desert direction

Community, the sharing of our lives with others, is one of those things for which deeply long and yet something from which we often try to protect ourselves. Relationships provide the greatest, deepest joys in life and also the most profound pain and hurt. We have a built in ambivalence toward others because we live in a fallen world.

In Psalm 133, David makes the assertion: “how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.” Certainly, he is extolling the wonderful virtues of living in relationship with others but notice his choice of words: “living together in unity.” He doesn’t say, “how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together with no conflict or with perfect agreement or without annoying each other or without pain or with no problems.” He chooses the word unity.

In Ephesians 4:1-3, Paul writes: “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The goal is unity and it is achieved through love … a love that is fostered through humility, gentleness, and patience.

We might wish that God would give us “conflict free, problem free, or hurt free” relationships, but He won’t. Jesus’ desire is that we take His yoke upon us (Matthew 11:28-30) and His yoke is humility and gentleness. The only way we can take His yoke is through bearing with one another in love.

Unity is not about perfect agreement or being conflict free, but choosing to relate to each other based on the reality of our “oneness.” In Ephesians 4, Paul goes on to say, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Notice the repetition of the word “one”? We are one in Christ. Unity springs from a love that focuses on our oneness.

Theologian Jean Vanier said: “Everything will resolve itself through love. Stop wasting time running after the perfect community. Live your life fully in your community today. Stop seeing the flaws—and thank God there are some! Look rather at your own defects and know that you are forgiven and can, in your turn, forgive others and today enter into the conversion of love, and remember, pray always.”

In Psalm 133, David goes on to compare unity to the sacred beauty of oil flowing down the priest’s robes. It is a picture of an extravagant gift. Unity is a gift because it reminds of the reality of God’s love and what He has done in us. The dew on Mt. Zion is a picture of God’s provision as well.

The beauty of community is not that everyone agrees or looks the same or thinks the same or … but that there is unity in diversity. When this happens, it is one of the greatest of joys because it is Jesus – not us – who becomes the center.

If we had “perfect” community, we might be tempted to live without God. If we had “perfect” community, where would we learn to be gentle and humble in heart? Maybe, just maybe, perfect community is found when we are living with the imperfect (including ourselves).

What do you need to do to embrace others in love today? What will taking the yoke of Jesus mean? What, in your life, needs to humbled? What will gentleness look like?

Love is verb, a noun, a desire, a concept, a goal, an ideal. It is frequently discussed but often misunderstood. While there is certainly a mystery to love, Anthony deMello, in an essay about love, masterfully describes love in terms that Jesus used in the Sermon on Mount. Below is deMello’s essay in its entirety. (source unknown, but complements of Br. David Vryhof)

The Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, said: “God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction.” The following echoes this sentiment in describing the attainment of love resulting in losing certain things rather than adding. Enjoy … 

Anthony deMello, “What is Love?”

What is love? Take a look at a rose. Is it possible for the rose to say, “I shall offer my fragrance to good people and withhold it from bad people?” Or can you imagine a lamp that withholds its rays from a wicked person who seeks to walk in its light? It could only do that by ceasing to be a lamp. And observe how helplessly and indiscriminately a tree gives its shade to everyone, good and bad, young and old, high and low; to animals and humans and every living creature – even to one who seeks to cut it down. So this is the first quality of love; its indiscriminate character. This is why we are exhorted to be like God, “who makes his sun shine on good and bad alike and makes his rain fall on saints and sinners alike; so you must be all goodness as your heavenly Father is all goodness.” Contemplate in astonishment the sheer goodness of the rose, the lamp, and the tree, for there you have an image of what love is all about.

How does one attain this quality of love? Anything you do will only make it forced, cultivated and therefore phony, for love cannot be forced. There is nothing you can do. But there is something you can drop. Observe the marvelous change that comes over you the moment you stop seeing people as good and bad, as saints and sinners and begin to see them as unaware and ignorant. You must drop your false belief that people can sin in awareness. No one can sin in the light of awareness. Sin occurs, not, we mistakenly think, in malice, but in ignorance. “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” To see this is to acquire the indiscriminate quality one so admires in the rose, the lamp, and the tree.

And here is the second quality of love – its gratuitousness. Like the tree, the rose, and the lamp, it gives and asks for nothing in return. How we despise the man whose choice of his wife is determined not by any quality she may have but by the amount of money she will bring as dowry. Such a man, we rightly say, loves not the woman but the financial benefit she brings him. But is your own love any different when you seek the company of those who bring you emotional gratification and avoid those who don’t; when you are positively disposed toward people who give you what you want and live up to your expectations and are negative or indifferent toward to those who don’t? Here too there is only one thing you need do to acquire the quality of gratuitousness that characterizes love. You can open your eyes and see. Just seeing, just exposing your so-called love for what it really is, a camouflage for selfishness and greed, is a major step toward arriving at this second quality of love.

The third quality of love is its unselfconsciousness. Love so enjoys the loving that it is blissfully unaware of itself. The way the lamp is busy shining with no thought of whether it is benefitting others of not. The way a rose gives out its fragrance simply because there is nothing else it can do, whether there is someone to enjoy the fragrance or not. The way the tree offers its shade. The light, the fragrance, and the shade are not produced at the approach of persons and turned off when there is no one there. These things, like love, exist independently of persons. Love simply is, it has no object. They simply are, regardless of whether someone will benefit from them or not. So they have no consciousness of any merit or of doing good. Their left hand had no consciousness of what their right hand does. “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty and help you?”

The final quality of love is its freedom. The moment coercion or control or conflict enters, love dies. Think how the rose, the tree, and the lamp leave you completely free. The tree will make no effort to drag you into its shade if you are in danger of a sunstroke. The lamp will not force its light on you lest you stumble in the dark. Think for a while of all the coercion and control that you submit to on the part of others when you so anxiously live up to their expectations in order to buy their love and approval or because you fear you will lose them. Each time you submit to this control and this coercion you destroy the capacity to love which is your very nature, for you cannot but do to others what you allow others to do to you. Contemplate, then, all the control and coercion in your life and hopefully this contemplation alone will cause them to drop. The moment they drop, freedom will arise. And freedom is just another word for love.

900 years ago, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote about four degrees or stages of love. He contended that “loving self for God’s sake” is the most mature, deepest kind of love. This has always intrigued me and even puzzled me. I’ve wondered: how does that idea mesh with what Jesus said about denying self? Isn’t it selfish to love yourself? to think about yourself? That seems to be what I’ve been taught over and over.

The first degree of love is “loving self for self’s sake.” That made sense to me. Our default position is to look out for ourselves and love (value) ourselves for our own sake. It is a selfish and natural approach. The second degree of love is “loving God for self’s sake.” When we first come into a relationship with God, we seek to love (value) Him but it’s because of what we get out of it. Certainly, the gift of salvation, new life in Him, the gift of the Spirit, etc. are gifts that bless us beyond imagination. As new believers, our approach is often that of loving God because of what He does in us and for us. This isn’t wrong, per se, but simply a love that is not fully mature. The third degree of love is “loving God for God’s sake.” Again, this approach fits with the idea of being a maturation of love in that we now love God, not for what He does for us, but for who He is. I think of the men about to be thrown into the fire in Daniel and they said: “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods.” (Daniel 3:17-18) In Job 13:15, Job says, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him.” This is loving God for God’s sake and it is clearly a mature kind of love.

But, the idea of loving self: how could that be more loving than “loving God for God’s sake”? It’s not until recently that it all started to make sense, and it was all thanks to Tom Hanks.

A few weeks ago, I saw Hank’s new film, Captain Phillips, in which he plays the captain of a cargo ship that is attacked by pirates off the eastern coast of Africa. Aside from it being an excellent film, what struck me is that, once again, I forgot that it was Tom Hanks playing the captain. Part of what makes Hanks a great actor is that you never think, “that’s Tom Hanks playing xyz character.” There are other actors who make huge blockbuster films who always seem to play themselves. They are interesting people and can pull off the action hero or the spy or whatever, but you are always keenly aware that they are in the movie. With Hanks, he never over powers a script but always seems to become the person who is a part of the story.

Here’s where Tom Hanks made sense of Bernard for me … he gets to know and loves the characters that he portrays. He becomes the character fully and embraces who they are. He forgets about Tom Hanks and becomes that other person. When we begin to believe that God has written us into the script of the story He is telling, we can begin to let go of the false self (this is what Jesus meant by “denying self”) and embrace the true us … the one God created and loves. As we allow Him to love us, we begin to love us … not the false us (defined by what we do, what we have, what others think) but the real us. To love ourselves is to embrace the real us in the context of God’s story. We don’t demand that He show up for us or do things for us, but we begin to ask how we fit into His story and His life. To love ourselves is to let Him love us and provide for us and define us. And, Bernard’s point is that we do this for His sake.

This is indeed the most mature kind of love because it requires embracing God’s love for ourselves. When this happens, we are connected to Him in a reciprocal relationship of love. We lay down the demands of the false self and simply let Him love us. Often, when we stop short at the third degree of love, we are focused on Him but don’t let Him focus on us which He desires to do.

Commonly, we stop short of loving ourselves for His sake because we deal with shame as it relates to the false self: “I don’t do enough” or “I’m not good enough.” Or, perhaps, we stop short because we are stuck in a cycle of trying please people. Or, maybe, we stop short because we’ve never felt the freedom to love the real us.

To love what God made (us) means to let Him love us which frees us to love Him in deeper, more specific ways than ever before. It enables us to simply be a part of His story as opposed to trying to get Him to be a part of ours.

Thanks Tom … I owe you one!

I read those words recently in book called The Kingdom Life in the chapter “Spiritual Formation from the Inside Out” by Bill Hull. In it, Hull relates a conversation in which he explained a new perspective on God’s calling on His life and the nature of leadership in the church. His words resonated deeply with me …

“I have spent a lot of my life trying to make things happen and trying to get the people around me to do what they didn’t want to do or have the character to do. I’ve decided to stop trying to change the world. I’ve even stopped trying to change the church. People seem to get so angry. I have decided to focus on changing me. I’ve hit a lot of walls in my life and have hurt a lot of people. I’m finished with that. I just want people to be attracted to Christ because of who I am and what I have to say and the way I say it.”

We often worry about people who talk to themselves. However, the reality is that we are always talking to ourselves. The function of our soul is to serve as the “operating system” which connects and integrates the heart and the mind and the body. (see part 2 of “Anatomy of the Soul”) With this kind of role, the soul is continually talking to the parts, trying to get them to work together. Most of this “talk” is running in the background of our lives and often with a very low level of awareness.

This metaphor of self talk is highlighted in a passage like Luke 12:19: And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” In this instance, it is a destructive self talk because it is not based upon truth and Jesus presents that reality in the very next verse. However, in Lamentations 3:24, it is a life giving kind of self talk that Jeremiah experiences while Jerusalem is in ruins around him: “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” Spiritual health and growth is a function of the kind of “talking” that occurs in the operating system of our soul.

A few years ago, Curt Thompson, a psychiatrist, wrote a book called “Anatomy of the Soul,” and in a recent talk about the book, he spoke about the powerful patterns that are present in our brains. He suggests that certain patterns and thoughts become “hardwired” into our brains. If we understand the brain as the physical counterpart or manifestation of the soul (i.e., the operating system), this is very helpful. In summarizing his research into how the brain can be “rewired,” he shares that there are three things he’s seen that help in the process: physical exercise (which makes sense because of the physical component to who we are), community (this connects with the reality that we relational beings at our core), and meditative prayer (this touches on a reworking of the self-talk in which we are always engaging).

Several years ago, I heard someone suggest that we don’t live according to reality but according to the stories that help us make sense of reality. The danger is that we live according to “narratives” (self-talk) that make us feel better and/or gives us a sense of safety and protection, but in reality separate us from the life that God desires for us. The narrative might be that I need to people please in order to keep from being hurt or that I need to be successful and make piles of money in order to be safe. For many, the story that gets adopted is the isolation story (keep your distance from unsafe people and most people are unsafe!) or the usefulness story (stay busy, be useful/needed). We might even engage (and this is a favorite among religious people) the perfection story which suggests that if we get our act together, all will go well for us. These are the kind of stories that fuel the operating systems of our souls.

The true story line/narrative/self talk is something very different and it begins with the heart and opening our heart to the love of God. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, He gave us two things (love God and love others, Matthew 22). Repeatedly, the writings of Holy Scripture link these two things together. In John 15, Jesus challenged His disciples: “as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you … love one another as I have loved you.” (vv. 9, 12) Clearly, love is the story line that Jesus challenges us to adopt. Love is the definition of what it means to experience Him. Be loved by Him and therefore love others! We are challenged to love others the way we are loved and we are loved the way that the Trinity loves each other. We are invited to learn the love that occurs (and has occurred eternally) among the Trinity.

The question is: how do we inbed Jesus’ story into our souls?

To go back to Thompson’s observations of the soul, meditative prayer seems to be the key. It has a rich Biblical tradition in the Old Testament and is assumed in the New Testament. Psalm 1 suggests that the wise man “meditates day and night” on the law. This speaks of concentrating our thoughts and hearts on Him. As opposed to praying a list or engaging in conversational prayer, this is a prayer of extended, quiet reflection on the person of God. Specifically, if we are going to see a new “story” imbedded in our hearts, it means gazing upon the beauty of the Trinity. It means taking Biblical truth and quietly repeating it to ourselves for an extended period of time.

For those of a more protestant tradition, one of the “babies” thrown out with the bathwater has been meditative prayer and the repetition of a word of phrase as a part of that meditation. In Matthew 6, Jesus warns against using “empty phrases” and thinking that we’ll be heard for “many words” but this is not an injunction against repetition but heartlessness.

The beauty of meditative prayer is that it can imbed a new story into the operating systems of our souls. The goal is to spend enough time each day (start with 10 minutes twice a day and grow from there) and day after day that new stories fade into the background of our lives, and then we find ourselves connecting with God throughout our day and thinking His thoughts and reflecting His ways from the unconscious parts of who we are.

What if the whole of our lives (our soul, i.e., life; see part 2) was organized around Him? Our hearts, minds, and bodies functioning together in perfect unity! If we approach that idea with humility, it might seem like a nearly impossible task. However, it can’t be impossible. Otherwise, why would Jesus talk to us about experiencing an abundant life (John 10), rest for our souls (Matthew 11), and finding our lives (Luke 9). Experiencing this kind of life isn’t about abilities or worthiness, but willingness  to let go of any sense of my abilities or worthiness.

Certainly, we experience tastes of this life now in anticipation of the final, forever feast in eternity, but the reality remains that we can experience tastes. How much of a taste and how often we taste is perhaps more related to our desire and willingness than ability or knowledge.

The issue of will and desire speaks of the heart. Being in touch with what we truly desire, as ones created in God’s image, is an issue of the heart. Yet, we often don’t live there. Because of hurts and worries and fears, we have a tendency to live elsewhere. Perhaps, we prefer to live in our minds where we can tell ourselves what we want to be true even if our hearts tell us something different. Or, perhaps, we like to live in our bodies where we just immerse ourselves in activity (of whatever kind) in order to numb the realities of our hearts.

Our tendency to not live from our hearts is the reason that Proverbs 4:23 counsels us to “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Keeping our heart, or attending to it, is vital for experiencing the life that He designed us to live.

How do we do that? First, we attend to our hearts when we determine to live from our hearts. If all of our lives are to be organized around Him, it starts with the heart. The heart is the control center of who we are, and it is the place where He dwells. He doesn’t dwell in our minds or our bodies except to the extent that our heart is informing the other parts of who we are. A balanced life, organized around Him, begins in our hearts. Second, we attend to our hearts when we pray and connect with Him … when we are bringing all that we are before Him. This is why the Scriptures encourage us to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). Third, we often let worries and hurts and fears pile up on top of our hearts, creating a hardened shell. So, rather than dwelling with Christ in our hearts and experiencing joy and peace and love, our interactions with our hearts are more about navigating hurt and fear and worry. We attend to our heart when we give all our anxieties to Him (1 Peter 5:7).

As we live from our hearts in these ways, our hearts begin to open and we find that there is a wide expanse from which we can live and move and have our being. In Psalm 119:32, the Psalmist affirms this idea as he writes, “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.”

Throughout the Scriptures, we are encouraged, “don’t lose heart” (Luke 18:1; 2 Cor. 4:1, 16; Eph. 3:13). The idea is that our hearts can shrink and our hearts can become small with worry and hurt. For most of my life I’ve suffered with asthma and when an attack occurs, it feels like my lungs become the size of a grape. I can barely get a breath. But when I take a puff on the inhaler, it feels that my lungs are enlarged again. We can allow our hearts to shrink down to the point that we feel we can’t breathe and so we think, “I’ll live from my mind or my body and ignore my heart.” God promises that He will enlarge our hearts and the joy that we experience is the freedom to run in His commandments. When our hearts are enlarged, we find that we have enough room to love Him and others. We find that there is enough love to go around so we don’t have to hoard it for ourselves.

The ancient mystic, Theresa of Avila, wrote about the heart being like a series of mansions with perhaps millions of rooms. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote that the heart has “a capacity … found worthy not only to receive the divine presence, but to able to make sufficient room! What can I say of her who can provide avenues spacious enough for the God of majesty to walk in!”

It is in our hearts that we experience Him. Theresa suggests that Christ lives in the depths of our hearts and we experience increasing oneness and closeness as we journey through the various mansions. As we learn to lay aside all worry and fear and sin and preoccupation, our hearts are opened wider and we dwell with Him in all His glory.                                             

What fears? What worries? What obsessions will you relinquish today so you would live from your heart with Him? Giving Him the cares of our hearts is like taking a puff on an inhaler … it gives space, the space to experience and enjoy … the space to love and be loved. The beauty of the journey is that He leads us step by step. He doesn’t show us the whole journey (it would likely overwhelm) but He shows us the next step. What is the next step for you?

Clearly, humans have a complexity to them. We aren’t simple animals who live by instinct but we are beings capable of joy and peace and love as well as hurt and despair and hatred. Quite often, we get confused as to why we do what do it. We seemingly desire one thing but do another. On the whole, our interior lives are not integrated with our outer lives and even parts of our interior world do not seem to be integrated.
In part one of Anatomy of the Soul, we looked at a translation of Jeremiah 17:9 which says that “the heart is deeper than all things and human, who can know it?” Grasping this should lead us to a humility and dependence upon the One who does know all things, including the anatomy of our soul. Knowing the anatomy of our soul is foundational but not the solution to (dis)integrated lives. Just as knowing how nutrition and human anatomy function won’t make me a healthy eater, simply knowing how our souls work won’t bring spiritual health. However, understanding how things work can lead to spiritual health, i.e., an integrated kind of life.
Dallas Willard, in his book Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ, says that spiritual formation occurs when “all of the essential parts of the human self are effectively organized around God, as they are restored and sustained by him. Spiritual transformation in Christ is the process leading to that ideal end, and its result is love of God with all of the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and of the neighbor as oneself.”

So, what are those parts? And, how do we begin to make sure that they are organized around the God who loves us and restores us and sustains us?

The Scriptures use various terms to describe us: mind, body, heart, soul, spirit, will, self, life. On one level, there is clearly an immaterial part of us and a material part of us; an inner life and an outer life. But, the terms suggest a bit more complexity as well.

The words heart, will, and spirit all talk about the same thing, the control center of one’s life. It’s the place where decisions and desires originate. When the Scriptures speak of having a new heart (Ezekiel 11:19), the words spirit and heart are used interchangeably. The heart is the capacity to run or operate one’s life.

The mind is the place where we have thoughts and experience emotions and recall memories. There are elements of our mind of which we are conscious and others of which we are not conscious. Lots of things we do each day happen without our awareness. If you’ve ever driven to the corner store and forgotten how you got there, the mind took over without full awareness on your part.

The body? This one is perhaps the most clear. It’s the physical dimension of who we are. It’s the place where the desires of the heart and the thoughts and emotions of the mind are expressed.

Finally, the idea of the soul is one of the most prevalent in the Scripture but perhaps the least understood. The words life and self are often used interchangeably with soul. First, it’s important to understand that we don’t have a soul, we are a soul. The Hebrew word for soul in the Old Testament Scriptures is the word nephesh which was used to speak of one’s life. The word was also used to speak of all living things, like animals. Soul is life. It is the interconnectedness of body, mind, and heart. It is the operating system on which everything runs. If the soul is healthy, there is an “integration” between desires and thoughts and actions. This is the idea of peace or shalom. We are at peace when all the parts of us are integrated and working together. If they are not, then we are not at peace and this is where we “crash” much in the way a computer might crash. If there is not integrity or connectedness between the parts, things don’t function well.

To go back to Willard’s definition, only when things are organized around Him is there spiritual transformation and spiritual health. Our ability to love and be loved flows from a healthy soul, a healthiness of all the parts working together.

So, how do things get organized around Him? How do we ensure that our souls are in His care? The answer is relational. As we grow in intimacy with Him (“The Lord is my shepherd”), he “restores the soul.” (Psalm 23) In other words, He heals that connection between heart and mind and body by bringing an integrity to the parts. Where we have thoughts that are in conflict with our hearts, He restores. When damaging emotions cause our bodies harm, He restores. As our love for Him invades each part of who we are, there is a progressive, deepening transformation. But, only He can do this. We are never told that we can restore ourselves. He restores and heals and brings peace.

Where do we start? One of the huge issues in our current culture is the busyness of life. How often have you thought, “I’m not all here.” Or, has a friend or family member ever observed, “you don’t seem to be ‘present’ tonight.” The busyness of our lives can cause a “disintegration” between our bodies and our minds and hearts.

There is an old African parable about a traveler who landed on the west coast of Africa with the intention of traveling deep into the bush. He hired several local guides who knew the lay of the land. The assured him it would take 4 days to reach their destination. After a day of going very quickly, the traveler realized they had made it half way. He excitedly calculated that the trip would only take 2 days with all their progress on day one. On the second morning, he woke up and hurriedly tried to get his African companions moving. They wouldn’t budge. He kept trying and trying, and then finally asked the interpreter what was going on. One of the guides replied, “We went too fast the first day and now we are waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies.”
In Romans 12:1-2, we are challenged to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice … as an act of worship.” Why? Because our bodies are what give expression to what is going on in our hearts and minds. Our life with God, with Him as our shepherd, is experienced in our bodies. If we are so busy that our “souls” need to catch up, we might have a desire for God and for “walking with Him” that never gets realized because our bodies are just going with the flow of life, on a sort of auto-pilot.

Living with an awareness of and enjoyment of Him in the moments of our daily lives requires a slowing down of our bodies. As I spend time alone with Him each day in prayer, I am able to practice His presence … I am able to embody an awareness of Him. Just as an athlete “practices” so that specific plays can be executed in the fire of competition, we can practice His presence so that we stay aware of Him in the fire of our daily lives.

Here are a few challenges:
1. We can unbusy our lives. To what do you need to say no so that you can spend regular, daily time practicing His presence?
2. We can spend time in silence and solitude (a bodily presentation of our selves) so that we can learn to be attentive to Him.
3. We can ask the Father to search our hearts and minds, and allow Him to shepherd those places where there is inconsistency with the truth of who He is.

All of these require a “presenting our bodies” to Him. Thankfully, He is a good shepherd who restores our souls.

guest blogger: Scott Savage

My church‘s mission is to challenge people to discover and live a Christ-centered life. Our aim is Christ-centered people. Sometimes, I feel like that statement should have had a footnote, which reads “don’t forget that you cannot become Christ-centered on your own.”

Why the footnote? Because being an American can work against being Christ-centered. We live in an incredibly narcissistic and individualistic culture. Those two factors work against being selfless and doing life with other people. The values of our nation are not in alignment with the values of the Kingdom.

Recently, my pastor, Jason Whalen, preached a series of messages about his core passions – as a follower of Jesus and a pastor. One of those messages was A Passion for Community. As a member of the creative team, I started thinking about stories from our church that illustrated this passion. One story came to mind immediately, but I was uncertain if the people involved would be willing to share their story that publicly. I was so grateful when they said yes.

The “yes” led to a short film that we titled The Secret Moms Club.

The video exceeded our expectations and the response from people in our church was incredible. As I stepped back from that Sunday and the experience of filming and producing that film, I’ve reflected on how community helps make us more like Jesus.

1. When we share vulnerably with each other, it becomes easier to share more vulnerably with God.

These ladies shared in the video about the vulnerability and transparency that they exchanged through some of the most emotionally traumatic experiences one can experience. (Sadly, during the filming and after the film was shown, we continued to discover scores of women who’ve had miscarriages and had no one to be honest with about it. We prayed that showing the film would make that sharing easier or more “socially acceptable”.)

Their experience reminded me that we can only be loved to the extent that we are known. If the people around us don’t know us – the good, bad and ugly, they are unable to love us in those places. The more we make ourselves known to the people around us, the more places they have to love us. When the people of God express acceptance and love towards us in those places of brokenness and vulnerability, we begin to believe that this is God’s posture towards us as well. We know this from the opposite experience – when spiritual community is a place where hiding and shame are normal, then we begin to expect the same thing from God.

2. We experience God’s work in our life through the actions of people who are yielded to Him.

I’m not sure what Jesus looked like. Was he taller or shorter than me? Did he have a beard or a goatee or a hipster mustache with handle bars?

One thing I do know – Jesus looks like the people who have loved and cared for me.

In August 2012, I was working with a team, trying to discover how we could transition the Sunday evening service we had been leading. At the end of one of our meetings, which frankly had not gone well, I broke down and shared that I was heading away for a personal retreat. I opened up and shared about how I felt like I had nothing left as their leader. I went to dig deeper and found nothing. I was terrified of being vulnerable, but the love and grace I received overwhelmed me. As they laid hands on me to pray for me, I broke down and cried. (I’m about to cry just reliving it). That experience gave me the confidence that God was going to meet me the next day in my moment of greatest need. The following months became a process of moving from burnout to renewal. (Recently, I chronicled that journey in a blog, that you can read here).

When I isolate myself and avoid community, I decrease the avenues through which God can express His love and are in my life. When I come out of hiding and embrace community, I meet Jesus all the time as He moves through the people who follow Him.

3. If C.S. Lewis was right when he said “we need to be reminded more than instructed”, then a community of people becomes a powerful memory-triggering device to us.

In an age of information overload, we read and forget more information than we retain. We listen to and forget sermons, Bible Study lessons and insights from our own personal study. When information overload meets the frenetic pace at which we live, it becomes paramount that we remind each other of:

• Who we are in Christ…
• God’s posture towards us…
• Where we are compared to where we’ve been…
• Our gifts and calling in the world.

When we experience victory, the celebration is much greater when we have company. When we encounter crises, navigating them becomes easier when we have help. The highs are higher and the lows are not as low, when we reject isolation and embrace community.

In his book, Becoming a Spiritual Community, Larry Crabb writes, “together in Christ encourages movement toward Christ.” There are so many important pieces to include in your journey towards Christ-centeredness. I am not really sure one is more important than the other. But I know you will not get there on your own. There are no self-made men or women in the Kingdom.

You cannot become like Christ on your own.

Scott Savage is a husband, father, writer and pastor. He serves as the Minister to Young Adults at North Phoenix Baptist Church. He blogs at scottsavagelive.com. When Scott laughs, his cackle can be heard around the world. 

I’ve read two blogs this week that are very worthy of sharing … paradigm challenging kind of things that I love. Enjoy …

http://www.homesteadhouseretreat.com/2013/06/07/you-cant-handle-the-truth/

http://soulformation.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/theory-and-practice-in-the-spiritual-life/

In addition, I am going to post a blog from a guest blogger later tonight. Scott is a friend who is passionate about seeing people spiritually formed into Christlikeness and it’s a joy to get to share this space with him.