 

   So in Brennan's grace and infinite patience with me he broke it down like this; He said that it was probably so difficult for me to accept this eros as it pertains to God because our concept of sex and sensuality are completely intertwined in our culture and that actually they are two radically different things altogether. That sensuality is a beautiful, romantic, wooing action of desired closeness and relationship and that sex is simply the physical gift from God to be shared between husband and wife.

    He told me a short story about a time he was crying out to God  in an incredible time of intimacy, God gave Brennan a new name, a name that was only for him and God to share. He said that God meant it for him and him alone and that up to that point he (Brennan) had never shared it with another soul. And then he asked me if I was married, I said yes. He said that that is the type of relationship that God desires between Him and us. He said there are things that you say and feelings you feel and passions you share with your lover that you would never share outside the confines of your marriage bed. That intimacy shared at that level is designed for only one lover. Jesus to his bride and us to Him. Isaiah 62:5 God desires us to meet with Him and expect to be seduced and enraptured by His love and desire for us. In the midst of Brennan working through this with me I began to realize that my view of God and my understanding of Gods love was so infantile and sterilized. So polluted with dogma and churchianity. That He longed and waited for me to return to Him daily He longed for me to desire time and intimacy with Him in the secret place, behind closed doors. A place created for Him and me to be together, safe from judgement and role-playing.

    In the book of Hosea, the marriage theme is a prominent one not only in chapters 1-3 but in various places in Hosea’s prophecy. For example, God is portrayed as a jealous husband (2:2-13) due to the infidelity of his wife Israel (as symbolized by Gomer). Israel has played the harlot by flirting with pagan idolatry (e.g., 4:10-18; 5:3-4; 6:10; 7:4; 8:4-6, 9; 9:1, 10, 15; 10:5; 11:2, 7; 12:11). Yet God is also portrayed as a faithful and loving husband who longs for and is willing to forgive Israel (2:14-3:5; 9:1; 14:4).

      As I listened to Brennan speak that day I don't remember most of teaching except for this one life changing piece that I have kept with me and shared many times in my journey  “Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick', whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.

'But how?' we ask.

Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'

There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.

My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.” 

To my long time friend(mostly through the pages of his writings) and one brief encounter

Thank you for telling the story of your very messy life and your multiple trips back to lap of your Abba

A young man once asked  an old Irish man whose face was filled with tears as they where walking together  "Whats wrong, why are you crying? The old man simply said "He is very fond of me"

In the journey, Bob

To all those that I love and all those that have not given up on me....

 We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.


(a beautiful scene of Mary running to Jesus after he fell
while playing)

   My intent was to post at least once a week. So goes many of the good intentions of my life.
  This is the last of the "Here We Go" installments. I have had a really good time and a lot of reflection over this quote from Nelson Mandela. Thank you for unpacking it with me. I hope that as you wrap this up with me you will feel compelled to leave some feedback. If it sucks and I suck as a blogger  please tell me. If it has struck you or made you think or reflect on something let me know. If you know something that would help me do this better, please give me that instruction. If the content seems irrelevant,  to bad this is my journey...lol. Write your own blog
    I have been struck with a very loud and powerful truth over the past few weeks and most especially this past Sunday. All of our kids were gone for the weekend and Holly and I had the house to ourselves. As we are not going to church right now I asked her last night, "Do you have any ideas for devo's in the morning, something you and I can unpack together and journey out?" We decided to re-watch The Passion of the Christ.
   I have only watched this film one time before today because of how profoundly it effected me. As we watched my mind continued to go back to a season in my life when I walked my faith with strength and conviction, proudly displaying Christ in me, a time when I felt filled with Christ and His Spirit more than I was burdened with my own.
   My favorite scene in the movie is when Jesus is crafting a table very intently and His mother calls out to Him, He doesn't answer so she comes out to find him in the workshop. She has food ready for Him. After a bantering exchange about His oddly high table(waist high or normal height for us), He starts to make His way to the house, she gives Him an "Oh no you don't, your a mess" look. She lifts a bowl of water for Him to wash His hands and he looks at her as if to say thank you and very mischievously splashes her. Shes surprised and turns quickly as they both laugh. I remember a time long ago when I had this kind of relationship with Jesus, very real, very organic, very special.
I miss it.....a lot.
   Year after year I have allowed my self to become a little less sensitive, a little more jaded and a lot more cynical, allowing rust and decay to take over my heart for people, and for seeing people free from all that binds them, cripples them and fears that consume them. Not that I ever had ANY power over those things in anybodies life. But I once had enough love for Jesus and people, and enough sense to get out of the way and let Jesus do stuff through me.
   I instead wore my wounds and losses and tragedies like a heavy cloak,or a like a Buffalo hide worn by the native Sioux peoples in the winter. I used them to give me excuse's to not care as much, to stay distant and disconnected except for a very select few, to justify my frustration with people not being able to handle there own crap. I grew more and more resentful of the pressures of ministry and the struggle to balance my work ministry and family. All this leads me to the last few sentences of the Mandela quote:
                We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of                       us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission
 to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

   One of the best decisions I have made in the past 5-6 years was to resign from my youth pastor position and leave the church. That decision was two fold. One I will unpack with you now, the other will wait for another post. That decision has brought to me a freedom that I have not felt in many years. It was a decision that was 3 years in the making. I knew in the summer of 2009 that it was time for me to plan an exit strategy which for me included no strategy at all. I was going to church on Sunday, standing up, quitting and walking out and never looking back. Cooler heads prevailed (thank God for Godly wives). I realized, talking through this with Holly and my good friends Dan and Bill that I had to consider my family above myself and begin to get my emotions in check and start this journey the right way.
   I definitely was ready to just get out, but I knew that for the sake of Holly and the kids that I had to do it with there best interest over my own desires and emotions. Holly and I have always done everything in ministry together and it was clear to me that she was not at the same place as me. So began the exercise of me waiting for God to do in her what He needed to do to get us in unity. This was without question very hard for me but also very necessary, as time would be a huge factor in teaching me sacrifice and humility. And as with all things in my life God used Holly to teach me something about listening and trusting.
   So hear I am trying to live as genuinely and honestly as I can manage before you, myself and God.

.“Here’s what I want you to do, Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace". Matt 6:6 (the Message)

    Forgive me for not living in grace and for choosing to live small.
    I have no excuse for showing up like this. I owe it to those that God has allowed me to journey with the very best of me, the most honest me, and you have not experienced that from me at all.
   My A.I.(action items) for this post are 
1. To admit that I have lived in fear of how Jesus wants to live through me. 
2. To admit that I have hurt many people by not living in the grace that God has been saturating me in. 
And 
3. To start BEING grace to those around me.
4. Set a date for my Sabbatical.

  “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matt 11:28-30

Thanks Abba
    

Faith Interrupted 2

Who am i to be...

  
   This is my buddy Rachelle. God blessed me and my family with three awesome weeks of relationship time with Rachelle living in our home. I absolutely loved our time together. Being together in community building relationship with someone for only three weeks is like Holly making her famous Toll House cookie recipe and only letting me smell them. There is a gap, a hole in the fabric of that relationship. That is Relationship Interrupted.
   Although we have been on separate coasts Holly and I have loved and missed Rachelle's mom and dad for almost 20 yrs. R..C.(dad) and Lauri(mom) have been very much a part of Holly's and my life since Genesis Discipleship Training Center, Santa Rosa CA 1991-1994. We have been in a constant state of Relationship Interrupted praying that God would allow us to be together. He gave us Rachel instead. Interesting. That is Relationship Re-connected.
   This issue of Faith/Relationship Interrupted is a very real and raw place for me in my journey out of "church"ianity.
  March 3rd marked one month since resigning my Youth Pastor position and stepping down from vocational ministry. After twenty two years in ministry and many valleys and mountain tops I stand on this side grateful for all that God has done, grateful for all those years of getting to partner with the best partner on earth, my beautiful and spirit filled wife Holly, but with that came being bloodied by the constant and what seemed endless confrontation with religion or as i like to call it "church"ianity.
   So with that, these are the ramblings of a man well loved, kinda like a teddy bear that's fur is worn off and missing an eye(by family and friends) and thoroughly abused, kinda like a teddy bear that's stuffing has been ripped out and arm torn off (by church and religiosity). (not to forget mention of more than a few of my own self-inflicted wounds)
   I have been reading specifically just the gospels and focusing on Jesus' encounters with people. Jesus is frequently involved in conflict. As a matter of fact, the gospels are filled with story after story of Jesus engaged in some sort of confrontation or conflict situation, many of which are initiated by Jesus himself. I have noticed something else. Not one of those hostel encounters was ever with a pagan (unless you count the Roman guards in Gethsemane who by the way were sent by the chief priests and Pharisees,) .
                            John 18:³ Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons). So I guess that doesn't count either. Every single one was with the very religious people.
   The gospels clearly show that during Jesus life and death, and especially documented throughout His ministry that religion is in the hands of the enemy and actually was the enemy. All of His opponents where people highly invested and committed to "doing religion right". They, the chief priests and Pharisees considered themselves "right" and above reproach. (Probably right up until the Temple quaked and the vale was rent in two.Or maybe it was when the midday sky went black for three hours. I'm not sure, I'll ask them someday. Jesus was very clear about His mission and what was before Him.
                             Luke 2:49   And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that               I must be about My Father’s business?”
   Jesus' mission had nothing to do with establishing religion and everything to do with restoring relationship with His broken and isolated children and He was very purposeful.

  The enemy is very clear about his mission as well. Satan is subtle and cunning. He won't blatantly engage us in spiritual warfare or show up in church. There's no need, all he has to do is deceive by distorting. His best tools are simple deception. What better way to keep people from Jesus than to distort Jesus. What distorted Jesus have you allowed to occupy your heart?
   George MacDonald, a great Scottish Prophet and teacher said, "How have we learned Christ? It ought to be a startling thought that we may have learned Him wrong. That must be far worse then not to have learned Him at all. His place is occupied by a false christ, hard to exercise."
   Many years of Faith Interrupted is now being summoned from the tomb to be reunited with my friend.
   That is Relationship Re-connected.
I am excited about this new season of my life and relationships. I am really looking forward to living better, loving better and being present more.

The journey is the destination,
Bob

    Religion gives the impression of having Christ while it inoculates you from experiencing Christ. by John Eldredge from:

Beautiful Outlaw: Experiencing the Playful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus by John Eldredge

 

   

Faith Interrupted

World English Dictionary

interrupt  (ˌɪntəˈrʌpt)
— vb
1.	to break the continuity of (an action, event, etc) or hinder (a person) by intrusion

    I woke today feeling overwhelmed, under confident, inadequate, beat up, and bedraggled.(thank you Brennen)
<Faith Interrupted.> I cant really explain why, or what the cause was. I would describe it something like how the flu hits, one minute your fine and the next you feel like curling up in a ball on a cold tile floor and dying. ( i know... thats dramatic)
    Conversation in my head as I layed in bed this morning:
me:             "theres to much at stake, I cant stay this way"
other me:    "close your eyes go back to sleep"
me:             "how do I get us through this?"
other me:   'you can't, don't bother"
me:             "my family needs me to be present and strong"
other me:    "your not present or strong, you have no ability to manage your self or your family"
me:             "get up get present, you don't have to get it right, just get at it. and right then I was reminded of what I have commited to blog about.(see post on 02/21/13)
  ..."We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. " quote by Nelson Mandela
   Holly having a loving desire to comfort me and rescue me, simply played a song she new I loved and it broke though almost instantly.

You're Everything   by David Crowder
http://www.worshiptogether.com/songs/songdetail.aspx?iid=569862

 You’re ev’rything I could want, that I could need.
If I could see You want me, could I believe?

’Cause You’re perfectly all I want, and all I need.
If I could just feel Your touch, could I be free?
Why do You shine so? Can a blind man see?
Why do You call? Why do You beckon me?
Can the deaf hear the voice of love?
Would You have me come?
Can the cripple run? Are You the One

to raise me up from this grave?
Touch my tongue and then I’ll sing.
Heal my limbs, then joyfully I’ll run to You.
Raise me up from this grave,
Touch my tongue and then I’ll sing.
Heal my limbs, then joyfully I’ll run to You.           

Faith Re-connected!
                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your playing small does not serve the world...

Not even a little.

   Am I playing small in my world?

   I have asked myself this question a thousand times in the past few years. There is no question that that is true. I have used the old battlefield adage "This is not the hill I choose to die on" as an excuse to avoid conflict way more than a well thought out or fully prayed through decision barometer.

   With that I feel I must confess and ask forgiveness to those I love and journey with on a daily basis.I have not served my wife well. I have not served my family well.  I have not served my students well. I have not served my friends well. I have not served those I despise well. Most importantly I have not served Jesus well.

   Please believe me, I have no intentions of trying to evoke any kind of pity or sympathy. I say all this not under a cloud of self-condemnation, but of discovery, of renewed hope and a profound experience of freedom.
   For many years, due to my own inability and my choice not to heal from "church"ianity and the loss of my dad, and my chosen profession of pre-hospital EMS I allowed myself to become bitter and jaded. I did not guard the gift God gave me that was once detected by everyone I came in contact with.

   I once lived out grace the way that God showed me grace when I first met Him. Bold, loud, merciful, compassionate, with wisdom, love and with reckless abandon. ("back when I was young and "unchurched"") I have been playing small for a long time. To the point that I have forgotten what my faith could be like, and what it used to be like to allow Jesus to use me without hesitation or embarrassment and reluctance.

                          ¹⁶ But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my                power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.

Exodus 9:16 (NKJV

Matthew 6:6

“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

John 4:23-24

“It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”

   My commitment to my wife, my family, my friends and Jesus is no more playing small. No more role-playing with "church"ianity and conterfiet faith. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.

   To those I journey with: Choose to live big. Choose to live and as my beautiful and very wise wife says everytime one of us leaves the house, "Leak Jesus today"

Peace to all



Thank you Papa for continuing to call me out on my crap and point me to you.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.....

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
~Nelson Mandela




Courage

   How do I as a man exhibit this for my sons and not screw it up. Culture has taught me and the rest of us that courage has to be a certain thing, event, risk, X-Game/RedBull/Street luge thing.
   Can it be to simply hug and kiss my 19y/o son in the parking lot as I leave him 300 miles away for college. Or to let myself cry when I miss the days of having all of my kids small enough to sit in the same chair as me and read them .(my favorite book to read to them)

So, my next handful of posts will be to unpack this very powerful and unbelievably deep quote from one of our days most prolific mystics.

   Why would we ( I ) fear being "powerful beyond measure"?

   I think part of it is I don't really understand "power(ful)" at all. My mind paints all kinds of explicit pictures of power. Some of them intertwined with Hollywood movie scenes, others, childhood memories of beating up bad people and rescuing my elementary school crushes (whom I still remember, but will remain unnamed to protect the innocent).
    I've heard it said once that, there are things you know, things you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know. Go back and read that a few times, marinate in it for just a minute or two. This very real truth I have tried to let reshaped the way I engage life and relationships.  Although, there was one place that I really got stuck.....

   I have spent the last 5 yrs. in a church ministry position that was cloaked in "The Gospel", but void of most of its power. It didn't start out that way, but a change of leadership came with a "Reformed" agenda. What was once a place that I experienced as alive and spirit led slowly became a place entrenched in legalism and liturgy. Rules and man made doctrines became mainstay.
   At every turn, at every discussion, at every meeting, there was a shift. Another degree of movement away from the original intent of those that started the fellowship. With that, the freedom I once knew in Christ and the once beautiful and often present voice of the Holy Spirit in me was almost silenced.

Exodus 9:16 (NKJV)

                          ¹⁶ But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my                power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.

   "Powerful beyond measure" can only come from one place.

                      It does not come from church.
                      It does not come from vocational ministry.
                      It does not come from the pulpit.
                      It does not come from "The Gospel".
                      It does not come from doctrine or dogma.

   True power comes from knowing personally and intimately Jesus and His Father and His Holy Spirit.

   Jesus said, "If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.” John 14:7

   We are "Powerful beyond measure". It is a fact that you and I must come to grips with.

                  "With great power comes great responsibility" by Stan Lee

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Peace to all

If you could invite three people to coffee, who would it be and why?

My son Jacob was filling out his RA(resident assistant) application for college and this was one of the questions.

•   If you could invite three people to coffee, who would it be and why?   

          If I could have coffee with three people it would be my father, his father, and Jesus Christ. I would like to mention that this coffee meeting would last an exceedingly long time. First, I would want to invite my father, because he is very much like myself. He is like me, but has a vast amount of experience which allows him to understand things far better than me. Second, would be my grandfather, whom I never met, but am named after. From everything I have heard about him, he was a great man, a man I want to be like. I would like to see the love, joy, strength, and faith in him that I hear so much about. Lastly, I would invite Jesus. Yes, this is cliché, but I want to be with Jesus and my father and grandfather. Jesus would say things both simple and complex and I would try to understand and apply them, but my father and grandfather would be able to see things I had never thought about. I would be a student to all three. More importantly, I would be a son to all of them. I would feel the love radiate off of the three of them and would feel whole, complete, and loved.

   Jake had asked Holly to proof it before he turned it in and she texted me and told me to check my email so I could see it. I was at work when I opened it up. I was completely overcome with emotion. Better described as undone. It was everything I could do from the moment I put my eyes on it to stay composed. I actually didn't even finish it, I couldn't. I knew if I read it all I would be unable to do my job for a bit.

   I was so blown away by his answer. I have struggled deeply with the loss of my dad, Donald James Bancroft, Oct 1993. I have always felt robbed and cheated by his death and never really explored how FUBAR'ed I really was. Holly anchored us through some very difficult years. In fact Jacob (of whom this post started) was born just about 2 months after my dad's death on Dec 9th, Jacob Donald James Bancroft.
  Thanks Jake for bringing me back to a place in my heart that I walled off. A place I need to spend some time. Love you Bud

Missing my friends

    We go through life coming in and out of peoples lives and sometimes we wonder why this friendship didn't work, or why this one did. Trying and working so hard to "make" friends. What does that even mean? We don't really "make" ANYTHING. We counterfeit everything we come in contact with, we mostly plagiarize great words and infringe on great music. We copy great recipes and live fake adventures through TV and movies.....Back to friends.
   I had one(a real friend). He's gone now, in eternity with his best friend Jesus.  Russ Bryant. Not Russ the Director, not Russ the Founder, not Russ the Emeritus. Just Russ. He showed me how to love simply by loving me. No gimmicks  no formulas, no magic Jesus dust, just honest, genuine beautiful grace. Not a perfect man, father or husband. Just a fellow sojourner willing to be simple and honest.
   Russ was the proverbial guy from the cartoons with the long white beard and the weathered face, overalls, and a pipe sitting in the rocking chair on the farmers porch of his quant little cabin, spinning truths into riddles and parables for us to try and figure out never really giving us the answer, but always just enough to help us find our own answers. I have searched for that guy all my life.
   So I then ask myself why does another great man die to early in my journey.
   My dad, Don Bancroft was killed when I was 23 yrs old. Just as was starting to get a clue and get a tiny bit of perspective as a young man.  Just as I was starting a family and my wife and I were expecting our first son. Hello God........what kind of crap is that.(more to come about my dad)
   So whats my point. I hope I don't always feel like I have to have a point in this blog process, my point today is I am ready to shake off, like a wet St Bernard, all the shallow relationships and disingenuous acquaintances and spend my very valuable time with those that are ready to go headlong into life and faith. The good the bad and the ugly of it. Those willing to poke me in the eye two knuckles deep and at the same time love me where I am.
  

Anticipating the death of a friend.

(texting conversation back and forth with Jake)
Jake: How ya doing Pops?
Me:   I'm doing ok. I had a really hard time this morn. Sad, overwhelmed, depressed. Spent some time in Psalms and a few minutes praying. I think I am about to enter into a very desolate time, someplace that its only me and Jesus. Church will fall away, friends will fall away and I will be left with family and Jesus(exactly what I asked for just not the way I expected it).
Jake: Are there any points of light in all that?
Me:   Yes. I feel like the initial injury was to stop me dead in my tracts. And now Jesus has been waiting patiently for me to clear my head of the initial event and settle into the long season of disability and reliance. So the light is the knowledge that I think Jesus is getting into position and orchestrating to be the one to pick me up, for Him to be the only one within earshot, that this season is the exact place I need to be, but completely terrifying at the same time.

    Thank you Holly for being the most incredible friend and inspiration in my life, anything good I write here or say here comes from you, and on the flip side anything offensive and stupid, you can be sure is coming from my stupid *ss.  
   I started the journey this year feeling beat up and bedraggled*, but Holly and I have never been better or closer. Some might look at my situation and feel totally out of control and buried (what and I don't!!!) but God has done an amazing thing in my heart this past couple of weeks setting me free from some real fear and mind numbing head trips. All of which I will be unpacking thought this blog. Ninety minutes ago I didn't even understand where to go to find a "blog" or that I had to first find a "blog" service before I could start a "blog'. A bit behind the curve I guess?!?
  So my goal is two fold, one, to blog my spiritual journey as genuinely and honestly as I can with all the grace this ragamuffin can pull together and two, to blog my new endeavor as one of the "unchurched believers". So, here we go.