Assess Your Success

It’s a good idea to periodically assess where you are at in your journey and evaluate whether you’re making the kind of decisions and progress needed to accomplish what’s most important. Amidst all the busyness and demands of life it becomes so easy to stop differentiating focus and purpose from distraction and busyness. I’m reminded of the football coach Vince Lombardi who upon realizing his team was missing the forest for the trees started a team meeting with, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” We all need to get back to the fundamentals regularly, lest we miss the point of it all.

Someone posed an important question to Jesus. His answer significantly impacts us today. A man wanted to know the most important things in life upon which he should be focused. Jesus informed the man that two things were more important than all others. Our highest priority is loving God and the second is loving others. This suggests that when it comes time to judge our lives, these two highest criteria will outweigh all others (not to determine our salvation but our eternal rewards). Given this case, it makes a lot of sense for us to be evaluating ourselves by these same two criteria at regular intervals along our journey.

So, how much better are you at loving God than you were 5 years ago? There is no condemnation in this question. And neither is the desired response one of self-strength or trying harder. It takes God to love God. But it does require intentionality. More than anything else, loving God is a response to who He is, what He’s already done for you, how He feels about you and the promises He’s spoken over you. Love begins with God and ends with Him too – indeed He is the Alpha and the Omega. As a matter of fact, everything outside of God happens because of God and is intended for His pleasure. The only lasting thing offered by anyone other than God is a response of loving Him in return – everything else will be burned up as dross and remembered no more.

We have all the motivation we will ever need to love God wholeheartedly. Every good thing comes from Him. The only right and just response is that of sincere gratitude and thanksgiving. Consider that everything that has ever happened to you fits into one of three categories. First, what you experienced was an act of God designed to demonstrate His unconditional love for you. Second, it was the work of the enemy intended to rob you of thankfulness and replace it with bitterness, accusation, rage, religious self-reliance and independence. Third, it was something trivial that will amount to nothing.

If we were honest with ourselves, most of us would have to confess that most of our energies are spend on the latter two instead of the most important thing. All the work of the enemy is meant to either distract us from loving God or to outright destroy our love for Him – ultimately leaving us shaking our fists in rage against Him. But the love of God is far more powerful than any of the works of darkness. When we come into alignment with the transcendent love of God, none of the works of darkness could distract us or rob us of continual gratitude.

A life lived to its ultimate purpose is one given wholeheartedly to rejoicing in all things at all times. Such a life gives no consideration to the futile thinking of man or religion. Fear, accusation and anxiousness have no power over such a focused lifestyle. It is all about trusting ultimately in God’s ultimate goodness as well as His ability to save us from every circumstance life throws our way. This is the life everyone experiences who dwells in God’s eternal presence. Yet, that same lifestyle is available to us today by faith.

If we are not living life to its fullest potential, we may just be missing the point of it all and need to get back to the basics. Jesus might start a team meeting by getting back to the basics with a discussion something like this… “This is God. He is the giver of all good things. Your life is meant to be a response to His loving kindness. When you respond to His love with love, your life has meaning beyond this short little existence. Otherwise, all the works of your hands and the very breath of your lungs are nothing more than a vapor in the wind. So, get back to the basics and love God as God deserves to be loved.”

These same principles apply to loving others. Equally so, our ability to love others comes not from within us. This too is a gift from God. It is only through the process of loving God and allowing His love to transform us that we are capable of giving what only comes from God. We are able to love others when we experience a love that transcends our own. Then, we become a conduit of something we ourselves do not possess. God’s love is so powerful that it can flow through anything. We simply have to stop trying to generate love from within us and focus on God so His love can freely flow in and through us.

Anyway, this is just a reminder of what you already know. If you’ve gotten off track, it only takes a change of heart to get you back on track once again.

God, I repent for loosing sight of what matters most. I confess that I’ve elevated trivial things above eternal ones. Please forgive me for allowing the works of the deceiver to rob me of thankfulness. I want to realize every opportunity for thanksgiving that comes to me each moment of life. I want to align myself with your love. I want to return to you what you so freely give. I give you permission to touch me and love me until I become a conduit of your love to others. In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen.

Read more of John Tisdale’s articles at www.ocean.org.

The 4 Stages of Our Spiritual Journey

Where are you on your spiritual journey? Are you where you think you should be? Have setbacks and snags slowed your progress? Do you want to overcome your current constraints and break free into the next level of spiritual maturity?

The vast majority of people are stuck in one of 3 stages. We don’t realize where or how we got stuck. Even more importantly, we have no idea how to get back on track toward experiencing more meaningful life. If that describes you, then you’ve come to the right place.

I’m going to walk you through a process of discovering in which of 4 stages you are at in your spiritual journey. Then, I’ll help you identify how to get unstuck from your current stage and advance into the next level of spiritual maturity.

First, I want to define what I’ve come to believe to be the 4 primary stages of our spiritual journey. I’m not suggesting these are the only ways to slice it up. Indeed, I there are dozens of ways or unfolding the elements of our spiritual journey. Nonetheless, I believe the 4-stages I will define here provide significant clues to help you get breakthrough and advancement.

The 4 stages of our spiritual journey are as follows:

1. Independence & Rebellion
2. Religiosity & Legalism
3. Freedom & Expansion
4. Devotion & Selfless Surrender

Lets consider each of these four stages.

Stage 1: Rebellion & Independence
We all start our spiritual journey at the same place. We are born into this world in a state of broken relationship with God. Although we are created in the image of God and have immeasurable worth and value, we are born as fallen people in a fallen world. This is stage 1 of our spiritual journey. Here, we desire to be good and do good but we constantly find ourselves falling short of fulfilling those desires. Our efforts to try harder serve only to expose the reality that we don’t have what it takes to make our lives work the way we want.

In stage 1 in which we are born, we tend to fight against this fallen tendency through three primary coping mechanisms. First, when we fall short we muster up our strength and try harder. The underlying belief here is that the answer is within us. We just have to try harder to find it. Second, we tend to hide and deny these tendencies (from ourselves and others). We somehow think that if we pretend our neediness away, we can somehow make our lives work anyway. Third, we divert attention to our brokenness by shifting the blame to others (God, our parents, the person who pulled out in front of us in traffic this morning, etc.).

Everyone living in stage 1 is in a state of constant conflict with God’s law. That is, our conscience is aware that we are falling short of the requirements of God’s commandments. So, there is awareness in our souls that we are falling short. Guilt and shame emerge from this struggle. We respond to this shame with blaming others and trying to balance our faults and failures against our achievements and successes. This is the unending struggle to find lasting inner peace and it’s always just a little beyond our grasp.

The defining characteristics of stage 1 are independence and rebelliousness. We prefer to look to ourselves to solve our own problems. We tend to deny our faults and hide from our neediness. When our lives start falling apart, our natural response is to grid our teeth and try harder. We prefer to cover up our weaknesses and trust our own ways, abilities, knowledge and strength rather than appear weak and ask for help.

In stage 1 we may claim to trust God, but our actions reveal that our trust is really in ourselves. We only trust areas of our life over to God that we are unable to meet ourselves – like for the forgiveness of our sins. Ultimately, we believe we have our own best interest in mind more than God. We only go to God when it is absolutely necessary and then we only accept as much help from Him as we have to. When we do go to God, we try to make ourselves as presentable as possible and to minimize our neediness.

This response to life serves to push God away and keep Him at arms-length distance. Although we may not easily see it ourselves, in the core of our being we are hostile toward God. We prefer to be independent and self-reliant. We respond to God out of a rebellious spirit. What room we do give Him in our hearts is given reluctantly and in measure. If we didn’t fear eternal judgment, we would just as well shut Him out of our lives completely and make life work according to our own ways of thinking. Somewhere deep inside is this feeling that we could do a better job of being God than God is doing.

This response to our fallen nature and neediness doesn’t lead to abundant life. Rather, it keeps us trapped within our own limitations. The most we can ever hope to get out of life must come from within us. That is a scary proposition. If we persist in this approach to life, we will never move out from death and into life. We are destined to spend the rest of our lives manifesting our brokenness and fighting against it every step of the way.

Many people never make it out of this stage due to one or more of the following reasons:

1. We have taken up offenses towards God for unresolved events in our past or how He governs created order (i.e. our reality) and are too angry with Him to get past those offenses
2. We trust that we are watching out for our own good more than God is (in other words we really trust ourselves more than we trust God)
3. We are unable to contend with and let go of our rebellious, independent nature in order to attain something better that’s within our grasp that is only found in laying down our self-strength and coming to God in humility and repentance to receive the better things He is holding for us
4. We are too proud to admit we need help in any way
5. We love our sin too much to exchange it for something that is ultimately better, although we are largely blind to that fact in stage 1
6. We take offense at the notion that God’s only acceptable terms for salvation are faith and trust in His one and only Son Jesus Christ that He paid for by His perfect life, blood and death
7. We cannot allow ourselves to stop trying to save ourselves and let Jesus do all the work and take all the glory

The vast majority of the human race never makes it out of this stage for the above reasons. The key to advancement is a transfer of faith from ourselves to God. It requires a realization that we have no spiritual life in and of ourselves. God is the sole possessor of life and if we want to experience it, we must trust God more than we trust ourselves. This is the kind of faith that lets go of our hiding, pretending, trying harder and self-protection. It bets everything on God’s goodness and faithfulness. It requires us to stop trying to save ourselves and with absolute abandonment to leap into the arms of Jesus as the sole guardian of our life and salvation.

Stage 2: Religiosity & Legalism
For those rare people who overcome the barriers needed to transfer our faith from ourselves onto Jesus, we enter into the second stage in our spiritual journey. This is the first stage of learning to live in relationship with and submission to God, His Son Jesus and His Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, everyone enters this stage with lots of residue from the previous stage still controlling our thinking and decision-making processes. Although this is the first stage of learning to live in communion with God, our hearts are largely dominated by unbelief and immaturity. Our hearts have made the leap of faith but our mindsets and paradigms lag far behind. Although we have entered into the household of God, we still think like outsiders.

As a result, most people in this stage are trying to live out faith, trust and communion with God but we haven’t made the necessary paradigm shift to really live out of what Jesus paid for us to have on the cross. Instead, we are settling for something far less. In essence, we are living as slaves in God’s household instead of sons. We don’t realize we have been given a position of limitless favor in God’s household that extends to all areas of life and circumstances.

This lack of awareness leaves us struggling to try to bear the weight of the burden of the law. We desire to imitate Jesus, but we do so through self-strength instead of resting in our position of sonship in Jesus. Even though we are freed from the law because Jesus fulfilled it and are living under love, grace and unconditional acceptance, we still feel like imposters in God’s house. So, we walk around on eggshells in God’s household hoping no one finds us out and gives us a swift kick in the seat of the pants out the door.

The defining characteristic of stage 2 is fear-based thinking and decision-making. Although the person in stage 2 has moved into God’s household of faith, they still live with all the fears associated with being on the outside. Hence, people in stage 2 tend to carry on endless internal mental conversations that are driven by fear. We play out worst-case scenarios in our heads out of a desire to head-off any possible threat to our peace or position in God. Life is lived in one reaction to a fear after another after another and so on without end.

In stage 2, we are largely motivated by fear of man and trying to live up to other people’s expectations. Although few people in this stage could see it clearly enough to admit it, the underlying belief is that our position in God’s household is somehow connected to other people’s acceptance and approval of our position there. It is as though other people have the authority to kick us out of God’s household. As a result we feel as though we have to meet everyone’s expectations of us or even our perceptions of their expectations. Mind games consume a large portion of the bandwidth of people living in this stage of spiritual immaturity. As a result, they tend to be effective due to their fears and distractions.

The reason for the underlying feeling of illegitimacy during this stage is that we are still living out of that same old self-based paradigm that is a carry over from the independent lifestyle of stage 1. I call it a self-based paradigm but it is really more of a sin-based paradigm. We live lives inwardly focused. Because there’s no life within us, that inward focus becomes a sin-focus. We are constantly aware of sin and shortcomings.

I have a young believer in Christ that I mentor in another country that I visit once or twice a year. During my last trip, he told me he can’t go much longer than 5 minutes without committing some mental sin. So, he is constantly repenting. He feels he never gets anything done or makes any forward momentum. So long as we are focused on our navel, we’ll be constantly tripping and falling. There are far better things to stay focused on other than ourselves. If in response to every situation that arises in life, we keep our focus on Jesus, we are much more aware of solutions and opportunities. The end result is that sin moves from playing a prominent role to an insignificant one in our lives.

In stage 2, we tend to connect our position in God’s household in some way with our behavior. Yet, it has nothing to do with our behavior and everything to do with Jesus’ completed work on the cross. When we get confused on this point we end up trying to work out our salvation ourselves instead of resting in God’s provision. We try to walk out our faith through a paradigm of independence and self-strength from stage 1. The two really don’t mix and end up producing all kinds of strife and unrest. Such attempts at self-based living for God are doomed to failure. We can do nothing for God or for ourselves. All life flows in one direction – from God to us and never from us to us.

Our acceptance into God’s household isn’t based on us at all. Jesus was labeled a friend of sinners by His combatants. But they really hit the nail on the head with this declaration. Jesus was a friend of sinners when He walked around the earth with prostitutes and tax collectors. And nothing has changed about this tendency – it is strategic and deliberate. Jesus isn’t threatened by His proximity to sinners as are we (especially in stage 2). Jesus was and always will be a friend of sinners. He accepts us not on the basis of our acceptability but on the basis of His. Our behavior really plays no part in our acceptance into God’s household.

Because people living in stage 2 are so focused on trying to live up to our newfound position in God’s household, our faith tends to become more focused on legalism and religiosity than it does living out of the reality that we are sinners unconditionally loved by a righteous God who gave up His life in order to clothe us with His righteousness. As such, stage 2 dwellers tend to be focused on trying to do everything just right – lest we stand out of the crowd and look like the imposture we subconsciously feel we are.

This level of self-scrutiny tends to lead to a critical spirit. We are critical of ourselves because we feel like illegitimate children somewhere deep inside. But, we don’t want anyone to discover this deeply guarded (and self-denied) fear. So, we take an offensive position to guard against its discovery. Like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, we go above and beyond the measure and calling of the law. We go through our day trying to cross every t and dot every spiritual i. What’s more, this critical spirit tends to reach out and latch onto anyone in close proximity to us.

Because we feel guilty inside and like an imposter in God’s household, we try to balance our internal scales by shifting blame onto others around us. We are constantly searching for a scapegoat for when the next wave of guilt and shame hits. So, anyone who isn’t living up to our so-called high standards of spirituality, we conveniently marked with a bulls-eye squarely on our chests.

This leads to accusations and judgmentalism. Spiritual clicks develop where everyone is judged who isn’t in our elite group or doesn’t live up the standards established by our superior little group. The problem with this lifestyle is that it has no life or truth in it at all. It sucks the life out of everyone who falls for its charades and leaves nothing but spiritual death in its wake.

Many people in this stage also get caught up in intellectualism. We want to learn as much as possible to win every theological argument and disguise our feelings of illegitimacy (and I should point out that many who think we are in the faith are completely self-deceived – Jesus used the word many to describe the number of people who fall into this group on judgment day). Knowledge that doesn’t lead to personal transformation hardens the heart and leaves one in worse shape than before attaining that spiritual knowledge. Indeed, knowledge puffs up. It leads to pride and judgmentalism.

Also, many people in this stage are still trying to find any excuse possible to dip our toe into the former pleasures of sins we knew so intimately in stage 1 (and to subsequently dive in up to our necks and wallow in it as circumstances permit). This carnality leads to guilt and shame. Shame leads to hiding ones weaknesses and therefore isolation and darkness. This is another self-feeding cycle that leaves many stuck in this stage and unable to find our way out.

I should point out that there is no condemnation for anyone being stuck in this or any other stage. There is only opportunity to step into the deeper waters of life to be found in the further stages of spiritual maturity. As a matter of fact, the only way out of this stage is to step out from under the avalanche of condemnation. The cycle of trying harder, falling short, feeling guilt and shame, and trying to shift the blame to others and to balance ones scales is a tormenting one. It is difficult to break out because the cycle endlessly feeds itself keeping the person stuck in this darkness.

The first step out of this stage is to stop looking at yourself and your shortcomings and realize that the whole purpose of your spiritual journey really has nothing to do with you. This should come as a huge relief when you really come to understand it and take ownership of it. You are not the center of the universe – God is. Your faults and failures are a drop in the ocean compared to God’s resolve to fill His house with broken people redeemed and healed by His love. Your legitimacy as a member of God’s household has nothing to do with you or your behavior. It has everything to do with the heart of the Father to adopt you into His household on the basis of the completed work of Jesus on the cross. So, you can start getting over yourself and start learning to fix your gaze on the person of Jesus. This is the path to life. The more you come into alignment with this reality, the faster you will move toward the next stage of spiritual maturity.

God thought up this plan of salvation. He instigated it. Jesus perfectly and completely fulfilled it and finished all its requirements on the cross. God did 100% of the work leaving us nothing to do in it but believe He is just that good and receive it all without merit. Jesus looks at us in all our shortcomings and says something like “Hey you look like a filthy sinner to me – just my kind of person. I love sinners, my favorite kind of people. I’m filling my house with sinners. Want in? The only catch is you can’t come in wearing those filthy slave clothes. You need unspotted clothes like mine and a ring signifying your sonship, approval and authority of the Father. But, hey I know you don’t have any of those things. So, here’s the good news. I want to trade your filthy slave garments for my white ones. Don’t worry, I’ve already fulfilled all your debt and slave obligations. So here, take my robe of righteousness and this ring of sonship my Father gave me. He said I can let anyone into the household I want. I’d really like you to be with me. I will never leave you, reject you or change my mind. I just need your approval to move forward. What do you say – you in? If so, by all means make yourself at home.” This is the gospel message.

The process of coming into alignment with this reality is what stage 2 of our spiritual journey is all about. The further we move from stage 1 independent thinking toward seeing our true identity of sonship in God through Jesus, the quicker we advance into the next stage of spiritual maturity.

Many people never make it out of this stage because of one or more of the following reasons:

1. We feel ownership of the guilt, shame and accusations so deeply we cannot separate our identity from it.
2. We are more concerned with pleasing people and following our traditions than pleasing God and experiencing abundant life in communion with Him.
3. We have never seen anyone walk out anything more than stage 2 as a lifestyle and we are afraid to take the risks to move out into the unknown.
4. We are so unaccustomed to dealing with the issues of our heart that we prefer to coast through life as much and as comfortably as possible (it is like leaving a splinter under your skin because it hurts to touch it – but it will only fester and become more painful and sensitive to touch over time).
5. We are still trying to live out of a self-focused lifestyle of self-strength and self-righteousness as much as possible.
6. The people we have seen who have advanced beyond this stage are too free and that feels unsafe and too out-of-control to us. We prefer to keep our world small, safe and in control (or at least hold to the illusion of our control).
7. We are unaware there is anything beyond this stage and so out of ignorance we make the best out of this life of spiritual crumbs.

Stage 3: Freedom & Expansion
When people come to realize the true freedom that is available to us in Christ, we are positioned to shift into the third stage of spiritual maturity in our journey. This stage is the beginning point of experiencing life lived under the new covenant established by Jesus Christ on the cross. If we have the gumption, we journey out of legalism into the land of freedom. This is all about living out the freedom Jesus bought for us through his fulfillment of the law.

This is the stage where people begin to experience the lifestyle God intended for us as sons instead of slaves. This is where you realize that in Jesus, you are freed from the bonds of sin – you just don’t have to go there anymore. You learn that there’s far more wide open places in Jesus than you ever realized was possible.

So, you begin exploring the boundaries. How far does God’s favor go? How much authority do you have as a son in His household? How do you live life now that it isn’t about you and neither is it on you to make happen? You begin to understand what Jesus meant when He said to come and take His yoke upon us because He is gentle and humble of heart. What does life look like without guilt and shame occupying so much of your time and energy? What do you give yourself to now that there’s so much freedom and life available to you?

It’s not unusual for people entering into stage 3 to experience somewhat of a pendulum swing. All we’ve known our whole lives is legalistic religiosity. Now that we are beginning to experience freedom from enslavement to the law and life lived as sons in His household, we aren’t motivated by ought-to’s, and should-do’s. It is like our whole framework for life has been pulled out and a totally different one that operates on higher principles is put in its place. It can be disorienting.

Someone may say something like, “I used to not do x, y and z. Now that I am no longer under the law and am living under grace, is it okay for me to do x, y and z.” Now I am not talking about choosing to sin deliberately. Rather, people who live in stage 2 live like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. We built all kinds of rules on top of the law. This is a time in which many people ask meaningful questions about what life in Jesus is really meant to look like.

It tends to lead to a time of studying God’s written word and differentiating man’s traditions from God’s ways. People in stage 2 think that man’s traditions are God’s ways. Stage 3 is a process of realizing this isn’t true and learning to distinguish between the two. Much of what is called biblical in our culture really has its roots in man’s traditions and agenda. When we are in stage 2, we can’t distinguish between the two but in stage 3, this becomes a process of exploration. We began to learn the difference between religiosity and spirituality. We begin living out of spirituality and disengaging from religious activities, mindsets and decision-making paradigms. We are in the process of moving from death into life.

In stage 3, we begin letting down our guards of self-protection perhaps for the first time. Many go through a process of reexamining lifestyle decisions and such. Some people take our newfound liberties too far into libertinism during this phase. This tendency is understandable as it is like a bird leaving the nest and discovering it has wings. At the same time, this is an important time to have accountability, transparency and lovingly confrontational friendships with mature believers so imbalances can be brought back in check.

Some people never make it out of this stage because of one or more of the following reasons:

1. We taste of freedom and fresh air for the first time and like an animal that has been starved for periods of time, it hoards these liberties and may even take us to excesses.
2. Some people will take these liberties to extremes and back into sin and we love our sin too much to give it up.
3. There are subcultures within the larger culture of faith where libertinism is a standard paradigm. People can get trapped into thinking that the highest goal of faith is to experience as much freedom as possible without obligation or responsibility.

Stage 4: Devotion & Selfless Surrender
Whereas stage 3 is all about exploring and discovering our freedoms in Jesus out from under the law and the old covenant, this stage is all about returning to the healthy balance between legalism and absolute freedom or even libertinism. The balance found in stage 4 is all about coming into devotion on the other side of freedom.

We learned in stage 3 just how much freedom we have in Jesus. Once we’ve come into ownership with our freedom, we are once again confronted with some lifestyle choices. If we really are free in Jesus and we don’t have to be so inwardly or sin-focused and we don’t have to live out of our own strengths, how do we live our lives?

Stage 4 is all about learning to respond to God out of devotion. People in stage 2 are responding to God out of religious obligation. People in stage 3 are exploring just how big life is in God. In stage 4, we bring it back full circle to respond to God something like this, “God, I’m so glad I don’t have to try to live up to the character of Jesus out of my own strength. As a matter of fact, I can’t. I’m also glad to discover that in Jesus He meets all my needs in abundance. Now I come back to you having explored all the territory you’ve given me and I just want to sit down here by your side and minister to you out of devotion. Since I don’t have to focus on getting my act together, I’m freed to focus on you. So, I choose to give you what you don’t require me to give. I give you all of my heart, my life and my undivided devotion.”

When we discovered in stage 3 just how much we’ve been freely given in Jesus, it leads to a transformation in how we view ourselves and God. It tenderizes the heart. It’s true that His kindness leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). When we come into ownership of our identity in Him and our favor in His household, it generates adoration and devotion. Our focus shifts from ourselves in stage 2, to our liberties in stage 3, to simply Him in stage 4. He takes His rightful place as the center of our universe in this final stage of spiritual maturity.

When we realize God isn’t putting expectations on us to live up to His standards but that He clothes us in His righteousness, it takes all the weight off of us and puts it squarely on His shoulders. This changes the way we relate to Him. When His heart and His plan of redemption come into focus, it brings into clear light any unresolved anger and allows us to enter into a place of deep peace, resting and sitting at His feet. This is the position of Mary who sat with Jesus and just listened while Martha was busy in the kitchen. This is the picture of Mary clinging to Jesus when He appears resurrected at the tomb.

The questions we ask about God in stage 2 are ones such as, “God, what do you expect from me” (with an undertone that declares, I just can’t live up to those unrealistic expectations). In stage 4 the questions become, “God, I’m so grateful for you having given me a position of honor in your house and I want to offer up to you what a slave never could. I offer up friendship and devotion to you. You have won my heart and I am yours.”

Stage 4 is learning to bless God and minister to Him according to His economies and ways without regard to our personal agendas. Then, out of this place of abundant life, we learn to give ourselves selflessly to those the Father brings our way. We allow the love of God that has been poured out in us to spill out onto everyone around us. This way we don’t have to muster up love for others. We simply allow the love of God to tenderize our hearts and we experience meaningful love and give it away too.

Now most of us who hear this description of stage 4 will respond out of fear that we just aren’t there yet and can’t live up to such expectations. Well, we don’t have to live beyond where we are in our spiritual journey. There is benefit in pressing into the Lord out of spiritual violence (Matthew 11:12) but we can trust the Lord about the timing of everything. All we can do is live out of the revelation He has given us so far and say yes to His invitations to advance into more of His life and communion.

View additional articles by John Tisdale at www.ocean.org.

Our Need for Spiritual Reformation

The church has been pegged as irrelevant by a growing percentage of western culture. I don’t believe this is a commentary on the eroding moral fabric of society as much as it is a statement about the church that has grown increasingly dysfunctional and disconnected from the needs of people it is trying to serve and impact. What’s more, this trend used to describe non-believers who seldom step foot in their local church. Yet, increasingly Christians are growing discontent with the experiences found within the church walls. As I relate with friends and colleagues I frequently hear strong, committed believers saying they aren’t connected with a church and that they are getting their fellowship through house worship experiences and other unconventional means. As I keep my finger on the pulse of the church, I get a sense that something significant is happening.

Some are quick to pass judgment on such behavior and condemn it as a lack of commitment or something even more subversive and downright sinful. I should state that this discussion doesn’t condone people leaving the church because they are upset and choose to break off relationships because of some interpersonal conflict or the pastor did something with which they disagreed. Neither do I encourage people to be out of fellowship with mature believers on a weekly basis. Rather, this commentary is about a growing group of people who are increasingly discontent and hungry for more than what they are finding.

It’s unfortunate that when our leaders see a trend of people withdrawing from our ranks they wonder what is wrong with them or put the blame on outside factors. Most things happen for a reason and that reason often has to do with things we are doing that we aren’t aware of and that are more obvious to others. Most of the time, our worst enemy is the one we greet each morning in the mirror. As such, when we see downward trends, our best response is to ask what we may be doing wrong. God allows us to experience pain when change is needed. When things are headed in the right direction, it’s time to figure out where we are out of alignment with what God is doing.

Now, it is important to understand that I don’t blame anyone here. I want to expose some things because I think we need to wake up to some realities and make some changes lest our voices continue to grow increasingly irrelevant to the culture we are trying to influence. But, I think there’s something even more substantive to this trend. I think God is on the move and bringing some much needed change in His Church today – more on that shortly.

Here is what I believe is at the heart of this movement. Our culture has grown tired of anything that isn’t genuine, real and free of hidden agendas. Perhaps it is the experience of growing up watching and listening to the endless array of commercials touting they’re unsubstantiated claims that has heightened our ability to sniff out bogus claims and unexposed agendas. Whatever the cause, our society wants our experiences to be completely real and transparent.

So, what does this have to do with people moving out of the church experience? Our churches aren’t providing experiences that connect with and address the deepest needs of people. I want to attempt to describe what I believe the needs of these people are. Keep in mind that the group of people I’m addressing here are those who are hungry for something more real, meaningful and life-changing than what they are finding in churches today. I include myself in this group and many of my closest friends.

I believe this group of people is looking for a place where they can find deep, practical truth that empowers them to lead the kind of life they desire. They want to experience God’s healing, redemptive power that changes them. They want to enter into an atmosphere that allows them to shift their gaze onto God and worship Him with whole-hearted abandon. They want to share their real experiences, struggles and life experiences with one another and through this process of transparently knowing and being known to get better handles to life more abundantly. They want to give the part they have to give. They want their experience to go outside church walls and in the streets and marketplaces where life really takes place. They want to discover the role God designed them to play and make it a reality. They want to make a difference in the lives of the poor and hurting. That’s it.

When I think about it, this sounds a lot like the life of Jesus. Isn’t this the environment He created with His disciples? If that is the case, how have we gotten so far from it? Are our churches following Jesus’ paradigm of the kingdom or the traditions of man? And if it is the latter, isn’t it time for change?

For the most part, our churches are performance-based. It’s all about going through the motions and paying lip-service more than genuine transformation of lives. There’s plenty of hand shaking and the saying of nice and polite things. Worship tends to be people performing for people instead of a collective of people entering into God’s presence to give Him wholehearted adoration and thanksgiving. The messages tend to be exhortation, inspiration and motivation but lack the substance to bring lasting internal transformation to turn the tides of the battles most will face in the upcoming week.

Our churches emphasize programs over relationships. People tend to be more coerced than empowered. Leadership, staff and members are equally overworked and rewarded for doing so. Community and relationship take a back-seat to productivity and timelines. There is little peer accountability and transparency with the leadership. There’s unresolved conflict between people going back for years. There’s little redemptive confrontation taking place that genuinely helps people get unstuck. True fathering and nurturing is a rarity. Coaching and mentoring are the exception more than the rule.

Rather, our churches are filled with man-made, self-serving agendas that focus time, energy, facilities and money internally instead of upward and outward. Driving traffic to church programs and events never ends. A consistent goal is to grow staff, facilities and programs. Bringing people inside the church walls is the primary call-to-action. Growth becomes a focus instead of the consequences of doing the right things for people. The emphasis isn’t on helping people discover who God created them to be and empowering them to fulfill that purpose. Rather, it is on people serving the church’s programs. It is all about supporting the leadership’s agendas, ambitions and visions.

It’s kind of like saying “don’t ask what your church can do for you, ask instead what you can do for your church.” Our churches grind through our people to keep its programs going. Instead of sending a message of worth, value and empowerment, our church programs feed on people’s lives. How much more might we accomplish if we stopped all our programs and used that time and energy instead to truly pray, worship God and share those experiences with each other?

You get a sense of this tendency by driving through a neighborhood and reading the signs posted on the church signs. Most feature the service times and some trite saying that does little to feed the deep needs of the people driving by. What that communicates to people is the church is primarily interested in them coming to their services to help monetize their operations. In exchange, all they have to feed you is some shallow tongue-in-cheek saying they found in some church-sign-quote book somewhere. This is why our voice carries no weight in our culture today. The whole experience is a mile wide and half an inch deep.

The people just down the street from our churches are living lives unaffected by our presence. The poor are hurting just as much as ever. Our faith, worship and intercession are doing little to change our region. We aren’t destroying the works of darkness. We haven’t closed any porn shops or reduced prostitution. Our members aren’t transforming our workplaces with integrity, love and prayer. Corporate and political corruption isn’t being systemically confronted. Children are still carrying guns into schools and opening fire. Fighting injustice is not a part of our efforts to bring God’s kingdom on the earth as it is in heaven. Our efforts are not helping advance the businesses owned by our own people.

Why do we have so many churches in our neighborhoods and yet crime and poverty remain so prolific? Are we that ineffective at facilitating change? Are we too anemic and powerless to really make a difference that is visible in the neighborhoods in which our churches are planted? Does our prayer and worship have no residual effect on our geographic region? Is it any wonder why our culture wants something more? If we aren’t stemming the tides of evil in our own communities, do we have anything of real power or value to help them in their own personal battles with evil and darkness?

Again, this isn’t a message of condemnation. Rather, it is one of needed reformation. We can do better than this. If we don’t, people will continue to unplug. So much of what goes on inside our churches today has no lasting impact. That being the case, why waste ourselves on doing what doesn’t work. Let’s unplug from what doesn’t work and pursue God with all that extra time and energy instead.

Earlier, I mentioned my suspicion that God is involved in this movement of people moving out of our churches who aren’t aligned with their values and priorities. If you look at history, you see a trend around spiritual reformation. Over time, our values and priorities tend to get off track with God’s. We need a fresh movement of God to come in and shake us up in order to get us back on track with God’s agenda. I believe we are in the early stages of just such a spiritual reformation. I believe the Lord is causing a discontentment in His people. He wants us to be as hungry for reformation and transformation as He is for us.

And remember, we are the church. We are the church when we are sitting one-on-one in the coffee shop. We are the church when we share a meal and laughs together in each others’ home. And, we are the church when we are talking business strategy at work. That building down the streets isn’t the church. That’s just the place were some of us meet… or at least where some of us used to meet.

How about it? Ready for change? Let’s stop doing what doesn’t work and pursue God instead.

More installments on this topic to come…

The Irrelevant Church

In this series of installments, I want to explore the topic of why the church has become largely disconnected and irrelevant in western culture. We could point to many external causes for this disconnection such as the breakdown of family and moral values. Yet, I want to focus on the internal issues for which we the members and leaders of the church are responsible. I want to expose the underlying issues for why we’ve become irrelevant to the culture at large and disconnected from the needs of the society we seek to serve and transform.

For Additional Resources on the Topic see www.ocean.org

First, let me say that if you want additional information and resources on the topic of exploring truth, meaning and freedom, you may want to check out my website at www.ocean.org. There, you will find an assortment of articles and media for the spiritual seeker.