My Break, Mikes Mission and Milts Blog

Greetings faithful blog readers, it’s time for me to , once again, take a little break from the wonderful world of Bloggy Land and set my attention a little closer to home.

That said, I shouldn’t be out for too awful long, so please check back in from time to time.

Big weekend coming up for me…, perhaps I will write something about it next week.

In the meantime I just discovered that there is yet another ‘organic’ church Brother, Milt Rodriguez, who recently started blogging. He’s definitely worth givin’ an ear to (or an “eye” since were speaking in the written word).

I could not deny the weight which this post carried. Very insightful, brother.

Meanwhile, Mike Morrel is on a mission to lose 50 pounds in thirty days one year (much more realistic!!) I’m sure that he would appreciate any encouraging comments over at his site.

That’s it for now, dear readers.

I am truly grateful for our conversations and dialogue.

Grace and Peace to you all in the Name of JESUS the CHRIST.

An Open Letter to The Organic Church

Over the years I think that I have picked on just about every type of expression of the church that you could imagine; Baptists, Catholics, Local Church, “Institutional”, Pentecostal, ‘mega’, ‘ethereal’, virtual, emergent, end timers….you name it.

I’ve dibbled and dabbled, ranted and rambled, stirred and scrambled and even choked on my own foot here with this blog and in other places as well.

But it’s time for me to address one more category: The Organic Church.

Yep.

That’s right.

It’s the New Sacred Cow among many of us. Yes I said us.

Okay, let me add this. In all transparency, this post is somewhat motivated by the fact that I will be visiting a local church (no, not Witness Lee local church, but like a kind of ‘non-denominational’ church with a building and pastor and elders and…well, you know what I mean…) and I’m starting to feel a bit embarrassed by some of the things that I have said over the years.

Oh the brashness of youth!!

But the fact is, I really feel that the Lord is leading me to go and visit.

So if any of you N.R. folks are reading this (Marie, Jerald, Scott, Mic, Evelyn, John, Alisa, Darrell, etc, etc…), now you know what’s been on my mind here lately.

So here it is; my Open Letter To Organic Church Proponents

Grace to you all in the Name of Jesus Christ.

Since I am obviously one of you I feel as if I have the liberty to say it this way:

“Grace to you and yadda, yadda, yadda….”

C’mon now, were all brothers (and sisters) here.

Look. I have to admit. If I thought that there was something more authentic going on than what we are at least attempting to do, as a church, then I’m pretty sure that I would be pursuing it. Fact is, either I’m ignorant to such a thing or I’m just tired of hunting (probably both).

But let’s talk serious here.

The Lord has given many of us much light in the area of the church. He has opened our eyes to so many things concerning the functioning of the body of Christ in all of it’s many membered splendor.

More importantly, He has given many of us the revelation of the centrality and supremecy of Jesus Christ in all things. Praise the Lord for that!!

Brothers and Sisters, I can’t tell you how incredibly thankful I am to have been liberated from the ’spectator’ mentality of chruch involvement.

Furthermore, I thank God that He has also done quite a work in removing from my imagination the desire to be some kind of ‘minister’ (in the common contemporary sense of the word).

Thank you, Lord, that I have come to experience, however little, what it means to be a brother.

A BROTHER.

Praise the Lord!

These are some of the things for which I am eternally grateful.

However, “I have somewhat against thee…”

(Or maybe I should say that “I have somewhat against ‘me’!!”)

Let me just go ahead and turn this into a personal confession, and then you can decide if it applies to you as well.

I have become elitist and over critical, even prejudgemental in my attitudes towards other expressions of the church.

Don’t get me wrong. If I didn’t believe in what I was doing, I wouldn’t be doing it. But I can’t turn this thing into a ‘law’ and consider all who break it to be less than myself and my peers.

Furthermore, I need to be reminded that we can all fall into the trap of perpetuating some ‘thing’ rather than living in the Realty of Jesus Christ as Lord.

So, my organic brothers and sisters, take yer bitters, and take ‘em well!!

I have only touched on the surface of an all too real problem that we, as ‘the organic church’ have to wrestle with.

If were not careful we’ll end up all blown up with a head and heart full of both pride and presumption.

Take that last sentence seriously, please. We don’t want that.

“Organic.”

Jeesh. You know what? I don’t like that name. I don’t care how descriptive it is….it’s starting to feel rather denominational…..

Remember, brothers (and sisters) (but it seems to be mostly brothers)…..

We are nothing.

We are nobodies…or at least we had better hope to be.

He is everything.

He is the all in all.

For her, it should be all about Him, just as for Him it is all about her.

Grace and peace….

Yadda, yadda, yadda…

In His Love,

Your Brother johnny

An Open Letter to End Times Fever Folks.

Okay.

Here we go…

First of all I want to say that some of my closest and dearest friends hold strongly to the idea that we are in ‘the last days’.

I know that the scripture speaks of it and that there are  various texts which, being grouped together, form a basic doctrine explaining what ‘the last days’ are, what all of that means, who the ‘anti-Christ’ is, the ‘New World Order’ and everything else that is connected to all of that.

“End Times” Brothers and Sisters, let me just say to you first: Grace and Peace to you in the Name of Jesus Christ!!!

I love you!!

Now then….

Let me also say to you this:

There is more than one way to read all of that stuff.

To some of you, that last sentence just nudged me one notch closer to the ‘erring brother’ side of the spectrum.

By the end of this post, you might very well find me way over in the ‘apostate, itching ears, seared conscience heretic’ group.

If so, then so be it.

Let me clear a little more ground before I get to the heart of the matter.

Some of you will say, “Clearly, if he has the Spirit of God, then these things would be revealed to him” or something along those lines. Maybe if you’re generous you will say “He has the Spirit of God, but he is simply closing his ears….” or “He loves the world too much..” or something along those lines.

For the last two thousand years saints from one end of the spectrum to the others have been certain that they were in ‘the last days’, that it was all being ‘wrapped up’ within their lifetime, and that surely, they would see the Son of Man coming in the clouds and the end of the world.

There have been countless men tagged as “antichrict” (and rightly so) over the centuries and many things called or reffered to as ‘the mark of the beast’.

I know all about the ‘Great Bear’ and Gog and Magog and the prince of Persia.

I’m no stranger to the rapture doctrine, the pre-millenial doctrine, the post millenial doctrine, the amillenial doctrine, the preterist doctrine . Heck, I’m even fairly well versed in Transmillenial (R) doctrine!

Obviously there is more than one way to read scripure, amen?

I know, I know….

“Well, one of them must be true!!”

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Maybe nobody really has it all figured out yet.

Maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do.

What? Did you just call me a devil?

Shame on you.

Let me get to my point.

The way that I see it is that people who focus on ‘the coming end times’, as time goes on, will focus more and more on ‘the coming end times’. Why?

 Because…

 ”We must be closer now than we have ever been!”

Maybe so, but exactly how much of our New Testament instructs us to zero in on ‘the end times’?

Not very much.

Oh yes, there were some things said about it, I will not deny that.

I know that you can rattle off a bunch of scripture and you can tie it all together.

But maybe there is more going on here than you might realize.

Is it possible that you are afraid?

Is it possible that many of these things have been pounded into your head by some very ‘well meaning’ preachers and teachers over the years by either various church experiences, books, tapes, movies, maybe even parents, friends or relatives, and that you are scared senseless?

I’m just asking you if it is possible.

Now, mind you, I am not stating that there isn’t something to it all. There must be something to it all.

Please, brothers and sisters, accept this challenge:

Research the histories of these doctrines.

Study the historical contexts of the events transpiring which are relevant to the text in the scriptures that you incite.

Read all of the letters written to the churches by the apostles and see where their emphasis lies, where their focus is.

I can tell you where it will not be.

It will not be in running around, freaking out your friends and relatives with your spooky assumptions of how everything is about to be found as a catastrophic disaster.

Yes, there is darkness….

Yes, there is anti-christ….

Yes, the world is a strange and tainted place….

But where is your hope?

Where is your mind?

Is it on things above?

What is it set upon?

Are you faithful and trusting the Lord or are you fearful and unbelieving?

I do not ask these things in an accusative way, but perhaps you need encouragement.

Yes I get frustrated with the endless ‘downward spiral’ that you perpetually offer up to those around you!!!

Where is Jesus Christ in your life?

Where is He in your heart?

What is He doing in your soul?

Forgive me if this is out of place, but hear my heart.

Better yet, see if you can hear the Lord in this matter.

Grace and peace to your soul in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Some Reflections

My wife, Missy, and I had an evening out last night with a couple of friends to see Waterdeep, Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken at Eddies Attic in Decatur.

It was a great show.

I am now officially a ‘fan’ of Waterdeep.

(By the way, Eddie’s knows how to serve up some beignettes like you wouldn’t believe.)

Anyway, like I said…great show and a good time with Jeremy and Jennifer as well.

So I guess this post is a little more reflective in nature than most of my other ones…so bare with me if you were expecting something deeper. I dunno, we’ll see how it goes…

As I have noted in other places, I have been struggling a bit with where I am in my walk with the Lord.

More and more I am coming into the heart understanding via real life experience of so many of the things that I have understood and even ‘preached’ about for so long now.

To be more specific, there is a principle which says that even a revelation from God can become an impenatrable barrier to embracing a fresh revelation from God.

What I mean is that we can get ‘hung up’ on something that the Lord has shown us and camp out in that revelation while the Lord is trying to get us to move along into ‘the more’ of what He has for us.

For me, personally, it has to do with ‘church’.

Even more specifically ‘church practice’.

I could go on and on about this issue and why it means so much to me (and even the Lord), why it is so important and vital to understand these certain fundamental aspects of it all.

I mean, it was the Lord, after all, who has revealed so much of all of this to me in the first place.

There is so much that I want to say about this, but right now is not the time nor the place to go into all of the detail…but I will say this….

I understand that there is a time and place, a certain kind of context for a mass of seekers, or even believers to sit and listen to someone (or someones) who ‘know better’ than they do.

I get that.

But, there must come a time to allow God’s people to function.

The ‘professors’ might drift off.

The ’spectators’ might find someone else to spectate, but we must not continue to perpetuate the dysfunctional condition of the body of Christ.

Some might feel like they wouldn’t know what to do or what to say…how to act…

This is why it is so vitally important to seek the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To assume that how we ‘do’ church doesn’t really matter is to say that how we ‘do’ anything doesn’t really matter.

Does how we do our jobs matter?

Does how we parent our children matter?

Does how we behave as a spouse matter?

Does how act as a neighbor matter?

Absolutely.

So what, then, about this matter of the church of Jesus Christ? Does it matter?

Absolutely.

And there is so much to that….revelation…

But that is just it…

There is more that the Lord wants to show me (and you).

More than a system or method or practice or anything else along those lines, God is after mankind.

He is after our spirits, our souls, our hearts, our minds, and our strength.

He is totally after us.

It’s not that “how we do church” doesn’t matter. In fact, I would say that everything matters.

But God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ is after us. Me. You.

I would suggest to you that if we would move along that line, if we would get around to the buisness of getting to know Him, of following Him, that He just might open our eyes and our understanding to so many other things.

I can say this much:

Personally, I have moved on from being a ’spectator’, and I have also moved on from wanting to be a ‘minister’.

Oh sure, I do covet to be a useful vessel, a profitable servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I desire to be one who can deliver what the good Lord would have for me to deliver to whomever he desired.

I want to become a person who is recognised as having a redeemed character who is free in Spirit and Truth.

Absolutely.

I can say this in all honesty: “I have not attained”.

So this is where I am at.

Here I am, Lord.

Show me more.

Take me further.

I do not fear the giants, Lord.

I am weak, but you are strong.

Greater are you who is in me, than I who am in the world.

Amen!

BE THINK DO 2

Another quickie post here.

Just contemplating this thought again.

Watchman Nee wrote a pretty detailed series of books called ‘The Spiritual Man’ when he was a fairly young Christian.

Lot’s of revelation there…

but…

soon after writing it, he regretted doing so as he realized that it would be better for the Lords people to come into those revelations experientially for themselves than to read about them and try to apply them to their lives.

In my opinion, what he wanted the brothers and sisters to do was to be, think, and do.

Simple.

The western mind is always busy dissecting and analyzing, cutting and pasting….

Here is a clue for you and for me….

When we turn to the Lord, the veil is removed.

He causes us to be, he causes us to think (and will) and he causes us to do.

But first we must turn to the Lord.

We must not turn to a ritual, nor to some form of prayer, nor some methodology.

Yes, I understand the utilitarian benefits that those things can offer us, but in reality, in the big picture, we must turn to the Lord.

Why Are We Here? Living Unto God

Well, I said that I was going to post highlights from our “Why are we here?” meeting, and so here I am in a hurried attempt to do just that.

Let me first say that what I’m about to write here cannot do justice to the Spirit which was in the room during that meeting.

It’s not that it was a particulary high meeting…..it’s just that it was a good meeting in which, I believe, afforded each one of us the opportunity to peer a bit deeper into the hearts of our brothers and sisters, where Christ is.

Why are you here?

After the question was posed, saints began sharing, one by one, what brought each of them to the church followed by why they were still there.

Some were drawn by common thought on ‘how to do church’, or similar core beliefs.

Others expressed that after being a part of this kind of church life for several years that life outside of it would be a painful and drear experience.

Wow.

There was one testimony where a saint shared (and this is my inadequate interpretation of what he actually said) that he feels as though he is a bond servant to Jesus Christ here and to leave would be contrary to the Lords intention.

Again, “Wow“.

What struck me the most was when one brother expressed that we are here to love one another, and that that is how the world would know that we were His.

He gave some really good practical examples of how he has truly witnessed that testimony here among this local corporate expression of Jesus Christ.

As he shared, I became more aware of what it means to be part of a ”living epistle” a part of a witness and testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ in Spirit and Truth.

Does that sound ‘proud’ or egotistical somehow?

Well, if so, keep in mind that I’m referring to the body of saints who surround me much more than I am to myself.

In my humble yet honest opinion, we still have a long way to go, but hey….

We are the Lords people and we are all in this together.

We haven’t “arrived”, but Here is the Good News:

HE HAS.

The Messiah finally came and lived, died and ROSE FROM THE GRAVE.

He did this not only for the Jews, but for the whole world, for any and all who might believe.

He Sent His Spirit to all those who believe on Him. …

Sorry. Sidetracked….

But, Praise the Lord!

So what I present below is a slightly edited (for contextual reasons) version of what I shared with this little branch of the Family of our Lord:

 

Sometimes we need to go through a ’shedding’ process, a time of pushing back everything that could be considered as “secondary”.

“Why we’re not here” could have easily been the theme to my first few years in church-life (personally), and I am most thankful that the Lord took me through that process.

You might be surprised how much we can get caught up into “the things” of the Lord, which is simply just another form of idolatry.

The Lord cares for us, and want’s us to be a people who are for Him.

I wouldn’t be surprised if He just does this from time to time, especially to a person (or people) who are very easily distracted.

Now what was I talking about?

Oh yeah…

 
I would like to start off by sharing what some of the things that I have shed since being here, some “reasons” that I had to let go of: 
Living in close proximity to other like minded (or not like minded) believers.
Morning meetings.
Praying scriptures.
Standing or sitting in a circle.

Accapello singing.

Parroting eternal truths.
Church history projects.
Grunting. (don’t ask)
 
 
But, neither are we here for not doing these things.
 
So there, I’ve cleared a little ground for what I’m about to say…

Why are we here?

To the best of my understanding it could be summed up as “Living Unto God”.
 
Living unto God is a matter of living in reality.
It is living in light of the reality that wherever we are, He Is.
Not only that, but wherever “we” are not, He Is there as well.

“Living unto God”, is to be set apart to God, for God, by God and through God.
This is what it means to be ‘holy’, it is to be set apart unto God.
 
Paul wrote something to some saints a long time ago concerning this which I believe was preserved for our benefit:
“It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, HOLINESS, and redemption,therefore, as it is written: ‘Let Him who boasts, boast in the Lord”.
 
Check out this old translation:
 
“But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God IS made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification (which is HOLINESS-or- SET APARTED-NESS) and redemption.”
 
You see, we are set apart ‘unto God’ because Christ has been made our ’set aparted-ness’!!!
 
That is something worth being reminded of, although I do believe that most of us here ‘get’ that.
 
But is there more to it?
 
I do believe so.
 
What we have just touched on is our ‘being’ set apart unto God because Christ is set apart unto us.
Whatever God has ever required of a man, He fulfilled those requirements in Christ.
God says,

 “I want a man who is wise and righteous, a man who is set apart unto me whom I value greatly”,

 and then God gets what He wants in becoming that Man Himself.
 
Christ is all that God wants on our behalf!!!
 
“So what else could there be? What is the ‘more’?”

Well there is the issue of truly believeing this, and of being built up into this truth.

And there is also the matter of working this reality out in our daily lives.

Even so, let’s not ever lose sight of our “first Love”, because apart from Him, we can do nothing. Truly.
 

Is there more?

Yep.
You see, God is not all about Himself.
He is about others.
 
“For God so loved THE WORLD….”
 
God wants to express Himself, but He doesn’t simply want to express Himself to Himself, neither does He simply want to express Himself to his “chosen few”.
 
“For God so loved THE WORLD….”
 
But let me stop here for a moment. Let me be clear in what I am trying to say. 
 
A new believer or a new church needs to be built up on clear ground with a solid foundation.

The raw materials need to be refined and tooled, shaped and fitted for building. That is wonderful.
 
We all desperately need our Cheif Corner Stone, and most of us need Him more than we would care to admit. 
Let us always find our root, our strength and stability, our source and foundation in the Lord Jesus Christ, and let us always find Him deep within our own hearts personally as both Savior and Lord, but let us not make the mistake of being satisfied existing merely as a foundation.
 
Or change the metaphor.
Let us not remain a mere seed, nor a mere root, or sprout.
Let us desire, whole heartedly, to be a full grown tree, with various branches shooting forth, outward in varying directions, with fruits of Life and healing leaves for the world and worlds around us.