The God Journey

If we think of ourselves as our brother's keeper, we'll find ourselves caught in a dangerous game of the keepers and the kept, and while it looks compassionate at the outset, it does not end that way. As Wayne came to the end of what he is affectionately calling his "Old Coot Tour", he spent some time with Tom Mohn (pictured at left with his wife, Barbara) a friend from Tulsa, OK, and one who has traveled this journey for a long time as a radio announcer, pastor, Bible teacher, and a guide helping others explore the depth of Father's love and grace. As they share lessons from the journey they talk about trying to manage human systems as conduits of the Lord's glory to be like trying to manage the wind and the danger of looking at people as projects to fix, rather than people to love. Podcast Links: You can find out more about Tom at his website at Mohn Ministries Bookstore Tom's previous podcasts: The Gospel Jesus Preached and The Four Things God Uses Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

A persistent theme throughout Scripture is that God is so much bigger than any box humanity can design to contain him, and a persistent human passions seems to be to design something that can sustain his life among us. It's a recipe for disaster, and it's a disaster that has been repeated many times. Wayne shares his own growing edge this week to expand the conversation begun in The Greater Gathering about seeding community in the world rather than manufacturing another system that will fall short. Why do we continue to seek for systems that we can use to carry God's work in the world, rather than trust that simple people living in the love and life of Jesus will accomplish all he wants to do? Podcast Links: Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

Even those who would like to can no longer ignore the amount of people who are leaving religious institutions even as they continue to explore an ever-deepening engagement with Jesus and are growing in their desire to serve his purpose in the world. They are call the "nones", because they don't identify with any particular religious grouping, and Christian organizations and seminaries are trying to figure out how to win them back, or at least hold on to the ones they have. It makes for an interesting discussion. After looking at comments from previous podcasts, Wayne wades into the discussion of what some call "nones' and others call "free rangers" and how we might have a better conversation that helps us flow more easily with what God is doing in our world. Podcast Links: The Pew Research Center's, Nones On the Rise Face to face with Real Nones Time Magazine's, Preach Like Your Faith Depends On It Mark Labberton's Interview Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

There are so many side roads for us to wander that promise they'll give us life in Jesus, but most so many of them end up frustratingly empty. In the backdrop of the papal election in Rome, and conversations Wayne had on his recent trips to Oklahoma and the Central Valley of California, Wayne processes what it means to move from the icons we make of our religious activities into the simplicity of walking with Jesus. Our icons of prayer, worship, and even community will always fail us as will the mirages of wealth, power, and celebrity that the world holds before us. Finding our way into what's real means we'll travel with a different vision, moving away from what feels lifeless and artificial to the reality of knowing him as his life unfolds each day. He also addresses the new "hyper grace" debate to show how doctrinal issues can also be a distraction to the relationship God desires with us. Podcast Links: Michael Brown's article on Hyper Grace Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". Here's the latest on helping the orphans in Kenya.

Ever had that yucky feeling about some opportunity, but overrode it because others might have encouraged you to do so, or because you thought it might be okay because everyone else is doing it? If so, you probably lived to regret it. Kevin Tupper again joins Wayne as they talk about our Yuck Meter going off just might be the Holy Spirit inviting you away from what human effort can produce, to open a wider door into his life and provision. That is especially true when it comes to sharing our gifts with the world. Whenever we serve our own bottom line, whether it is our thirst for money, influence, or visibility, we will find ourselves trying to monetize everything we do and slipping into the exploitive patterns of the world that may help us miss the very doors Father has opened to us. Podcast Links: Previous Podcast with Kevin Tupper on The Myths of Mammon You can follow Kevin's on his website at Simple Living With God Previous podcast with Kevin, Kent Burgess and Mike Rea Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". Here's the latest on helping the orphans in Kenya.

The love of money, especially when you don't have it, can lead you to some crazy and hurtful choices. Long time friend Kevin Tupper from Virginia joins Wayne on the podcast to talk about his journey, especially how his pursuit of mammon drew him into a very dark place. But then God invited him out and in the process helped him understand the myths about money that led him astray, and how instead he could live in the simplicity of Father's care. Not only is it a great story of conversation, it unpacks Kevin's heart to help others deal with the myths of mammon and how to find yourself in a more spacious place with God caring for you. Podcast Links: You can follow Kevin's on his website at Simple Living With God Previous podcast with Kevin, Kent Burgess and Mike Rea Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney" If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

Jesus didn't leave us with a set of principles to live by, but invited us to be participants in a new creation where his love equips us to live beyond the human systems that have dominated our lives. The Resurrection of Jesus opened a door for us to engage a Father's love with such transforming power that he reshapes everything about the way we relate to ourselves and the world around us. This conversation emerges as Wayne interacts with God Journey listeners as they comment about being open to Father's work beyond our religious borders and as they are learning to make room in our lives for others and asking, "How do we know that we matter to God?" This is a process, but with each passing of walking with him we continue to awaken to his way of doing things. Podcast Links: The Gifts of Perfection by Brene Brown Tattoos of the Heart by Gregory Boyle Wayne's Blog about a Richard Rohr Interview Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

How does the kingdom of God make itself known in our world, and does our passion for community spring beyond people who are just like us? An emailer poses the question to Wayne about how our thirst for community goes beyond the people we naturally fall in with in our culture. Referring to Dr. Martin Luther King's description of what he called the Beloved Community, begs the question of how much of that can our world systems attain? The kingdom has come not to change our world systems, but to replace them with a different way of living that each of us can embrace every day. God's kind of community doesn't gravitate to our own interest groups, but reaches out to encompass people as people, not as part of one group or another. Podcast Links: Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

A look through the mail bag wanders through a lot of the topics we've focused on over the last couple of months and demonstrates the amazing transformation God makes in people's lives as they learn to live in his affection. This podcast touches on topics as diverse as the Life (or was it Death?) Prayer from last week, to community and interpreting Scripture, but the underlying theme is how God keeps giving us greater glimpses of his glory to keep drawing us into his reality. We don't need to figure it all out, but simply keep following him one nudge at a time as he equips us to live as his kids in the world instead of in pursuit of our own agendas. Podcast Links: Past Podcast on The Collaborative Life Wayne's Blog on E. Stanley Jones' book The Way Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

Throughout the world an unrelenting hunger to know the life of Jesus is inviting thousands of men and women beyond the structures of religious performance into a meaningful relationship with him that is transforming their lives. And even though they've been marginalized by false accusations, they are learning to follow the Shepherd instead of the voices of those who want to use fear to draw them back into dependency on religious structures or leaders. This podcast follows up on an earlier one from last December called, "When Curriculum Attacks" by responding to questions and comments about how we can help others learn to live in that same relationship by helping them become disciples of Jesus, not followers of our own programs or passions. Podcast Links: Our earlier podcast on this theme: When Curriculum Attacks Engage #1: Why Engage? Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

If you're hungry for meaningful relationships with other brothers and sisters don't wait for someone to come up with a new structure or mechanism to build another group program. Those will fail like all the others before them because they are still structures built with human hands. Jesus is knitting his body together much more simply and powerfully than that. Instead learn to live in the love of the Father right where you are, and as he shapes you with his love you'll find that the pathway to community lies through the next person in your path that God gives you to love. Wayne reads letters from all over the world of people who have been through some lonely places as they transitioned out of religious obligation, but then found themselves over time in a more spacious place of living and loving alongside all kinds of people and finding deepening relationship with some on a similar journey. Podcast Links: Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney". If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

Obviously last week's podcast touched a very large nerve, so Wayne follows up with some of his impressions from all the blog comments, emails and voice mail he received in the aftermath of last week's podcast. Certainly people around the world are hungry for the kind of relational connections that can facilitate a community not based on control or conformity. How does real community emerge? How can we enhance that process without turning it into a movement driven by human passion and effort that will supplant a genuine process of discovering and cooperating with what God is already doing in the world. Wayne shares his heart for where this conversation can begin and seeks to slow down the momentum of our own needs so we can simply recognize and catch the wind of the Spirit that will move us where Father wants. Podcast Links: Blog Comments from The Greater Gathering Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at TheGodJourney. If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

Are those who no longer attend Sunday services part of a scattering movement that is undermining the mission of the church in the world, or are they in fact people looking beyond conformity-based environments for a more meaningful relationship with God and with others? Wayne reads and responds to a recent article called The Scattering Movement, to show how the prevailing definitions of church actually lead us away from real community. But it also opens the door to an important conversation: What is the church and how does she reveal the heart of God in the world? And, how does community arise out of a growing relationship with Jesus, and not conformity to a man's vision, or an institution's agenda. Podcast Links: John Burton's article, The Scattering Movement Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at TheGodJourney. If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

What do you do when God doesn't provide in the way you hoped or prayed for? You can either grow discouraged or let him transform you in ways you could not have imagined and find great joy in is provision, regardless of what it is. Responses from two of our listeners of last podcast about God's Provision and Our Desires reveal amazing stories of God's ability to transform us in the most difficult of circumstances and still teach us contentment and joy apart from the things we think we might need to be happy and fulfilled. Real joy in this life is never found in our profession or our our possessions, and perhaps the saddest people around are those who think they are. Podcast Links: Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at TheGodJourney. If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

In the last podcast of the year Wayne takes on a question from our comment line about whether we need to work for a living if we trust God for our finances. Is working part of the curse of the law Jesus set us free from, or is it part of how God provides for us? That opens a door to conversations Wayne has had a lot lately with authors, musicians, and other creative people who would like to do what they love for a living. That also includes those who would like to be available full-time to help other people grow in this journey. Is there a way to make that happen? Why do we do when our desires and our income stream don't merge? Podcast Links: Wayne's story of responding to God's voice in their finances on the Encouraging One Another Podcast. Wayne's blog postings on Lessons from the Tragedy in Connecticut Part 1: The Nature of Evil Part 2: Ripples of Consequence Part 3: Triumph Out Of Tragedy Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at TheGodJourney. Thanks to your generosity, we've been able to buy new clothes for the children at the orphanage in Kenya. You can see pictures here!