Supporting the Equippers Part 2: Establishing Us in Christ

When I was at the ripe age of 19 two men came into my life whose influence would prove to be invaluable.  These two men laid the firm foundation of Christ in me. Their names were Jim and Rob.  They were true equippers.  Jim was a prophet who spoke a truly life changing word from God to me that sealed the reality of my heavenly Father in my heart for the rest of my life.  He also birthed in me a genuine hunger to hear my Father’s voice. Through Jim I came to understand that hearing God is everything in our walk with Him.  Man truly does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Rob was a married man who had a pastor’s heart.  He took me under his wing as a younger brother and began teaching me through our one on one conversations how to hear Father and live in Him in the practical realities of life. He fine-tuned my ability to hear God and through the home fellowship to which we belonged, Rob helped me learn how to bring what God was currently speaking to a group of people.  He actually trained me to teach prophetically.  Then when Lilly and I started dating, Rob prepared me to be a good husband, not only through his example, but also by sitting down with me regularly to chat about my relationship with Lilly.


If one were to ask me to place a monetary value on the equipping I received it would be impossible to come up with a number.  What price do I place on hearing Father’s voice?  What value does one place on being grounded in Him?  How much should one pay for a marriage that has successfully weathered some of life’s most difficult storms and still remains strong?  Coming up with a monetary value is impossible because the things of the Spirit are worth far more than those of the temporal.  But when I look at the fruit that is in my life because of the labor of these two men, there is not a doubt in my mind that these men deserved “double honor” (monetary compensation) for their labors.  How much did these men receive?  Not a dime.


Jim was the associate pastor of the church we attended and later became the pastor.  It was one of three congregations in the area that were headed by a board of elders.  Jim never received a salary.  He always had to support himself and his family by holding down a fulltime job.  Rob was the worship leader who not only spent his time counseling, teaching, and pouring into the lives of others, he also spent his days mowing lawns for his landscape business to support his growing family.  That may seem all well and good, but here is the real problem.  The church we attended taught the necessity of tithing.  Lilly and I were faithful tithers.  But out of all of that money that went to the church, how much of what we gave actually went to Jim and Rob?  Not a cent.  Kind of strange being that they were the ones who actually did the work in my life that remains to this day.


Let me straight out say I am a firm believer that tithing is over.  It’s just as much a part of the old covenant as sacrificing animals and not eating pork.  But I don’t have the time or the energy to unpack that here.  Let me just say that even though I don’t believe in tithing, I am a firm believer that if you choose to attend gatherings in a building and enjoy being served by a salaried staff it is only right that you contribute reasonable amounts to cover the cost of those things.


Tithing may be dead but giving to those who are true equippers is very much alive and well in the New Covenant.  One only has to look at the life of Paul to see that.  The problem is so many have been damaged by controlling religion and false equippers that they have closed their hearts and wallets to those who pour into others that which is invaluable.  Just as I showed you from my past experience, we approached equipping from an institutional mindset instead of a relational reality.


The institutional church was viewed as being the storehouse.  We gave to that because it gave us access to all the goods.  I think of it like paying the monthly membership fee at an athletic club.  You pay the fee because you gain access to all the amenities, equipment, and classes the club has to offer.  So it doesn’t matter if you’re actually being equipped by your friend the plumber or the pastor, your check still goes to the Christian organization you attend.  Writing out those checks becomes as robotic as paying bills.


In a relational reality we live aware of the needs of those around us and are actually mindful of giving financial support to those who are genuinely equipping the body.  We are still giving to the storehouse but we recognize the storehouse is not a manmade organization but the person in our lives who is laying the foundation of Christ in us.  And we don’t only give to the equippers while we’re receiving from them.  The fact of the matter is very few are in the place of maturity in Christ to be asked to give while they’re being equipped.  Paul recognized this when he wrote to the immature Corinthians and stated that although he had the right to ask of them for support he refused to do it.  Instead he received from others to support him while he equipped the Corinthians.  It is crucial that those of us who have been equipped don’t just take the foundation we’ve received and go our merry way.  Rather, as mature believers it is our turn to recognize what we have received and identify those who are equippers in the body and support their work in the lives of others so they don’t have to be a burden on the weak and immature.  The world has a term for this, “Pay it forward.”


As I stated in my last article, yes we are all equal in the body of Christ, we are all brethren.  One does not have more value than another.  (In truth, the equippers are actually the LEAST among us.  But more on that in my next few articles.)  Yet, don’t tell me nineteen year old Loren who was just sorting out this journey was functioning in the kingdom at the same level of effectiveness as seasoned Jim and Rob.  You can’t tell me I didn’t need what they had.  Nor can you tell me any other Joe or Jane Christian could have laid the foundation in Christ that these men did.  It took two mature brothers in Christ functioning as a prophet and a pastor, loving me enough to lay their lives down for me at their own expense for Christ to be formed in me.  I don’t think the question is whether we should support equippers financially?  I think the real question is what would I give to see the rest of the body of Christ equipped and grounded in Him?


In Part 3 we’ll discuss identifying the true equippers from the fakes.


Loren Rosser

Supporting the Equippers Part 1: The Standoff

Those of you who are fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit certainly recall the riddle standoff between Bilbo and Gollum.  Well here’s a riddle for you.  (I promise I won’t eat you if you get it wrong.)  It weighs very little but weighs much on hearts and minds.  It is silent but also speaks volumes.  You carry it with you but you can’t take it with you.  And the mere mention of it to believers immediately sparks strong reactions and flashbacks associated with words like manipulation, corruption, and control.  Give up?  It’s money!

It has come to my attention that as was the case with Bilbo and Gollum, there is currently a standoff of sorts taking place within in the body of Christ among those who are moving away from systems of religious obligation towards liberty and genuine relational connections regarding the support of those who function as equippers.  I think this is an extremely important issue that needs to be addressed, and Lord willing, resolved.  As we’ve been moving towards greater liberty in Christ many of His followers have been discovering the pure joy of having their burdens lifted. There is currently a growing conversation about helping the poor and the oppressed.  However, it is my concern that we are willingly or ignorantly oppressing some of our own brothers and sisters by withholding from them their due and the resources necessary for them to function at the level Father desires.


Before I go any further let me flat out tell you I am not after a dime of your money.  I don’t need it nor do I want it.  I’m blessed to have a very good job that more than meets my needs.  This article isn’t about me, which is the exact reason I wanted to write it.  So often the only people who speak up for the equippers are the equippers themselves.  Due to past hurts, wounds, and abuses in the body of Christ, people immediately view them as being self-serving and place them in the same category as the manipulators they encountered in the past.  So these men and women go on pouring out their lives for us (because that’s the kind of people they are) and we gladly receive from them or have received from them in the past.  But why is it we will gladly receive from them that which is eternal but are often not even willing to reciprocate with that which is temporary (money)?

I can hear many saying, “But aren’t we all equal in the church?  We are all brethren!  I don’t get paid for functioning in my gifts!”  First of all let me say, neither do I!  I podcast regularly, have written numerous articles, produced videos, have spoken to congregations, and have even volunteered my time to feed the poor.  And guess what?  I didn’t get paid a cent.  But you are correct; no part of the body is superior to another.  We are all brethren in the body of Christ.  We are a family with one Father.  This isn’t about equality; it’s about function and necessity.  Although I’m very active in encouraging and building up the body of Christ I don’t have invitations to go to places like Uganda, or people asking me to come equip their groups all over the U.S. as one brother I know who is a prophet currently does.  He manages to scrape up enough to go to a few places, but he is unable to function anywhere near the capacity needed to meet the demand simply because the resources aren’t there.  The ox has been muzzled.  And he’s not alone.  I know of a handful of these people who are genuine equippers in the body who bless and have blessed numerous people and are helping and have helped many come to maturity who are obscenely underfunded to accomplish the work to which they’ve been called.  And just so there is no misunderstanding, these equippers aren’t building buildings, trying to start “ministries”, or make names for themselves.  They are doing nothing but helping individuals become grounded in Christ.  

I can hear some asking, “Well, if God wants them doing these things, like travel and all, why doesn’t He provide for them?”  That question actually reminds me of what I call “magical thinking” that I often encountered in my years in charismatic circles.  It’s waiting for that check from out of nowhere to appear in the mail box.  It’s waiting for God to make money magically appear in your bank account.   It’s waiting for God to become our personal genie.  It’s waiting for God to do Himself what we’re too darn lazy and selfish to do for others.  
  
Allow me to show you the ridiculousness of that mindset.  Do you think Father wanted the African Americans in the United States to be oppressed and excluded from the rest of society?  If you know anything about the heart of God then you know the answer is a resounding “No!”  Then why didn’t God just make it stop?  You know, just magically make a law pass congress ending the oppression.  We all know that’s just not reality.  He works through people, especially His body.  It took a man after His heart, Martin Luther King Jr., to do something about it, God’s way.  God doesn’t move magically, He moves through people, His body. 
   
I remember back when I was first moving away from organized religious Christianity hearing believers make statements like, “Just think of all the good we could do without having to pay for all this overhead!”  There were ongoing conversations about how shedding all the religious trappings would free up so many resources that could be poured into furthering the gospel around the world, feeding the poor, and so forth.  Now I sit outside the walls of organized religion and I’m scratching my head.  I ponder whether those conversations were really about furthering the gospel and helping the poor or if we were really looking for an excuse to close our pocket books.  I guess my question is how long are we going to stew in our old wounds and hold back our resources from the kingdom needed to release these equippers?  How long are we going to keep justifying muzzling the ox?  Do we truly want to see the body of Christ come to maturity and the kingdom advance or is that merely Christian correct terminology?

To be continued…

Loren Rosser

Mutant Jesus

This week my wife and I were selected to participate in the screening of a new Christian movie titled The War Room created by the Kendrick brothers (Courageous, Fireproof, Facing the Giants). We've participated in these events before and they're a whole lot of fun for movie buffs like us. You actually get to be a movie critic. A marketing company has you watch the movie at a selected theater with a selected audience before it's released and then fill out a questionnaire afterwards to get your take on it.  If they get too many negative opinions from the screening audience on certain aspects of the movie they'll actually go back and reedit or reshoot some scenes to improve it. This was the first time for us that the movie we viewed was a Christian flick.

I don't want to review this movie yet because I want to wait until the final cut is complete. They may end up changing many of the things that bothered me. I doubt it, but I do believe in miracles.  I'll just say the version I saw had all the usual problems that plague Christian movies. Those problems are: they're too preachy, the message is forced and feels unnatural/unrealistic, they have a cheesy TV movie feel, they tell instead of show (this isn't radio, it's film), and they don't treat their audiences as being intelligent by over explaining everything instead of letting the audience connect the dots and have the thrill of discovery.  However,  many of the people in the audience that were obviously Christians seemed to love it.  Their cheers and other reactions made that quite apparent. 

Over the next few days I was bothered by my experience at the theater and I had a difficult time verbalizing why. I mean it's just a movie, and a clean one at that. We've all seen corny movies, so what's the big deal?  But there was something bigger going on here that really grieved me.  What was grieving me wasn't just the movie alone.  Rather the movie was merely the symptom of a much bigger more wide spread problem plaguing Christianity that has gone on for decades.  And most folks don't only tolerate it, they're so blind to it they participate in it, identify with it, and cheer it on.  The thing I'm talking about is mixture.

Christians for centuries have been fed a concoction of Jesus plus a whole bunch of crap that is horrid for them.  Christians with any level of discernment would never drink the crap by its self, so just enough Jesus is mixed in with it to make it palatable and down the hatch it goes!  After drinking the elixir long enough people can't even tell Jesus from the crap.  They actually have linked the two and think they're one and the same.  I could show a crowd Jesus and they'd cheer.  Then I could show them some religious chains and they'd cheer just as loudly.  I could show them a pitcher filled with water from the springs of life and they'd cheer.  And I could show them a pitcher filled with religious poison and they'd cheer. 

I can't even put into words strong enough just how blind and accepting many people are of the mixture. They can't even see that they are putting weights and burdens on people.  They can't see they are shackling them and stripping them of their identities in Christ.  They can't see they are moving in the exact opposite direction from God's heart.  And there comes a point that many have reached that when Jesus Himself shows up mixed with nothing they can't stand Him.  They can't even recognize Him apart from the crap that they've been fed. They turn and call Him and His ways heresy.  They ridicule those who drink of only Him as being heretics, embittered, and spiritually dangerous.  They've become drunk on the elixir of religious obligation.  They're in love with mutant Jesus and all his demands, rules, regulations, and quests for power and prestige.  Just as the Israelites worshipped the false god Ba'al, confusing him with the living God, so many Christians worship mutant Jesus as being the real Jesus. For these Christians, trying to peal the real Jesus away from all the crap is like trying to peal two pieces of duct tape apart that are stuck together on their sticky sides.  In their minds Jesus IS the religious nonsense and the religious nonsense IS Jesus. 

This so breaks my heart beyond words.  This is the message the movie was carrying, but it's an ever so common and widely accepted message.  It's Jesus plus chains.  Jesus plus burdens.  Jesus plus the law.  Jesus plus death.  And of course many Christians are so accustomed to the mixture they cheer on the message.  For me, I ache. I weep.  I grieve.  And I write.  And I create podcasts.  And I produce videos.  And I connect with other brothers and sisters in Christ who have embraced Jesus alone.  All with the deep desire and dream that one day the mixture will no longer be tolerated.  That those who have been drunk on the elixir will grow sick of it, throw it out, sober up, and drink of Jesus alone.  I yearn to see a people who shed the nonsense, live in Christ's liberty, and love as He loved.  There are many of them out there.  But I can't be still until all my brothers and sisters are free.  This is my passion.  I may not see it in my life time.  But I've felt for years that this is a big reason why I'm on this planet.  This is what I see my Father doing and I'm happy to labor along side Him in His vineyard.

Twenty-one years ago Father gave me Isaiah 45 as the passage for my life.  He's confirmed it numerous times by numerous people since.  It was written during the time of Israel's captivity in Babylon. It's about God breaking the gates of Babylon before Cyrus and giving him the treasures of hidden darkness for the sake of Israel His chosen.

Loren  Rosser

In the World but not of the World

A new episode of Untangled is up!  What does it mean to be in the world but not of it?  Many Christians seem to place all the emphasis on not being of this world.  They set down laws and set out on quests for holiness to keep themselves separate from the world.  But is separation from the world something to which we aspire and achieve or something that Christ has already done in our hearts?  It's also interesting that many believers place all the emphasis on not being a part of the world and seem to miss the part about being IN THE WORLD. One only has to look at Jesus to see that we're supposed to be immersed in our culture, loving those around us. This is what David Fredrickson and Loren Rosser discuss in this extra special podcast.  It's extra special because instead of the usual Skype conversation, David joins Loren in his home in Dallas, TX.

Love in Action

"Yip, yap, yip, yap, debate, debate..." Do you ever get the feeling we're doing a whole lot of talking about love but not much doing it? We can talk about love all we want but that means nothing. Jesus didn't say, "They'll know you're my disciples by your philosophy about love." He said it's by our love they'll know we're His. When Jesus spoke of loving our neighbors He told the story of the Good Samaritan to make the point.  Love is an action not a theory!  It's so crucial that we know we're loved by Father.  But love can't stay dormant.  The evidence of Father's love in our lives is eventually seen through our actions and not in merely being nice to people, but in laying down our lives for others.  The world will not see Jesus through our endless yapping and Bible studies. He's seen when we love others with no agenda. That means no seeking to build our thing, market our group, or gain anything at all from them. This is what Loren and David discuss this week.

Finding Church with Wayne Jacobsen

A new episode of Untangled is up! This podcast is one you must hear! Author Wayne Jacobsen (He Loves Me, So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore, and collaborator on The Shack) joins David and Loren to discuss his fantastic new book, Finding Church. David and Loren agree that this is one of the best books (if not the best) written on the topic of the reality of the church in the world today. This is straight talk from a man who has sought authentic New Testament community for more than fifty years and who has discovered it in the most unlikely places. Now Wayne wants to help you find this incredible bride Jesus is shaping by looking at the church as God sees her and by recognizing her as she takes shape around you. What if the church Jesus is building looks more like wildflowers strewn across an alpine meadow than a walled garden with manicured hedges? Get ready to see church through a new set of eyes! Please forgive the poor audio quality.

We had a bad Skype connection while recording. It is well worth pushing past it to hear this one!

To order a copy of Finding Church go to http://www.lifestream.org/content/finding-church

Free to be Small

There is such a drive in our old nature for fame and recognition. This often creeps into our lives as believers and causes us to view our actions and life in Christ as insignificant unless we're doing big things that are noticed by multitudes of people. Yet, more often than not God meets us and impacts the world around us in the small things of our daily lives that often seem insignificant. Real freedom and joy is found in Him when we're free from the drive to do big things to be noticed. This freedom usually comes with the price of suffering so that we're free from the pride of our old nature and can embrace what Father is doing no matter how small and how little we'll be noticed. In Him, there actually is peace, joy, and rest in that place. This is what David Fredrickson and Loren Rosser discuss in this episode of Untangled.   

God is Love - A response

NOTE: This post is a response to a blog a friend of mine posted titled, "God is more than just love."  You can read his post for yourself here: http://agreaterpassion.blogspot.com/2014/09/god-is-more-than-just-love.html  The reason I'm posting this is for two reasons: 1. My response is too long to place on his blog or Facebook. 2. I realized through writing my response I ended up typing out the core of my beliefs.  I thought many would be encouraged. 

How can God be more than who He is?  John, who was closer to Jesus than any of the apostles wrote, “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8, emphasis added)  John states that this is how God defines Himself.  There is no other attribute in the Bible by which He is defined.  The Son even makes this perfectly clear to us by laying down His life for us, while we were yet sinners.  The attributes you named are not separate from His love, rather they are expressions of it.  Just as you as a father display your love for your children in many ways, love (though ours is often imperfect) is the motive.  Even God’s anger and hatred are motived by love.  His anger and hatred are not directed at people but at that which hurts and destroys them.  Just as you as a father would smash a black widow that built a web in your child’s room.  You’d hate that black widow because of the danger she poses to your child.  There is not a single ounce of hatred towards your child, only love.  If you saw your child playing with the spider’s web you may yell and yank your child away, but again, your motive is love. 

You stated that the problem is, “we often project our image of who God is by using a few verses and making that into a glorification of our own personal ideals, or even ourselves.” The problem is, if this is being applied to the belief that God is love there are more than a few verses that put this on display, there is Jesus Christ.  Jesus said if we’ve seen Him we’ve seen the Father and then He went and died for a world full of sinners.  Paul even wrote that, “one will hardly die for a righteous man…”  Paul refutes the idea that believing that God is love is a reflection of our own nature and creating a God in our own image because in and of ourselves we are NOT loving.  This goes against our old nature.  We are an “eye for an eye” people and we naturally like a god like that. Yet Jesus asked of us to love our enemies.  He asked us to be like Him, who died for His enemies, a reflection of a God who is love.  He actually asked of us something that is impossible apart from Him, because it is not in our old nature to love.  That’s why this belief of God being love strikes such a cord (negative and positive) in so many people.  Our human minds can’t comprehend a God like that.  So we like to humanize Him by separating His love from His expressions of it and make them into separate attributes.  But I venture to say that those who accuse people who believe God is love is the very definition of who He is,are picking and choosing verses they like and neglecting the others, are strangely doing that very thing themselves. Instead of glossing over verses that talk about the love of God, how about really taking a hard look at Jesus.  Why is it the highest command Jesus gave us was to love God and love one another?  He even said that that’s how they’ll know we’re His followers.  Why did Jesus say that by our love for one another is how they’ll know we’re His followers? He didn’t speak of one other way the world will see God among us.  Why is that?  If God can be seen through all these other attributes, why is Jesus so hung up on this love thing?

 

You stated, “To fully know and share God with others we can’t use His love as the ultimate trump card over all the other ways He reveals Himself.” That’s odd being that that’s the way God chooses to reveal Himself and make Himself known.  Once again, look at Jesus’ death burial and resurrection.  The preaching of the cross is the core of the gospel because that is where we see God for who He is, “For God so loved the world…” and “While we were yet sinners.”  Love is how He reveals Himself, always. He placed His love for all humanity on display in Jesus on that cross. If you’re preaching anything other than that you’re preaching a different gospel.

 

You wrote, “Let’s face it. God can be darn right scary. If we read in the pages of eternity we see that every human that has encountered the Lord was scared to death. Yet, that is not exactly the way we want others to see Him. It can at times be embarrassing that He strikes such fear into people.”  That depends on who and which pages of history we’re talking about.  The twelve disciples, Mary Magdalen, Martha, the Pharisees, and multitudes of others encountered the Lord every single day and they weren’t scared at all.  In fact, the Pharisees were so unafraid they put Him on a cross.  Jesus and the apostles made it clear that if we’ve seen Him we’ve seen the Father.  So perhaps you’re talking about the Old Testament.  Then you’re right.  But you have to take into account they were buried in their sins and had never seen Jesus, who is God revealed to us.  I’d also say it’s similar for those living today who haven’t met Him.  In Proverbs the writer states, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  Yet, John writes, “There is no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear.”  So if God loves us perfectly (which He does) then there is no fear in Him.  So what do we do with these two contradicting verses?  Well, notice the writer of Proverbs said the fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of wisdom.  Guess what?  It doesn’t end there.  It ends with Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, who the apostle John beheld with His own eyes before penning the words, “There is no fear in love.”  When you see Jesus for who He is fear is removed because of the enormity of His love and then you find yourself crying out to God, “Daddy!”  True intimacy cannot exist where there is fear.  Where is their more security than in the love of a Father?

 

Let’s not forget the whole point of it all is Father desires a relationship with us. I don’t know of a single relationship that can truly succeed where love is secondary.

 

Loren Rosser

Distracted by a Cause

A new episode of Untangled is up! There is so much injustice, mudslinging, political corruption, and religious obligation in the world today that we often find ourselves driven by anger, arrogance, or self-righteousness to take up a cause. Though some of these causes may appear to be good, many times they are merely distractions to get us to spend our time, energy, and emotions on something other than abiding in God's love and loving others. It is so easy to fall into the trap of placing our identities in something other than Christ. This is what David and Loren discuss in this podcast. 

Beautiful Crackpots

A new episode of Untangled is up! We are usually taught by this world to keep up an image of strength even when we are weak. This is how many are trained to minister to others. But interestingly, Paul spoke of glorying in his weaknesses.  These things are often skimmed over as we read the Bible as if they're merely nice little poetic sayings or Paul being modest.  Yet, the truth is Father truly is glorified in our weaknesses because He loves us right in the middle of them. It is often in our weaknesses that others are touched because there is less of us and more of Him.  When we don't live in denial of our struggles we are less prone to become pharisees and are better able to genuinely connect with others.

Love and Judgement

A new episode of Untangled is up and marks a new beginning as my friend David Fredrickson and I have teamed up to host the podcast together. Did you know that love and judgement for us humans are polar opposites? We weren't created to judge, that place is reserved for God alone. But thanks to partaking of the fruit from the of Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil we thrust ourselves into a position for which we weren't created. We were create to abide in the love of our Father not to be experts on good and evil. The root of that knowledge is actually the desire to live independent of God. We cannot abide in love and judge others at the same time. We either eat of the Tree of Life or The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is what Loren Rosser and David Fredrickson discuss in this podcast. 
Just click on the link to go to the podcast.

http://untangled.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-23T14_50_03-07_00

Three Things

This week's episode of Untangled is up! This week Loren has a heart to heart chat with us. He discusses the three things that are of utmost importance for us as believers and a project he is taking on that will result in some changes to the podcast.

What Really Matters

Christians today are very good at majoring in the minors.  Singing, sermons, and Sunday School can all be nice but these are minors.  What are the majors?  What is it that is most important to Jesus Christ, the Head of the church? Believe it or not, it's no mystery.  Jesus made it crystal clear what should be our entire focus as His people.  This is what Loren discusses in this podcast. (In this episode Loren mentions Johnny and Kate Brooks and the work they're doing in Kenya. If you want more information go to http://www.purechristianity.blogs.com/)

Heaven is for Real Movie Review

My wife and I watched the movie Heaven is for Real last night starring Greg Kinnear based on the book and true story of a little boy who had a near death experience and claims to have visited heaven.  Overall I’d say the movie was okay.  It wasn’t great and it wasn’t bad, it was just okay.  The strengths of the movie were the acting skills of Greg Kinnear who played Todd Burpo, a Nebraskan pastor and father of Conner (the boy who had the near death experience), Thomas Haden Church, and Margo Martindale who played church board members and friends of the Burpo family.  At first it looked like they were going to make a few of the main characters one dimensional, but I was pleased they avoided that pit and gave them some depth.  As a follower of Christ I have no doubts of the reality of life after death so I found the parts of the movie focusing on Conner’s experiences intriguing and encouraging.  I also really liked that the movie centered on God being love without clouding the issue.  And since I believe God loves us so much he meets with us where we’re at, in our reality, I had no hang ups about the Burpo’s religious views and activities. 

Where the movie really fell down was surrounding the point of conflict.  Since the movie was based on a true account that was turned into a movie the writers had to come up with a conflict to make the movie entertaining, otherwise it would’ve been better to simply make a documentary.  The problem is the conflict was just not believable.  (Minor Spoiler Alert: stop reading if you don’t want anything to be given away.)  The conflict was that people were having a hard time believing what Conner had witnessed.  This included the church board members and even the parents. Now that would work for me if they were atheists or agnostics, but these were church going people.  Conner’s story confirmed their beliefs.  The number one concern with the majority of Christians is heaven.  In fact, the subject of heaven is probably the LEAST offensive subject to Christians.  No matter what denomination or non-denomination, they all agree on the existence of heaven.  I’m certain that’s why the book on which the movie was based was number one on the New York Times best sellers list.  It’s the “how to get to heaven” and “who will be there?” where Christians start splintering into factions.  But I don’t know of a single Christian group that doubts the existence of heaven.  In fact, one of the problems some Christians have is they act like the whole point of life is just to die and go to heaven.

This is what makes the point of conflict in the movie unbelievable and quite ridicules.  The parents and church members would have eaten up Conner’s story.  They would’ve been begging him to tell them more.  Instead they’re aloof and suspicious.  The family even encounters minor “persecution” over it.  The “persecution” was so forced it came across as downright corny and made me cringe.  Getting persecuted for something with which the majority of people agree?  BIZAAR!  It felt like the movie makers were pandering to their audience. “Let’s make the average Joe church goer feel like a spiritual powerhouse for believing in heaven.”  Wow!  Such a controversial topic!  Don’t ever say you believe in heaven in mixed company – who knows what people might do!?  And while you’re at it how about having the kid get persecuted for talking about footage he saw of astronauts landing on the moon.  Whoa! This is edgy dangerous stuff here! Nothing will get you persecuted faster than believing what everybody else does – NOT! 

The conflict was nothing but a “straw man.”  This made it impossible to get emotionally invested in their struggles.  The mom’s aloofness followed by her overreactions to her son’s stories was so unbelievable it was like watching somebody get emotional about paint drying.  I found myself detached from the characters.

The other problem I had with the movie was the way it constantly pointed to the church building as being the center of spiritual life and the source through which all spiritual activity occurs.  Jesus made it very clear that we, his people, are his temple.  He dwells in those who follow him.  He meets with us right where we’re at, not on some “sacred ground” as in the old covenant.  But I realize this was merely reflecting the wide spread accepted tradition of many Christians today.

So there you have it.  Heaven is for Real is an okay movie.  But it can make for some good conversations afterward.  So that alone may make it worth your while. 

Movies That Impact The Spirit

This week's Untangled podcast is up. Movie Man Bob joins Loren again for another edition of Movie Monday (even though it's Tuesday).  This week they discuss movies that impacted them spiritually and launch into a deep conversation about the power of God that’s found in relationships. “Relationships transition us from pride to humility,” points out Bob, “…and God gives grace to the humble."

Leadership in the Body of Christ

Ready for a podcast that's all peaches and cream and is sure to tickle your ears? Don't listen to this one! Loren discusses leadership in the church. For many, this discussion will be rather shocking (although that's not the goal). This is not another "Obey your Pastor" message. It's an unraveling of a whole lot of dogma that has kept many in the church paralyzed, weak, and ineffective for decades. What is leadership? What is it not? For the church to truly walk in love, liberty, and maturity a few sacred cows have to be tipped over (or maybe a few herds) so that believers are free to love Christ and one another without hindrance. 

When the Church Leaves the Building

A new episode of Untangled is up. Imagine you're a pastor and out of the desire to live in the reality of being the church you just gave up your title and salary and you and your congregation shut down all programs, sold the building and walked away - WHAT NOW? Loren is joined for a second week by David Fredrickson to find out what happened after he and his congregation did just that. It's an incredible journey that may just leave you pondering what it really means to be the church.

You can read David's incredible and thought provoking story in his book When the Church Leaves the Building. It's available atwww.familyroommedia.com or at Amazon.

Journey to Reality

This week's episode of Untangled is up. This week Loren is joined by his good friend David Fredrickson who shares his incredible story of how after 30 years of serving as a pastor he and his congregation called it quits, abandoned their titles, sold their building, and walked away from the traditional Sunday morning scene because they yearned to live in the reality of what it means to BE the church. You can also read about David's journey in his book "When the Church Leaves the Building." It's available on Amazon or www.familyroommedia.com

A Powerful Life Lesson From Maleficent

Warning: There are some major spoilers in this.

My wife and I went to see the Disney movie Maleficent with some friends a few days ago.  There were some things that bothered me about the movie so at first I didn’t really like it. Like many people that saw it, I really wanted them to be a little more true to the romantic theme of Sleeping Beauty and I didn’t like that there wasn’t one strong, positive male character in the whole movie.  There were also some plot holes that bothered me.  But over the past few days I’ve come to realize there is actually an incredible lesson in this movie that I nearly missed because I watched the movie through the wrong lens.  See, I had on my romantic lenses and was ready to watch a different version of Sleeping Beauty.  But the movie is not Sleeping Beauty, it is Maleficent, the tale of an evil woman.  This was not a love story but a lesson in the nature of evil.

So what was the lesson?  The lesson was never return evil for evil.  It is the natural reaction of every human to seek revenge when we are wronged.  But what this movie showed is evil is like a cancer and when we give into it we only cause it to spread further.  Seeking revenge may cause those we hate to become even darker, we damage our lives, and we may even harm those who have nothing to do with the circumstances. 

Maleficent was tragically betrayed by the one she loved.  Having encountered betrayal myself (though not from a lover) I’ve seen that there is nothing more emotionally painful than this.  That being the case, betrayal has the potential to bring out the absolute worst in us beyond any other life event. I never tasted of such pain and anger until I was betrayed.  As a follower of Christ I firmly believe in what Jesus taught, that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  But let me tell you, after my betrayal, it was MONTHS before I could even SQUEEK OUT a prayer for my enemies.  It took a very long time for me to be able to comfortably pray for them, the hurt was so deep.  But Maleficent chose to give into her anger and foster hatred in her heart.  In doing so she ended up having the very thing for which yearned; a chance for revenge.  She stood before her scumbag betrayer and humiliated him for all to see and had the wicked pleasure of taking from him what was most dear to him just as he had done to her.

However, Maleficent didn’t realize in that one fleeting moment of sick pleasure she made the world even darker and complicated her future.  After that encounter the king became even more evil.  Driven by fear and the rage of having what was most precious to him threatened, he was now seeking revenge.  The movie, in its course of showing Maleficent’s journey out of darkness didn’t really highlight the damage SHE had done.  The king became more evil BECAUSE OF HER.  Maleficent’s satisfying moment of revenge poured fuel on the fire and caused the King to go deeper down the hole of evil to place where he couldn’t get out.  The evil tyrant she had to fight at the end of the movie was not some villain that just sprang out of a pit to attack the now repentant fairy; it was the monster of her own making.  Not only did she turn the King from a shady man into a monster (remember, he didn’t have the heart to kill her when his selfish ambition drove him to become king – it was only after she cursed his daughter which upped the ante that he was driven to kill), she also robbed a child from having any kind of a relationship with either of her parents. Then as she started to love the child she came to realize she had stolen the future of one who was innocent.  She had damaged herself by cursing one she would one day love.  It was fortunate that at least she had a way to undo part of what she had done, the king didn’t have the same fortune. 

Maleficent reveals that there was a very practical reason why Jesus said to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us and spitefully use us.  Paul the Apostle even straight out told us to bless others and not curse them.  When we give into hatred it’s like punching a hole in a dam.  It’s only a matter of time before we’re all swimming in it. 

How would the story have played out if Maleficent had forgiven the King and blessed the child in spite of the evil that was done to her? Would she have ended the tensions between the two kingdoms?  Would she have grown to be loved by the humans?  Would the king have given her back her wings?  We’ll never know.

Loren Rosser

Another Movie Monday!

Untangled is back!!! Movie Man Bob joins Loren again to give their reviews of Godzilla and X-Men Days of Future Past. This leads them into a deep look at how movie trends at times are a reflection of things happening in the Spirit at the times they were made. People, whether following Christ or not, are influenced by spiritual forces that can't be seen. Sometimes a piece of what is true in the Spirit ends up being displayed on the screen, but you have to have spiritual eyes to see it.

Hearing God

Did you know that God speaks to YOU? He loves you and like any loving parent, He desires to have a relationship with you.  And guess what?  Communication is key in any healthy relationship. Jesus said His sheep know His voice. What are some of the ways Father speaks to us? This is what Loren discusses in this podcast.

It's All About Relationship

A new episode of Untangled is up. Almost everybody has heard the line, "Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship." However, amidst all the programs, expectations, and requirements it's pretty clear to most people it's a religion. We've lost sight of the most basic truth that God our Father created us for the sole purpose of relationship. That being the case, we believers should be the most relational people on the planet - and the fact is, in many cases, we're not. This is what Loren discusses in podcast.

Movie Monday!

It's the second Monday of the month. Do you know what that means? It's time to talk about movies! Loren is joined by his buddy Movie Man Bob to talk about super hero movies, the upcoming X-Men movie (Days of Future Past), the Lone Ranger, and J.J. Abrams' last Star Trek movie (Into Darkness) and the much anticipated Star Wars Episode 7.

Listening To Your Good Heart

A new Untangled podcast is up. 

Did you know the desires of your heart are good?  When Christ came into your life and gave you a new heart He also placed within that good heart the desires that He wants you to have. That's not to say every desire you have is of God.  But the desires of your new heart are. God most often speaks to us through our hearts.  That's why it is so important to listen to our hearts.  The challenge is that following Christ by listening to His voice within our hearts we'll often be lead on roads that won't allow us to conform to the agendas of others.  Loren is once again joined by author Jim Robbins to discuss this topic which is also found in Jim's book Recover Your Good Heart: Living free from religious guilt and the shame of not good-enough.

You can order Jim's book or Solo Piano CD here: http://www.robbinswritings.com/

Recover Your Good Heart

A new Untangled podcast is now available.  I'm really excited about this one.  I spoke with author Jim Robbins about his book Recover Your Good Heart: Living free from religious guilt and the shame of not good-enough.  

The "gospel" many are preaching today looks more like the Old Testament way of relating to God than the new way Jesus intended.  We pressure Christians to be good and ignore what the Scriptures say about their restored hearts.  Pressure to be a good Christian only produces shame and guilt.  But what does the Bible really say about your heart?  This is what Jim and I talk about in this podcast.

If you'd like a copy of Jim's book just click on the link  http://www.robbinswritings.com

God is Love

I'm really excited!  I just launched a new podcast called "Untangled."  The focus of this podcast is untangling people from the lies religion tells us about God and ourselves.

This first episode focuses on God being love.  Many people have a wrong picture of who God is.  Sure we talk about God being love but few live in the reality of that.  God is not the demanding, angry, arrogant being that has been presented to the world by so many.  This episode is all about getting untangled from the lies we've been told about God's heart for us.  I hope you enjoy!

You can listen to it here on the player or you can click the link and go to the Untangled website and leave comments.

You can subscribe to this podcast by going to the website and clicking on the iTunes link on the right.

(By the way, my daughter composed the music.)

http://untangled.podomatic.com/

A Cursed Religion

Hey!  Here’s an idea!  Let’s start a religion that sucks the life out of people.  Let’s pull a “bait and switch.”  Let’s promise people life but give them a big ‘ol cup full of death.  Let’s promise people the cure for the disease that ails them and then inject them with an even bigger dosage of the deadly disease.  Let’s let people taste little bits of life here and there to keep them coming back but saturate them in death so they won’t even know the difference.

My friends, this is modern day Christianity.  The other day while scrolling through Facebook I ran across a post a friend shared titled, “An 11-Step Religious Guide to Sabotaging Your Life” by Jim Palmer.  One of the ways to sabotage your life listed was, “Focus on behavior modification, checklists, do’s and don’ts, appearances, obedience, and keeping the rules when it comes to living your life.”  Then following it was, “Make everything black and white.”  As one who once adhered to all eleven of those ways listed to sabotage my life up until fourteen years ago when Jesus began untangling me from all this junk, I excitedly reposted this list on Facebook.  But it occurred to me later, when many of my Christian friends read the statements like the ones I quoted they’d be puzzled, shocked, or even offended.  “So you don’t believe in right and wrong?!”  They’d think I’d gone off the deep end.  They’d think I’m advocating living a life of immorality; that I joined the “Church of do whatever you want to.”  How do I know this?  Because that’s what I would’ve thought over fourteen years ago.  

There is a horrible thing that has taken place in Christianity.  A belief that was once simply about following Jesus and living in His life and joy was high jacked and became a cursed religion; a religion of death.  How did this happen?  Simple.  Christians exchanged the life of Christ for a religion of morality.  Christianity, for the most part, is no longer rooted in Christ, rather it is rooted in knowing right from wrong.  This is a far more dastardly thing than most people realize.  Most people think, “Okay, so we keep the rules but we need to fall more in love with Jesus.  Got it.”  But what they fail to realize is it was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that brought the entire curse from which Christ came to redeem us upon humanity!  The Christianity of do’s and don’ts is actually causing people to eat the fruit of the same tree that cursed all of humanity.  It is a religion of death!

I want to emphasize something here.  I think when most people hear the words “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” what they actually hear is “The Tree of the Knowledge of EVIL.”  But that’s not the tree that brought the curse on humanity.  It was the Tree of the Knowledge of GOOD and evil.  Yes!  Knowing good from evil is part of the curse! 

At this point many are scratching their heads.  “Aren’t we supposed to know good from evil?”  The answer to that is actually, “No.”  We were created to only know God.  We were supposed to live in relationship with Him and He would be our everything and meet our every need.  That includes that He would be the One who shows us the path to walk and the way to live.  We were created to be like children living in worriless freedom through our complete dependence on our ever so loving Father who cares for our every need.

When the serpent tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil he said, “You’ll be like God, knowing good from evil.”  In other words, “You won’t need Him anymore.  You will be your own guide.  YOU will be able to tell what is GOOD and what is Evil for YOURSELF.  You will no longer be dependent upon Him to guide you.  You will be able to live independent of Him.  You will no longer need to have any kind of relationship with Him.  You will be able to do it all yourself.”

So basically what happened is humanity turned to God and said, “We know right from wrong.  We got this.  We can manage ourselves.  You can go away.”  We see this same attitude in the Hebrews when God delivered them from slavery in Egypt.  God wanted to speak to them and have a personal relationship with them but they were afraid.  So they turned to Moses and said, “You go find out what He wants us to do and we’ll do it.”  Once again we see the curse at work.  The people we’re saying, “We want to be our own counselors.  We want to manage our own lives.  We want to do this ourselves.   You go get us the rules so we’ll know right from wrong and we’ll follow them.”  This is what Moses did and as Jesus pointed out, they couldn’t keep the rules.  It was too burdensome for them.  Yet they kept trying.

And this is also what Christianity did.  Jesus came and was nailed to a tree because it was a tree that brought the entire curse upon humanity.  He became the curse and removed it from the world.  God said, “Alright, the curse has been broken, the penalty it demanded has been paid so now this whole knowledge of good and evil thing is off the table.  You no longer need to know your sin.  I’ve removed it.  Now we can freely be in relationship.  The very thing I’ve always wanted with you!”  But as the decades rolled by Christians began to say, “You know what, we got this God.  You just tell us what to do and we’ll do it.”  Like the Hebrews, they picked out people from among them to go hear from God for them and tell them what to do. They took the letters beautifully written by the apostles to the early churches, the gospels, and the writings of the Hebrews and turned them into a book of rules.  “No relationship with God needed, we’ve got the list of do’s and don’ts. We can manage this.  But of course we’ll still honor God with our lips for giving us these rules to live by.”  This is why Paul, when addressing those in the early church that were attempting to make it a requirement that Christians be circumcised in order to follow Christ wrote, “Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.”  In other words, “If you’re going to try to justify yourselves by following a set of rules then Jesus came for nothing.  You think you don’t need Him.  You’re still under the curse.”

Having been raised in a Christianity in which the Bible was a rule book and it was all about morality, I’m sure many are pondering, “Then how is it we’re supposed to live?”  We’re supposed to live out of our relationship with our Father, in complete dependence upon Him. Jesus gave us the very picture of this.  Notice how Jesus often broke the rules of religion and society and went against social norms – which completely offended the Pharisees.  “Oh, so we’re supposed to be rebels!”  No, because at other times He flowed with the rules and adhered to the customs of His day.  “Wait!  So what’s the pattern here?  Tell me the formula so I can go write it down and follow it.”  There is no formula.  (This is what drives religious people CRAZY!)  Jesus lived in a daily, moment by moment relationship with His Father doing whatever He saw Him doing.  Jesus wasn’t trying to set rules NOR break rules.  He was of a completely different and foreign mindset to the rest of humanity.  He lived in close relationship to His Father.  Jesus wasn’t His own guide and He didn’t adhere to any particular set of principles.  He only listened to His Father.  His Father was His everything.  So one day His Father would show Him to attend synagogue. (Such a good Jewish boy!)  And the next day He would show Him to go talk to a Samaritan women at a well. (Bad Jewish boy!  Bad!!!)  Jesus was directed by His love for His Father.  Jesus was not under the curse of the rest of humanity.  He didn’t know the world of right and wrong and do’s and don’ts, He knew only His Father’s Kingdom.

Jesus, being the first born of many brethren, showed us the way to live.  He made the way for us also to live like He did, solely in relationship and continual fellowship with our Father; the source of life.  But sadly, many Christians have sold out this beautiful relationship for a piece of cursed fruit.  They’ve chosen to live out of principles, obligations, rules, and codes of conduct that they control so they can be their own governors rather than in a joyous relationship with a loving Father.

Now can you see why the Christianity of rules and obligations is a religion of death?  That’s not who we were created to be.  When we choose to live under codes of conduct or sets of principles we choose to live cursed.  We aren’t pointing people to Christ, we’re pointing people to the Law, which as Paul pointed out so clearly, leads to death.  Jesus is held up but then when people draw near He is exchanged for the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Now you know why so many Christians are nasty and mean and look like they’ve been sucking on sour lemons all day.  They’ve been sucking on something far worse!  They’ve been sucking on the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  And since sucking on that fruit leaves you cursed and empty so much of Christianity just goes on sucking.

Loren Rosser