Perfect Unity

"I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. "(John 17:23 NLT)


This was Jesus prayer for you and for me as believers in our day. We aren't there are we?


What would it take to get there? What would it look like? If all of the Christian churches in your town or city came together, who would preach on Sunday morning?

How about you? Of course you are right about everything. Can you worship along with someone who is wrong about a few things?

Surreal Hope

What is the worst kind of bullying you’ve ever had to endure?  I was the skinny kid.  One of my friends posted a video of a kid who was taunted as a “pork chop”. 

                I’m not here to make light of whatever you might be facing or have had to endure, but I’m been reflecting lately on how there is a level of bullying that we seldom have to face here in North America.

                I want to describe a picture for you.  It’s the picture of a woman that was sent to me this past week.  She is naked, lying flat on her back in a bed.  This isn’t the kind of naked picture you find in a magazine or on any of your porn sites.  She has been stripped naked.  She also happens to be dead.

                I’d show you the picture, but I don’t believe it would honour her or her family.  Her head is impaled to the pillow underneath of it, as a crucifix has been stabbed through her oral cavity, out the back of her head.   Blood poured out of her eye sockets, I assume from having them gouged out.  There is a hole in her chest, from where her heart used to be.  It was ripped out, probably because, “that’s where Jesus was”.

                It was pretty rough growing up as a skinny kid, but never that rough.  Getting stuffed in a locker might have been fun for the people who put me there, but it wasn’t much fun for me.  I still remember being afraid to go to some of my classes, because I knew which people would be there.  Yet even the worst of what I faced, and what many of us face, pales in comparison to what Christians face around the world.

                There is another picture that has been on my mind lately.  It’s a picture of another Christian.  He is smiling joyfully, with a hangman’s noose around his neck.  He is facing the ultimate act of bullying, but has the kind of confidence that many of us lack.  No terror.  No fear.  No weeping.  Only joy, knowing that He is about to meet The One he loves most.

                If you enjoy teasing people, I ask that you would think carefully of the words you use.  Most of the people you interact with do NOT share the same hope that this man has.  The people we mock, ridicule and persecute are much more likely to cry themselves to sleep, fall into depression and contemplate taking their own lives, especially if the ridicule plays on their personal sins and insecurities.  That kind of merrymaking can be unbearable, particularly when it plays with an already muddied conscience.

                If you are the victim, I want you to know that your torment doesn’t have to last forever.  I say that in a couple of ways.  Firstly, school isn’t life.  Work isn’t life.  Where you are now, isn’t where you will always be.  Nobody is shoving me in the locker anymore.  You aren’t alone.  We normally escape.  The people who torment you now probably won’t follow you, your whole life through.

                Secondly, there is real hope.  It’s not the same kind of hope the world offers you.  The world tells us that we have to stand up, which is really a good idea.  But it’s tougher than it sounds.  Isn’t it?  Sure.  There are some success stories, and we celebrate them on YouTube when the bully gets his.  Yet the world doesn’t see your bruises from the time you tried to push back, or the injuries you took after telling the powers that be. 

                The hope that I speak of, is the same hope possessed by the man with the noose around his neck.  It’s a hope that allows us to stare death directly in the face, with a joyful smile.  It’s a hope that allows us to endure.  It’s a hope which sounds like this;

          2 Corinthians 4:8-9

⁸ We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. ⁹ We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.

                I have seen this kind of hope, only amongst the people of Christ.  I’m not saying that all Christians are able to happily stare death in the face.  I’m simply saying that I have not seen this kind of hope elsewhere.

                Unfortunately, I really do think that there is a torment which lasts forever.   However, the pain you’re facing now, isn’t that kind of pain.

For pastors, coworkers, missionaries, family or anyone who is interested in what I do.

                My wife and I like to help support a missionary couple who don’t go anywhere.  Well, sometimes they go places, but mostly they’re still here, which leads me to believe that even God might appreciate irony.

                This past week, they sent us an update on their lives.  Along with the update, I was blessed to receive a small, hand written note, and in this note, they shared this;

                “Been praying for your book studies.  Do you have many takers yet?  I can’t come, but I will pray.”

                The thought occurred to me, that maybe they aren’t the only people interested in what has been happening in my calling lately.

                To answer the question directly; No.  No, I don’t have many takers.  I have chosen 10 other people to help develop Alien Love’s study guide.  The way I have went about it, is I am simply going through it as if it were a study, but behind it all, I’m doing it as I go along.

                Of course, from my perspective, it really isn’t about leading a book study.  It’s about living into each other’s lives, and using the opportunity to grow in an authentic love for God and for each other.  For those of us who can, we get together around 4:00pm and do our best to come alongside of each other.  We usually have supper around 5:30.  During our meal together, we continue talking.  At 7:00, we sit down and talk about how the month’s chapter speaks into our lives.  We pray too.  You can’t do Christian stuff if you don’t pray.

                Radical. I know.

                It’s groundbreaking.  I assure you.  We talk.  We eat.  We talk while we’re eating.  (But we’re not supposed to talk while our mouths are full.  Barb is very strict about that kind of thing.)  We pray.  We talk some more.  Some of us go home.  For those who stay, we talk some more.  They go home.  Barb and I wash the dishes, talk about how wonderful the afternoon and evening were.  We climb into bed and go to sleep. 

                In between our monthly gatherings, I do my best to keep invested in their lives.  Sometimes I get together with them for coffee or breakfast.  Some of them are texters, so I text them.  Or we talk before, during or after church.  Email works too.

                I want to thank those of you who have been praying for me in my walk with Christ.  Through these past few months, I have really grown in my love for other people, specifically for my family and for my coworkers.  It’s another example of irony.  I mean, I’m told that for most people, they write books after they know enough about a topic.  For me, it’s like God had me write the thing, and now I’m beginning to understand and live it out.  Alien Love was easy to write and probably easy to read.  It’s much harder to live.

                My hope for the future, is that about 50% of the people who take the study, will kind of graduate.  There will be no diploma, but I hope that they will intentionally seek out and do what they can to disciple the people in their own lives, whether they be believers at the moment or not.

                As for me, I feel torn about what might lie ahead, but feel that God has given me direction for the near future.  I really hope to be able to share Christ with my co-workers in this way, but I also feel that I have neglected my family for far too long.  I mean.  I get together with my Christian family, we talk about Jesus, we eat together and share our lives together.  I’m being convicted that I need to allow my flesh and blood into my life.  Whether or not they want to know the “hooked-on-Jesus” Kevin, will be up to them.  The least I can do is to extend the invitation. 

So I beg of you to continue to pray.  I can’t do this on my own.  I’m not just trying to sound spiritual.  I really can’t.

                I intend for the study guide to be available for free on the internet, and probably won’t be producing a print version.  If you want to check out what the guide looks like at the moment, you can find it here.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7480335/Alien%20Love/Alien%20Love%20Lessons.docx

                Until next time, remember....even though they have similar spelling, there is a big difference between gluten and being a glutton.