Category — The Future

Fascinate: Some Things I Learned When I Died
Welcome to Steve’s new book in process. You are reading this new tome as it is being written. These are summaries of what will later appear in print and ebook format.
This is some of Steve’s most personal, heartfelt work yet.
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#5: Resolution Is Essential
When you experience a death, you WILL have people to forgive.
I wrote recently about some “Job friends” related to my death experience. Several asked if I resolved my issues with them. The answer is Both yes and no. Yes I have forgiven them. I have moved on in life, figuratively and literally. At the same time I find it essential that I continue to deal with the recurring reality of what happened as well as the ancillary issues.
Until you forgive and move on, you will remain stuck in the midst of your emotional malaise. Illness of the soul is as debilitating (if not more) than any physical problem.
When a major event occurs, a life changer (you may go through life and not have one of these), forgiveness must be dealt with over the long haul.
Ponder this:
Forgiveness is a process, rarely an event.
It takes a while to move through the gyrations of forgiveness. I’m not sure there are universal steps in this. I’ve read books about forgiveness from people who are well intentioned. They typically provide readers with steps to follow in order to “completely and utterly forgive” and move on in life. I’m not sure God has simple steps he wants us to follow to gain freedom. Yes he has in mind that we gain freedom from the chains that bind us. Forgiveness is typically drawn out over a period of time, at least when we are dealing with major life-changing events.
Forgiveness is repetitive.
On life changing events that go haywire, you will have to forgive repeatedly. Our souls have a way of being disappointed at deep levels. They are slow to snap back to their original states. In the meantime you will need to forgive over and over. Don’t pay attention to simple-minded people who say idiotic, simplistic things like, “You haven’t really forgiven if that issue is still alive in your heart.” The fact that the original issue is still alive doesn’t mean that you didn’t forgive or that you haven’t dealt with it. It’s simply evidence that you have deep feelings. You have work to do still as you peel the onion another layer deeper. Remember, it’s an onion not an apple.
Forgiveness requires divine intervention.
If the Holy Spirit doesn’t empower us we won’t have the wherewithal to move forward. He is the only force who can give us the power and perspective we need to let go.
We have steps to take in the process of seeking and gaining forgiveness. Yet we have to realize that our only hope lies in God showing up and doing the real work of bringing freedom. In the end our strategy is the simple prayer, “Lord have mercy.”

More about the conversation with my pastor friend…

Are people less committed these days than a few years ago? One thing seems clear: people are orbiting away from high levels of affiliation with the Church. This is tragic. It breaks the heart of God. This pattern must change. Consider this: the Church is doing a poor job of walking out mission. Of late the topic of mission has become fairly popular. Fashionable even. We would rather talk about a topic than actually do it. I’m not all that interested in hearing the “M” word used much (especially by people who aren’t doing mission) unless we talk about it after we have done it quite a bit.
Dr. Stephen Gray is a church planting guru with the Free Methodists in the western US. He quotes some interesting statistics regarding the growth and shrinkage of various spiritual groups in America. He points out that across the board, the “evangelical” sector of the Church in the US has shrunk in the past decade by a whopping 50%. That’s the Evangelicals folks. I find that amazing when you consider that the word “evangelical” affirms a high value for sharing the gospel of Christ with the unbelieving world. The one thing they stand for they are failing miserably at. On the other hand, the Mormons (LDS) have grown by a whopping 150% in the past decade. There is a Spanish speaking Jehovah’s Witness kingdom hall across from our facility in Oregon that is jam packed every Friday through Sunday night. Obviously the Mormons and JWs have the biblical story backwards. They aren’t proclaiming a Jesus-centered, biblical message. What do they have going for them? They are incredibly missional! They have something exciting to join. They are setting out to change the world. Along the way they demand total buy in by their members. They require their people to give (tithe) as a part of normal membership. There is no option for participation for membership at less than the 10% version of money and time and personal gifting.
God wants to use your church to do something extraordinary. Say Yes we will, then call people forward.

Comedian and sometimes witty guy Woody Allen once said, “90% of success in life is just showing up.” It’s true. Diligence counts for a lot. A LOT. I’ve lived long enough to realize many successful people are not all that smart, they have never had original thoughts, they haven’t gone to school, they haven’t excelled at anything much…yet have ironically done pretty well in life. How is that possible? Some people are brilliant at just one thing – showing up. They have made it a focus to do something common. More importantly they have become geniuses at showing up consistently.
It took me a while to crack the code on this truth. I’m not sure when the light went on for me but I was well into my adult life. If someone had explained the power of diligence to me when I was 18 I would have been pretty peeved. “That’s not fair! You’re telling me that that the losers in life are rewarded, sometimes handsomely, just for consistently showing up day after day and marking time?” That’s exactly right Stevearino. Something is wrong with that, at least according to my then college-aged perspective. Still that is the way things work in real world. Always have. Always will.
It’s not that I didn’t show up in diligence myself at 18. I did. But if I had known the truth about hanging in there I would have been far more patient with the process.
Life runs smoother with a larger view. So much of what counts for changing the world happens as you continue to just show up. Today is your next chance to make a dent in things. Be diligent again—and look to see what will happen as God shows up.

Janie and I have taken on a new adventure in ministry—we have begun to lead a Methodist church in the Greater Portland area. This is an established church that has been around for a long time. Though they have a heart for missions, these folks are new to the sort of local church outreach we bring. This is a common phenomena in conservative churches across the US. We have momentous plans to build a heart for our community into the mix this year through Servant Evangelism and ministry to the poor. The poor are never far away.
We are going to move out into the community in teams to engage the community…soon, but not quite yet. I have typically been a Ready, FIRE!, Aim leader when it comes to launching new things. I’ve not been cautious—I’m still not. However I’ve decided to not take that tact this time around. My vision now is to involve as many people as possible. I am going to begin with a solid prayer backing. Thus we are going into the community to practice prayer walking in teams of 3 or 4. It’s the basic discipline you may have heard of—going about the city praying under our breath, asking God to show us the spiritual state of things, looking for insights, then coming together to compare insights afterwards. We go out for an hour or so then meet up at Taco Bell for a taco and a time to download.
Too much prayer walking and the likes can be a substitute for obedience in outreach. On the other hand, not praying is arrogance—it’s activism without dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Let’s live somewhere in the middle. As my friend Bill Jackson calls it, the “radical middle.”

Nothing on earth is as powerful as an ongoing idea. We don’t know much about this because we quickly give up on our good ideas. We tend to think that we are boring others with our thoughts, when we have just gotten started…or that we have said all that can be said about a given topic, when we have just tapped the surface of things. This is just wrong-headed. Do we suffer Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) on a large scale? Maybe so. Perhaps ADD is contagious. It seems our bigger problem is along these lines…we have the patience of red ants.

We tend to convince ourselves we are boring others with our ongoing talk on a given topic. In reality we are unfocused, bratty or just playing to the applause of the crowd. Just at about the time we are absolutely, insanely bored with the 17th iteration of the topic we are looking to blow our brains out in frustration…it is then that the crowd begins to get what we have been saying all along. To carry out an idea requires humility more than intelligence. Fortitude more than forcefulness.