I have not posted on this site lately. I suppose this is due to a lot of soul searching about the direction for “simple church.” Haven’t we all been re-thinking all sorts of things during this past year? Add to the mix all that I’m learning about the nature of God from my daughter Wylie, and I feel like He is doing some foundational things in my heart. Having time to assess these matters and ministry eleven years into this journey with Simple Church Alliance, has been healthy and is still unfolding. More on that in the days to come.
For now, I’ll say that much of what is addressed in the message I’ve recently re-discoverd from John Lynch and his Trufaced series captures a big piece of what God is teaching me. Below is a short version of the Two Roads analogy that I have found helpful. If you have time, I highly recommend listening to the entire message on the topic here. I pray that going forward anything that comes from this site or my mouth goes towards helping others seek to trust rather than please; furthermore, toward helping foster simple church communities that are helping one another trust God, rather than please Him, as a primary heart motivation.
I’m convinced that those of us who frequent this site are uniquely positioned in the Kingdom to freely foster communities of trust. The more complex the church structure, the greater the temptation to promote “pleasing” God as a motivation because going all in with trusting Him can sound too close to promoting doing nothing…and surely God isn’t pleased with us if we do nothing right? And surely our church can’t survive if people think that God loves them and accepts them even if they do nothing to please him? I have lived here before.
As John points out in the full message, God gambles on us trusting Him when he lets us know how much he truly loves and accepts us. This can be scary for us to extend to others. But if we are truly simple in our approach to church (avoiding the creation of any machine that we need to keep artificially running) we can be free to let others in on just how much they are loved and accepted without fear. We can foster communities that primarily seek to trust God. Our gathering places can be a lot like the room John describes that he found at the end of the “Trusting Road.”
Is your simple church community primary motivation to trust or please God? How about you personally? Thanks for reading and, as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts below!
(thanks to Rich Duffield and also Stony Padgent for introducing me to this series)
