Not sure I can put it into words… the quote – speaks to me about painting a picture that captures the imagination. the pic – picture of what was once imagined being realized and it being even better than once thought.

I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of what God is doing. I want others to do the same. We are not there yet.

Everyone views that image differently, but here’s the ethos behind the picture to me (and my reply to my friend):

“Missions is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there. You see God where others don’t And then you point him out.” – Rob Bell.

So, yes, we’re painting a picture – and it’s a picture of what we see God already doing. Jonathan Edwards believed that no man can, of himself, come to God. That by the time a man makes a decision for God, the Holy Spirit is deeply at work in his life (for what sinful man would willfully choose God?). The choice itself is an act of grace.

There are so many implications to this belief – chief of which, is that God is working in the “non-believer’s” life as much as he is in the “believer’s” life. And that maybe those terms are entirely too small to encapsulate all God is doing.

And maybe the Spirit is at work all around us and maybe our job as pastors is to be tour-guides for our cities to see and experience this God that is larger than any of us could ever imagine.

God always hears the cry of the oppressed. And we see lack of access to clean water as fundamentally oppressive.

So when water bursts forth, redemption comes with every drop. And God is at work.

It wasn’t over their lack of knowledge with Scripture, their commitment to him or their ability to follow God’s commands though.

Jesus got frustrated with the disciples over their lack of understanding of how his presence in their lives changed everything.

Which makes me realize that he is probably pretty frustrated with me from time to time as well.

Because I just don’t get it.

I read that if my faith is as big as a mustard seed that I could throw a mountain into the ocean – yet I lack faith when I ask for God to provide for my family’s needs (something God has already promised anyway).

Maybe I need to re-imagine what my life looks like with the Messiah’s presence in it.

How do I walk? How do I talk? What do I find joy in? What do I get furiously angry at? What motivates me? Discourages me?

Because there is power in presence. And if I can understand and respond to that, the whole world could change.

It wasn’t a dig at large churches (or a particularly large church where I used to serve).

It was a pointed dig at all of us who go to American Churches – regardless of size.

Because we all love our buildings.

I grew up in the church – watching the building fund thermometer on the wall every Sunday morning. We talked about how God wanted us to have buildings – bigger, better, more advanced buildings for his Kingdom.

And we all fell into the allure of the thermometer.

It was a way we could measure our faithfulness – or effectiveness for God.

Of course, all those thoughts are silly. And in the end all our buildings will burn to hell.

Yesterday was about all of us. Because we’re all guilty. None of us will arrive in heaven to hear, “Well built, my faithful building fund manager.”

If we took half our passion for building buildings to Haiti, Port-au-Prince could be rebuilt in the next few years.

If we took a fraction of the money we put into ourselves and unleashed it on water or food or human sex trafficking – we really could change the world.

So, in a way, yesterday’s post was meant to shake us out of the norm. To wake us up. To call us to a greater way of living.

Because it would be tragic to stand judgement for making a building the most significant thing we did for God’s Kingdom.

“While 40 million people died of starvation in the last decade, chuches spent $10 billion on campuses.”

Anger was the first emotion.

Then disappointment.

Followed quickly by frustration.

And then I remembered the line that the article started with: “Thirty-four million Americans have given up on organized religion…”

And I thought: if that’s how organized religion is caring for the oppressed, maybe that’s not so bad.

After all, this was personal to the author:

“I went to seminary, and after several years of study, I began my career as a professional minister. It wasn’t long, however, before I discovered that the church was more lost than the world it was trying to save.

“Go into many churches today, and instead of finding an institution interested in saving the world, what you may find is an institution vastly more interested in saving itself.”

I’m pretty heartbroken – only because his words ring so true. (You can read the rest here.)

We have to change things. We have to abandon the old way of doing things. We have to bring the freedom found in Jesus to the world. We have to raise up communities of people – churches – that are connected to one another, to their cities and to the world.

We have to dis-organize, de-centralize and de-construct what we have come to know as church.

We need to rediscover the path of Jesus.

For me, when I heard of hungry people, I thought: we have a team that handles them.

I wasn’t engaged (or even aware) of the global water crises.

I really wasn’t welcoming strangers (outside of them coming to a weekend service).

Providing for those who need clothing wasn’t high on my list… or on it at all.

Caring for the sick was something someone else handled (because I told myself I wasn’t “gifted” to do it).

Connecting to those in prison was for the fringe ministry people, not me.

And based off Jesus words in Matthew 25:41, my actions were those of a pastor who is going to hell.

Jesus also said, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

For, I was hungry and you gave me food.

I was thirsty and you gave me drink,

I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

I was naked and you clothed me,

I was sick and you visited me.

I was in prison and you came to me.

So maybe I need the oppressed more than they need me. Maybe in serving I find redemption for my own soul. Restoration for my own heart.

Maybe in serving them I meet the God of the oppressed in real, tangible ways.

And maybe, when it comes to the church, all the systems, the programs, the teams, the services – all of it is peripheral. Maybe instead of giving our lives to the church, we should give them to Jesus – feeding the hungry, providing water for the thirsty, welcoming the rejected, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and filling prisons with the hope of Christ.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said it best: If you want to build a ship, don’t summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs and organize the work, rather teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.

What I was praying for was clearly in my best interest. I could even see how I could have a greater impact if God would just answer it. I even thought I saw him start to answer my prayer two distinct times.

But, nothing.

It wasn’t as simple as sitting at a stoplight. I wasn’t getting a green light, red light, or even a courtesy yellow telling me to slow down. I was just getting nothing.

And getting nothing from the God who has all things is hard.

Recently I found out some details I did not know back then about what I was praying for. Circumstances I would have been in had God answered the prayer. And it would have been bad.

I would have been hurt. I wasn’t ready to be around the things I would have ended up around. It wouldn’t have been the kind of situation I was praying for.

So maybe it was more than nothing after all.

Maybe I was getting protection. And grace. And love.

And maybe God was really more concerned with doing something in my heart while he showered me with protection, granted me grace and showed me love.

And maybe while I was praying for circumstances, and seeing nothing, God was answering a bigger pray I didn’t even know to pray. A prayer for God to shape my heart and save my soul.

Because in his love and wisdom he granted me everything I needed – before I even knew to ask for it.

These are Jesus’ words in Matthew 9 – they are a beautiful metaphor that clearly illustrate how he views both himself and the world – and they beg the question, what are the wineskins he is talking about?

Jesus is talking to the pharisees – so is it the people themselves he’s talking about as being old wineskins? That certain people don’t have the capacity for the Kingdom and they are people destined for destruction?

This is pretty unlikely, as we see one of the central messages of Jesus’ life is welcoming the people who no one thinks can make it into the Kingdom.

So is Jesus talking about the Jewish religion or culture in general when he says the new wine will not go into old wineskins? That the day for Judaism had come and was now gone?

This is radically unlikely, as Jesus saw himself fulfilling every letter of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament). The Jews had been promised Messiah and now he was here – so this was exactly what was supposed to fit into their faith.

So it’s not the people and it’s not the faith. And now we have to ask, what’s left?

Jesus dropped this phrase in the middle of a conversation where he was being criticized for not leading his followers in fasting, and just after a critique he received about spending his time with the tax collectors and sinners – those the religious way had rejected.

Could it be that Jesus was referring to how the pharisees presupposed God works in the world?

That the things they viewed God as doing, and not doing – the ways they saw him blessing, and not blessing – that those ways of viewing the world were outdated? That the new wine of Jesus was too much for their view of how God works?

Which begs another question – am I presupposing God works in a certain way? Do I look for him to operate, and be absent, in areas where he does not operate and in places he truly is present? Do my views need to change?

Because Jesus is the new wine. And old wineskins aren’t enough to hold him.

New wine is put into fresh wineskins so both are preserved.