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The Resting Place
We are a community of believers coming together to establish a new wineskin of renewal in the Midwest. Come and join us as we adventure into the unknown, with hands open to following the wind of Holy Spirit, and hearts hungry for community and to experience an outpouring of the love of the Father.
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The Resting Place
Beyond the Glass House: Creating a Movement of True Reform
Join us for a compelling exploration of reform within Christianity in our latest episode! We dive into the tension between identifying problems in our church communities and taking the courageous steps to build something new. Through insightful commentary, personal stories, and heartfelt reflections, we challenge the narrative of criticism without action, urging listeners to engage in meaningful change.
We also delve into the concept of the "Great Dance," a metaphor reflecting the interconnectedness of life and the divine presence that permeates our experiences. By challenging the notion that God is distant, we invite listeners to engage with the reality that He is ever-present, ready to transform our lived experiences.
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What's up everybody. It's good to be back with you on our first weekend podcast. We release these to get the table set for the coming two weekends of the resting place. We gather the second and third weekends of the month and we release these podcasts to kind of set the table, for lack of a better term, for the coming month, so this will be for the month of March. We can't wait to be with you guys. Make plans to join us next weekend and then again the 15th. I believe that's the, I want to say the 8th and the 15th. That's the eighth and the fifteenth and we are progressing forward in what the Lord has us building here in Iowa. And I'm going to get started really quickly here. I've got about, I think, 20 minutes that I want to really talk about something with you and kind of set the table, and then we'll gather again on Saturday and we'll expound on some of the thoughts that I share here. So I want to want to get started kind of kind of quickly and hit the ground running. But I've been noticing something it's a little bit of a trend in especially reform-minded circles of Christianity. Reform-minded circles, I think, is the right way to say it. Reform-minded, yeah, circles, I think, is the right way to streams, reform-minded streams. It's a really great way to say that, because we have these voices and I'm not taking a shot at anybody by saying this but we have these voices that are crying out for reform, but very few of them are building anything reformative. So we're building platforms that we're building platforms.
Speaker 1:Had a hair in my mouth, go figure, with this giant beard, I had a hair in my mouth. The challenges of being a bearded man, you know. When I work out too. When I work out, I like to do incline press on my uh pressing day for chest and this stupid beard right here, every time I come down it gets caught on the bar. It's just horrifically painful. Y'all pray for me in my hour of need, um, but uh, we have these voices that are trumpeting change.
Speaker 1:We've got to change, you know, and we'll point out specific things that are wrong with, uh, the church at large, in specific sections of the church at large, and it's so easy to to point things out, but we don't realize we're living in a glass house, right? We're pointing our finger while living in a glass house and we're building nothing reformative. And it takes real um courage to build something different, because people, by nature, want to join themselves to a finished product. So there's a season of sojourning that you go through in building something new, where there's a season of sojourning where it's you feel like you feel like John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness before anybody ever knew he was crying out in the wilderness. That's what it feels like, and it's you shouting at a bunch of locusts and palm trees and wondering what in the hell you're doing? Out there Is anybody paying any attention, and that's part of the discomfort of building something new and something reformative. Right, building something new and something reformative, right.
Speaker 1:The issue that I'm seeing is we're building platforms that are speaking to the church about reforming the church but enriching themselves from the church, about reforming the church but enriching themselves from the church. So there's in a there's like oh boy, can of worms, um, so there's, there's this entanglement that takes place and we're entangled through uh, fame, through familiarity. Oh my God, did you see what I just did right there? Homiletics, boys, homiletics, three Fs the three Fs that made me laugh. Um, but really we're entangled through fame, we're entangled through finances and familiarity.
Speaker 1:So we're speaking into something that we know, while offering nothing of reform, nothing of substantive reform, not building anything different, just building a platform based on calling out for reform, and it's not accomplishing the thing that you were sent to do. You've got to take a hammer in your hand and begin to do the work of building something different, and I thank God for my spiritual father. I thank God for Damon Thompson. I thank God for that man. I thank God for him for a lot of reasons, uh, but one of them being the permission he gives us to go ahead and be small. Go ahead and feel like you're on the other side of the Jordan River, crying in the wilderness and nobody is hearing you cry out in the wilderness. Go ahead and do that thing, but don't you settle for something less. Don't you sell out and settle. Don't sell out for building a platform and speaking into something and offering nothing of substance to give to people. Well, we need reform, and these are the things that are wrong. Okay, honcho, then why don't you go ahead and show what it would be like to build something different, rather than just pointing at people from a glass house? That's been on my heart. That's been on my heart.
Speaker 1:We need men and women who dare to be different, who dare to do something that would be outside of familiarity to Western culture, and dare to do it long enough that you create a subculture that becomes countercultural, that then becomes the primary driving force of reform inside of the culture at large. There is a necessary season, there is a necessary time of. Are the only people that will ever hear me these locusts that I'm about to eat anyway, john the Baptist, I'm about to cover these bad boys in honey and I'm about to have a meal with some locusts. And will there ever be anyone else that will ever hear me? But there's so much gold in that time. You learn so much about your Abba. You learn so much about the way that Yeshua relates and the way that Holy Spirit reveals Yeshua, and you learn so much of the triune dance between Father, son and Spirit.
Speaker 1:We need a Jesus revolution. I need a Jesus revolution. I need to see Jesus more clearly, and the Lord began to speak to us about not living like we were from two different worlds. At the beginning of the year, he dropped that invitation into my heart. Son, quit living like you're from two different worlds, and as I began to explore what that might mean for myself, I really very quickly bumped into the fact that I need to see Jesus more clearly. And not only do I need to see Jesus more clearly, this thing, maybe more like that. I'm watching the green thing at the bottom with me, just one moment here, where I get this pointed able to see Jesus appropriately without the help of Holy Spirit? And so we need a Jesus revolution, but we need the Holy Spirit too revolution. But we need the Holy Spirit too, and we need him to reveal Jesus to us so that we can then be transfigured into the image that we've been pre-designed to be transfigured into. He will take of what is mine and reveal it to you. Jesus' words to his disciples he says it's better for you that I go, because because if I go, another Savior will come and he's just like me.
Speaker 1:And as I have been kind of continuing along this vein, I bumped into something in the last week that I think is going to be beneficial for us along this journey of not living like we're from two different worlds. So one of the things that we have and I'm going to read something here, I'm going to read something in just a second from Baxter Kruger, who is a personal hero of mine and eventually, one day I'm going to get to get coffee with that man, baxter, you hear me? We're going to get coffee and we're going to be friends. Teach me how they do barbecue in Mississippi.
Speaker 1:But one of the things that I have bumped into is the ever-present reality that we have been so discipled into. We have been so discipled into Adam's delusion of separation between us and our Abba that it becomes very difficult for us to be present in a moment and if, oh man, it becomes very difficult for us to sit in the reality of a moment without our minds racing and, some of us, our skin beginning to crawl like, oh my God, I've got 87 things to do tomorrow and I've got 14 things to do left for this evening. And then I have got this call of God that I have got to be doing something. I've got to be doing something else other than just this moment here. And I think that is a subconscious response to a God that we believe is distant and unable to enjoy us in a moment. He's distant from us and we have mimicked that by being distant inside of moments, inside of the moments of our lives that he's trying to speak to us, I think one of the biggest hindrances to hearing the voice of Yahweh is an inability to be present in a moment. And you can find any number of excuses, and I don't even want to point to social media. I don't even want to point to the endless list of distractions that we have at our fingertips. I'm not even talking about that. I'm not talking about that because all those are a symptom of our delusion of separation, causing us to remove ourselves from moments he wants to draw near to us. We're so deluded, we're so discipled into this idea that he's distant from us, the Adamic delusion of separation. We're so discipled into it that we struggle to be able to sit with him in a moment and not think about the next 10 years and not think about all the great things. You, that prophet, came and laid his hands on me and said I was going to do this, this and this. And where is it? Why can't I do it right now? You can't do it right now, son, because you can't be present in a moment where Yahweh comes to sit with you and begin to transfigure your lived experience.
Speaker 1:Yahweh wants to transfigure our lived experience. I think when we start talking about the transfiguration of the believer. Right, we're talking about the transfiguration of the believer we're talking about and that's from 2 Corinthians 3. We start talking about the transfiguration of the believer, we're talking about um, and that's from second Corinthians three. We start talking about being transfigured into the image of Christ. We start hammering that and it's almost like this abstract thing where I'm going to be glorious, friend, you are going to be glorious, you are going to be glorious. We almost have this idea that we're going to remain stuck in the patterns of our lived experience in the middle of this transfiguration, and the two are not congruent and leave me stuck in the middle of my anxiety. Man, the hell, I'm going to get emotional. I just I feel it coming. I feel it coming, I'm going to cry. So I'm not going to stay stuck in that anxious thinking. I'm not going to stay stuck in that anxious living.
Speaker 1:Our God comes to transfigure our lived experience. He comes to transfigure us and take us from being anxious and riddled with anxiety and insecurity and plant us securely, oh Jesus, in the identity of one dearly loved by the Father, one perfectly made whole by the declaration of righteousness made over them. That's what our Yahweh, that's what our God comes to do. He comes to set us free, and not just free. He comes to transfigure our lived experience. We do not have to have secret misery going on in our lives.
Speaker 1:Guys, I know what it's like to live in a great outpouring of the spirit. I did it for years in South Carolina, lived in a great outpouring of the spirit and had such anxiety and such pressure on the inside of me from the call of God on my life and the pressure that I put on myself from that, that I would sit in a room with my wife and be a million miles away, completely unable to be present with her. Because I had to. I've got all this stuff that I've got to do and God wants me to be doing all of these things, but he's distant. He's distant from me and because he's distant from me, I'm going to model that back to those around me by being distant from them. Let me tell you something Jesus wasn't a distant Savior. He wasn't a distant savior.
Speaker 1:He goes to visit Simon Peter. Simon Peter's mother-in-law's got a fever and he's fixing to throw down. In a couple hours the townsfolk are going to hear he's there and after the sun goes down they're going to bring him every sick person in that town and they're going to bring him every person afflicted by the devil, demonically possessed, demonically oppressed, afflicted of the devil. They're going to bring him all of them, not just one or two, all of them Going to bring them all to him. And good training, good ministerial training, would teach us you better get ready, you better, by God, be prayed up, you better have an on-time word for the people and you had better labor over that on-time word for the people. Go ahead and do those things. Those are good things to have ready, but man do not do it at the expense of being present in a moment where Yahweh wants to come and transfigure someone's lived experience.
Speaker 1:Jesus enters Simon's home and sees that his mother-in-law is laying up sick and he really needed to rest, he really needed to be alone, he really needed to be in prayer and be completely away from the people, completely removed. And he did not do that. Instead, he walked into that little old woman's room. He walked into that little old woman's room and he drove that fever out of her body and completely transfigured the way that Simon Peter's mother-in-law and wife would forever think about Yahweh. It was a big deal to him and by doing that, he transfigured Simon Peter's lived experience. But our God's distant and disappointed and crosses his arms and furrows his brow at us. So I'm distant and removed and unable to sit with someone in their situation, and one of the greatest gifts you could ever give someone is to sit with them. Just sit with them and be present with them, present in their joy, present in their suffering, present in their suffering, present in their sorrow. Invade someone's anxiety with your present presence and watch what that does to transfigure their lived experience. I'm going to read something. All right, this is from the Great Dance the Christian Vision Revisited C Baxter Kruger. You know somebody's intelligent when they start with a C or just a single letter. Apostle F Nolan Ball. You knew that man was part of the wheelbarrow club just hearing his name C Baxter Kruger, wheelbarrow club. If you want to know what that is, ask me later. I'm not going to tell you right now. Or find Luke Fulcher and ask him. This is from chapter three the river running through it all, the Trinity and the secret life. God, what a title.
Speaker 1:Several years, several years ago, I stood on a mound pitching baseball to a dozen little boys. Most of the boys did not know much about baseball, but they were caught up in it. I could see the eagerness in their eyes, the determination. I saw their camaraderie and fellowship and I loved being in the middle of it. But inside of me there was a little wrestling match going on. One part of me was thrilled. The other part of me felt guilty. At the time I was a pastor and I felt guilty that I was having so much fun doing something so secular. I should be praying for people. I should be visiting the sick or working on my sermon, at least talking to these kids, trying to get them saved. So I should be working on my sermon or at the very least, talking to these kids. Most of them are heathens, most of them are heathens and I ought to be trying to get them saved. Right in the middle of that wrestling match, the Lord spoke to me.
Speaker 1:I want you to hear this, baxter. Don't you dare miss this. Don't you dare miss what is happening here, on this field, with these 12 boys. Baxter, there is more of my glory here. Oh man, this is so strong. There is more of my glory here, more of my life and the fellowship I share with my father, more of the spirit of sonship in the free-flowing dance of the Trinity on this field than you have ever seen in those sterile church services. Baxter, do not be blind. The great dance is present, not absent. Man.
Speaker 1:The great dance of union between the Father, son and Spirit is present, not absent. Jesus Christ is indeed living out His Sonship, his great dance of life and fellowship with His Father, his baptism in the spirit. But he does not live it out alone. He lives it out through us and through our ordinary human lives, or, the way that I say it, through our lived experience, and that is why we love life. So, and that is why we love life. So that is why we love baseball and gardening projects. That is why we love laughter and fellowship and romance and sex. 14 jokes just ran through my mind and I didn't say one of them. Y'all ought to be proud of me. That is why we love adventure and racing cars and taking care of animals. The father, son and spirit do not live out their great dance of life without us. The great dance of the triune God is the river running through it all and it is good.
Speaker 1:The great dance is present, not absent, subconsciously, if you're still dealing with separation or the delusion, of separation between yourself and Almighty Yahweh. What you'll do is you'll make life absent and you'll miss the Trinitarian fellowship of everyday moments that are designed to transfigure your lived experience. It's me right here. It's me right here. It's me right here Because, in the middle of the difficulty of the last year, he's coming after my lived experience, my ability to be present in a moment where he comes and just sits with me. You mean, you just want to sit with me, just tell me you love me and you want to take my lived experience that is full of fear and full of anxious responses to your words to me. We so glorify anxious responses to the Spirit of God. We so glorify responding out of anxiety to the prophetic. I'm going to finish this up here. I said I'd be on here 25 minutes. I've been going about 30. I want to say to you, if you're having difficulty being present, you're having difficulty being present. The great I've done lost it. I'll find it back. Hold on, I'll find it back, hold on, I'll find it. The great dance is present, not absent. And our difficulty in being present, I think, is mirroring back. Even if you don't consciously think it, I think it's a subconscious response of mirroring back the delusion of Adam towards creation, towards our fellow man, towards our friends, our babies, our spouses. We're mirroring back to them what we subconsciously believe about Yahweh, and he is not absent. He is present and he is coming to absolutely revolutionize our lived experience.
Speaker 1:I've been wrestling with this. I do not want to share this next part. I don't, but I think it's going to help somebody, so I'm going to share it. I had some Bible that I was going to read and I'm not going to do it. We're going to tune in on Saturday, on the 15th, if you all want to get the chapters. I'm going to Tune in on Saturday and the 15th. If you all want to get the chapters, I'm going to. But I don't want to share this next part, but I will because, man, because I think it'll help someone.
Speaker 1:I have difficulty sharing things that are really close to my heart. I don't like doing it. I don't like doing it with people that I'm close with, let alone like doing it on a podcast and putting it out there. That's really a vulnerable place for me. And another piece is I don't want these things to become something that I use as sermon illustrations. It's not how I roll. I'd rather preach a crappy message and keep this for myself.
Speaker 1:But as a leader building something new and not having a blueprint to follow and not having a design to build, you deal with certain um. You deal with certain accusations and certain lies, whispers from the enemy to get you off track. It does happen, and one of those things has been for us. For me specifically, it's been in the back of my mind. I've not let it overwhelm me by any means, but there have been times that I have to consciously choose not to listen to it. But the whisper is you're out here in Iowa in the middle of a cow pasture next to a cornfield. Don't, nobody care what you're building. There's a little southern drawl coming out in my southern roots from the last 10 years Don't, nobody care. Nobody cares what you're building and you're not the kind of leader that somebody wants to follow and you're not the. You're not building something that's attractive to the culture.
Speaker 1:Okay, and it doesn't help that we're a year in and we're still in our house. A year, almost a year and a half, and we're still meeting in our home. It doesn't help, that doesn't help anything. So the illegitimate voice gains almost legitimacy through circumstance Right. And so I'm in the middle of you know, working and doing all the things.
Speaker 1:And last week, uh, I took my daughter out on a date. I took my four-year-old Willow out on a date and I worked late that day. I got home later than I anticipated. I drove several hours back home and um was upset cause I was late. And got home and took her right to our date and her idea of a date is let's get daddy, let's go to McDonald's and then, after we get done at McDonald's, I'm going to go to Burger King and get some ice cream and then I'm going to play in the play place. And we got to McDonald's and got our ordering done. On the new way that they do orders, it's actually pretty irritating how they do that Touch this screen and it takes forever. It takes 10 minutes to do an order.
Speaker 1:And she wants her chicken nugget happy meal and I get all our food ordered and she says Dad, you got to sit on the same side of the booth as me. And I say okay, and she's like dad, I want to sit on your lap. I said that's fine with me, do whatever you want to, baby girl. And so can I watch your phone. I said sure, baby, you watch my phone, you can do whatever you want to do. Can I watch your phone? I said, sure, baby, you watch my phone, you can do whatever you want to do. And she sat there watching her little YouTube kids videos being so silly. I laughed at the top of my lungs and if you know me, you know I laugh loud. I made a scene in that McDonald's and laughed and carried on with her and she giggled and she ate her food.
Speaker 1:And about a half hour into my date with my daughter, I just really realized. I realized a couple things. One I do not give a damn if I'm the kind of leader somebody wants to follow, I don't care, as long as I can connect with my babies that way. Connect with my babies that way, Connect with my wife that way, be totally present in a moment with her. Have her sit on my lap and whisper in her ear baby girl, I'll always love you, I'll always love you. Hear her whisper back to me daddy, I love you. My God man, I don't care If what we build is eventually attractive to.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what masses of people would look like at this point. I don't even know what it would look like. If what we build is eventually something that the Lord uses to bring reformation and the Lord uses to bring renewal, which is such a heavy mandate on us is to bring renewal, and if what we build eventually does that, that will be amazing and it'll be, you know, the word of the Lord fulfilled and we'll be so thankful, but it will not even come close. It will not even come close. It won't even be in the same stratosphere of importance to me, because in times past I would not have been able to sit with my little girl and be present with her. But because of the renewing work of Holy Spirit on the inside of my heart that is transfiguring my lived experience, I'm able to take the pressure of work. I'm able to take the pressure of trying to build a ministry that I don't know how to build and all of the voices trying to tell me I'm failing. And I'm able to tell them you have no part in this moment with me. And I'm going to tell them you have no part in this moment with me, and I'm going to be wholly present with this little girl and I'm going to sit here not thinking about anything else other than how incredible this moment in time is. More fulfillment in that there's more kingdom. Fulfillment in that.
Speaker 1:I remember very distinctly, oh man, I remember very distinctly Um the first time someone who had stage four cancer that I prayed with was healed. I remember very distinctly what that did inside of me, what that did inside of my heart. It was below zero outside. I put my coat on, it was almost midnight and I ran up and down the road screaming at the top of my lungs. I did it, I promise you, in the middle of Kansas City. I did it. The part of Kansas City I was in. I could have got shot too. It wasn't a great part of town. I remember what that did to me. I remember what the first time a tumor dissolved when I prayed for someone. I remember.
Speaker 1:I remember what that did to my heart, cause these things are things that I contend for and I'm so zealous for the miracle working power of God to be evident in our ministry and in the church. I'm so jealous for it. Remember the first time I laid hands on a blind eye and watched it open up and sight returned to it. In America, not in Africa. Here in America. In America, not in Africa. Here in America, wiping cataracts out of people's eyes. I remember these things that the Lord has done and, friends, it's not even a thimble of the fulfillment that I had sitting in a booth at McDonald's with my four-year-old baby, listening to her just be silly and laughing with her. The Lord used that to touch my heart in a way that that's one of the most profound moments I've ever had with the Lord.
Speaker 1:Oh man, our God is present, our Jesus is present and the river of life is present. It is not absent, amen absent. And we need the Holy Spirit to come. We need Holy Spirit to come. We need you to come, holy Spirit, and transfigure the lived experience of our lives. I'm convinced that one of the greatest obstacles to entering the kingdom is an inability to be present.
Speaker 1:In a moment, we'll probably touch on anxiousness and a couple of other thoughts that I have in the coming gatherings, but I'm going to finish this up right here. The river of life is present, not absent. The great dance is present it's not absent, and our Jesus is present. It's not absent. And our Jesus is present. He is not absent. And if you're struggling with being present, you're mirroring back what you believe Yahweh feels about you Unable to sit with you. I bless y'all. I bless y'all. I bless y'all with the revelation knowledge that he is present and he is here to transfigure your lived experience. I bless you guys. We'll see you, hopefully, at one of our gatherings. Coming up, make plans to join us. We will catch you all on the next one. Bye-bye.