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In Brian McLaren’s book “The Secret Message of Jesus” he talks  about the ways that Jesus communicated his message. He contends that Jesus spoke in many parables, and hidden messages, but he always spoke in the language of his peers. One of the points that Brian makes is that Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is like…” Brian suggests that if Jesus were speaking to us today he may not even use the term “kingdom”. Today you hardly ever see a King that actually rules over his land. In fact when we see a King most of the time that Kingship is symbolic. The power is held by others in government, the royal family is really there as a matter of tradition. It gives the peasants the warm fuzzies. Do you really think that’s what Jesus had in mind? Didn’t think so. Again Jesus spoke the language of the people.

Brian suggest that instead of the term “Kingdom” of God we might use other terms interchangably. For example, the “Dream” of God, the “Revolution” of God, the “Mission” of God, the “Party” of God, the “Network” of God, and the “Dance” of God. Listen to this quote from a chapter called “The Language of the Kingdom”.

“The party of God. Jesus often compared the kingdom to par­ties, feasts, and banquets. Today we could say that God is invit­ing people to leave their gang fights and come to a party, to leave their workaholism and rat race and come to a party, to leave their loneliness and isolation and join the party, to leave their exclu­sive parties (political ones, for example, which win elections by dividing electorates) and join one inclusive party of a different sort, to stop fighting or complaining or hating or competing and instead start partying and celebrating the goodness and love of God.

Just today I met some folks from a church in Minneapolis who demonstrate this metaphor in a dramatic and fun way. A group of them gather on a street corner in a poor part of town. They take overturned trash cans, old pots and pans, and an assortment of drums and other percussion instruments and start creating a loud, joyful rhythm. Soon a crowd gathers. It’s im­possible not to smile when you hear the joyful music being made mostly from junk. Homeless folk and people from the neighbor­hood start dancing. Then the church members start distributing food-not in the somber style of a soup kitchen, but in the joy­ful atmosphere of a street party. They don’t have to say a word, really, they’re demonstrating their message-that the kingdom of God is like a street party to which everybody is invited.

My friend Tony Campolo tells a true story that also serves as a great parable in this regard. He was in another time zone and couldn’t sleep, so well after midnight he wandered down to a doughnut shop where, it turned out, local hookers also came at the end of a night of turning tricks. There, he overheard a con­versation between two of them. One, named Agnes, said, “You know what? Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m gonna be thirty-nine.” Her friend snapped back, “So what d’ya want from me? A birth­day party? Huh? You want me to get a cake and sing happy birthday to you?” The first woman replied, “Aw, come on, why do you have to be so mean? Why do you have to put me down? I’m just sayin’ it’s my birthday. I don’t want anything from you. I mean, why should I have a birthday party? I’ve never had a birth­day party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?”

When they left, Tony got an idea. He asked the shop owner if Agnes came in every night, and when he replied in the affir­mative, Tony invited him into a surprise party conspiracy. The shop owner’s wife even got involved. Together they arranged for a cake, candles, and typical party decorations for Agnes, who was, to Tony, a complete stranger. The next night when she came in, they shouted, “Surprise!”-and Agnes couldn’t believe her eyes. The doughnut shop patrons sang, and she began to cry so hard she could barely blow out the candles. When the time came to cut the cake, she asked if they’d mind if she didn’t cut it, if she could bring it home-just to keep it for a while and savor the moment. So she left, carrying her cake like a treasure.

Tony led the guests in a prayer for Agnes, after which the shop owner told Tony he didn’t realize Tony was a preacher. He asked what kind of church Tony came from, and Tony replied, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.â€? The shop owner couldn’t believe him. “No you don’t. There ain’t no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. Yep, I’d join a church like that.” Sadly, there are too few churches like that, but if more of us understand the secret message of Jesus, there will be lots more.”

God has been speaking to me for several years now about beginning a new church. I don’t even like the term “church” only because of the stigma of the institution, however as soon as you mention “spiritual community” eyebrows raise among fellow believers (another term I have a problem with too) “Oh you’re on of those!” Jesus will build His “church” and I am a part of it… I guess we need to redefine what people see as “The Church”.

Anyhow, as I find myself once again in transition I am really interested in hearing if any of you out there have tried and tried to put your vision into an existing church and failed, either as the senior leader or in a staff/associate type of position. For years I have been of the mindset that there must be a pastor out there who desperatly needs a teamate.  I have faithfully come alongside several leaders who affirmed my frustrations with the church and said that they wanted to make a change.  The sad reality was that in EVERY situation the leader was unable to tell me that we didn;t see things the same and they worked really hard to keep this fact in the dark.

Has Christian leadership really sunk to this level.  Deception outweighs honesty.

Oh yeah….. I am very familiar with Jesus words in Matt. 9:16-17; “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”.

But I can’t be the only one out here who has tried this a number of times… Yep… the tear is worse and there’s wine running all over the place. Fortunately there are no broken relationships in my latest wineskin burst. All is well and God has used this to show me very clearly His direction…

Is there anybody else out there who is cleaning up spilled wine?

We are never really “out of” the presence of God.  As worship leaders it is fairly common for us to talk about “leading people into the presence of God”.  Now, although “leading” definitely takes place, what are we really leading people into?  If we are never OUT OF God’s presence, how can we lead people INTO God’s presence? 

Perhaps a better way to phrase this is that we lead people into an AWARENESS of the presence of God.  As I was reading Psalm 139 it brought me back to the reality that there is NOWHERE that we can go to hide from the Lord.  He is always there, always watching us, always caring for us, always IN OUR PRESENCE.  But many times we don’t necessarily FEEL like we are with Him.  There is nothing that we can do nor anywhere we can go to lose God. Nothing we can do surprises Him or rattles His cage. We are continually in His presence whether we are aware of it or not. 

How would it effect our lives as worshippers if we thought less about leading people into His presence and more about just living there (where we already are) ourselves.  Perhaps our thoughts should focus on HELPING PEOPLE TO BE AWARE of God, His love for us, and His presence among us.

Any thoughts?