Back From Arabia
New Directions
Have you ever had a season of life that profoundly reorients you at almost every level? That’s what the last two years have been for me—which is why I haven’t posted in the last 12 months. So apologies for what may have seemed like a communication dropout. Let me explain …
After Paul’s Damascus Road experience, he went to Arabia for a time to (apparently) spend time with God and reorient his identity to Christ and his reality to the gospel. I’ve had a similar experience. The months since January 2024 have been the most intense and rich experience in my 40+ year faith journey.
I’ll unpack this more in upcoming posts, but suffice it to say that it’s been a bit of a personal burning bush experience—I’ve been on some holy ground. God exposed many things about my identity I’d not seen before. And since our identity is a reflection of God’s identity, my misconceptions about my identity drove misconceptions about his identity.
In short, I wasn’t seeing God as he really is. Which was … which is … humbling; and reorienting. It’s been consuming in virtually every way, culminating in a new book project: Mind Your Faith—which I’ve just wrapped up the first draft of the manuscript.
I’m finally at a point where I can begin talking about it. So here we go …
Some Background
For some time, I’d been wrestling and reflecting on a thorny subject that has troubled me (and many others) about disciple-making efforts in the West:
Why does the rate and quality of disciple-making in the West seem to lag behind the church in the rest of the world?
Since 2009, when my wife and I began purposefully devoting ourselves to a DMM (Disciple-Making Movement) ministry approach, I’ve heard many explanations as to why we don’t see sizeable movemental fruit in the U.S. and other Western cultures: “We’re just too …”
“… Busy (whatever that means)”
“… Distracted”
“… Time-poor”
“… Materialistic and self-centered”
“… Lacking commitment”
“… Focused on sports”
“… [FILL IN THE REASON]”
All these reasons have a ring of truth, but also seem obvious—and unsatisfactory. That’s because they’re actually symptoms, not the root cause. They’re behaviors, but not the beliefs that drive our behaviors.
So the question of why we don’t see the fruitful multiplication of disciples and churches continued to haunt me. Like The Matrix’s line, it was “a splinter in my mind.”
So What Is The Root Cause?
In January of 2024, God began to answer the question—interestingly, by exposing how the root cause was showing up in me. He revealed that my unwillingness to trust him was blocking the work he wanted to do in my life.
For someone who’s been personally invested in the kingdom of God at a fairly high level for most of my adult life, to have my level of faith questioned was … a bit unnerving.
In its simplest form, the message I heard was this:
So I received that message, and started asking God to reveal what areas of my faith needed to be strengthened. My prayer was simple: “Show me how and where my life doesn’t look Jesus.”
God faithfully began to answer that prayer, and actually hasn’t stopped since.
Perhaps the best way to describe it is “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (Isa. 6.5). God revealed so many ways I’d been resisting him in the years of my faith journey—areas of transformation he’d been inviting me into but that I’d chosen not to join him.
To meet with God like this is a ruining experience—a wonderful, restorative undoing of all that needed to be ruined. In many ways, he “named” me, showing me aspects of my created identity I’d been denying (mostly out of fear and control). He showed me the identity I’d been trying to create on my own, hidden beneath layers of self-interest I never realized were there (and again, motivated mostly by fear).
It all culminated in the revelation that I’d been expecting God to help me be the master of my fate and the captain of my soul, in Jesus’ name, amen.
He’d been patient with me over the years, but now made it clear that the only way forward—should I choose to accept it—required a change. A big change.
New Directions
By the end of 2024 God began creating the idea for Mind Your Faith. A number of things came together that I’d never seen before, everything from brain function to identity to church history to sociology, psychology, philosophy, politics—even AI. There is a common thread between all of them, and the common thread involves
Jesus (no surprise), and
The church in the West’s lack of preparedness to step into its identity in Christ.
In fact, the book reveals that the Western church has slipped into practicing idolatry—unintentionally and unawares, but deliberately and religiously.
Of which I was chief.
I realize that many believers will recoil or eye-roll at the proposition that they’re committing idolatry. But here’s the deal: My experience so far (for myself and for others who’ve engaged with the content of Mind Your Faith) is that …
Seeing the mechanism of idolatry for what it truly is, and
Understanding how it has slipped in the side door of the church unnoticed, and
Realizing how we’ve given it permission to shape our perspective of who God is and who we are as his image bearers, and …
Defining the gospel according to those contexts …
… is actually freeing, simplifying and life-giving. It brings the clarity we’ve been searching for on the thing that’s been holding us back from walking in the Spirit with unity, joy and peace.
I’m confident that many (not all, but many) will have the same experience.
Moving Forward
I’ll begin soon to post some of the more significant concepts here. So be on the lookout. So the overall direction of this site will shift accordingly. I’ll still be touching on leadership, but the focus will be more centered on our identity in Christ—individually and collectively as the bride of Jesus.
I’ll also be reinstating my paid subscriptions (I’ve had them paused for the last 12 months), so that those who are ready can engage further in the content and have more access to the material.
Here we go …!