Beyond Church Walls

Still Unlearning

Administrator — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:26:24 +0000

Often when I’m going through a difficult season or downright nasty trial I perk up my “spiritual ears” so as not to miss what Father wants me to learn. This is especially true when the difficulty involves people with whom I’m vitally connected. Yet I seldom hear anything specific. And it seems that the longer I walk with him the less I know. I find that his grace is more than enough and that his love is boundless while mine is sorely lacking, but I already knew those things before wading through the most recent pile of crap. I’ve come to believe that my desire to learn something from the situation is motivated by my own pride. I must think that I stand to gain something out of the deal, extricate something redeeming from the murky depths mysteriously hidden in the bowels of the latest tribulation.

And, indeed, there is a treasure to be found. Of course he was never hidden, except to the eyes of one who is looking for him + something else. His arms were always open waiting for me to give up and rest in his embrace.

I suppose I could find a lesson to be learned if I search hard enough, but I opted off the treadmill of “ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth” when I left religion. So I find that I’m still unlearning a bunch of stuff I picked up in the past. Good old Oswald was spot on with this comment:

“It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials: through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child - God and my own soul, other people are shadows. Until other people become shadows, clouds and darkness will be mine every now and again. Is the relationship between myself and God getting simpler than ever it has been?”

David F

A backyard conversation

Administrator — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:51:21 +0000

Well we just came off of a fine Fourth of July weekend. While at a backyard barbecue at a friends house, I met a guy for the first time who was a ER nurse in a trauma center at a local hospital. Night shift. So this guy sees tragedy on a regular basis, and yet he loves it. He embraces the whole idea of being the one to help the families transition from the tragedies that have taken place.

I was amazed at the calm, strength, and confidence this guy had, so I asked him if he had a Christian faith. He proceeded to tell me his journey of how he was raised Methodist yet converted to Catholicism because his wife is Catholic and then they grew disenchanted with the Catholic rituals and begun attending a nondenominational church. He added that he hasn’t been able to attend recently because he works night shifts on Saturday night. When I piped in you know maybe you don’t have to attend at all, I got his attention.

Here was this guy that was immersed in who he was in Christ, having a powerful ministry in people’s lives in their darkest hour, and felt bad because he wasn’t able to meet at the weekly meeting clearly through his own sense of religious obligation. I began to encourage him about the fact that he was Christ in those situations and that he was about his Father’s business. I could almost detect a sigh of relief. Not only that he began to see it for himself, but as I shared with him that the idea of having to go to church was never Christ’s intent, the lights started coming on and he began agreeing wholeheartedly. Our conversation didn’t last much longer, but it was interesting to see how much his spirit picked up when the thoughts that he’d been having for a long time had been articulated and confirmed in our conversation.

bob humphrey

Ambushed in Ireland

Administrator — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:47:03 +0000

My sister and I helped our mom celebrate her 85th birthday in Ireland last week thanks to my sister and her husband whose generosity made it all possible. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful. We had a blast exploring castles and other fascinating relics and ruins, some of which had watched over 900 years come and go. We enjoyed rich fellowship in the home of a precious couple I first met two years ago when close to one hundred people gathered from around the world to share their journeys outside the box of organized religion.

And as sometimes happens, Father had a little surprise for me when we made a spontaneous stop at a bed and breakfast halfway around the Ring of Kerry on our way to Waterford. A sign that read “The Father’s House” had caught my sister’s eye as we were driving by. After unpacking our bags and exploring the premises, we were relaxing in the atrium when the husband of the couple that ran the place joined us and began telling me about my life. He had been busy elsewhere when his wife checked us in, so we didn’t even know one another’s name, but it was obvious that Father had let him in on some things about me.

The upshot of this little encounter was that Father made me aware of some lingering grief and recent disappointment that had clouded my vision and diminished my perspective on the greatness of God in certain aspects of my life. I had let some precious things he had given me become dormant. He let me know that it was time to move on. Though he alone can turn the page, I must take the initiative
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I share this having met others on this journey who, like me, have become passive in certain areas of their life. False expectations, failed self effort and the life sapping consequences of performing for others have killed god given dreams and made so many afraid to move in those places. But perhaps it’s time to close the page on the past and, as Paul instructed Timothy “stir up the gift within” while trusting Father for the good things he’s already prepared.

David F

Waiting on God

Administrator — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:14:07 +0000

I read something the other day that reminded me of a conversation I had with a brother about God’s direction. He said he was waiting on the Lord for direction. I thought about his statement. It seemed odd to me. It’s not that I’m against waiting on Father for direction. It was the since of detachment I felt when he said it. If there is one thing that freedom brings to an embraced child of Father, it’s the end of that sense of detachment where you’re waiting for that telegram from heaven as to the next step to take.

Going back to what I read, the author pointed out how Paul had the fire of outreach in his heart. Clearly Christ said “Go!” He wanted to go to Asia but the Spirit held him back. He wanted to go to Bithynia, same thing. It was the Spirit that dialed him in to go to Macedonia. We may not always get immediate answers from Father, but isn’t it cool how the Holy Spirit keeps us tuned in to the timing of the season that we’re in, attached.

bob humphrey

The Battle

Administrator — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:40:17 +0000

The battle for the throne of God. Satan was cast down for trying to ascend to the throne of God, and has never really stopped trying. He’s just changed his tactic, his direction. He’s been after the one place outside of heaven where God has chosen to dwell… in the hearts of people. Think about it. Why would Satan have targeted Adam & Eve? Why did he show up personally to try to thwart Jesus’ plan of redemption? The hearts of people is the goal, the conquest. Knowing this, it is no wonder that religion has been the primary method satan has used to capture the throne of people’s lives.

bob humphrey

Being Incarnational.

Administrator — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:44:21 +0000

This topic has really gripped me recently. It’s one thing to know something and another to live it. There’s no way that you can you can know what it means to be incarnational without living it. But living the incarnational life means that your not living life on your own. Knowing the reality of Christ in you w/o religious obligation sets you free like nothing you’ve ever experienced.

The whole topic of ‘detoxing’ from religion is getting you used to freedom. What a concept. I recently had a couple of opportunities to see this reality take place. I helped a friend out at the last minute the other day that ended up with me being a part of a Gay Pride parade.

Are you kidding me? Nope.

Not a token part either. I was on a float in the parade! (I’m not the guy with the cowboy hat) It wasn’t until a few hours later that I understood why Father had me there. At a critical moment when the trailer we were towing came off the hitch, Father had me there to be the only one that was able to jump into the situation to get us safely where were heading. Later I realized how much Father was showing his love to the driver by having one of his kids there to help him out at his critical time. Incarnational living isn’t flashy, it’s just being Christ where ever you are.

bob humphrey

Freedom Fighters

Administrator — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:49:43 +0000

Lately I’ve received emails, read articles and had many conversations about the way our freedom and future are being threatened by the direction of the current US administration. Passionate frustration and a sense of helplessness seem to be running rampant among many Christians today. What to do is always the big question.

Maybe the focus of such passion is misdirected.

It’s interesting to me that Jesus and the writers of the epistles always focused on the inner disposition of his followers as the key to freedom. Paul exhorted the Galatians to stand firm in the freedom for which Christ set us free and to never again submit to the burden of slavery that comes with trying to be righteous through our own efforts. He even went so far as to say that those who tried to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ and fallen from grace! And he warned them to beware of those who tried to force their own legalistic beliefs on others.

I like this statement of Oswald Chambers: “We are called to present liberty of conscience, not liberty of view. If we are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be
brought into that same liberty – the liberty of realizing the dominance of Jesus Christ.”

I think if our passion is for Christ to be our life as we use our freedom to serve one another in love, the power of his life through us will have a greater impact on society than we can imagine. And if there’s anything specific he wants us to do, it will be accomplished through his power rather than our feeble and frustration fueled efforts.

David F

Wisdom From God

Administrator — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 04:05:35 +0000

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God–and righteousness and sanctification and redemption– 1Co 1:30

I’ve recently been reading stories of how believers have left the institutional mindset of utilizing their gifts for ‘Christian Ministry’ and began to actually believe what Paul was writing to the Corinthians in the above passage for their everyday lives. Father has placed the treasures of wisdom within us through our union with Christ to impact and be a catalyst in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in.

We have underwhelmed the world with our religious piety. I’m excited about being his wisdom displayed in the cross-current of our culture as Paul also wrote to the Roman believers “faith expressing itself in love”. But here’s the kicker, I’m not doing it to defend or burnish a rustic system, I’m just doing it with Father.

bob humphrey

The “Winning” Side

Administrator — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:08:02 +0000

Stanislav Mishin, a blogger and columnist for the Russian newspaper Pravda recently wrote a very sobering article regarding “America’s decent into Marxism”. He first asserts that “the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics”. After expounding on that, he goes on to make his second point:

“Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power.”

I heartily agree, except to state my belief that the path this country has taken reflects the condition of the church first rather than second. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and most other great institutions of learning were founded as Christian universities where presidents, scientists and pastors were educated. But beginning in the 1870’s, Christians adopted a stance of “pietistic withdrawal”. The line between secular and sacred was ever more widened to the point that Christians no longer engaged the world around them. So secular humanists soon filled the vacancies in the areas of education, technology, the arts, media, and politics.

Now the pendulum has swung back the other way. The problem is that the “church” as an institution can never engage the world on an incarnational basis, and can therefore only seek its favor and power. Hardly the “winning side”.

But God will not lose. When all of our religious efforts, hyper “faith” and dead works have failed we may struggle with passivity. Yet Father loves to partner with those who have hope in nothing and no one else but him. And he always seems to use the few, the small, often the despised and the sometimes hidden to change the course of history.

I think he’s probably preparing a Gideon’s army that hasn’t the slightest clue of what their part is or what’s about to happen next. But they know who they trust and are convinced that he’s holding the winning hand.

David F

Away with you , Satan!

Administrator — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:59:48 +0000

You know with all of the rampant political/economic changes ushering in a storm unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, it causes you to be still and find out what’s on Father’s heart for you. It would be easy to go Saul on the situation, or curl up and go Ahab on the situation. But I prefer how Jesus responded when satan offered him the kingdoms of this world in exchange for bowing to him: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.”

Jesus knew who he was, and who he was related to. He was just reminding satan what he had lost.

bob humphrey