DaveEnglund.Name/DBlog

My Journey and the people I've been growing with (Part III)

In "Part 2" I spoke of teaching we received as a body of believers that reshaped our views of spirituality and ministry, teaching that came largely out of the Beatitudes of Matthew 5. And, one of the areas of "ministry" most affected was attending to the needs of broken and mourning people. Our church was fortunate enough to have a pastor of "body-life" who assimilated the teachings of the Beatitudes in a very practical way, and applied them as well to his role and approach as a therapist.

Prior to the Beatitudes our main teaching pastor had been preaching his way through the book of Galatians, where people were challenged to choose between earning God's love and receiving it on an on-going basis as a gift, and then choosing whether to live out the Christian life by self-effort or by living in a cooperative manner with the Holy Spirit. With an awakening via the message of grace, and a ministry approach to broken people that invited them into a safe environment where they could honestly be broken and receive gifts of healing our church began to attract those in desperate need of grace. On occasion, some in the wider evangelical community, whether malicious or not, referred to us as "Church of The Open Sore." If that was the worst they could throw at us, "Praise God!"

I was certainly one of those broken and mourning people! And the message of the Beatitudes was good news to me. This was a place where I could bring my pain and not feel "looked down on." It was a place where I could bring my exhaustion and not be told to "try harder." I could even bring confession of my failures and sins and receive healing mercy and forgiveness instead of aghast looks and people politely distancing themselves from me. This body of believers and their brand of spirituality and ministry was everything I needed at that most broken moment of my life.

One of the practical teachings of our body-life pastor stands out in my memory. I remember him saying on numerous occasions about the Christian life and walk, "It's not a behavior struggle. It's a faith struggle."

[Incidentally, the body-life pastor and our teaching pastor teamed up and wrote a wonderful book entitled, "Tired of Trying to Measure Up." If you're an exhausted Christian you need to read this book!]

That lesson came powerfully home to me one day while driving in my car. While the grace-full ministry of our church was encouraging and strengthening to me, I came with the baggage of decades old habits of performance-based Christianity. I was so used to doing the "behavior struggle!" Now, I was being challenged to step into something new - faith in what God has done for me, in an ongoing, moment-by-moment trusting.

Driving alone in my car I recounted the decades old habits, recounted my list of "do's" and "don'ts." It was clear that "trying to measure up" had not worked for me and never would. But now what? I dialoged with God, "Lord, I know I've been holding onto my do's and don'ts for dear life, even though they've been wearing me down and can never make me any more acceptable to you than I am right now. But I am afraid of letting them go. If I do, what's going to keep me from sinning all over the place?" A response formed in my mind, "What about my Spirit? I've put my Holy Spirit in you." To which I replied, "Yea, but you're asking me to...to trust...that your Holy Spirit will do that in me?" The words came back, "David, it's a faith struggle. Not a behavior struggle."

Clarity began to form in my heart and mind as to what God was really calling me into. He was calling me to let go of my do's and don'ts (my efforts not to sin), and instead work at staying connected to his Holy Spirit, trusting as I did so, that he would produce holy living in me. God was calling me to focus on an ongoing relationship with him, and walk in faith in what he would do in me as a result of that most "sacred romance."

The realization of the "faith struggle" God was calling me into became a principle for my personal spirituality that I have continued to rely on to this day. I do still have some "baggage" of performance Christianity. But at least now I know that it is baggage, and knowing that, I can change my focus whenever needed to the real call of God - the call to faith.

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A few scriptures have come to mind that support my dialog with the Holy Spirit above.

Galations 5
"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." v16

"But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." v18

"If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." v25

Romans 8
"...but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." v13b, 14

My Journey and the people I've been growing with (Part II)

"All I know is that I love Jesus. And that the Holy Spirit is going to help me keep this relationship with him alive and deepening." And, that seems to have been the formula that fit with the new church I would be attending in the senior high school."

It was there in the auditorium of that senior high school that I sat under the teaching of a different kind of pastor. He was an expository teacher of the scriptures..."on steroids!" It was his habit to teach his way through a book of the bible one passage, or one verse, or sometimes even one phrase at a time. Combined with that, was a personal authenticity I had never experienced from a pastor before. And too, a manner of speaking that seemed to connect the teaching with matters of the heart - my heart. In short, he was, and still is, a gifted and Spirit-filled teacher.

When I came on the scene our pastor had just begun to teach his way through the book of Matthew. The genealogy of Jesus (how did he make that so interesting!), the visit of the Magi, the escape to Egypt, John the Baptist, Jesus' baptism and subsequent temptation, Jesus begins his ministry and begins preaching, "The kingdom of heaven is near!"

And then came The Beatitudes.

By the time our pastor finished teaching and preaching his way through The Beatitudes, some months after beginning them, we were a different church. Or, at the very least, we were a church with a new framework for both our spirituality and ministry. The Beatitudes, when taught properly, are a "turn your world upside-down" kind of message. When Jesus spoke these words to his disciples it must have rocked them to the core, while at the same time bringing them hope and encouragement at a level they'd never experienced before.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matt 5:3

Those who know they are lacking, those who know they don't have what it takes, those who know they can’t possibly hope to win God's eternal favor and so they have given up ever trying to do so, they are the ones who find themselves blessed - God brings all of his resources to their need and meets it entirely. Good news for the worn out, bad news for the performer.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." vs. 4

Why would we think people who experience tragedy are blessed? “What’s with those Christians and their morbid love of suffering!” It isn’t the suffering that blesses – it’s the amazing need-meeting and healing comfort delivered by God through others, and through his very Spirit, that brings a sense of blessedness to us that nothing in the world can compete with. But, there’s a condition to this blessing – you can’t get need-meeting healing comfort unless you mourn. You have to stop pretending things are all right. Stop wearing the plastic face. Admit your are broken and pitiful – that you can’t seem to do relationship with your spouse no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop looking at pornography no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop drinking no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop raging over the least little things – and now, having admitted to yourself, to God, and to others your brokenness, you can finally begin to experience…amazing grace!

God brings to those who mourn in this way people who will listen, people who will cry with you, people who will not condemn and also not condone, people who will hold you accountable, people who will help you begin a journey into healing and back into life. But you cannot receive this kind of comfort unless you quite pretending, and mourn. Good news for the humbled, for the finally honest, bad news for those whose lives mirror the refrain, “I am a rock, I am an island.”

"Blessed are the meek" (vs. 5) - those who desire God's plan above their own, who entrust themselves and their every care and every struggle and every need for vindication, to a God who is faithful to act on their behalf, to a God who will come through. They are not forcing their idea of God's kingdom on others, rather in faith they are committing others to a sovereign God who is more than able to build in them what really is his kingdom. The "meek" shake the earth with their trust. Good news for those willing to trust that God really is good, bad news for those who can really only trust themselves.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." (vs. 6) And so it went, one verse at a time, one lesson at a time, our pretenses smashed, our performance Christianity robbed of its power, which was really only keeping us from kingdom life instead of leading us into it. Thank God for The Beatitudes! Thank God for teaching us how to begin really living!

There, in that senior high school auditorium, we journeyed together through The Beatitudes. We redefined what spirituality really looked like. We formed a vision of both personal and corporate transformation and maturity that led us into a fruitfulness truly born of God. It is a journey I took with this group of people that I would not trade for anything else in the world.

My Journey and the people I've been growing with (Part I)

When I first began attending my church in 1986 they met in a local senior high school auditorium for Sunday services. It was the early days of my new-found charismatic experience, though the church could hardly be claimed "charismatic" for anything more than a robust praise and worship time where people dared to raise their hands heavenward. There wasn't even any pressure to do that, and there certainly wasn't any pressure or even encouragement to practice any of the other "signs" of charismata. They were just clearly a people who loved to worship God with honest expression and open exuberance! Even so, it took me the better part of a couple of months before I too began to raise my hands in worship. It was what I wanted to do, but I was afraid to do so lest I become one of those "crazy types" from the charismatic churches.

In spite of my apprehension to charismatic expression, I was, in truth, already a bit of a charismatic. Before I began attending my new church I had a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed my Christian life and experience. At the time, I was living with a couple of other guys in a townhouse, and I had begun to have a spiritual awakening. It was nothing dramatic. I was just opening my heart to God again after some years of being mentally and emotionally closed off to him. While in the basement family room one day, where I was reading my bible, I had an awakening that took me quite by surprise. I was studying the book of John, chapters 14 through 17. But it was chapter 14 that rocked my conservative evangelical world.

In John 14 Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure. In verses 16 and 17 Jesus comforts the disciples by explaining that he would send the "Counselor...the Spirit of truth" to be with them. And of the Counselor he says, "But you know him [present tense], for he lives with you [present tense] and will be in you [future tense]." And later, in verse 26 he says, "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, who the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." Suddenly, it occurred to me, "Jesus was telling them that they already knew the Holy Spirit - he had been living with them for the past three years. It's Jesus!"

I won't try to unravel the trinity here. But the point that landed on me was that the Holy Spirit was not some strange force that I needed to be afraid of - and growing up in a conservative Baptist church I *was* afraid of the Holy Spirit (though I'd probably never admit to it). No, I already knew the Holy Spirit - he is Jesus! if you're looking at one, you're looking at the other. But, and here's the rub, Jesus told the disciples their ongoing relationship with him would be through the Holy Spirit. I on the other hand, had spent my prior Christian life keeping a "safe distance" from the Holy Spirit. "Who knows what might happen!" It was clear to me that I had a repentance piece to do with God, actually, with the Holy Spirit. I prayed, and told the Holy Spirit I was sorry for keeping him out of my life, for putting fearful images on him that kept me distant from him, and I told him I would very much like to have a friendship with him too - because he would be the one through whom I continue my relationship with Jesus. Well, call me a nutter, but in my minds eye I saw a white dove descend into my heart. There was no euphoria. No speaking in tongues. Nothing weird at all. Just a warm new acquaintance. And my Christian life took on a qualitative change from that day forward to now.

I didn't quite know what to call myself. "Am I a charismatic? All I know is that I love Jesus. And that the Holy Spirit is going to help me keep this relationship with him alive and deepening." And, that seems to have been the formula that fit with the new church I would be attending in the senior high school. Oh sure, I was still one of the inhibited ones in the crowd by comparison, but I gradually learned to be more free to express what was really in my heart while I worshiped God. This is the place, and the group of people, who became my life-in-the-Spirit journey partners. God bless them all! And than you God for the blessing you have brought to me through them! Amen.