The God Journey - 2013

That Your Joy Might Be Full

Sat, 11 Jan 2014 02:28:37 GMT

What if the thing you enjoy most also brings joy to God's heart as well? While recording one of the last Engage videos about God's pruning in our lives Wayne was struck with the phrase, "that my joy might be in you, that your joy might be full." Is that Jesus' purpose in our lives, to bring us to the fullness of joy? Religion leaves us with the impression that we are despicable creatures God has to clean up before he can hardly tolerate us. It teaches us to mistrust every desire we have and fear that every obedience is the thing we'd least like to do. But what if we have it all wrong, and that our deepest desires are his, too? Then sin is not about denying us what we really enjoy, but exposing the counterfeit desires in our hearts, so we can find those real desires that we get to share with our Creator.

Podcast Links:
Engage Video #23
Order ¡Él me ama!, The Spanish version of He Loves Me. Kindle e-book ePub e-book Printed copy
Please keep our friends in Kenya in your hearts and prayers as God gives you grace. The need there is great.
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Freedom From the World's System

Sat, 14 Dec 2013 02:35:32 GMT

How can we find freedom from the tyranny of what others think of us, without losing our compassion for them? Wayne takes a look at some news items from the past few months that provide excellent examples of how the world systems manipulate our flesh to our own destruction, and reward the kind of leadership that is most destructive to others. You'll get a taste of comments from former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, singer Sinead O'Connor, and columnist Milton Freedman as Wayne talks about the world system that diminishes the lives of others by chasing after the almighty dollar. He also looks at a study of psychopaths and why some of that behavior is essential to be successful not only in business, but also leading religious organizations. No wonder Jesus taught us to live to the beat of a different drummer!

Podcast Links:
Order ¡Él me ama!, The Spanish version of He Loves Me. Kindle e-book ePub e-book Printed copy
How Psychopathic Are You? Take the Test
The latest joys and tragedy from our friends in Kenya
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Relationship In a Virtual World

Sat, 07 Dec 2013 02:10:34 GMT

Dr. Stephanie Bennett is the Professor of Communication and Media Ecology at Palm Beach Atlanta University and has done extensive research into how technology is shaping human relationships. She's also a long-time friend of Wayne's and a fellow-traveler outside the walls of religious institutions seeking more authentic expressions of church life. Wayne had a chance to talk to Stephanie about her family's journey on the release of her newest book, Breaking the Silence, which is her second in the Within the Walls Trilogy. There her academic and spiritual worlds collide as she deals with the oppressive side of technology and the loss of real relationships in a virtual world. In their conversation you'll hear about what it is to let God unfold life before us instead of finding a strategy to follow, as well as virtual church and the power of real community.

Podcast Links:
Email Stephanie
Wayne's review of Breaking the Silence and Within the Walls
Order Stephanie's e-book from Amazon.com
Order Stephanies printed book from Wildflower Press
The latest joys and tragedy from our friends in Kenya
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

How It All Went Wrong

Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:08:23 GMT

How did the vibrant life of Jesus among the early church get replaced by a legal and administrative institution fragmented by a distinction between clergy and laity and separated from the real presence of Jesus even as it claimed to celebrate him? I've not read a description of that process any better than the one Emil Brunner, a well-known Swiss theologian and author from the mid-20th century, put into his book, The Misunderstanding of the Church. And it was first published in 1952! He concludes that the living church can only be a communion of persons and nothing else, and our attempts to put it in institutional frameworks has not only robbed Jesus of his essential place in the hearts of people, but also destroyed the kind of relationships that Jesus wanted us to experience together. Wayne reads excerpts from his book that not only explores the causes of institutional spiritual impotence, but also points out how our contemporary attempts to copy the illusion of a New Testament model sucks us into the same trap.

Podcast Links:
Order The Misunderstanding of the Church" from Amazon here
The latest joys and tragedy from our friends in Kenya
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

When the World Disappoints

Sat, 16 Nov 2013 13:21:19 GMT

Twenty-five years ago Wayne and Daryl Luthas found a friendship around their similar passion for Jesus and a desire to discover what life in him really looks like. From there, their journeys were as different externally as they could be, but both have ended up in a similar space of knowing the Father's love and provision. Daryl's is a story of losing so much that the world, and most Christians value, and yet through it all the work of Jesus' freedom unfolds in his heart. Now in his mid-fifties, Daryl finds himself an associate at Home Depot and finding more joy and the freedom to love others than he has ever known. Truly, a man's life truly does not consist of his possessions and if we can get our eyes on Jesus instead of our circumstances, we will discover that God's love can thrive anywhere.

Podcast Links:
Contact Daryl
The latest joys and tragedy from our friends in Kenya
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Where Conformity is King

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 15:00:00 GMT

Having just spent his last two trips with people who are freshly coming out of extremely legalistic groups, Wayne takes on the Scriptures that were used to justify those environments and to bully people with fear and shame so they will follow the dictates of those who claim to be leaders. These Scriptures were meant to speak of relational realities that set us free to live in him, but when they are applied inside conformity-based systems they are easily twisted and bring great confusion and devastation. So Wayne takes a look at how Hebrews 13:17, Hebrews 10:25, Matthew 16:24, Romans 16:17, and I Corinthians 5:1-7 are misapplied to cause great harm while completely ignoring the Scriptures that would mitigate against this damage–Mark 10:42-43, Ephesians 4:11-12, Colossians 2:16-18, Mark 7:6-7, 14-15. Whenever we decide it is our mandate from God to make other people act the way we think they should act, we become partners with evil.

Podcast Links:
Wayne's Upcoming Travel Schedule
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Awakening To A Greater Reality

Sat, 26 Oct 2013 02:30:45 GMT

Wayne's back from his recent trip to the UK, and his experiences there combined with letters from God Journey listeners, leaves him enthralled with what God is doing in the world to awaken people into a greater reality than religion offered them. You'll hear from a woman who just got her first glimpse of God's presence with her and from a seasoned theologian who is asking the kinds of question that is asking him to rethink everything he has ever known. Awakening to God's reality is an intensely personal experience, available to each of us, but it has wide implications not only in how we can freely love others around us, but also in how Jesus gathers his church to be an expression of his life in the world. It is not found by wrapping your head around another set of principles, but by learning to follow him as he is making himself known in you.

Podcast Links:
Wayne's Upcoming Travel Schedule
Engage Video on Life In The Spirit
Helping Clothe the Orphans in Kenya
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Letting Community Happen

Sat, 05 Oct 2013 02:33:51 GMT

Wayne follows up on the last podcast with some of the comments and questions that followed it on the God Journey blog and in emails. Real community is not something we can find on our own, and many who've tried have come away disappointed. Rather it is the fruit of learning to live in his love and finding space in our transforming hearts to love with no agenda in it for ourselves. Thought most won't love you back, some will and that's where community happens. It is no something we can create or maintain by human structures. He talks about dealing with the bullies who try to undermine his work in you and how to see the church in a way that will help us have a better conversation with others who don't yet see the church as the reality Jesus is building in the world.

Podcast Links:
Wayne's Upcoming Travel Schedule
Helping Clothe the Orphans in Kenya
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

She's Alive And Well

Sat, 21 Sep 2013 01:08:20 GMT

If you can't see the church taking shape in the world as the bride without spot or wrinkle, maybe you're looking in the wrong places. He has been preparing his bride for over 2000 years and it turns out he's doing a far more remarkable job than Wayne has known most of his life. In this special podcast, Wayne reads the first chapter of the book he's currently writing: Finding Church: What If There Really Is Something More? In this chapter he shares his life-long journey to find the church Jesus is building in the earth and how he has come to discover that she is far more glorious and much nearer to us all than we've dared to believe. (Photograph courtesy of Amanda at Turtle Pond Photography.)

Podcast Links:
Our Tour to Israel
Wayne's Upcoming Travel Schedule
Helping Clothe the Orphans in Kenya
The Greater Gathering Podcast
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Free Range Children

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 13:25:28 GMT

One of the biggest concern people express about leaving a religious system is what it will do to their children? Will they lose their friends? How will they adapt to a less-structured environment? And how will we teach them about God if they don't go to Sunday school? To help him answer those questions Wayne went to someone who has been on both sides of that issue, his daughter Julie (pictured at left with her children). She was sixteen when Wayne and Sara found themselves outside of the fellowship they'd been part of for fifteen years. Through a four-year transition she discovered how dependent she had been on human systems and how much more freely and simply God wanted to engage her and now her growing family. She, and a letter Wayne reads from a listener, provide an honest look as to the challenges and opportunities of living outside the box of organized religion.

Podcast Links:
Julie's blog
Contact Julie
A great parenting book: Loving Our Kids on Purpose
Podcasts About Loving Our Kids on Purpose: Part 1 • Part 2
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Connecting With Others

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 01:31:50 GMT

It's been awhile since our last podcast so Wayne takes the opportunity to share where the last six weeks have led him and the wonderful joy of living a less public life for a season. It allowed some fresh creativity to arise which will take him on a different trajectory for the next few months. He also looks back at the extensive conversation that followed the last podcast as people were celebrating gracious connections they were having with other listeners and their hunger to connect more locally with others. Letters from listeners continue that discussion as we find healthy, non-controlling ways to share God's life with others and in doing so participate in the bride that is taking shape around the world.

Podcast Links:
The God Journey Forum
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Living Endearingly Free In the World

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:31:32 GMT

Living in the love of the Father changes gently shapes everything about the way we relate to those around us. Wayne takes a stroll through the God Journey Forum and answers some questions that people have posed there about evangelism, boundaries, depression, and whether or not the teaching of grace should be mitigated by warnings of eternal consequence for our selfish behaviors. Learning to live free of the need to manipulate others, and free from others' attempts to manipulate us leads to a life of freedom, compassion, and generosity with others. Even when people are only living to please themselves and using grace as their excuse, the most compelling and endearing entreaty we can make to them is not threats, but living examples of lives well-lived in relationship to him.

Podcast Links:
The God Journey Forum
Order your own copy of A Man Like No Other
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

The Unrelenting Thirst for Connection

Fri, 5 Jul 2013 12:55:55 GMT

What do you do when you fulfill your wildest dream and find it empty? As a professional tennis player, Brandon Hawk got to Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, only to find himself alone and unfulfilled. As a senior pastor of a thriving congregation, he experienced the same lack of connection with God and others whenever they weren't on the task. Having always based his value on his performance, God invited him on a very different journey. In that ongoing process it has revolutionized his extended family, dismantled the congregation he pastored, and sent his life on a very different trajectory. Brandon shares that story with Wayne and how God is continuing to free him to live with authenticity in his own person and connection with other people that he had not previously known.

Podcast Links:
Brandon Hawk's Website
Order your own copy of A Man Like No Other
Find out more about Wayne's Trip to Lexington, KY
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Sexuality & Transformation

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 23:17:26 GMT

Please Note: This is a frank discussion about matters of sexuality. Parental guidance is suggested. Last week's podcast unleashed a torrent of comments and emails, so Wayne revisits those topics as well as addresses this week's Supreme Court rulings on gay rights in America. Have Christians unwittingly made an unholy alliance with the state in looking for it to protect the sanctity of marriage? Then with letters from both Francie and John, we revisit some of last week's themes focusing more specifically in how God transforms us through his affection to live lives increasingly free of sin. Finally Wayne reads an email from a dear friend in the grip of an intrusive medical procedure that provides an incredible illustration of how we die to an old life and embrace the reality of the new one Jesus has prepared for us.

Podcast Links:
Civil Unions By Another Name, by Dr. David J. Dunn
Ny Times Article about Exodus: After 37 Years of Trying to Change People's Sexual Orientation, Group Is to Disband
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

Pornography, Divorce, and Living Single

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 13:07:12 GMT

Please Note: This is a frank discussion about matters of pornography, sexuality, and divorce. Parental guidance is suggested. John Anderson and Francie Beard are friends who live in North Carolina that spent some time with Wayne during his recent trip there. In this podcast they open up their lives as to what it means to be single in an overly sexualized society and fear-based religious systems that has added further pain by segregating people based on their marital status. They have both experienced Father's loving embrace, where He alone to defines them as his beloved children who live in a warped and broken culture, as He continues to heal their hearts. They share their stories in hopes of spurring a growing conversation about seeing each other as brothers and sisters and not as sexual objects.

Podcast Links:
Contact John Anderson
Contact Francie Beard
Add your voice to our question/comment line: (805) 539-6980 or Skype us at "TheGodJourney".

The Unfolding Reality of Father's Family

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:08:43 GMT

Like a sprig of grass growing up in a parking lot, God's kingdom and his family are being revealed in the earth, put perhaps in ways we're not used to seeing. Wayne's back from the Carolinas to catch up on some listener comments from the previous podcasts about the culture of control, and then moves on to more positive reflections of how God's family is taking shape in the world. Two weeks ago twenty-one people gathered in North Carolina for the first of a series of conversations about how we come alongside what God is doing to unveil his family in the world, without creating the same institutions and movements that disfigure it with man's agenda. Here's a bit of what we wrestled with in that conversation.

Podcast Links:
Previous Podcasts about this conversation

No Better Than Anyone Else

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 00:36:02 GMT

Our two recent podcasts on the Culture of Control inspired a host of listener feedback. Wayne goes back through some of the letters and blog postings to see more subtle ways control is often exercised, and how our need to feel in control makes us prime targets for those who want to control our lives, even with the most altruistic of motives. Those who think themselves better than the people around them will use whatever power they have at their disposal to make others do what they think best and results in the abuse of power we see in government as well as religion. Only those who are willing to risk what it means to trust Jesus as their only security will find themselves free from the control of others and be able to live in the world as a blessing to others, neither using them for our gain or seeking control over them.

Podcast Links:
Previous Podcast on Right-Handed v. Left-Handed Power
NY Times Article on Celebrating Inequality
Wayne's Blog on Learning Not To Be A Jerk
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.

Cared For In the Chaos of Life

Fri, 31 May 2013 12:55:36 GMT

While on his recent trip to Australia, Wayne had a chance to catch up with his friend and returning podcast guest, Kevin Smith. In this edition they talk about learning to live in the Father's care, even when everything in life seems to be in chaos. Finding his goodness in difficult times is critical to finding a peace that transcends circumstance. Finding out that he is not the God who is orchestrating your pain or even allowing it, will allow you to know him better and embrace the reality that we are cared for not based on our performance, but simply because we are his sons and daughters. An undercurrent to this podcast is coming to know who God is through the Scriptures as it undergirds our experience.

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.

Breaking the Culture of Control

Sat, 25 May 2013 03:25:06 GMT

Wayne follows up last week's conversation with the Manteits, to look at how often religious systems will use fear as a means to control their adherents. In their attempts to keep people on the "straight and narrow" they do so by promoting fear that to move away from the institution or the leadership is to expose yourself to great danger of being deceived or even "losing their salvation." In the end, however, their need for control undermines their ability to help people trust the real Shepherd of the sheep and know how safe they are in him. God never uses fear to invite people into his life, and those who do on his behalf only prove by doing so that they do not know the Father and do not speak for him. When you embrace Jesus as your shepherd, you will never have to be afraid again.

Podcast Links:
Previous podcast with the Manteit family
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.

The Culture of Control

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:45:05 GMT

During Wayne's recent trip to Australia, he sat down with a family who had recently found their way out of a religious system that had a culture of control. Meet John, Josiah, and Amy Manteit as they share their story of awakening to the fact that those who claimed to speak for God in their lives, had taken them under control with false teaching and intimidation. Hear as they talk about the risk of walking away from that culture of control and the price they pad in doing so. Then rejoice with them as they have found life and freedom in following Jesus rather than what others were telling them Jesus was saying to them. (Pictured at left, clockwise from top left: John, Josiah, Amy, and Sonja.)

Podcast Links:
Contact the Manteit family
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.

Our Reflection In the World

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:46:37 GMT

<a href="http://www.barna.org/images/stories/bu_043013-infographic-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.thegodjourney.com/blogimages/barna.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>The Barna Group has released a new study that concludes Christians reflect the self-righteousness of the Pharisees to the world far more than they do the love and life of Jesus. (Click image at left to see the results of the study.) While that may be a shock to some, it is clear that religious performance in self-righteousness or even in trying to get our prayers answered, actually makes us less like Jesus. In the backdrop of his three-week trip to Australia, Wayne discusses this study and what it demonstrates about the need for heart transformation that changes the way we think about God and how we live in the world. What we reflect is not usually the result of our projects or meetings, but how we treat people in the world with whom we come in contact. Podcast Links: 
<a href="http://www.barna.org/images/stories/bu_043013-infographic-2.jpg" target="_blank">Enlargement of above photo</a> 
The Barna Study: <a href="http://www.barna.org/faith-spirituality/619-are-christians-more-like-jesus-or-more-like-the-pharisees">Are Christians More Like Jesus or More Like Pharisees?</a> 
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, <a href="http://www.lifestream.org/sharing-with-the-world.php">you can get the details here</a>.

How Deeply Loved by God You Are

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:49:43 GMT

Wayne continues his conversation with Joni Menard of Edmond, Ok, as they talk about what it means to be deeply loved by the Father and how that reshapes our lives. When we reset our identity as beloved children of an awesome Father, we are no longer defined by our failures or brokenness. We no longer have to put on ill-fitting human systems, which will seem more like the old paint-by-number sets instead of learning the art of living in the world with freedom and grace. They also talk about how that transition reshapes community, both in creating safe places for people to struggle, and also not subverting community by our need for the wrong kind of attention. They also discuss the problems of insider language, or theological jargon, which actually restricts our ability to communicate, rather than enhance it.

Podcast Links:
Previous Podcast with Joni: Is Pain A Gift?
You can write Joni here
Conversations in Edmund, OK
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.

Is Pain A Gift?

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:08:47 GMT

If we saw the difficult moments of our life and the pain they create as a gift in which God gets to make himself known then we would more easily connect with him and gain traction on our journey, according to Joni Menard, a long-time God Journey listener, blog commenter, and resident of Edmond, OK. In this first of two parts, Joni schools Wayne on the unique struggle of the feminine soul and its implication on the God journey. Sharing from her own unique journey and a great crisis she that engulfed her, Joni encourages others to come in our brokenness before God and find out how deeply loved they are in the tender gaze of an adoring Father. Then will you know that he views you as a treasure.

Podcast Links:
You can write Joni here
Conversations in Edmund, OK
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.

The Conversation of Community

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:01:47 GMT

<img src="http://www.thegodjourney.com/blogimages/community.jpg" border="0" align="left">How do you deal with those who are not ready for the conversations in grace in which community thrives? Wayne faced that challenge last weekend and lived to tell the tale. But first, he shares some encouraging emails about the transformations God is doing in various people and then talks about the kind of conversations that encourage people in that process and discusses the problem of having people in the conversation who have abusive views of God and are adamant about convincing others that their view is the right one. Community conversations are seeded with grace, openness, and honesty and those who try to force their fears on others present a challenge to the health of the conversation. Podcast Links: 
<a href="http://thegodjourney.com/2013/01/18/a-greater-gathering/">The Greater Gathering</a> 
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, <a href="http://www.lifestream.org/sharing-with-the-world.php">you can get the details here</a>.

The Keeper and the Kept

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:58:32 GMT

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 glroy 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.

Not Made With Hands

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 02:12:43 GMT

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?

Where Have All the People Gone?

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:06:11 GMT

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.

Finding Our Way Into What's Real

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 01:39:05 GMT

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.

The Yuck Factor

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 02:19:21 GMT

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.

Myths of Mammon

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:31:46 GMT

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.

The New Creation

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 02:44:25 GMT

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
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If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

The Beloved Community

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 05:17:56 GMT

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.

Glimpses of His Glory

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 02:21:11 GMT

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.

Learning to Follow the Shepherd

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 02:26:21 GMT

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?
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If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

Into A More Spacious Place

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 05:11:25 GMT

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.

A Greater Gathering Aftermath

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 02:01:19 GMT

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
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If you'd like to help us provide for the needs of orphans and widows in Kenya, you can get the details here.

A Greater Gathering

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 03:21:08 GMT

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.

When Things Don't Turn Out Like We Hoped

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:20:39 GMT

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.