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