Along The Road

An Open Letter to Religious Refugees

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:52:00 +0000

Dear Refugee of Religion:

First, let me greet you with grace.

I know, it is a word that you have maybe heard about, but not experienced. You may have thought that it was a ruse to get you to commit more to a church, institution or another person's vision, but no, it is free, abundant, full of favor and requires nothing from you except to receive it. After all, it is a gift.

So grace be to you!

I am writing this open letter to call you beyond. Some will read this and think that I am writing to call you back to something and that couldn't be further from the truth. I am inviting you to go beyond what your experience of church has been.

I get it....you tried "church", "religion" etc. and you felt further from God and more guilty than ever before. Can I suggest that perhaps, what you got was a tainted version of the real thing? You see, a gathering of people in Jesus' name was never meant to be toxic, painful and counter to the life which He brought and when you find yourself experiencing those things, you have to look at what is being experienced in light of what was meant to happen.

We got it wrong. We thought church and being a disciple of Jesus was first and foremost about learning and scholasticism, about us and how God could help us have a better life. The truth is, its not. It has been and will always be first and foremost about Him, gathering around His real presence that is amplified in the focused hearts of His people.

We thought that we were to gather around the Word.

No, the Word is given to us to help us know Him better, to seek Him with more clarity and to find that in His presence is fulness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. We have in some ways become not much better than the ancient Pharisees, who Jesus corrected telling them that they searched the Scriptures because in them they thought they had life, but they had missed the point - the Scriptures pointed and still point to Him!

The Word is to be a part of our gatherings, just as the disciples of the early church gathered for the apostle's teaching. We grow as we apply the teachings of the Bible and they lead us to encounters with the majesty, glory and presence of God, but they are not to be the main reason we gather. He is, has been and will always be the reason we gather - to encounter Him, His glory and His goodness.

Neither is the focus about us.

I know that sounds rude and frankly violates our consumer/customer based orientations in Western church these days, but, how can I say this better? Frankly, it is just the truth.

I get that you may want your religious experience to go about an hour a week. I understand that you want comfortable facilities, someone to greet you like a Walmart, clean bathrooms, excellent nurseries and state of the art sound systems with Broadway-esque lighting. Who wouldn't want to be comfortable?

But again, that's not the point.

Church is not for us. There, I've said it. The secret is out. Whether you are a leader in the church or a person who does your weekly visit to get "your religion" on, it was never meant to be about you. It is about Him, for unto Him shall the gathering of the people be. It is to come and give, minister and bless Him! By the way, it's not because He requires it (remember the opening words about grace?), but rather because He desires it! He gave His Son as the permanent, complete and game ending sacrifice for our lives so that the decks could be cleared of sin, that sick, rotten impediment that keeps us from experiencing all that God intended for our lives, His glory, and did it so that we could be with Him forever in real, deep personal and corporate communion!

Church is to be an adventure birthed in encounters with God! When we make ourselves available to Him and He is powerfully present, literally anything can happen and should! He is the treasure that we have been given free access to. We don't have to dig, follow maps or do heroic deeds to attain this treasure, we simply receive what He has provided through grace and pursue that focus for the rest of our lives!

The gathering of God's people (i.e. - church) was never meant to be taken up with endless announcements about church socials, potlucks, committee meetings and teachings on how to make a better you - it is about how to bring the Kingdom of God in it's fullest dimension and message to every person on the planet so that they can change their mind about who God is and what He is for! It is to be accompanied with signs that point to the reality of the Kingdom. Signs that create wonder and awe and start the person who has encountered them first hand, by witnessing one or hearing a story about one to begin to rethink the purpose meaning and direction of a King-less life.

Now, things that take place in your average congregation are not bad, they are just not the main point. We should care for one another, have fun together, laugh a whole lot and just simply revel in the grace life we are given, but the first priority is Him. When we gather in His name, He is there and we should give preeminence to His majesty- especially when He is a relation.

It's not about ego-centric leaders.

Wow, now I am in trouble, but since we are all so humble, we probably won't admit this one.
Leaders, I appeal to you as a brother who has been doing this for over thirty years. These people are His, not ours. We hold a sacred stewardship. We have been entrusted to lead people into a deeper relationship with Him and sometimes we have thought that they existed to validate us, our ministry and even to fund our vision.

Nothing could be further from the truth. They are His people, the "sheep of His pasture" and we are called to help them grow in grace and glory. We are called to equip them for the real work of the ministry and not just filling a chair and giving money so that the show can go on. We are called to help them understand that they are glory carrying sons and daughters of the King with regal dignity, powerful ministries to "administer" and grand destinies.

They are not to be driven, fleeced and coerced. They are to be led, cared for and allowed to grow all under the watchful eye of the Chief Shepherd who has been so good to us and will continue to do so. The greatest thing we can give our people are opportunities to encounter the King and His glory so that they can be changed into His likeness - from one encounter with His glory to another.

Teach, yes, but also do and let them do. Let them pray for the sick. Release them to minister and do the works of Jesus. It is about more than organizational systems. It is about empowerment and release.

To the people - you must grow up. For Jesus to come for a glorious bride, don't you think that the body should be in equal proportion to the head? You must move from victim mentality and dependency on another's experience in Jesus and grow into your own. It is time for the eternal childhood of the church to end. Yes, we are called sons and daughters, but we are to mature just like anything in life. Part of that growth is to get beyond the "I already gave my religious time" mentality. There is no "off switch" to being a herald of the Kingdom - we are on 24/7. There is no secular time - all is sacred. All that we do matters, not as a way to please Him (He is already pleased through Jesus), but as a matter of destiny, purpose and calling. It is what we do because it is who we are!

Here's another thing it is not about - social action.
I read and heard the things over the last two decades about the church from activists, to rock stars to politicians and people pounding the pews and those most vocal about the point that the church is not to be insular and care only for herself. That she is to send out personnel, resource and every person reaching out to others and caring for those around us. That we are to demonstrate the good news of the Kingdom of God (gospel is the short term for that) by practically caring for and meeting the needs of those around us.

That is all true.....but incomplete and misses the main point. As wonderful and as mandated as physically meeting needs around us through altruism, charity, feeding the poor, clothing the naked are, they are not the only commands Jesus gave to us. He also said, "heal the sick (and He wasn't referring to hospitals and doctors), raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." Why do we think that one set of commands, i.e., feed the hungry and clothe the naked, are for today, but another set of commands died out when the Bible was written and compiled? He also commanded us to love one another. Why is this any less supernatural as laying hands on a sick person in Jesus' name and seeing them healed?

You see, when we gather to Him, we begin to think and act like Him. If the best ministry that we do, is something that any non-govermental agency or non-profit can do apart from Jesus, than we have missed the element of His supernatural, powerful presence brings. Again, I am not saying we shouldn't do these things and more, I personally come from a part of the church where we have done both in the past, but what is the main purpose of our being together.

We are called to minister to the King. He is our reason to gather. Every week should be like the best family gathering and more so. His presence should be made welcome. When the King comes, so does His Kingdom. Our worship is a reflection of our love for Him; not abstractly, but real, powerful and present.

I know that many of you have fled the "organized church" to get away from rules, legalism, complications, programs, shows and ego driven leaders and power brokers. But, would you, as you process and heal from your wounds with the Holy Spirit, consider coming together with others again? Would you gather with grace filled communities that have as the main point the powerful presence of the One who loves you? Come back, we need you and the truth is you need us. We need each other to spread this good news all around to announce this wonderful transcendent, yet powerfully present Kingdom and all it's benefits - healing, deliverance, wholeness, life, grace and the best part - a relationship as children of the King!

There are more and more gathered peoples in cities, towns and areas sprouting up, aligning themselves with God's purposes and provision every day. Come and find us. Like we used to call when we were kids playing hide and go seek, "olly olly oxen free!"

Come and heal with us, we have need of healing as well. Together, let's become whole again so that we can represent the King in His glory and fulness!

You've been missed and we look forward to welcoming you home to something that is more than a dysfunctional menagerie of fears and control, we want to welcome you to the house of the King, His dwelling place forever - among His people.

I hope to see you a little further down the road. Not too far I hope!
Doug
To learn more about Fusion and it's mission, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

The End of Worry

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:22:00 +0000

There is a hidden enemy with everyone of us. With eyes to see, it becomes apparent through it’s symptoms, but its hiddenness is in the fact that it resides within us, so much so that many of us can feel that it is a natural part of our personality, so inseparable, and so connected that we would no more think of removing it as we would a kidney!

But is worry an inseparable part of of our makeup? Is it something that we have to just live with? What is the hidden cost of worry? For an alarming look at worry, one only needs to look at our common dictionary (dictionary.com):

wor·ry [wur-ee, wuhr-ee] verb, -ried, -ry·ing, noun, plural -ries.

verb (used without object)

1. to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret.

2. to move with effort: an old car worrying uphill.

verb (used with object)

3. to torment with cares, anxieties, etc.; trouble; plague.

4. to seize, especially by the throat, with the teeth and shake or mangle, as one animal does another.

5. to harass by repeated biting, snapping, etc.

noun

6. a worried condition or feeling; uneasiness or anxiety.

7. a cause of uneasiness or anxiety; trouble.

8. act of worrying.

9.Fox Hunting . the action of the hounds in tearing to pieces the carcass of a fox.

Verb phrase

10.worry along / through, Informal . to progress or succeed by constant effort, despite difficulty: to worry through an intolerable situation.

That in and of itself is disturbing enough, but here are some results and warnings about worry from the Bible:

“And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:27)

“Do not worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” (Philippians 4:6)

And this insight on worry.....

“...The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries...and bring no fruit to maturity...” (Luke 8:14)

Worry, far from a natural human emotion, is a result of the Fall, the soul-sick result of not trusting who God is and what He has done. It exposes our self reliance, self saving and self interest as we fret away what God wants to give. It becomes a earthly response to what are heaven solutions. It would seem wise to worry, given circumstances - but there is a wisdom that is different from that which God gives. This type of wisdom that says that it is natural to worry given the circumstances is earthly (read “common sense”), sensual (based on what is filtered through our senses - which have to be trained through practice to discern between good and evil - Hebrews 6), and is demonic. (James 3:15). The authority of hell is unleashed through believing a lie - any lie that the enemy can get us to bite on. In this case, the lie is that God can’t come through or worse, won’t come through. It is a lie that assails the power and the goodness of God!

And, it is in exact opposition to the fruit of the kingdom.

When we worry, we choke out the life of the fruit of the kingdom. In the parable that was quoted in Luke 8, the seed that was choked out by worry, was the word of the kingdom. Everything that God gives to us in the kingdom is designed to produce fruit and life, yet, this issue of worry becomes strong enough to choke the life out of that seed and not allow it to produce fruit. Why? What is behind worry that chokes life out?

As I alluded to earlier, at its root, worry is unbelief specifically going against who God is and what He has and will do. Many see unbelief as the absence of belief and therefore neutral, but it is far more insidious than that. “Pistis” is the Greek word for belief. It is the word you see as you read your English translations of the Bible. In the Greek language, the language used to write the Bible, there is no neutral term for faith. In Greek, to create the antonym for a word, you place an “a” (alpha) in front of the word. This is the word “apistis”. “Apistis” is not neutrality, but the opposite of belief - doubt. There is no absence of believing, either positive or negative, there is either faith or doubt and worry is the offspring of doubt.

A few Christmases ago, my wife and I were in the midst of some challenging economic times. We did not have money to pay bills, much less to provide a Christmas for our children still living at home with us. I remember the night my wife came into my office with the news, we were on the ropes financially. As we began to pray about the situation, everything within me wanted to give into the anxiety I could feel rising within my heart, allow what was seemingly an impossible situation with deadlines to have its full sway. Everything on the surface pressed that it was reasonable to feel this way given the information presented.

As we prayed, one fact began to surface: what we were facing did not take into account the goodness of God. As I felt tangible worry, swirling around my head, I began to speak out, in my own hearing the one small pinpoint of truth I could hold on to. “So, what does this mean, that God won’t take care of us? That our Father can’t come through?” As I spoke those words, I began to laugh, hard. To an outside observer, I might have seemed to lose my mind, but in reality I was gaining it. I was becoming more aligned with the superior reality that was truth and less aligned with the heart bending fantasy that God couldn’t or wouldn’t come through. It was a moment of “repentance”; of changing my mind to align with who God was, what He was doing and His superior reality.

In seconds, the wave of nausea and worry lifted, and we felt the atmosphere of heaven surround us. Peace, real tangible, trans rational and powerful began to fill the room as our hearts began to worship and our voices spoke out how good our God was. We were reacquainted with our Father, who loves us.

What changed? We allowed a superior truth, birthed from a wisdom that is not common sense, but heavenly oriented sense to take hold, to change us and shape us. The circumstance was the same, we were different. We no longer felt victims, we felt empowered. We remembered who we were, sons and daughters, and who is was, our incredible, powerful and good Father. Worry shifted into faith and fruit came through in our lives.

What took place? How do you beat worry?

1) Look for the truth, the real truth, the whole truth and nothing but heaven’s truth. It was that little thought that was being squeezed down to a pinpoint of light because of worry, but when I began to focus on it, it grew in my estimation and heart. Principle: focus on what God is doing and has done rather than what isn't happening at the moment!

2) Speak it out loud: Faith comes by hearing. As I spoke out loud what the truth of the word was, that God is a good Father, my faith grew. I spoke it before I felt it and as I spoke it, my feelings began to align with the truth. Principle: speaking out truth helps your faith grow and reinforces your hold on reality.

3) Let the superior reality of heaven come and change your perspective. Once that breakthrough comes, hold on to it through worship and thanksgiving. Principle: Heaven's reality is greater than anything you will encounter in this life. It is an eternal reality and is the purpose of Jesus in bringing heaven to earth.

This can, does and will work as it is rooted in your relationship with our good, good Father.

Oh, by the way. less than three days later we received unexpected gifts in the mail that covered our bills and gave the kids a Christmas with enough to give away as well - only a good Father could do something like that.

Here’s to a worry-free road trip! Let's get to whistling down the road!

Doug

To learn more about Fusion and it's mission, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Looking at the glass.....

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:18:00 +0000

"Is the glass half full or half empty?"

This proverbial question is a fair one as we reflect on 2011 and look forward to 2012. My usual response in the old days was, "Who stole my glass?" All kidding aside, do people who see positive things have any less pain than those who see negative things?

This year for me was filled with some painful things. There were fluctuations in employment, economy, direction and relationships. But, overriding all of that was the amazingly, wonderfully good things that took place - healings, amazing healings in fact, salvations, new relationships, the deepening of older ones, learning new things, a deeper understanding of the Kingdom and more.

It led me to reflect on the previous years: were they also filled with a mixed bag of good things and hard things? The truth is yes. Everyone's life is filled with occurrences that are hard and wonderful. So how do you stay positive? How do you go from one year to the next not just with hope in tact, but to have your life "glistening with hope" in the words of author, Steve Backlund?

What do you focus on?

When you look at the glass, do you see what you have or what you lack?

Is you gaze encouraged knowing that what you have can lead you to get more, or by a knowing that what you had is gone?

Don't kid yourself; focus is incredibly important. Ask Adam and Eve....

They had this incredible, luscious, expansive, verdant garden filled with animals, plants, trees - in short, everything you could want or need. They were given an incredibly important and fulfilling mandate - to bring God's rule and dominion to the planet.

Yet, at the critical part of the story, there they were hanging around and involved at the one thing they didn't have - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All they could see was what they didn't have and in doing so put all of their incredible focus and energy towards something that would bring destruction death and misery to themselves and the entire race!

The truth is, we are no different. We have incredible things to focus on; good things, powerful things that we have, here and now! There are blessings lying underneath our noses, in our personal histories that we can draw from to fill the powerful potential of this coming year. Yet, mysteriously, many of us, (and yours truly at times), tend to reflect on and focus more on what we don't have which only leads to depression, the death of hope, dreams and discouragement.

A slight change of focus changes everything. Focus on the good. Do what our parents and grandparents did - recite your blessings, the good things God has done. Watch your faith, courage and hope grow as you do so! This is year is pregnant with possibilities! There are wonderful things in store for us. This is not some Pollyanna wish, but the truth - what you focus in tends to multiply in your life.

This year is too important to clutter with the deadly trivia of negativity. Our lives are too precious and too powerful to throttle with thoughts of what we don't have or what has gone wrong.

The slingshot effect of focusing on the what God is doing is going to reap dividends of hope and remember -

"The person who has the greatest hope is the person with the greatest influence!"

So, is the glass half full, or half empty?

Getting fuller by the minute!

Under a little further on this new year and new road,
Doug

PS - My prayer for you dear reader is a happy, prosperous and blessed New Year filled with the knowledge of the God who loves, loves, loves you!

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more or link up with us on Facebook - "fusiongreeley"...

How To Reach A City

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:05:00 +0000

I just returned from an amazing breakfast meeting with a few businesspeople in the city, run by an ex-pat of New Zealand, and attended by various people, none of which were born in my city, several of which were not even born in this country, including South Africa and Mexico.

Why did we gather? To encourage one another towards the kingdom in our businesses and personal lives. It was a refreshingly candid, uplifting and positive meeting in which we shared encouragement, testimonies and prayers. Some people would call what we did “churchy”, but even though there was an amazing amount of interaction that included content from the Bible, it was not “churchy”, it was grounded, practical and heavenly.

Now, I mixed the metaphors purposely. It seems to be an oxymoron to say “grounded” and “heavenly” describing the same thing in a sentence. Yet, I think this is part of the way the kingdom comes into our lives, in practical, God honoring ways that enhances our lives and businesses. This is the world in which the majority of believers live in: one in which they give forty or more hours to helping their businesses grow, expand and bring goods and services to others. The sad truth is that many who are believers and business people feel a little guilty for 1) making money and seeking a profit in their business, 2) using a lot of time, energy and resource, both physical and mental on the growth of their business and 3) that somehow business seems a little lower than “ministry”, at least full time ministry.

As we look at these silent assumptions, we find that the average businessperson feels that their work life is separated from their ministry life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Business is ministry - if you are a kingdom person. God has not given you an inferior calling if you are in business, He has just given you a different calling from your pastor, a missionary, evangelist, etc. Your calling is valid, powerful, anointed and celebrated in the kingdom!

As a kingdom businessperson, you bring goods and services to people that provide employment, cause the economic river to flow through our city and county and in some cases around the world.

Tomorrow, when you get ready to go to your place of business, begin with the following in mind to engage on a kingdom level.

1) Suit up before work: remember who you are, whose you are and what you bring to the table.

2) Draw on the wisdom of another world - you have access to the wisdom of the ages; you may be a Joseph to your industry and business with solutions that come from God.

3) Realize that nothing in your life is “secular”, all is sacred. Your work life is worship, as you do it unto the Lord. Allow this reality to begin to permeate your heart and mind as you get ready!

Serve with excellence and humility in your industry! Let God be released in an even greater fashion!

Until further along the road,

Doug

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:28:00 +0000

Dear Prayer Team, Friends and Family:

I am writing to you from my office in my home in Colorado after returning from a wonderful ministry trip in southern Oregon and Northern California.

We have had a wonderful trip, connecting with Abigail Stumvoll, who grew up around and in our house and now a part of the fifteen year revival in Redding, California at Bethel Church. We had a wonderful time in Ashland, seeing my brother in law, mother in law and doing a little painting. It has given us a chance to study and reflect while we have been gone - a very good thing given the upcoming season I am about to tell you about. We ministered in Ashland at the Foursquare Church there and I had the great opportunity to sing with my son John as well. Great fun!

As always, we want to start with what God has done in answering prayer, to build our mutual faith together!

Testimonies: “..for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy...” Revelation 19:10

Our on going men’s group re:fuel has been growing and men are really grappling with their roles and identities in Jesus. It has been great fun to be public at the local Starbucks on Tuesday evenings.
We had an awesome time ministering in Denver in July. We saw many people healed including a woman from neuropathy caused from chemo therapy, two people of double vision and one woman who had a whole in the middle of her eyesight. She was prayed for by three people who had come to Christ just five minutes before! There were many healed from arthritis and many other ailments. What a great time with Pastor Joe and Christy Olsson!
Our Friday nights have continued with many being healed. One woman was healed of clicking in her knee. Others have been touched and healed of various skeletal and physical issues.
The last weekend in Ashland, Oregon over four people gave their hearts to Christ and moved from an “institutional relationship” to an intimate relationship with Jesus and our Father! Many, many others were also healed and some experienced the power of God for the first time. We made a deep and lasting connection with Pastors Bill and JoAnne Halisted.
Since returning we have heard the most blessed thing: those we have trained are starting to have their own testimonies including the healing of eye disease, growths on thyroids and more!
Each week, we do offering declarations that affirm our giving and it’s blessing in our lives. We have seen our people begin to get promoted, given new responsibilities and receive new jobs in the midst of it. One lady was provided a job, transportation and housing!

Opportunities: “Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Don't forget to pray for us too, that God will give us an opportunity to preach...” Colossians 4:2,3a

As many of you have heard, we felt directed to start a School of Supernatural Ministry where people could be trained in a kingdom awareness and be able to bring the presence and power of the kingdom into their daily lives and arenas of life. This school, the Fusion International School of Supernatural Ministry will be starting in September of 2011 at Hope Centre with three class offerings: one will be a year long class featuring the training of John and Sonja Decker and their Ministry Training Centers (based on “Doing the Works of Jesus”). The other class will be Kingdom Life and Culture Part One, which will feature the Firestarters class and immerse the students immediately into kingdom lifestyle and risks. A third class, Kingdom Life and Culture, Part Two will be based on the “Supernatural Ways of Royalty and really go after identity in the kingdom and the spirit of Adoption. This class will be held in Fort Collins on Wednesdays in the fall and be taught by Janice and myself, and hosted by Pastor Randy Vaughn at Risen Hope Foursquare Church.

This school gives us the opportunity to train generations and people both older and younger in the ways of kingdom lifestyle! The classes will expand in the next year to include full time day students. It is an exciting time for this area!

We are also continuing to train people in “Firestarters” life. This class will also take place at Hope Centre.

During this transition, many things will cross over. Our Friday night live services will become our “Dwell” services and meet at Hope Centre on Friday nights. We will worship deeply, pray for one another and be exposed to teaching from a perspective of heaven towards earth and then pray for empowerment and healing at every meeting. This will be open to all kinds of people and we will be inviting different ministry teams from around the area to pray for people as they come on Fridays.

We also hope to continue to travel a couple of times a month to minister in various churches and bring ministry teams with us to bless and train simultaneously. These teams will be primarily made up of the students in the school, giving them opportunities to minister in different contexts.

Janice and I will also be leading street ministry teams on what we call, “Treasure Hunts” where we pray, receive words of knowledge from the Lord about individuals and then go find those people to pray for them.

We have led a few of these over the last year and they are great fun!

Fusion is beginning weekly public meetings on Friday nights at Hope Centre in Greeley, Colorado. The pastors, Dick and Sue Speer have graciously opened the church to allowing us to meet there. This begins this weekend. As well, I am ministering at Hope Centre on Sunday morning bringing a message about the love of God!

Family Needs: “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Philippians 4:6

As we begin, please pray for financial provision. We are in the lull of slowing our income. Ask God to provide ministry opportunities and for the school to grow.

We are still praying for and believing that each of our children being wonderfully blessed and radically loving Jesus. We are seeing this take place in each individual and would love your agreement as it takes place.
Janice and I are in a season of health physically like we haven’t know for ten years. Ask God to continue to bless us in this so that we have energy to fulfill our call.

A Word In Season: "The Lord GOD has given Me The tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to hear as the learned.” -

When Jesus said that, “the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news!”, He wasn’t just talking about something trite and religious, He was making a declaration that the reality that we were living under and in was inferior, because a greater reality had come and was dynamic among them. The kingdom is dynamic in that it is not real estate and yet it can take real estate. It is God’s rule moving forcefully among us and righting everything that has been skewed by sin and the rulership of the enemy. He has come and everything is in the midst of being made right!

We see the explosion of this every time we proclaim His kingdom when we speak. He constantly is waiting for us to be bold enough to say, “His kingdom come and His will be done; here on earth, just like it is in heaven!” That gives us the authority to move in healing and deliverance because Jesus is here and present among us. He is bringing the will of our good, good, Father who has sent this message of reconciliation to all!

Many ask me why we are able to see healings in such great numbers whenever and wherever we minister - there is no secret, just an awareness that this is the work God is doing - freeing captives, healing sickness and seeing the good news of His rule and reign coming to set things right in people’s hearts and lives! My friends this is our call, our purpose, our life - yours and mine! We are His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5) and we are called to represent (re-present) Jesus and our dear Father.

You see, so many believe that the message Jesus spoke of was salvation. Many equate the gospel with people getting saved and going to heaven. This is true, but incomplete. The message Jesus preached contained so much more!

For instance, just look at the Greek word translated salvation in the New Testament, “sozo”. Did you know that it is also translated alternatively healing, deliverance, and wholeness as well as salvation? When Jesus comes to save, it is so much more than fire insurance: He has come to declare “good news to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to set free the prisoners and proclaim liberty to the captives. To announce the year of the Lord’s favor!” (Luke 4:18,19 and Luke 61). We have been content to preach one quarter of the message of the gospel. This is why is it so important to proclaim the fulness of what Jesus did and said, to participate in this message by doing the “greater works” which Jesus Himself said we would.

There is a world waiting for a group of people to do more than merely go to church; there is a world waiting for the people to become God’s “called out ones” (the Greek meaning of the word we translate “church”) and to bring God’s kingdom into every sphere, every corner of life. We are called to present life changing scenarios as people of the Spirit and the Kingdom. We are called to serve with excellence and humility where we live and work to see lives change and the government of God expand the hearts of people into His kingdom. His call is still out to us to make followers of the ways of Jesus, who “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” (Acts 10:38)

Let’s do this. Expect the kingdom, declare it’s presence where you live and work. Seek it first and watch God begin to do something wonderful! Join us by praying, helping support this work and doing it yourself. Begin to explore more deeply these themes and more importantly, experiment and live in them!

Until next time, we will soak up His presence and then have wonderful answered prayers to tell about,

Doug & Janice Burroughs

fusiongreeley@gmail.com

(970) 518-5204

1419 38th Avenue, Greeley, Colorado 80634

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

A Little Perspective Never Hurt Anyone...

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Mon, 30 May 2011 17:00:00 +0000

The other day I had the privilege of perspective.

It wasn't scenery.

It wasn't a painted point of view.

It was a series of conversations and interactions with a Sri Lankan national who brought a fresh set of "eyes" to my world, my belief system and my task.

Have you ever gone to someone's house and thought, "Why don't they see this particular thing? Why don't they fix/repair/replace/change it?" Sure you have, you are just too polite to mention it.

But that in itself is the problem with our views of the world, life and the interaction between God, us and it. We get so trained, so used to the view that we no longer notice. All it takes is for someone to come into our world with a fresh perspective and all of our differences, both positive and negative come to light.

These moments are some of our greatest gifts. It's why many people will watch a news program, or read a journal that originates from outside our cultural borders. Even if you disagree with the conclusions, you gain the much needed insight that not everyone thinks the way you do and somethings are not "right" or "wrong", they are simply different. (Ask any married person over ten years and they'll tell you - you don't need to go around the world to discover this one!)

What did I discover? Mostly reinforcements and some tectonic shifts in my thinking.

1) The lie I used to believe in that, "God moves more powerfully overseas than here" is just that - a lie. We now have seen God do amazing things, normal for Him and shocking for us, right here in my neck of the woods. I am thrilled and engaged. God is doing wonderful things as we believe Him.

2) God wants to do more than I think He does. His powerful touches, healings, graces and mercy are available a lot, lot more than we think. God isn't limited; our thinking is.

3) Foreign national believers are not jealous of the United States; they are concerned that we regain our spiritual inheritance. Every foreign national believer I become acquainted with prays deeply for the United States. Many of them are Christians because of someone who came to their country or village from the US and like liberated peoples from World War II, they don't forget. They want us to move into all God has for us.

4) There is a lot more that God wants to do in and through the US, a lot more. Now, I knew this, but it becomes more and more reinforced everyday. Dear Christian, you were meant for a lot more than supporting a local institution through planting yourself in a chair each week (or in the case of most American believers - once a month), giving some money and if you are really, really committed, helping usher or watch kids. Christianity is a participation, full contact sport! You were called to change the world, not just light bulbs! We have not even seen the totality of what God wants to do to bless the US and the nations through her.

5) Belief is a real issue here. Frankly, we don't believe God. We have enough faith to believe in salvation for eternity, but not enough to see people healed and touched and God move because we've been told a lie that we now believe - God doesn't do that anymore. It is false. I have seen it with my own eyes - lame walking, cancer healed, legs growing out, rashes disappearing. It all happens when you engage in faith! As Bill Johnson says, many of us have repented deep enough to be saved, but not to see the kingdom. This is a big deal. We have made the gospel to be something that prepares you for eternity, but doesn't effect your life right now. A change in this area really matters.

I like my new perspectives, but I know that to keep them I have to reinforce them in my line of sight. I have to apply the insights into how I live and read and express the kingdom. So, today is a fresh day full of new perspectives and I intend to live them all.....

Until further down the road,
Doug

For more information go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com or ifusionschool.org to discover more about the Fusion International School of Supernatural Ministry.

Problems Serve a Purpose

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:16:00 +0000

So, if it were up to me, the 5000 that Jesus fed, never would get hungry in the first place.

At least that’s the way I have observed my prayers over the years.

I would rather have the problem never appear than believe our Father to answer it and experience discomfort, pain or the test of believing for an answer. Interesting isn’t it?....and so different from the way Jesus has invited us to participate in His kingdom.

When a circumstance arises (that which surrounds your stance....or in the words of Kris Vallotton, “Never change your stances because of a circumstances), it is a direct invitation from Jesus to move into an area of the kingdom that has already been provided for me, but which I haven’t yet learned to access. According to 2 Peter 1:2:

“seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

Do you see it there? He has granted us everything, not some things in certain occasions, but everything at any time, pertaining to life and godliness.

I don’t know about you, but the part about pertaining to life is pretty all encompassing and just so that nothing is left out, godliness, or all that has to do with becoming like Jesus, is also included.

How do we obtain it? Through the experiential knowledge of Him. As we develop a secret history with God through worship, prayer, and meditation bathed in inquiry and the methodical thinking about God’s words and ways as well as encounters and experiences we have in the Lord, we deepen our knowledge of who He is and what His character is like.

You see, we can meditate until we are full, pray until we have drawn blood, memorize scripture until we are walking Bibles, but if we never test what is in us through an experience with what surrounds us, what we have is a concept and not truth, a factoid and not something to base our lives on. We believe truth, but truth that is tested and seen through becomes a foundation; it is not mere knowledge or a fact, but knowledge that we have experienced.

He invites us in the middle of situations where we have no or have exhausted natural resources or solutions to live from a deeper, greater reality and see that reality come to bear in the present situation. It is the track, the training and proving ground, where the prayer He taught us to pray gets worked out. This is where we see His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is the point, when we see that a reality that is complete in the kingdom as the only solution.

It was from this reality that Jesus fed the five thousand, the four thousand, cast out demons, ruined perfectly good funerals, healed lepers, the blind and diseased and even sent Peter fishing to get his temple tax.

Did you ever see Jesus encounter a situation of lack, sickness, hunger, disease or even lack of tax money where He said, “Oh no, what shall I do?” He lived within a greater reality and brought it to bear on the inferior reality that we function from....and He invites us to do the same. Remember? He said, "Greater works shall you also do" and "as the Father has sent me, so I send you". He is the one that taught us to pray from the greater reality (the kingdom of God) into this inferior reality (all the results of the fall of man).

The next time I encounter a situation where I don’t “have enough”, I am going to bring this meditation to mind so that I can move that concept into a foundational truth - I have all things already given to me for life and godliness. It’s there, it’s legal and it’s mine. All I have to do is access it and the next test, trial, moment of challenge or lack is a perfect time to do it!

See you a little further along the road,

Doug

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

What in the world is going on?

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:36:00 +0000

What's going on?

It's a fair question, no?

While our hearts break, our minds pour out thoughts about this planet, the people and purpose during seasons like this.

Earthquakes, famines, wars and rumors of wars, tsunamis, the American stock market losing an entire year's worth of gains in one day, worries of nuclear meltdown and of course there's always the specter of more to come. It enough to really send us into a bona fide depression at best and panic at worst.

But, even though you'll think I am nuts, I want to tell you there is nothing to fear.

Yes, you read it correctly, nothing to fear.

These events are horrible and painful and the loss of life is tragic. Still, we are presented with a choice in the face of all this pain, tragedy and chaos: will we live in fear or love, despair or hope, or in doubt or trust? Now, it's not just an abstract love, hope and trust, but love from and in God, hope in Him and trust in His goodness.

We know through basic pedagogy that when you place children in an environment where fear is operating, their ability to create, learn and discover is severely hampered. In a similar coralary, if we saturate our lives in these times in fear, we may miss the very solutions and discoveries that could solve or alleviate the very crises that we are facing. When we choose the security of love in God, we find a place where we can begin to function, create and dream at higher levels. Perhaps a new earthquake warning system could be created that would give us days instead of minutes, or a new energy source that eliminates the need for nuclear fission, new political solutions and the list goes on and on.

Do not fear! This will pass. The Japanese will find a way to alleviate the crisis and they will need our help to rebuild, reclaim their place among the nations and thrive as a people. They will continue to work within the framework of their honored and ancient culture and rebuild their country and lives.

The nations of the earth may rumble and shake, political regimes will rise and topple, oil futures will rise and fall, but we will create, find and be led to a way through. We are anchored to hope that is in Jesus. There is a brighter day ahead.

I know that God is ready to release His goodness on the earth in an even greater measure than we have ever known. I hope that you have discovered that God is not behind these disasters at all. Now is the time for us, not to cower and become recluse, but to rise, let our good works shine, continue to be our generous selves reflecting and glorifying our God who loves the nations and weeps over every single life lost. Our God is the one who loved the world so much that He gave, not consigned, His Son to die for us....and that's all of us! He is an unabashed lover of this world and wants to see it saved. He has placed us here for that purpose, to extend His kingdom and see the benefits of His goodness spread to all the earth through the message of love brought from Jesus, the risen Savior and Lord.

Now, before you watch the news, pick up the paper or surf the net, remember, there is a greater reality at work here - there is hope, there is a God who loves us and will come through! Have faith, believe and release love and goodness in the midst of this.

Think this is just a bunch of hooey? Alright, I "double dog dare" you....live for thirty days believing and living in the reality we know: God is alive, good and loving and wants to release His goodness and kingdom over this earth to heal it. Thirty days in a different heart set....what could it hurt? Remember, He is a rewarder of those who seek Him....believe it and let's see our world healed!

What's going on? Despite some of the evidence to the contrary, our God is moving among the nations and blessing them. Where ever He goes, His wake is blessing and goodness...now for our part in releasing His love and goodness on the nation of Japan! Let's mobilize and follow through on this and display the love of God to Japan, New Zealand (remember Christchurch), Chile, Hati and the other nations experiencing needs, including our neighbors next door.

See you a bit down the road!
Doug

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Remembering Testimonies: A Key To Revival

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:39:00 +0000

“The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, Turned back in the day of

battle. ...And forgot His works And His wonders that He had shown them.”

Psalm 78:9-11

Why does the move of God sustain in some places and in others, it drifts away and is

only reminisced about?

Psalm 78 holds a huge key for us. In the portion I quoted above it talks about a people

who were equipped to see God move in their day. They had everything they needed for

a miracle. But, they turned back because they had forgotten the testimony of the works

of God.

Do you remember testimonies in church? I do, but I was never equipped to step into the

gift God was giving me as a child to see them do much benefit. I always thought that

testimonies were more for the person sharing than for those of us listening.

You see one of the keys of understanding the role of the testimony in this scripture is

Revelation 19:6 - “...the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Now that seems to

be somewhat obscure until you realize that the Lord invites us into His reality every time

we hear a testimony. When a testimony of the working of Jesus is heard, the spirit of

prophecy is released inviting people to step into that reality and experience that aspect

of God!s character and nature for themselves.

When we forget the testimonies of what Jesus has done in our lives, we become weak,

fearful and even though we are equipped for handling battles, we turn back and miss on

God!s present moving in our midst.

Have you ever wondered why healing has been so infrequent in the West? When do we

ever talk about it in present tense terms about not only what God has done, but also

what He can and will do? We immediately dismiss testimonies of the workings of God

because they are not “rational” and are seen as an insult to our intelligence. We have

gone so far in this that we have developed theologies explaining why sickness is a gift

from God for us! Where is this in the scriptures? Bill Johnson, author of “When Heaven

Invades Earth” said it best, “It!s an interesting thought to consider. Two thousand years

ago all sickness was seen as from the enemy and healing from God and now healing is

seen as an activity of the enemy and sickness is from God.”

What changes our minds about these things? We forget the testimonies! Every time we

hear a testimony, it reinforces how good our God is. The goodness of God is a seminal

foundation to understanding what He wants to do today.

When Janice and I speak, or host a meeting or gathering, every time we open with

testimonies of what God is doing. As we rehearse healings, miracles of provision,

salvations and the like, you can literally see faith rise on people!s faces. Expectation

and anticipation goes up in the room as people begin to think, “God could do that here!”

Don!t hide the testimonies. Dust off the old ones and tell them again around the dinner

table. Go to healingherald.org and borrow some to tell until you get new ones. Be like

David and meditate on them day and night. Your understanding of God and His nature

will increase and you!ll see God move in your life as you become aware of the

possibilities!

Let's begin to keep testimonies as a community of people! I look forward to hearing

what God is doing in your midst!

Until next time, we will keep the testimonies and bring more of His wonderful working,

Doug

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Does God Send Earthquakes and Tsunamis?

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:04:00 +0000

Some Thoughts on the Earthquake and Tsunami In Japan and the Pacific

Waking to the terrible news this morning of an 8.9 earthquake off the coast of Japan and the accompanying tsunami startled me with it’s ferocity, damage and loss of life. Coupled with what has been happening in the ring of fire, with the New Zealand quake and aftershocks in Christchurch, the volcanic eruptions in the Philippines and Hawaii, many sincere believers as well as people who have a casual understanding of God, attribute this tragedy to “an act of God.” Insurance companies call colossal events the same.

Then the cries come out from the midst of human pain, “Why would God do this?” “Where is God?” “Why doesn’t He stop it?

This tragic attribution of pain to God is something that has been going on for a long time. Whether plagues or storms, tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes, people in general and more than that, believers have been saying that God is basically waging war on the earth to punish the wicked.

Is He?

I believe this is flat wrong.

First off, if God sends earthquakes to punish the wicked, then as Jerry Cook says, “he has bad aim.” For instance, when the Northridge quake hit years ago, many said it was God’s punishment on the porn industry in Southern California. If God is God and He wanted to punish, couldn’t He do it without hurting others? My own parents, God fearing believers and Jesus followers had thousands of dollars of damage. Another former instructor of mine, again a deeply committed Christ follower, lost most of his eyesight in the quake.

Why would believers say that God is bringing punishment? I believe it is because they have been misinformed to the nature of God and the absolute power of what Jesus did for us.

Remember when Jesus mentioned a tower in Siloam in Luke 13:1-6? He said that the people who suffered were not worse sinners than those who didn’t. What He was saying in the case of a tower that fell and the political bloodshed mentioned was that God wasn’t using these tragedies as a means for judgement or punishment. Yet, because of the way the church, the people who are supposed to represent God, have been instructed, we attribute judgement and punishment to almost every natural disaster that comes along.

Perhaps, it is because these attributions reflect more of our own heart and not that of the heart of God. It might be because, as Daniel Brown puts it, our "theology is shaped more by the scriptures we remember rather than all the scriptures that are in the Bible."

Jesus, rarely got angry while He was here, but when He did, you can be sure it wasn’t your pedestrian tax collector, prostitute, working person or business man He was angry at. No, it was the religious who were supposed to represent God in His goodness and love, but who misrepresented (literally mis - re-presenting) Him to the people. Their view of God was wrong and their presentation of Him was fraudulent.

What is God like? Isn’t He angry, vindictive, out to hurt mankind into a place of repenting ?

Again, no.

What authority do I have to say this? Jesus, Himself.

He said to His followers, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” Hebrews says that Jesus is the “exact representation of His being.” He was approved of by God at His baptism for representing the Father, when God said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” This reflected a rite of passage at that time in which fathers would present their sons as part of their business by stating that phrase. It meant, if you do business with him, you do business with me.

So then, what is God like if He is not detached, aloof, vindictive or capricious and given to anger?

He is kind, engaged and forgiving. He laughs. He reaches out. He gets down in the dust of humanity. He forgives people caught in the act, heals people that have been captive to lifelong sickness and develops a world that reaches back to God’s original intent for mankind. He is the kind of God that takes the fall for us, suffers through the pain of Roman torture and the crucifixion and then secures our release by forgiveness and resurrection.

Aren’t these natural disasters a way of God bringing people to repentance? Not according to the scriptures which state it is His “kindness that leads to repentance.”

God is not vindictive. He is not angry. He is kind. He is good. In fact when Moses asked to see His glory, that which in some ways is reflected as to His weight, gravitas and reputation, He told Moses that He would allow all of His goodness to pass before him. That brief exposure to God’s goodness was so great that it caused a physical manifestation to Moses’ face.

The truth is that God is, has been and always will be good. So what should our response be to these tragedies?

First, we must not attribute to God something that He has not done. Look, the recent Supreme Court hearings on a midwest Baptist church that has protested funerals of soldiers and used them as occasions for terrible hate messages of judgement have given us a look at something that doesn’t reflect the heart of God. He is the One who knows even sparrows that fall to the ground and numbers the hairs on our heads. He is for people. The Bible gives witness to Jesus that He was the expression of love to the world and as given in sacrifice on a Roman cross as an expression of love to satisfy the justice and mercy needed for our redemption.

Second, we must represent the goodness of God. Pray for people, mobilize resources, and do what Jesus did, who “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” We should do all the good that we can as long as we are able. If people ask us why, just simply let them know that they are valuable, and God is good and loves them.

There are indeed deep reasons why we experience these things. It is more than merely coincidental, scientific responses and the mere release of energy of tectonic plates. We live in a world that is wracked with the consequences of our forbearers choices. But, that is why Jesus came, to release us from this curse and bondage....and the earth along with it.

Don’t believe that Jesus isn’t for natural disasters? Look at the one time He was confronted with a life threatening storm in the gospels. He didn’t bring the storm; He didn’t chase the storm. He stopped the storm.

It’s something to think about further along the road. In the meantime, let’s look for ways to help, give and support people where ever tragedy strikes. Let’s be like Jesus.

See you soon,

Doug

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Is Frugality a Value to God?

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 14:08:00 +0000

Apparently, God acts as if He has never hear poor old Ben Franklin's wit and wisdom. You remember, Ben (one of my personal favorites of history), inventor, statesman, founder of our country, the "first" American, creator of the first magazine, fire department, post office, etc. A pretty smart and very reflective fellow. He published proverbs of the Colonies under the nome de plume of Poor Richard. One of those proverbs:

"Waste not, want not."

It's funny, God acts like He's never heard of this. His life is full of abundance, so much so that it seems, well, downright un-puritan of Him!

Check out King David's description of Him in Psalm 36

7How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!

And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.

8They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;

And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.

9For with You is the fountain of life;

In Your light we see light.

10O continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You,

And Your righteousness to the upright in heart.

Doesn't sound like a parsimonious prude now, does it?

Don't be fooled by verse 7. David is merely stating a fact: the lovingkindness of God, that stubborn, wonderful, covenant love is precious like gold, jewels and more. It is so great that we are invited and if we are smart, take refuge in the "shadow of His wings" like a brood of goslings under their mother, completely covered to the point of disappearing from the eye. This idea of taking refuge means that we are "all in" like a life and death game of Texas Hold-em. There's nothing outside, nothing in the pile left over. All of our trust is in Him.

Look how He treats the one who fully goes after Him this way; it's better than winning the lottery!

These people drink to the point of full satiation of the abundance of His house. Look, that doesn't sound like a Puritan's picnic! That sounds like a chugging, wipe your mouth with your sleeve with liquid spilling out and falling to the ground. It's like a thirsty man finding an oasis and burying his head in the water to drink and then swimming in it! See it! It comes not from a small supply, but from the abundance of the house. Abundance literally is fatness...that which is extra, which is stored. As you drink your fill of the abundance, you haven't even tapped into the main part. We are satisfied with just that which is extra in God.

Oh, and no thimble sized, European glasses here. Apologies to my friends over the pond. I know you think our portions are barbaric here in the States, but watch what God says next! We are given to drink, again with the idea of to full, over flowing satisfaction, the river, the torrent or wadi of your delights! This is no bucolic stream meandering by, it is a flood of speed and size of the delights of God. What do He mean by delights? The word is "aydan" or how we know it better, "eden". It is a river of eden. It is His fineries, His wonders, His works, His joy, His goodness, like a river flooding us that we can drink, wallow in, splash about, and become satiated in!

When God invites us into His house, under the shadow of His wings, in His righteous and love, it is an invitation to what life was originally to be like: a never ending release of His goodness and "eden", or delights. Remember, it was King David who also said in Psalm 16:11,

"You will make known to me the path of life

In Your presence is fullness of joy;

In Your right hand there are pleasures forever."

This is why we are to be a people of joy. We live in the presence of One who has flooded us with His delights. He satisfies us with the excess of His house, a never ending supply of Himself! We can drink until we burst!

How do we access this? "For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light." He is the fountain of life! With Him is the source of life, purification & joy in order to sustain life, live prosperously, live forever and live in the secret to restoration of life and health. In His light, the light of His face, we see life, prosperity, instruction. All of it stems from being face to face with Him. Seeking His face and knowing Him is the key to this. This knowledge is to be experiential, not book knowledge, but an encounter and on going experience with the living good, good God of the universe.

Finally, Daivd's prayer is for God to "continue", or draw out and create a pathway of lovingkindness and righteousness to the upright in heart, those that know Him through this experience and encounter with Him and His love and goodness.

You see, being a follower of Jesus is not about memorizing facts and saying creeds and catechisms, as beneficial as all that might be, it is the experience and encounter with the living, amazing, wonderful, stupendous, good God; a head long rush to an oasis, diving into the smooth, cool, clear water of His covenant love.

So come on, drink up! Let it spill over your sleeve, your face, fall down your shirt front, spill on the ground. Let your manners go for a moment and take deep draughts of His love. There is plenty to go around and then some.

I know Ben, "waste not, want not". Apparently, our God just chooses not to listen to you on this matter.

See you at the next waypoint in the road with unmeasurable blessings from an abundant, "wasteful" God:

Doug

Just a final note: all of the conclusions here were based on research into the original Hebrew of Psalm 36 and the meaning of the words. Hebrew is a "concrete" language that uses things (i.e. - fatness) to represent concepts (abundnace).

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

The Necessity of First Things: Love

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 06:58:00 +0000

First things first.

There is always debate about what those first things are, and the world of the western church is no different. What is it that we should do as a matter of highest value and what comes after?

The greatest of these is love.

After all, without love, our best act for God and our best human system means nothing. Love is the root, the trunk, the branch, the leaf and the fruit. It's all about love.

If you think about it, it's that way for God too. He loved so much that He gave His only Son and in the words of Wane Cordeiro, bankrupted heaven to purchase our lives. Love is always what motivates God. Some of us get that messed up a bit.

Look at the recent natural disasters. Some well meaning, but theologically unsound believers claim that God is unleashing storms and earthquakes to punish people. Jesus was a storm stopper, not a storm starter. Really? Where do you find Jesus unleashing punishment on people in the revelation of God that He was? After all, Jesus is perfect theology. Everything we ever wanted to know about the Father and His nature, we find in Jesus. The Bible witnesses to the fact that Jesus is the exact representation of His (God's) being. Jesus Himself said to His disciples, "...if you have seen me, you have seen the Father..."

So, what is the Father like?

He forgives a woman caught in the very act of denigrating an institution and relational life He set up. He heals all that come His way. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the enemy of this planet. He tells Peter, one of His closest associates to put away a sword and not resort to violence. He heals the man who was part of the party that came to arrest and put Him to death. He also forgave people who denied Him, not once or twice, but three times. He welcomed little children in His midst, spoke words of life to the poor and oppressed that made a difference, broke off the yoke of religious slavery over people, welcomed both men and women in a culture that is closer to the oppressive states of Afghanistan than the US, and He declared that something wonderful and new had entered into human history and instead of pages of religious do's and don'ts, He asked those who heard about the kingdom of God to simply change their mind, align their lives to Him and His kingdom and embrace the good news.

In short, He loved.

God the Father loved and still does. He is love. Sometimes, we His people don't reflect His love too much. We mix the ethics of the Old Testament where you expressed love for God by hating His enemies, with the New Testament, where you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. We think God is pleased when we threaten and berate those who haven't walked with Him and yet the truth is it is a flat misrepresentation of God. Jesus didn't know barriers of race, color or gender. He crossed them all to reach people with the good news about Him, His Father and the kingdom.

You see God is good. His goodness is something that the world has yet to hear about in full, because we have remixed the message. We haven't displayed or proclaimed fully how good our God is.

So, here's our chance. We can love like He does. It is a trans-rational and supernatural event, but He promised help for us in this arena through His Holy Spirit who can saturate our hearts with that love for people. Then we can do like He did: go about doing good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil - Acts 10:38......

We can truly occupy until He comes by spreading that love and kingdom into every area of society instead of waiting for the first ticket out, sitting indolently hoping for the world and the "enemies of God" to fry, when in reality the world needs the truth about God, His love and great, astounding goodness. We can quit hoping that the nightly news will produce more evidence that God is judging and start interceding for the suffering masses and asking for mercy. In short, we could act a little more like Jesus, who acted exactly like His Father.

How do you get started? Ask Him for direction. Start leaking goodness on everyone you meet. Ask God for favor on you so you can reach more people and ask for favor on those people so they will know the goodness of God. Quit using news organs as your barometer of culture and start setting the atmosphere and culture of everyplace you go - your home, your community your job, your school, etc. Quit being a thermometer that simply reflects the air around you and whatever the dominate voice you are listening to and take up your God given assignment to be a thermostat and set the culture and atmosphere so that God's good, benevolent, grace saturated kingdom can make it's entry.

And love, love, love!

Now sing with me,
"I see trees of green and red roses too.....and I think to myself, what a wonderful world...."

Loving down the road,
Doug

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Institutions Cannot Father Children, Spiritual or Natural

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 01:45:00 +0000

"Please sir, can I have some more?"

Many of us remember this line from Oliver where he dared to ask for more. He was an orphan in an institution. The reason I start this blog out with this is that I want to talk for a minute about the necessity of fathers in the Western Church (in truth, throughout the world, where ever the West has had influence).

Here is my basic assumption:

Institutions cannot create, cannot care for, nurture or raise up children, in the natural or the spirit.

Our mandate from Jesus is to make disciples and that process was compared by Paul to fathering, when he said, "you have many teachers, but not many fathers."

What does institutionalizing relationships in a living organism like a network of churches do?
1. There is an expectation that the institution can, should and will meet your needs and that of your churches.
The truth is that an institution is impersonal by nature. Systems are not warm. Systems do not feel, hear, respond and care, people do. When the institution is exalted above the nurturing relationships that are a part of it, people are placed in the lower echelon of priorities.

2. The institution begins to put agreement and complicity above loyalty.
What gets measured gets done and in an institutional relationship, what gets measured are nickels and noses as the highest priorities. Are you giving to the institution? Even when the question, "why should I give to an institution" is challenged, once you get past the religious subterfuge, the bottom line is institutional survival. You give so that the institution can still do what it thinks it needs to do, even when the original contract has changed.

Attendance at a main meeting is always a high priority, both on a macro and micro level. This attendance is considered agreement. Agreement is measured by complicity: do you do what we say and do it the way we say to do it? Do you show up to our functions simply because we have said you need to, whether they provide any benefit to you or not?

Loyalty is not measured by agreement, but by depth of relationship. A family can be filled with people all over the political spectrum, and still be loyal to one another. They can argue at dinner and be shocked at the query of an outsider asking if they are going to break up the family. One family member can have a party in which not everyone comes and there is no question as to whether the absent person is still part of the family.
When loyalty has to be measured by agreement, we get the tragedy of "kool aid" and waiting for alien spaceships. Agreement as the measurement of loyalty produces the abuses of the shepherding movement in the 1970's.

3. The institution is expected to plant churches and properly fit pastors as replacements for open churches.
Let's take a look at this in both parts.
First, institutions don't plant churches, they can only create in kind. Institutions create institutions. Churches are the best planters of churches. When the institution plants a church, it is almost always non-contextual and doesn't seem to fit.
Second, in almost every case where I have trusted an institution to replace myself as I went to plant another church, the incoming pastor was a bit of a mismatch. Frankly, this is the data all over. You would think that change is in order, but one of the values of any institution on the planet is controlling outcomes, so this dysfunctionality continues. The institution wants to make sure that the "product" is close to the original, so it places leaders that are first available, second, trained (usually in an institution like a Bible College), and third wants to go to that place.

But in many places, this new pastor doesn't know the culture, nor care to learn, doesn't have a deep heart for the people, (how could they, they don't know them) and usually is looking to have a place to purport ideas that they have learned. The authority to do so is not Biblical, apostolic authority, but institutional authority. So when things don't work out, the blame and bitterness is moved onto the institution's shoulders, which is impossible, because an institution does not have shoulders. What I mean is we personify the institution which usually has lost familiar dynamic within it. The heart cry of those in the institutions are "Oh God, please let this work out so that it won't rock the boat!" Why? So that the institution doesn't have to clean up messes. Fathers get recruited into cleaning up messes all the time, because babies poop. When institutions don't allow for this it shows that institutional goals supersede the goals of a local church or leader. This is the depth of descent into bureaucracy.

The role of the institution must be reexamined and hard questions asked: Is this what was intended? If we are losing a familiar dynamic, is the "institutionalness" of our group adding this or detracting?

The Biblical example is fathers. Fathers care for, pray for, promote and bless their children. Brothers compete, fathers complete. When there is sniping and jealousy in the institution; political maneuvering and philosophical meandering, is the problem with the individuals or the mere fact that we have many teachers (read - policy wonks) and not many fathers? (And lest you think this is sexist, I am referring to the fathering/mothering role, or parenting....) Have we created a competitive environment or one of complementarian one? Think of an orphanage. There can be competition for scarce resources, jockeying for favor or the institutional leaders so that added benefits come, as well as a vicious environment among the children. Why? Because an institution is not a family. It lacks fathers! Where there is a release of fathers, resources are not scarce. Where there is the Biblical value of family, people are released to become everything that God has assigned them to and there is no jealousy. When it does come up, it is not punished, but fathered. People are not "cared" for in an institutional sense, they are fathered in the fullest sense of progression, from covered children to released adults who become parents themselves, this is the way of the New Testament, not institutional sensibilities.

When fathers are released, there is a new sense of resourcing in the kingdom and the multiplication of that is more and more children growing up, getting away from being clothed, fed and cared for from an institution and moving into their full destinies - releasing and resourcing the kingdom of God on earth.

Are there examples? Absolutely. Wayne Cordeiro is a father. Ralph Moore is a father without equal. Pastor Jack Hayford is a father. In our movement, fathers have not been celebrated and released, they have been corralled and cajoled into compliance with institutional norms. This has blunted the release of fathers and mothers into our movement. Quite frankly, for some reason, we are a bit terrified of this particular assignment. But when families have fathers and are bathed and saturated in real love the result is without parallel: churches are planted, leaders are exponentially multiplied, ongoing renewal and revival is fostered giving rise to the blessed possibility of awakening and the overall health of the organization is raised to a high level.

One of the biggest fears is that churches would be more loyal to a father than an institution. Truly, I understand and get what is underneath the fear. After all, we are Protestants, birthed in protest! Every day splinters and new denominations get started because people gather around truth as the bottom line without the necessary love of the family. If the father is celebrated, encouraged and released by those who give oversight, then that father will be loyal and if a father is loyal, those who relate to them will be. It is axiomatic. When that fatherly relationship is interrupted and the father is encouraged to allow the institution to step in and take over the relationship and authority role, then you have problems, deep and wide.

Recently, an organization that I am a part of, gathered church planters to ask how we can plant more churches. While I truly laud the effort and concern, the answer is simple: pray for and release fathers and you will have your churches, your leaders and your overall health. This response itself, to create systems and processes is an artificial application of how fathers naturally select, impart, improve and release sons and daughters. Why are we institutionalizing a system which has already been proven in the family process of doing church? Why not send our potential fathering churches and fathers to people who are already doing it? Why not let them relate to these fathers and let their spiritual DNA get into them?

This would naturally cross all the institutional lines and boundaries that are erected to be able to measure, count and collect. But if we did risk it, and would allow a more organic culture to take root, I believe that there would be unprecedented growth in health, leaders, churches and most importantly, the Kingdom.

Let's reconsider the role of fathers. Let's bless and release them to be who they are called to be. Let's celebrate their gains and successes! Their victories are open doors for the rest of us. Let's try something different instead of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Fathers raise up children. Institutions cannot remove the orphan spirit, only fathers can.

See you a bit down the road!
Doug

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Relevance is not the issue: a look at the Western Church - (Part One)

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:01:00 +0000

Relevance is a “hot” button issue today.

If you peruse the internet, listen to radio, watch television, or read articles, journals and books, it won’t take long for you to hear that relevancy is a big problem for today’s church in the west.

Accordingly, those who cite this make dire predictions that the church is on it’s way out and Western Civilization is close behind.

The interesting thing in all this is that most of the conversations revolve around the form and structure of the church. This has resulted in the flurry of conversations and books centered on the emerging/emergent debate (forms versus theology), the resurgence again of the house church and many shades and variations in between. The goal of these are to reach men and women for Christ and to be faithful to God in expressing “church” in the world.

Relevancy speaks of whether something fits what is needed or can get you to the desired end. The wikipedia entry about relevancy gives an example of treating scurvy with something other than Vitamin C, would not produce the needed result. Therefore, any treatment other than Vitamin C, is irrelevant.

Extrapolating this out, the cries of “relevance” are saying that we are applying the message of Jesus in an irrelevant form while leaving out social justice and this then is the reason why churches are on the decline in the West. Or you might hear others say that the church needs more of the arts (again, a wonderful thing) or more small groups, or do away with the structure altogether.

But all of it misses the point.

Just as relevancy is defined by applying the right means to the need, so there is a deeper question: “Is relevancy a matter of structure, style and systems”, or is it rather the core content of our message that is off?

Now before you check out, let’s inquire of the church in the West. One of the greatest thrusts in the Western Church right now is social justice. Passion and controversy aside, is the message of social justice the fullest expression of the message of Jesus? In other words, if we add feeding, clothing and ministering to the poor and oppressed (all of which is vital and important) to the current message of the church, have we become relevant?

The question at hand is that if we add activities and selected emphasis to the church, does it faithfully reflect the message of Jesus? In other words, if the best that we can do in presenting our message is something that any NPO, NGO or other charity can do, what are we missing? Is it a “full gospel”? Is it the gospel which Jesus, Peter, Phillip, Paul and all the early church presented? We just might be missing a vital piece of the gospel.

Where do we look for the missing piece of the gospel?

My contention is this: the gospel which Jesus presented was relevant in His day and because He is the “same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), it is reasonable to believe and expect that the message Jesus preached in the first century is valid, relevant and applicable for today.

His orthodoxy is the message of the kingdom of God. His orthopraxy was the means of enforcing and presenting the message of the kingdom. Both need to be looked at in order to answer the question, “is the church relevant?”

Part of the problem is that most of the pastors who are currently leading have been exposed to and trained in an understanding that you do not take your orthopraxy and orthodoxy from the narratives (the Gospels and Acts). This perspective says that if it isn’t in the epistles, then it isn’t available to the church today. Their argument is that the Gospels and Acts are the written record that got the church up and going, but once the cannon of scriptures were recorded and Paul, et. al. wrote their letters, everything we need for the ongoing Christian life is in the epistles. Now add that with the thin views we have on Revelation and we have functionally shrunk the New Testament by nearly half and the amount of books from 27 to 21!

More to the point, by doing so, we take this key concept and central part of Jesus’ message , “the kingdom of God,” which appears in the New Testament over one hundred times and dramatically reduce it to a footnote. How can we present the main message of Jesus when we amputate most of the documents that both refer to and demonstrate what Jesus presented and how He presented it? What I am saying is that we must move back to the view of the early church and historic orthodoxy and embrace the fact that Jesus’s methods and message are legal to us and vitally necessary for the church to engage in today. We must begin to embrace the great commission which embodies more than the words of Jesus and includes the works of Jesus; it is both orthodoxy (right belief about Jesus) and orthopraxy (doing the practices of Jesus).

Stay tuned for what the kingdom looks like in my next post....

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Hosting His Presence

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:16:00 +0000

“But Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken away from her...”

Have you ever wanted something to last? To not be taken from you, break down or wear away? I know Janice and I have. We have prayed for favor over mechanical things to money over the years of our church planting adventures, believing that God will stretch a dollar or make a washing machine last way past it’s expiration date.

But what I’m talking about is more significant, more important than any material thing could be. The thing that we are asking God for now is that His abiding presence will do just that - abide.

I know, theologically, He never leaves us. We believe that. But having been a veteran of two significant seasons of revival, I also know that we can get so busy in stuff, that we mask His move, push aside His nudging and move into busyness. Then after a few days/weeks/months of this, we come to our senses bone dry and wonder what happened? Why don’t we feel as close to God?

Mary has always held the answer. When we find ourselves in these seasons, it is because we have not chosen the better part. When we chose news, TV, busyness, and fretting over Jesus, we lose the most important thing of all - Him! When we choose Him first, we never miss out! That which He gives us will never be taken away!

It looks like this: if a special guest came to your home, you would take extreme measures to make sure they were welcomed, were comfortable, were honored and were attended to. Meals would be prepared, the best place would be reserved and all attention would directed upon this guest.

But what would it look like if you graciously welcomed them into your home and then you went about your normal chores for the day. While they sat unattended, you washed your clothes, went and picked up doggy stuff in the backyard, and changed the oil in the car? It would be considered rude. In this case, your guest would leave from boredom and you would miss all this guest could impart to your life. You might even stubbornly insist that if the guest wanted to come to your house, then they had to do what you do. You get the picture. It's hospitality - Spartan style.

But the truth is, we treat Jesus this way. We get graciously introduced to Him and then proceed into the busyness of life, leaving Him waiting for when we can get around to Him! Tell me, what would we do if a head of state wanted to come to our house? How would we treat the head of a major corporation? More importantly, how do we break this cycle?

We have to learn to host His presence.

As gracious hosts, we must make our environment, our hearts, minds and lifestyles hospitable to Him. We must turn to Him often and like Mary, learn to be with Him.

One of the ways Janice and I do this is to sit and rest in His presence. In the morning when we wake up, we will put on our favorite worship cd and worship along with it, and are daily amazed as the powerful sense of His presence comes on us.

During the day, whenever possible, we pull aside to remind ourselves of the One Elijah spoke of, “in whose presence I live”. We will pause before we enter stores, businesses and appointments to pray and wait a brief moment as that sense of His presence comes on us. Then at night, we put on our worship CD again and just soak in His glorious, warming presence. This better part will never be taken from us! It has sustained us daily, especially since we are not gathering weekly with a body of believers.

We are committed to His presence so much, that the Lord has spoke to us and we are to tell our new work that this is the theme of the year - hosting His presence.

I encourage you to explore this. Take the next few weeks...begin your day with sustained worship. Put on your favorite DVD or CD that draws you into His presence and just be with Him. Let's put on some hosting that would make Martha Stewart jealous!

Until further along the road,
Doug

For more information, please go to fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Can You Teach An Old Dog New Tricks?

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:30:00 +0000

The old adage, “can you teach an old dog new tricks”, is a truism. Truisms come about because in most cases they are true. So, can you?

The answer is “yes”, if the dog is motivated.

Motivation comes from a variety of sources. People are motivated by goals, by desire, by money, by influence, by fear, by pain, and if you can think it, you can put it here. Some of the greatest changes in life come when we move beyond base motivations - fear, pain, etc., and move that motivation into a higher level called, “transcending change”.

Martin Luther King did it. It was a moment where his pain, and the pain of an entire race met in a moment with his call from God and an opportunity for change. The rest is history that is still being written.

Mother Teresa did it. She saw the poor of Calcutta, responded in the framework of her calling and elevated a simple act into a movement that continues today, well past her own passing.

How do you get to transcending change? Isn’t it too big? What does one thing you and I do really matter?

Our biggest “de-motivator” is ourselves. We think that we are insignificant and do one of two things: we devalue all that we do or we compensate for it with bravado and boorish behavior. Let’s tell the truth: on our best day, we feel like pale versions of ourselves, much less like Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa. We seem stuck in shallow thoughts and feelings of hopelessness.

But what if we saw ourselves as God saw us? What if we really embraced the fact that we were worth everything to God? What if we discovered that God loved us so much that He bankrupted heaven as it were, put it all on the line for us, by sending Jesus and that He really did want a healthy, functional relationship with us and by extension through us to the world around?

So many of us see God as a “cosmic kill joy”, rending only judgements and pain. For this view of God, let me apologize...it is distorted, wrong and to use a Christian phrase, patently un-Biblical. God is love. He is a lover of people and this world. He is not “chomping at the bit” to bring destruction. He loves you. You matter to Him. You have purpose.

Have you heard what the Bible describes as the people of God’s affection?

A “royal priesthood”.

That’s right...royal in status, when you are restored into Jesus, you are restored to royalty, kings and queens, priests and priestesses before God, representing the needs around you to God and God to the people and their needs. Is that a high enough calling? Would being royalty before God be a change in the way you saw yourself?

Kings and queens carry presence. You know when someone of influence enters a room, because they change it. Most of us go through life as thermometers, reflecting what’s in a room or situation. The truth is we are thermostats, we set the temperature, we influence the room and the very emotional, spiritual and cultural atmosphere where we go. Our actions have meaning and when we couple that knowledge with an understanding of the gravitas, the atmosphere that we carry with us, every situation becomes charged with possibilities for transcending change, regardless of how large or how small it is.

In Northern California at a drive through Starbucks one morning, a young man with this realization paid for his coffee and the car behind him. This set off eight hours of people purchasing the drinks behind them. What changed this little part of the world with a day long display of generosity? One person who understood who they were and what they carried with them.

Now if that isn’t dramatic enough for you, please allow me to reframe Christmas for you. One person who knew who He was, where He came from and where He was going (see John 13:1ff) came and set in motion the will of God the Father, salvation, freedom, healing and wholeness which has lasted a lot more than eight hours, it has been rolling along for the last two thousand years!

Because of what Jesus has done, Christ followers have been healing the sick, helping the poor, creating hospitals, prison reform, child labor reform, repealing slavery, working against human trafficking, building educational facilities and systems, creating wonders in science and medicine and continuing to bring positive change. (If you feel skeptical, look beyond your edited text books and go to the source materials of people like our founding fathers, George Washington Carver, William Wilberforce, et. al.- you’ll see they were motivated by their relationship with God through Christ.)

Let’s be motivated to bring about change in the way we relate to one another, parent our children, work with others, and in everything we do. Let’s leak the atmosphere of heaven onto earth. Let’s understand what we carry and bring with us as a people of a high, regal calling and continue to see that through to the benefit of mankind in both large and small ways.

Look at the words of one of my favorite Christmas carols....

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

If you read this and say to yourself, I don’t understand how to access this, begin by changing the way you think. Have you ever heard someone say, “repent”? “Repent” in the Bible means to “change the way you see and think” about something. This is good news! Change your way of seeing and thinking and believe that Jesus has come to free you. Confess (agree with God about) to God the things in your life that have missed all that He has for you and that have injured you, people around you and Him (this is called sin), and receive His forgiveness. It's already been paid for through Christ's sacrifice through His death which was more than martyrdom, it was a gateway to a new existence, proven through His resurrection from the dead. Thank Him for it! It’s His early Christmas gift to you!

Now, let’s get going, there are a lot of people that don’t know this good stuff yet! God’s kingdom, represented by His royal priesthood is here! Let’s use that as motivation for change!

Until further along the road,

Merry Christmas!

Doug

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

Resolved for my fiftieth birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 15:55:00 +0000

As I approach my fiftieth birthday, I am declaring the following resolutions as a result of encounters with God over the last sixth months (writing in early November).

Resolved, I am no longer living under the fear of punishment from God. I do not serve an angry God. In fact, He’s not even in a bad mood. I serve a loving, merciful, beneficent, kind, wonderful, amazing, doting, shaping, joyful Father who has no wrath left for me since I am in Christ and He took all of my sin, shame and guilt. He is a Father who did not even spare His own Son, so now, how can He withhold any good thing from me?

Resolved, I will live, teach and preach the truth - God is good, through and through. This theme - God and His goodness is my message. His love is for mankind. He loved me, us, so much that He gave, not material goods, but His own Son. If we just believe into this Son, we will not perish and decline but have an abundant life that lasts through eternity. Why? God didn’t send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but He sent Him so that His love, the people, His creation, through the Son would be saved. He’s not ticked. He’s not looking to strike with a thunderbolt (wrong cosmology). He is a lover. He is reaching out. We are called, along with Jesus, to proclaim the favorable year of our God. In other words....it’s a great time to come to a loving, dear, awesome, and approachable God. Want to see what God is like? Look at Jesus.

Resolved, I am no longer living in the fear of a declining church, a wrecked planet and a remnant mentality. Inherent in the scriptures is the promise of men and women being saved, changed and growing into the image of Christ, a church that has neither spot nor wrinkle, the leavening influence of the church and a growing commitment to the Lord. In the scriptures is the promise that Jesus will be with us to the end of the age. I will spend my next few years discovering, annotating, living in and learning this new eschatology. This new direction will shape and enhance my soteriology, and I will see new expansion in faith, belief, action and rest because of it.

Resolved, I am no longer living in fear of critics, theologians and men. I care what the scriptures say, what my deepest and closest friends see and think in me and the streams God has chosen for me to swim in. I care about these things. I am open to correction, but I refused to moored by fear to the docks of conventional religious conformity when I was made to sail the expanses of the seas of God’s goodness!

Resolved, I will protect the Presence of God in my life, church and ministry I am a steward of. God has wonderfully blessed my wife and I with another outpouring of grace, goodness and most of all His presence. It is a precious gift that I will learn to nurture, give room for and sow into. I was made for His presence; it is in Him that I will learn to center myself.

Resolved, I am no longer living in a poverty mentality that says if I get enough to pay a debt I am content or if I can barely make it, that is enough. I am a child, son, joint heir, commissioned man and kIng under the King of Kings. Just enough will no longer due. I have lived with a poverty mentality for long enough, I am now going to live with a mentality that blesses and sees abundance in everything. I am not looking to be wealthy and rich, I already am. I am looking to widen the flow in and through my life. There will be no more bottlenecks because of my unbelief and faulty theology! I will live in the full revelation of blessing, so much more than mere money. This blessing incorporates all that I am, my life, my health, my mind, my heart, my emotions, my intellect, my will, my relationships, my imaginations, my family, my friends, neighbors and acquaintances. I live in abundance and wealth all around me, the richness of my favor with God that doesn’t just fill, but fills to overflowing.

Resolved, with all the breaths that are left within me, I will speak these truths and live them out before my children and their children and God willing, their children’s children. I will speak of their prophetic destiny and their rich inheritance in God. I will freely praise them, speak the truth to them that counteracts the smallness that this fallen world wants to put on them. They will grow believing that with God, anything is possible, even the adult children. This is their right, their call, and their privilege. I will demonstrate how to steward His goodness and presence in their lives.....without being weird.

Now, if I can live the next fifty like this, what a glorious, fun time will be had by all! Can you imagine if we all lived like this? Can you imagine a world where love and goodness flowed freely? Where we and our children, moved on by God discovered cures for cancer, famine, energy and sickness? Can you imagine a world where love and mercy triumph over judgement?

I can.

You want to know something that’s even more amazing?

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church (the people of God) by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Paul, who was chosen by God to be sent with this message writing in his letter to the people of God in Ephesus, chapter 3, verses 20,21

I don’t know about you, but I can think about a lot! Every time I expand my thinking about a subject, the wonderful thing is God is still worlds ahead of me...in fact we are not even in the same Universe! His thoughts and ways are way beyond me. So, you’ll forgive if I have to go now. Today is a day full of amazing, wonderful possibilities. I’ve only begun to imagine what God can do and still He is beyond even that!

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

You Know You're In A Paradigm Shift When...

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 06:04:00 +0000

You know you are in a paradigm shift when...

Everything you thought you knew now seems a bit out of place.
You struggle for metaphors to explain experiences and new thoughts to friends.
Sometimes, you just giggle because really there is no explaining what has happened.

The truth is that I am quite content in the midst of this mental fog. You see my heart has gone places in the last two weeks that will take my head some time to catch up, but that's alright, life is richer when it is lived heart first and not head first. So, I will be patient with my laggard mind, who is protesting some obvious things simply because it has been stretched.

So, as I process and try to begin to give form, thought and shape to what has taken place, I'll just keep moving from this new place until my mind catches up.

Let the shift happen!

For more information, please go to www.fusiongreeley.blogspot.com where you can find events, information and more...

God's Little Secret - A Special 100th Posting for Along the Road

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 01:52:00 +0000

Nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains is a beautiful town whose name reflects its splendor in the foothills. Loveland is a city known for art, with sculptures in every park, high tech industry and a landscaped which rivals any city in the Rocky Mountain Region. But on the backside of it's increasingly gentrified downtown district is a reality that is simultaneously filled with deep sadness and brokenness as well as the unquenchable light of Jesus.

The Funeral

Recently, one chilly, early, Colorado morning, Pastor Tom Albrecht was as surprised as anyone to see forty plus homeless people gathered at the front door of his church, the entry to a ministry the church calls the “Front Porch”, which provides meals and shelter for the burgeoning homeless population of this city known more for affluence and the Rocky Mountain dream than for the problems of a larger urban area.

On this particular day, Pastor Tom could see that something was deeply troubling his street flock. When he approached the door, dozens of familiar faces were pressing in towards him with tears streaming down their faces. They had been touched by the common enemy of us all within their ranks; death's sullen and dark specter had claimed a woman in their midst, and they needed not just any pastor, they needed their pastor.

You see, each week, the Front Porch feeds over two hundred and fifty homeless people through the tireless contributions and service of volunteers from a church that is less than one hundred in its Sunday morning attendance and has a budget that is closer to a single household's than a thriving church. This, without reservation is more than natural, it is supernatural, when you consider the scope of the ministry and compare it to the available resource of the church. But it's not only in the practical, base needs that you see the hand of Jesus, it is also in the availability and willingness of the volunteers and Pastor Tom to not only talk, but also to pray with these individuals so often shunned and ignored by most of civilized society. Through countless hours of simply being available and “open for business”, Pastor Tom has moved beyond being a care provider to being a pastor to a flock whose home is the street.

As Pastor Tom quieted the crowd pulsating with it's agitation and anxiety, he called to them to come inside so they could process this moment with prayer.

The woman who passed from life to eternity was simply trying to stay warm on an unpredictable Colorado spring night. She has slid underneath a truck to try to shelter herself from the extreme and unexpected cold and passed away, a victim of hypothermia which took advantage of an already weakened physical body that looked two decades older than her true age.

She was one of dozen's of people on the street that Pastor Tom has directed his Foursquare congregation called, Christ's Church of the Rockies, to “see”. This small Foursquare family has taken on the mission and brings hot meals each weekday to feed the one's that Jesus called, “the least of these.” That phrase, “the least of these” referred not to their worth, but to societies judgement on their worth. Jesus in one fell swoop elevated their standing when He said, “If you have ministered to the least of these, My brethren, you have done it unto me.” Through their Front Porch ministry, Christ's Church of the Rockies has ministered to Jesus directly thousands of times over.

After praying with the grieving group of people, Pastor Tom agreed to host and preside over her memorial service. This memorial say an amazing mix of people from city officials, homeless activists, the street people and members of this wonderful church. All in all, almost three hundred people packed into the main meeting area of Christ's Church of the Rockies to touch God, grieve a woman who mattered and find hope through the gentle shepherding of Pastor Tom.

It all almost didn't happen.

At 53 years of age, most people don't think about striking out to plant a church again. Pastor Tom Albrecht and his wife, Wendy have pastored for close to forty years, serving as youth pastors, evangelists, senior pastors and church planters as well as giving many, many years to the camping program of Foursquare and leading countless young people in their deepest, most cherished memories of worship. No, at age 53, most are looking to pad the nest and begin to settle in towards the golden years of ministry.

Not Tom. He had felt a deep call to return to his home (his parents pastored in this town many years ago) and begin a church. So with very little income and a dream, he moved back to Colorado from Arizona and began Christ's Church of the Rockies. His clear vision of creating a place where people find Christ and discover their purpose in Him has led the church to adventure that they call, the Front Porch.

The obedience with which they started the church and the Front Porch has led them to striking up liaisons with other churches in the area and with the city's coterie of homeless services. This has given Pastor Tom an extended influence in the area of Loveland regarding the homeless of the city.

Meeting Pastor Tom, you realize quickly that he is more than modest about the attention, he is uncomfortable with it. His humility allows him to continue to be a life long learner through devouring books, researching and travels to other churches to learn and grow. He and his wife have a penchant for being on a fresh flow of God's grace through the Holy Spirit and any extended conversation with him will reveal his heart for people and for God.

Monday, when you and I go back to work, Pastor Tom will arrive to a building that has been opened by wonderful volunteers, smell a hot meal being prepared for the city's homeless and move slowly through a crowd of blessed, broken humanity that Jesus loves very much. In fact, He loved them so much that He directed a man out of a comfort zone to the place where heaven meets earth, where His kingdom and will become part of earth's fabric. Monday, Pastor Tom and his people will touch Jesus through dirty hands, broken souls and wounded feet of the homeless of Colorado.

If you are not acquainted with this wonderful church and their ministry, I encourage you to do so. Visit their web site at www.ccrloveland.com. I also encourage you to pray, give or go and visit this amazing ministry.

For more information, please go to www.sterlingfoursquare.com where you can find events, information and more...

Your Brother Is Never Your Enemy

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 04:16:00 +0000

Another mentor of mine, John Wimber was quoted saying the following:

"Your brother is never your enemy."

I've always loved that quotation and more importantly the spirit behind it. Look, it's too easy to find a reason to part, even in the church, where we are not asked to, but commanded to love one another. But even when we disagree and have to part company, your brother is never your enemy.

Remember Paul and Barnabas? These two men were the foundation of the first recorded missionary journey/event in the history of the church. But at the end of it, they had a deep disagreement regarding the person of John Mark, split company and each took new people with them. Paul went back out with Silas and Barnabas championed John Mark.

What God began to do in the midst of this conflict was to grow the church in two ways. We read of Paul's journey because of Luke and we hear about Barnabas and John Mark through church tradition in different places throughout the Mediterranean. Sometimes, although it is sad, brothers part company and if they continue to stay soft and in the kingdom, God can use both of them and His kingdom continues to grow.

But isn't it curious, you never read of Paul slamming Barnabas. He never accused him of destroying things or being a hinderance to his ministry. Why? Because although they disagreed, neither treated the other as an enemy. Your brother is never your enemy.

The truth is that sometimes your brother may act like an enemy, but be clear, even if they act like it, your brother is never your enemy!

The minute you begin to treat your brother as your enemy, you begin to thwart what God is wanting to do in your life and through the stewardship of the ministry He wants to pour through you. Make no mistake, over the years I have seen churches paralyzed, pastors disqualified and thriving organizations drift off course because they begin to focus on a brother or sister as an enemy rather than a brother or sister.

There is only one enemy to our lives, the accuser of the brethren. He and only he is our enemy. Remember, your brother is never your enemy.

You know that Paul had said, "as far as it is with you, be at peace with all men." Again, there may be times when "two cannot walk together unless they be agreed."In those cases, we must go ahead and obey what we individually believe God has called us to. The truth is, we may not believe that each other is functioning or doing what God wants them to do, but in the end we must remember that "who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand." (Romans 14:4) Why is this key? Because, your brother is never your enemy.

In the end, we violate this principle because we are afraid of lost reputation, facing the truth about ourselves and our ministry styles and impacts, or we demonstrate in the worst moments a pugnacious spirit. Fear is a horrible reason to slander a brother or sister. Fear simply demonstrates that we have not yet yielded ourselves to love, complete love which casts out fear.

The next time you are tempted to tell a tale, or believe the worst about a brother or to assign meaning to actions and ascertain motive from a distance, remember what my old mentor said, "Your brother is never your enemy!" So, let's stop treating each other as one.

Further along a very wet road tonight,

Doug

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Some Thoughts on "Church"

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:49:00 +0000

I received many emails from my last post wondering why I was down on "church" (Absolutely, I am not). So, I thought I would give a glimpse of my heart regarding the idea of "church".

The church is the last, best, hope of mankind. Bill Hybels shocked me with this statement when I first heard it. It was simple, in your face and oh, so right. Jesus left one group of people to do His work on earth and it was the church, the "ekklesia" (Greek word for church meaning "called out ones"). He has called us out to do His business, loving God and people in His name and seeing the broken healed and restored.

Okay, it's out. I love the church. I love it in all its forms. I love the guys and gals who do church with candles and the ones who sit in pews in silence waiting for the Spirit to move them. I love the churches where Bible thumping is an art and the churches where the theological ardor is so deep that you can hear concordances being turned to and clicking on I-Touches as they look up things to "see if they are so." I love the gospel churches and the ones that have "high ceiling" meetings. I also love my church family and it's close relatives - Foursquare and the Pentecostal Charismatic stream of churches. I love churches that have an ethnic mix that looks like heaven and those who are called to reach a particular people group. I love reformed, Bible, "Bapticostal:, new wave, third wave, old wave....you get the idea.

Recently, someone accused me of splitting a church in my past. ( I didn't and never would. It violates one of my deepest values.) There would be no greater pain or hurt that I can think of than purposely causing the hurt and pain of people who Jesus loves and died for. It sickens me to think of when that happens.

No, I love the church in all it's forms. Period.

Now, some may say that because I am experimenting in different forms and systems of church, I believe that the form I am processing and attempting is the only valid form.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I am looking to address as a missionary, the needs of a certain sub-culture of my city and feel confident that the Lord has directed me to do so. But, please hear me, one church cannot get the job done and neither can one form of church. We need them all to do well! We need them all to grow and prosper and become stable. We need every single church in Greeley (and for that matter, where you live) and every other new church plant for this area that is in the heart of God to grow, prosper and lead everyone they can to Christ!

Furthermore, let's say that my church is in a place that is doing really well. Can I truly be comfortable with only my church's health until all my brother's and sister's churches are healthy? The answer is an emphatic "no"! We have to pull for each other! We have to pray for each other! We must ask God not just to bless us, but to bless all of us; all the churches, all the leaders and all the saints of God who love Jesus and call Him Lord!

We need God to rescue us from our provincialism and raise our prayer sights higher and love the whole church! You will never hear from me that one type of church is "out dated". There is room for everyone at the table of God! You will never hear from me that I think my style of church is better than another's! How short sighted. We must love the things Jesus loves and He loves all His expressions of life.

When we (the church) get it right, there is nothing more beautiful and awesome on the face of the earth! The poor are fed, hospitals, schools and humane societies are formed. If the church becomes what it is supposed to be, people are healed, captives are freed and Jesus is honored. When the church fulfills the prayer of Jesus people find hope, purpose, life and joy in a world that sucks all those things right out of you. When you experience the wonder of the church when we get it right, you will never be the same. It ruins you for the ordinary!

So, here is my public display of affection for the bride of Christ, Jesus' body!

If you see me further along the road, please know that I will be loving all of the church!
Doug

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Why Janice and I are relocating to plant a church in Greeley, Colorado

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:17:00 +0000

I wrote the majority of this back in September of 2009 when I got ready to tell our Supervisor, Sam Rockwell that God had directed us to plant a church in Greeley. It was nine months and a whole boat load of circumstances earlier, but the heart of the thing resonates about why we are doing this. I thought some of you might want to know.

Dateline: Sterling, Colorado - September 2, 2009 - 5:45 am
It's early. Way too early if you ask me. I got to bed a little late. Stayed up reading, "Is That Really You, God?" by Loren Cunningham and drifted off.

So, why am I up at 5:45 am?

I am about to put my "career" on the line. Well, to be perfectly blunt, I am about to lay waste to it.
Oh, I don't feel bad about it, but I do wonder at my levels of sanity. Let's just recount about what I am going to do.

I am going to walk into a restaurant in Denver in six hours and tell my Supervisor that I don't want to continue a ministry:

a) Where at least three to four people make confession of Christ every week.
b) That has tripled in size in the last two years and if we go to two services could continue to grow.
c) That adores their pastor. I mean they would do anything if I whined long enough about it.
d) That kicks itself for not providing health insurance and wants to rectify it asap.
e) That provides a living (not extravagant or voluptuous) wage whereby due to my wife's frugality (read: "Dutchness") we take livable and make it a living.
f) Where the leadership is waiting, anxiously for us to go to the next level.
g) Where a "Jesus Culture" has re-birthed.
h) Where astounding miracles have taken place over the last two years.
i) Where my influence in a city and county could be unparalleled to anything I've experienced.

and I could go on....

So, why, approaching fifty, a time when most people are looking to settle in for the maximum security and only those who have "made it" financially are venturing out on second half careers, are Janice and I blowing up our future in less than six hours?

We have heard the Macedonian Call.

You know, remember when Paul was trying to go to different parts of Asia, but he clearly states that the "Lord prevented him"? Then, after all this frustration directionally, he receives a dream in the night of a man from Macedonia saying, "Come help us."

Dreams. Frustration. Great indicators to finding God's will right? Indeed, they were and in Paul's obedience, the gospel opened into Europe and well, as they say, the rest is history.

Did I have a dream? No, as much as I believe in dreams to reveal the will of God (I proposed to Janice while we were broken up because of a dream God gave me and I have been happy for that revelation ever since), I haven't seen a "man in the night".

But, a living Macedonian man spoke to me for his generation, at my dining room table at lunch. When Jeff Mullis answered his own question about why a generation was dropping out of church like flies, I heard. When my son Joshua said the same, I heard. When my new daughter in law and son came and spoke about the twenty somethings that were wandering, I heard. When my daughter phoned from Wisconsin, I listened. Oh, and did I mention that this happened independently on the same day?

Now, after corresponding on my wall in Facebook and hearing a few more stories from twenty somethings and how they no longer trust "church" (the systems and organizations in their current form), I am ready to lay waste to a secure future for something greater, something that breaks every fiber of my heart.

I could list names of those who were hurt, abandoned and left disillusioned by the "church system" and some, if not many of you would know those names and could add your own. While they are out there hurt, angry, confused and disillusioned, the traditional church structures they left call to them to say, "If you come back and do what we need, we'll give you what you need."

The problem is, they are not buying it and frankly, they shouldn't.

Why am I willing to do something radically different, with no guarantee of income? Why do I want to do this odd thing when I know there will be people who do not understand and some who will fight it tooth and nail? Why do I want to go back to a place where literally there are people who would be sickened at the thought of Janice and I doing anything for Jesus in that area?

The Macedonian call.

You see, I was part of telling these dear ones that if they showed up, paid their tithe, participated on Sunday, everything was gonna be alright. Now that they are adrift and it seems that they are forgotten and no one is reaching out to them. Things like this destroy my sleep.

And here's what's really going to mess with your heart and head: they are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many more who have never come to faith in Christ.

The silence of reaching out to these is deafening and their lack of return the church is thunderous in it's own silence.
They're not coming back.

They are the "lost sheep of the house of Israel" that Jesus spoke of. They have roots, they know truth, but no one goes to get them. Some are prodigals and they need people like an elder brother who won't judge, but so identifies with them that they get down into the mud of post modernism, confusion and change and will bring them back into the Father's house (not necessarily a church service as we all know it).

We must do this even if it costs us our security, position, reputation, etc. Those things don't matter, but those people do. We must.
I must.
I added this part today as I read and reflected on the original post. Doug
In addition, if you look at the statistics of the unchurched in the Greeley area, there are roughly 120,000 people who live there and 85% do not go to anyone's church. If they tragically died tonight there would be over 100,000 souls who would go into a eternity without Christ.

There are Somalian Muslims who came here for work, but that God wants to reach. There are growing populations of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Colombians, Mexicans and more who need a witness of Jesus in their midst and their culture. There is a burgeoning Asian population that will need the same. There are more gangs here per capita than anywhere else in the state. Drug activity is off the charts and the murder of young Kaylee is reason enough to say that this city needs the Lord.

But it doesn't just need our church. It needs every church to do well. If every church was filled twice to capacity there would still be over 50,000 people who don't know the Lord. Now is the time to plant churches. Now is the time to revitalize our commitment to reach people, to move in grace and compassion and move out of an elder brother spirit and move into the Father's house and make that the common meeting ground of love, grace and compassion.

We are going from what is secure to that which is unknown precisely because there is a huge task out there! "What we do may be a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less if we didn't do it." We are going because what Frederick Buechner wrote is amazingly true: "The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." For us, Greeley is that place.

So here's my big ask. Not everyone who reads this is supposed to be a part of our team on the ground. We get that. But, everyone can help in some way. Some of you will be silently and powerfully called to be a part of this, on the ground and in real time. Some of you will be so moved by God to connect without leaving where you are, that you will pray deeply, consistently and in a focused manner to see God's kingdom come. Some of you will want to help with resource needs - from money to equipment. All of us together can see a difference made.

At the very least, would you allow this post to stir up your heart about where you live and work? I have to go now, the Macedonian man is calling to me and I need to prepare to fulfill what God wants to do!
Further along the road,
Doug
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Why I Believe: How I went from a selfish fool to a Christ follower...

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:09:00 +0000

Well fellow roadies, I realized that I have never just plainly stated why I believe in and follow Christ. To a lot of people I went to Jr. High, High School and College with, the fact that I am a Christ follower, much less a pastor is well, a bit of shock. But if you will indulge me a few minutes, I'll try to state why and what happened to me along the road...

I was born the poor....wait, that's the start to a movie from my high school days. For me, it doesn't really matter where I was born (Los Angeles proper, at 3rd and Alvarado), what matters is what I did with the life that was given me.

You see, both of my parents were converted to Christianity in their early twenties when I was a tyke and raised my sister, myself and eventually my little brother in a home filled with love, some wonderful times, going to church (a lot), and just about everything you would think of when you think of the hometown we adopted of Burbank in the seventies.

So, it's a bit of a mystery to many why I went so wrong beginning in Junior High School and then through High School and eventually College. Let me state from the outset that my proclivity to wander had nothing to do with the love and devotion my parents gave to me or to Christ. There was, at critical times in my life an interior longing, that I thought could be filled with fun, friends, drugs, love (not the hugging kind) and partying in general.

To be honest, that deep longing was to be accepted. It was something I craved in school. Just to fit in. You see, I had in spades what most of us went through during those years, that sense that many days you were on the outside looking in, as if everyone else had been made to fit the proverbial "round hole" and you were a "square peg".

Rather than turn to the relationships of faith in Christ that I had known in my younger years, I tried to fit in by doing what my peers were doing....partying, having what seemed an incredible time. What I didn't know then was that I was embarking on a pathway that would exact a cost in my heart and others that was damaging beyond belief. (To those whom I encountered during those years and damaged through my actions and life, I can only say that I am deeply sorry for what I did- you deserved better.)

It was during a crisis in a relationship that my fog began to lift. During the preceding insane years, I had dabble with every drug I could without needles (I still hate needles), drank myself stupid (or some would say stupider) on many occasions and used people in ways that they shouldn't be used. I took the old advice of "love people and use things" and turned it inside out, loving things and using people. I mean for crying out loud, it was so bad that I became the church connection for illegal substances as a Junior Higher....how much lower could one get. Lying and cheating were second nature to me. I became a shell of a person with no true core....or at least a dead one.

Even more frightening was my confirmation that the entire understanding of spiritual things were real and that outside of Jesus, there is a dark side to spirituality. After a few really unsettling encounters, I was deeply desperate. Outside, everything looked fine on a human scale. I was in school, making a lot of money on the side, never lacked for companionship and had friends all over. Inside however, I knew it was a sham. I felt like the Hollywood backlots I grew up around where the front looked great, but there was no substance beyond the facade.

During this time, some dear mentors began to step into my life and help steer me back towards faith in Christ. I remember when they began to inquire about me and invite me to hang around the things I had emotionally and spiritually walked away from in my youth. You see, I still attended church out of courtesy and a little trepidation for my parents, but mentally & spiritually, I had checked out.

Then it happened, bit by precious bit, I began to really engage with God. It happened in so many ways: late night conversations with friends who were tracking with Christ and subsequent conversations with my other friends in the midst of participating with them in activities that I don't think Jesus would do (WWJD). I started to read the ancient book, the Bible, and found it full of current wisdom and love. I began to sense real, deep acceptance by God through Jesus, the words on the pages of the Bible and this new community that surrounded me who loved Jesus and put up with a very wild, very lost individual.

There is a real sense for me of both an instantaneous conversion (much like converting currency from one nation's to another) and then a subsequent process, which I am still whole heartedly engaged in. The conversion part came as a result of a decision to follow Christ, as best I knew how, whole heartedly. The process part has been throughout the years of continuing to allow myself to be shaped into a better self, the one that God had in mind from when I was formed in my mother's womb.

How has God changed and shaped me? Yes, through very traditional spiritual experiences and through every joy, test, amazing moment of wonder and deafening, heartbreaking experience that I have had the privilege of going through in my forty nine years on this earth. God is in some ways like MacGuyver, in that He uses everything to shape and change our lives.

Some people have asked if I would change my life if I could. I know that I wouldn't from the moment I really started trusting Jesus for my sin and selfishness problem. If I could go back before that and do it over, so that I didn't hurt my parents, siblings, friends, relationships, etc. - I would. Not for the sake of my pain, but for theirs. There was a trail of brokenness that I left behind that I do not enjoy.

So what's this Christ following stuff? It is the ancient call, steeped in the practical, clean, godly wisdom that is in the Bible. Literally it was the same call as was given to the early followers of Jesus - would we leave our own pursuits and follow Him? In that culture, it meant to become like the teacher, to emulate, to learn, to adopt and adapt ourselves to them. But in Jesus culture, it means more. It means an opportunity to have the wrongs that we have done and the wrongs done to us atoned for, paid for in full through a loving act of the one we follow, Jesus. His sacrifice on the cross was for us. One that I have to simply believe and then make use of.

You see, someone can tell you that you have an amazing, unlimited bank account in Switzerland (tax-free, of course!) and if you never take advantage of it, you profit nothing. We can believe the fact of Jesus dying for our wrongs in our place and if we then never ask for the forgiveness He has paid for, we are dying paupers. I remember the night I first asked Him to forgive me; it was like liquid love being poured out on me. It wasn't like I got off easy. I received the forgiveness offered freely, but I needed in many cases to ask for forgiveness wherever I could from the people I wronged. Each day, I live in that old forgiveness as well as appropriating it daily. I live as a forgiven man before God.

The other thing about Christ following is that I had to come to place where I relinquished the right to call the shots before God. He had to be the one I followed. When I now read the Bible, I sought to conform myself to it rather than try to justify myself by having it conform to me. This aspect of giving the ultimate call in my life to Jesus is called "making Jesus Lord" by many. Think of it as coming under new management and yes, some things have to change. He becomes the best "boss" of your life 24/7.

Now, none of this makes sense if Jesus was a simple, but well meaning martyr; there are plenty of religious examples in history like that. What separates Jesus from the rest of the guru crowd is the resurrection. Buddha has a grave; millions go to Mohammed's grave as a pilgrimage; but when people head to Jerusalem to see the tomb of Jesus, they visit a hole in the ground. Why is this significant? If He didn't raise from the dead, then all of Christianity is poppycock. Everything is on this. The fact which turned me around was the writings of Frank Morrison, "Who Moved the Stone" and Josh McDowell, "The Resurrection Factor". Based on all that took place, there is no other plausible explanation than the simple truth that Jesus rose from the dead.

This changes everything. His words take on a different gravitas and urgency. He is the only one to claim a resurrection. Without it, He was either a lunatic or liar. But in light of resurrection, it makes Him different than any other religious figure in history. It makes Him exactly who He said He was. Try reading, "Mere Christianity" a famous Oxford Don's simple arguments given during WWII on the BBC nationally. It will change your mind regarding Jesus. It did mine.

Well, in a nutshell, that's what happened. I know that some of you who knew me "back when" have wondered about it. I am so grateful for the life that I have been given, both good and difficult, the changes Jesus has made in my life and His continuing, stubborn, relentless love.

What a good road it's been since Him,
Doug
P.S. As you already know there is nothing special about me. He loves you with that same continuing, stubborn, relentless love....and there is nothing you can do to change how He loves you. Accept it. Accept Him.

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Why Camp?

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:51:00 +0000

Ah, that summer ritual - packing, anticipating, car washes, fellowship meals and generous patrons, all in pursuit of one aim - sending students to camp.

Why is camp so important in our Foursquare, and for that matter, our church culture?

If you look at the life of Israel, they frequently had festivals where they would gathering and worship the Lord. One, called the festival of booths, had them "camping out" to commemorate the protracted camping experience of the Exodus.

Is it possible that God has hard wired us to respond to these types of experiences?

My answer is "yes".

Think of it, no where else is there the power to change a life than at camp.
First, you are surrounded by the beauty of creation in a spectacular way. For city kids and kids on the plains, going to the mountains to be with peers, God and all He has for them is profound in and of itself.

Second, there is a purposeful isolation away from the noise of the city, the media of our lives, the dynamics of family life and a chance to focus on God, life and our place in it.

Third, this is a powerful experience of community. Here, every camper is welcomed and surrounded by love, acceptance and forgiveness. This has a powerful effect on campers who have never experienced God's love and those who have, but have been worn down by life and choices.

Fourth, there is daily physical activity in the mountains that is healthy and a great way to tune up in the summer that includes lots of walking and playing. Laughter and fun take place on a moment by moment basis. This is healthy for the body and good for the soul. To see students laugh at something truly funny that isn't at the expense of a peer or a some baser point of comedy has been one of my joys over the years.

Fifth, there are the times learning about and encountering our Creator and His Son, Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. As a pastor, I can only prepare an environment for a brief period of time for our students to encounter God. There are daily demands on them like never before: school, work, sports, etc. This present world presses in on them all the time with demands to pay attention and grow up in ways that are harmful to them. A five day continuous experience with God at camp was always worth about four months of ministry to me. God can and does change people through camp.

Many are skeptical. I've had friends who spoke at camps over the years come away frustrated because they "had the same altar call to the same kids over the same issues". My contention is that when you get frustrated by that, the issue is about you and your need for progress and approval in your ministry and not camps or the students. The students love camp. They see it as a possibility for a fresh start. For them, it is akin to a "new year" and a chance to have a "mulligan" in life. They want to have an opportunity to respond and it might be the same issue, but the resulting forgiveness and love is fresh every time.

Others have waged the age old complaint that the "camp high" never lasts. "Camp High" is that wonderful feeling of being close to God and having things in right alignment. My argument to that is why eliminate the one time that helps us get that into alignment?

Let's look at it this way: would you tell young married people not to go on a honeymoon because their day to day life couldn't possibly meet that experience? Or would you instead prepare them for it with some instruction after the honeymoon?

Some have advocated dialing back the experience to teach the kids about what's going to happen after they get back. Using the marriage analogy again, can you imagine pulling a honeymooning couple over in the midst of their wonderful experience in order to let them know what's going to happen in a few days? It is ludicrous! Why not teach the students when they are down off the mountain that there is a natural rhythm and progression to life that includes mountaintops and valleys? Why not acknowledge that during the year, away from these "festivals", that life will get a little messy and they need a different set of skills and spiritual disciplines to take them through "valley times". What possible logic is there in taking the camping away or making it less impactful by creating a better program based on technology but missing out on the Holy Spirit's program? Simply, can't we have both? Let's let the students linger in their experience on the mountain; there will be ample time for equipping them in the days and weeks ahead.

All of us need times to come back to a place where we are reminded of who we are and what we are for and camp provides this. This has never been more true than now. Students are pulled down by a cultural gravity, as they watch their peers, reinforced by media and the brokenness of the American home, go into activities and lifestyles that none of us could have imagined thirty years ago. This brokenness is moving through this generation like a juggernaut, devastating young lives, some of which will never recover.

But give them a week at camp and there are possibilities. A week with God, His creation and pure, loving people? Come on...now the odds are in that student's favor!

No, we need our camping program like never before to reach a generation that has been assaulted by our generation's choices like never before. Every student in his or her lifetime should experience being away like that to hear that they are loved by God, chosen, special to Him and that they have purpose. They need to be bathed the spiritual atmosphere of worship and know what it is like to have their hearts touched in a special way that only comes through protracted experiences in the presence of God.

Foursquare, my challenge to you is to recommit to camps. It is part of our inheritance, part of our DNA, part of what God has used to shape this movement. Let's see a renaissance in camps. Let's bring back District and State wide retreats. Let's quit being isolationists with our young people and recapture a sense of the larger purpose of God on us. It starts as these future leaders of churches, church planters, pastors, missionaries and godly, purpose filled church members gather and create community at camp. These bonds are part of the glue of the DNA in Foursquare. Let's bless what God has used and still will use if we let Him.

Youth pastors, my challenge to you is this: no one remembers how cool the program and the light show was in a moment of need. What they remember is the numinous and proximity of God. They remember that He touched them once and could possibly do it again. Don't be afraid of kids responses that are displays touched with emotions; God created those emotions and He uses them to touch those students. Disciple them when they get home. Show them how to walk in the valleys there, but don't take a fan to blow away the clouds they are on while on the mountaintop because of some misguided attempt to prepare them for reality. Please, you understand more than most what their "reality" is. Let them experience His Reality and savor it for awhile. Let them get some built in memories of what it feels like to be in His presence so that they can look for it again in the "Valley of the shadow of death".

To everyone else, I would say, look for opportunities to sponsor students to camp. There are few things we do that reap so great a reward. This is one of the best investment programs in the kingdom.

I know. It was the camping experiences of my youth that helped redirect me back to God as a young man. Without them I know exactly where I would be - still stuck my selfishness, lost and a testament to someone who always had potential but never lived up to it. Yes, I had the post camp experiences of the valley, but I never forgot how God touched me there on the mountaintop.

I'll probably have a little more to say, but that's for further along the road.
Until then, enjoy the journey!
Doug

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The Truth About Anxiety or My Ugly Little Secret

noreply@blogger.com (Doug Burroughs) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:00:00 +0000

I have an ugly little secret.

No, it's probably not whatever you thought, but it actually is worse.

I am an anxious person by nature.

There I said it. I feel almost better, but now I am worried about what you think about me and who will read this. (To see my confession in it's raw form, go here.)

You see? Anxiety is a killer of life. All kidding aside, anxiety saps away energy, creativity, the ability to play in the midst of work, as well as all the health issues that comes with it.

And what is at the root of yours and my anxiety? Fear.

Now, it's getting darker, isn't it?

As Janice and I have said many times in our speaking, fear always is a view of the future without God acting in it. We have dark imaginings where the worst case scenario always happens. In these flashes of fantasy, we never see God there, only ourselves and the awful things that would happen.

And then, like King David, we "speak in haste" that "I am cut off from before Your (God's) eyes." None of this is truth. We speak out of the midst of our anxiety what is simply not true. We have made up our minds before we have all the facts, an act which the Proverbs attributes to fools.

And what great fact do I speak of to come and bring a counter balance to scale tipping anxiety? God.

He has said that He will hear my supplication. He will answer, but only in His time. That timing is not due to slothfulness or capriciousness, but due to His highest good for His plans and purposes and His love for me.

You see at the root of fear, the deep, subterranean beast under anxiety, is a belief that God doesn't or won't love you enough to care for you. Nothing could be further from the truth!

To quote the Bible: "Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?" (Romans 8:32 - New Living Translation).

This love that God has for us is not begrudged love, or the kind that just does the job and clears out. It is a stubborn, unrelenting love that stays with us through the darkest of days which the Bible calls, "the valley of the shadow of death". He (God) has promised, He will not leave us, nor forsake us. It is a promise we can take to the bank, or to our next thing in our life.

So, I've had my confession. I feel better. How about you?

Meandering a bit along the road,

Doug

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