Jesus Shaped Community

It’s time

2014-08-29T14:36:16+00:00By Joel|Jesus Shaped Community, The Dangerous Kind|

Tonight, John 14 is giving me strength. A part of the chapter hit me tonight, that has not done so before. Sure, there is "Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me...in My Father's house...I'll come back for you (paraphrased)" (v. 1-4), the huge, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (v. 6). There's the revealing the Father, answering prayers, the Holy Spirit, love, and the giving of peculiar peace. However, the thing that sticks out tonight, is the last statement of the chapter. Jesus said, "I am going away so that the world may know that I love the [...]

Being Dangerous

2014-08-29T14:37:06+00:00By Joel|Abandonment, Christianity, discipleship, Incarnation, Jesus Christ, Jesus Shaped Community, The Dangerous Kind|

Too long have followers of Jesus settled for religious compliance and inoffensive comportment. Too long have rank and file Christians delegated the dangerous life of following Jesus to the professionals, believing them best suited for the radical engagement with the world that Jesus models. Too long have we believed that the highest goal of Christianity is conforming people to good behavior, getting folks to follow the rules, making people nice. Now is the time to raise our danger quotient. Now is the time for us to move from bland church drones into followers of the living Christ who are potent for the purposes of God and a mortal threat to the enemy of our souls (Sellers, [...]

A Place to Be Human: Meditations on community part five

2014-08-18T22:34:43+00:00By Joel|Abandonment, Bonhoeffer, Christian Music, discipleship, Jesus Shaped Community, Manning, prayer, Safe Place, trust|

As a worship leader, I want to lead others in being authentic; because I believe that when we are authentic and real (with God and each other), our worship is authentic. I fully believe that our identity as Believers is tied up in and defined by Who God is and what He's done. At the same time, I believe that only when we are willing to come to God as humans in our sin and humanity, broken, needy, and honest, is there 'worship in spirit and truth' (John 4:23). There is the 'real truth' of God that needs to break through the false truths of how we define ourselves based on our shame and brokenness, or [...]

Speaking the Same Language: Meditations on community part four

2014-08-18T22:34:43+00:00By Joel|Christianity, discipleship, Jesus Shaped Community|

I like structure. That is, I like it as long as everything is in place. I've operated in jobs and ministries that have been bad 'fits.' Leaving me feeling like a square peg in a round hole, those experiences left me with an orphan mentality of 'no one understands me.' Throughout the years I found out that the problem wasn't necessarily in the structure, but in my identity (though, I've worked in a lot of poor structures!). I was letting the structure define me and not Christ. Spending time at the International House of Prayer (Atlanta) helped me in my journey, but even there, the more I spent time in that structure, I didn't feel like [...]