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Seek the welfare of your city

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (0)
Monday, May 14th, 2012
Seek the welfare of your city.  The integrated life of Christ in us is a most powerful thing.  It is the reality of the wholeness of our lives restored into unity with our heavenly Father.  So with all of this going for us, how does it factor in to ‘seeking the welfare of your city?’  Through relationships.  It’s not about proving a point, defending God, apologizing for God, explaining God, or showcasing God.  I have found recently that it is in affirming people.  Loving people in simple actions, and sometimes doing nothing but listen.  Being a natural troubleshooter I am driven to want to fix things for people, but recently I’ve learned to just point folks back to their Heavenly Father in simple prayer.  Jeremiah 29:7
bob humphrey

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Character or Caricature?

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (2)
Monday, May 7th, 2012

Yesterday we finished another segment of Jeff’s World in which I play the senior pastor, Bruce Carlyle. As this was my first major acting role, I had to learn that in order to portray the heart of any character the actor must study his background and understand his personality, conflicts, motives, etc. Once you’re able to “get into character” the lines come naturally and the character is more believable.

Years ago when I lived in the bay area I remember visiting a large, well known church where all the associate pastors dressed alike and had the same preaching style. I supposed they reasoned that if they looked and acted like the senior man they might have a shot at being as “successful” as he was. They did a good job studying him, because they could have passed for clones of the guy.

Religion encourages adherents to study the scriptures and do what is written. Christians are taught principles of spiritual life. They read the Bible and other books and learn all about the heroes of the faith both then and now with the goal of trying to be like them. They may imitate Paul’s preaching, but can’t match the demonstration of power through him.

Godly character cannot be taught or copied. There’s no substitute for learning Christ, and those that try to do and speak for him without learning him become caricatures that the whole world recognizes as false.

Of course it’s always easier to perform than to allow the character of Christ to be worked into us through pain and suffering. It’s easier to “put it on” then to put on Christ. But the other side of the coin is that he’s already done the work; our part is only to receive and yield. Then what we do flows naturally as an expression of our life being integrated with his.

David Fredrickson

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Peer to Peer

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (5)
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

I recently was talking to a friend who was undergoing some financial stress and began to encourage him that Father did indeed have a plan to help him out.  Now that would have been the nice appropriate thing to say to dodge the situation, but what I said next even surprised me, causing me to step back and ponder the significance of it.

 

I told him not to just pray about it, i.e. toss a prayer message in a bottle into the spiritual river of God and hope it arrives before you go completely broke, but to have a peer to peer conversation with Holy Spirit about the matter, as if you were asking a friend about what to do.  “Bob, how dare you compare yourself on the same level of God!”   Whoa there religious Bob.  Didn’t Jesus tell his disciples I no longer call you servants but friends?  Doesn’t Paul describe us as being seated WITH Christ in heavenly places?  Isn’t Jesus the first born of many brethren?  Okay, so enough of this Old Covenant perspective of prayer and ferreting out the ‘will of God’.   Ask him plainly and expect him to respond just as plainly, just like a friend would do.  There’s nothing mystical here, it’s called relationship.

bob humphrey

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Servant or Son?

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (4)
Friday, April 27th, 2012

Our friend Stephen Crosby posted this on Facebook a couple of days ago:

“While it is true that His sheep hear His voice -the privilege of every child of God- slaves need constant direct instructions, sons do not, because of inheritance. Being constantly ‘spoken to’ by the Spirit of the Lord, is not intrinsically a sign of highly developed spiritual faculties or maturity. Where relational trust is established, constant directive, communication is not necessary. “

I thought this was brilliant and so accurate.  I’ve heard so many believers express their concern about not hearing Father’s voice as much as they used to.  I know this has been my experience.  There was a season when I was new to this whole walking with God stuff that I heard Him constantly.  “Go ahead and go out tonight.”  “Don’t go out tonight.”  “Lead this group.”  “Read this chapter in the Bible.”  But as my relationship with Him grew I noticed a shift.  After walking through some tough spots where my trust and understanding of Him grew I began to know His heart.  I no longer needed constant instruction because I had grown to know Him.  Like a son who works beside his Dad for a while begins to really get an idea of His Dad’s priorities and what makes Him tick, so it is with us as we connect with Father relationally.  Christ IN US truly becomes our hope of glory.  We are governed by our love for Him and one another and His peace becomes the safety rail in our hearts.

I often wondered why I would see the apostles in the New Testament just make decisions because “it seemed right” to them.  That honestly would really bother me.  My institutional instruction taught me that we’re supposed to get a specific word from God before we do anything.  But now I realize these people were functioning as sons while I was functioning as a slave.  They knew Father’s heart and trusted in Christ within them so they were aware of the authority they carried as sons and they acted on it.  Wow!  How cool is that?

There was this debate going on for a while on an online discussion group I’m a part of in which people were debating whether they were servants or sons of God.  Many responded, “I’m a servant and a son.”  But as I looked at that relationally I realized that answer is actually kind of twisted.  Think about it.  If I introduced you to my daughter and said, “this is my daughter and my servant” what would your reaction be?  Now get out of Biblical mode and be real.  A dad just told you his child is his servant.  Weird right?  Actually, more like totally messed up!  I immediately get images of the abuse seen in the story Cinderella where a child is thrust into a station far below who she was and treated like a slave.  Children and servants do not have the same relationship with the owner of the house.  A child enjoys affection, a personal relationship, is the delight of his father, and the heir to all he has.  While a servant, on the other hand, is there for one reason; to do what he’s told.  He is there to work.

Are we servants or sons?

Loren Rosser

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Language of Life

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (0)
Monday, April 16th, 2012

Last weekend I enjoyed a major blast from the past. One of my childhood friends had organized a reunion of those of us who spent most of our childhood together on a few acres of country in Southern Arizona. Our folks raised goats, chickens and alfalfa hay on that one horse farm they named Bethel Acres. When we weren’t on mission trips into Mexico with our parents, we found plenty of adventure and opportunities for mischief making on the farm, in the woods or at the Little Red School House where eight grades were taught in one room with a wood burning stove for heat.

Community just happened at Bethel Acres. We worked, played, learned, lost and won together, and today we still refer to each other’s parents as “Uncle Al, Aunt Myrtle, etc. And after more than 50 years since we had all been together at the same time, in some ways it was like picking up where we’d left off. Sure, we’ve all traveled very different paths. A few are involved in traditional churches, several of us are not, a couple are in between. But a common bond was developed in childhood and strengthened in Christ. Through the next few days we shared the journey each of us had traveled and found complete acceptance and understanding. I think that was the case because the bond we shared was deeper than doctrine, philosophical differences or politics. The words that were spoken were the language of the heart rather than the head.

I hear a lot of head talk these days. Many words are said and much energy is expended on nonessentials. Religion creates more ways to avoid spiritual reality than school kids find to avoid homework. Yet the true church is built on the personal and corporate revelation of who Christ is. People who are joined by what their head believes can be separated by a brain fart. Those joined in heart by the Spirit speak the same language even if their words are different. It’s the language of life.

David Fredrickson

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Has giving changed?

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (2)
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

What does giving look like from the relational perspective?  Since I don’t have the guilt or shame of the tithe breathing down my neck, it’s no longer front and center of my spiritual landscape.  So have I taken one of the best weapons available to me and tucked it nicely away in a safe place, while basking in the renewal of my relationship with Father?

One of the biggest things Father has shown me since leaving institutional Christianity is that he will not cross relationship. He will not force obedience, nor will he impose his will upon me. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about the different stories in the Bible when giving took on miraculous proportions.  Before Jesus fed 5000 people he simply asked his disciples “what do you have?” The same question Elijah asked the widow before the miracle provision of oil.

Could it be that the relational perspective of giving has Father asking me, “Bob what do you have?”  In other words, he’s not going to tell me how much, or when, or how to give.  Perhaps he just wants me to purpose in my heart (without guilt) what it is I want to do and place it in his hands, and let him perform the miracle with it.

Unfortunately, I feel that in my relief of not having having to tithe anymore, I’ve taken a casual or a relaxed posture towards giving, and thereby placing one of my most offensive spiritual weapons to the side. I stopped thinking of giving as a weapon to break the shackles in someone else’s life. I will pray to see the spirit released in a situation, but will I give to see a breakthrough for someone else’s life?  That’s going to change.    …BOOM!

bob

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Money, Money, Money!

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (2)
Friday, March 30th, 2012

Important note: before you read this blog post, please be aware this is NOT an attempt to get you to contribute to our movie or some kind of slick marketing campaign, but an honest sharing of things Father has been showing us – period.

As I was praying a couple days ago about my personal finances and the movie fund raising effort something occurred to me. Everything with the movie has been moving along smooth as butter – the casting, amazing connections, the excitement of those involved, people liking the story, finding locations…except for THE MONEY!  Now if it had been an uphill battle in all those other areas I would have known we were moving outside of God’s grace.  But that’s just the thing…this whole project has been smothered in His grace.  I could tell you story after story of amazing God things that have occurred as we’ve gone forward.  So the lack of funding for this project just didn’t add up.

Then I started thinking about all these people I know of who love God and have set aside their lives for His purpose but lack the finances to do the very things that are in their hearts – that Father has called them to – and others have very real needs going unmet.  This made absolutely no sense!  Is God a God of frustration?  Does the One who owns the cattle on a thousand hills lack the resources to provide for His people?

Then Father began opening my eyes to some things.  It’s not that Father lacks, it’s that He’s after a heart change in His people.  His people aren’t free in the area of money. Money is the one area the enemy still has some level of control over because people (three fingers pointing back at myself) have made a god out of it.  Because of this the enemy has been able to dam up the provision that is needed.  Father is wanting for all of His people to blast that dam.  We can’t be truly free if money still has a hold on us.  Jesus spoke about money more than any other topic.  So even though it is taboo to bring it up, it is a topic that must not only be addressed but an arena we as His church need freedom in.

When you look at the church in Acts you see a people who were truly free.  They were so free that money had no hold on them and they ran counter culture in all their actions.  They were the conduit by which Father was able to meet the needs of His people. I’ve often heard quoted that scripture, “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.”  But what are His riches in glory?  It’s His church – His people!  Folks, the American Christianity we were born and raised with is a lie.  It isn’t about shoring up our kingdoms, sprinkling it all with some Jesus beliefs, and then tossing out some left overs to the struggling masses.  It’s a life style of Father pouring in and we pour out.

Father showed me that I’ve had this attitude that “if I had enough I would meet that need!”  The other day Father basically said to me, “Well, why don’t you take the little you do have and give to that need?”  See, we forget that we serve the One who took a few loaves and fishes and fed thousands!  It was one small stone that brought down Goliath.  The issue is not the size of the dollar signs, but the size of your heart.  Are we living as a generous people actively engaged in Kingdom life or are we idle, protecting our own, looking to somebody else to do it while we wait for “someday” to arrive?

The occupiers march against the greed on Wall Street out of a hunger for a world that isn’t ruled by mammon.  Are we ready to display to this world that there is indeed a kingdom in which love rules, not mammon?

Loren Rosser

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Unique by Design

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (0)
Monday, March 26th, 2012

A couple days ago I was pondering the fact that for most of my life there’s been an underlying sense of dissatisfaction. I could never escape the feeling that something was missing, out of order or just not right. Of course it was never difficult to find maybe 30 to 52 areas that needed changing. But success eluded my best efforts, and when transformation in an area occurred it was something Christ did after I gave up and simply yielded to him.

Still, the dissatisfaction remained. At times I concluded it was a godly thing, a longing for more of him and the coming manifestation of the sons of God. Heavy stuff. And yes, we do “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” And yes, we can easily get distracted by present circumstances from the confident expectation of glory that keeps our emotions from straying.

But I’m still discovering that the religious system was not the only box I had lived in. I had created other boundaries regarding life in Christ. I believed that if one received all their joy from Christ, they would be fully content. After all, he should be more than enough. What I missed was that a key to fullness is being fully free to be all he’s made you to be in him. That would be an obvious conclusion if one didn’t attempt to separate the “spiritual” from the “natural.” But I did.

Since I was an adolescent I loved to act. Creating animated cartoons using flip books was a favorite pass time as well. I also got a kick out of making people laugh. But when I became involved in “the ministry” those talents were minimized or forgotten for the sake of pursuing “spiritual” things.

But after leaving the system of religious obligation, Bob, Loren and I teamed up to form FRM. Humorous video clips and now the movie Jeff’s World have created opportunities to function in those areas that were previously cast aside. A new freedom and boldness to step out of the box in other situations have presented themselves as well, and in so doing, hearts have been opened to receive in a greater measure.

I realize now that I had buried a talent God has given for his glory and my joy. I had actually suppressed a part of who Christ is in and through me. Those gifts will never be the main focus of what he’s called me to do, but what he’s called me to do would never have been complete as long as they remained dormant.

You may not be “called” to what is typically referred to as “ministry.” But you are unique in all of creation. Being who you are and doing what you love to do will reveal an aspect of Christ’s nature to those around you that no one else can. Your freedom acts as a catalyst to draw others to him and will help to release them into the fullness of all he’s created them to be.

David Fredrickson

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The Topic of Grace

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (1)
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

You would think the topic of grace, God’s grace would be a simple subject to understand.  But I think I figured out why it perplexes many believers, especially the ones that have spent a great deal of time in the institutional church. This discovery came after a conversation with an old friend of mine who could not stop talking about what he had recently learned about grace.

Although I was excited for my friend’s discovery, I was baffled. We had attended and served in the same church together for years, and I knew that the messages were filled with the topic of grace. Even when he joined us in the deconstruction of our institutional church, he had learned about grace. My bafflement evaporated when I recently heard a sermon from a popular evangelical church.

The message was filled with grace blended with the law. Mixing the old and the new covenant together. Father was described as the benevolent dictator God, who provided you with his grace to better serve him. I now realized why it took so long for my friend to really get a hold of grace. It had been an intertwined sinister brew that left him perpetually confused about Father’s love.  I wonder how many others have yet to understand, much less receive the real meaning of Father’s grace and his unconditional love.

bob humphrey

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Shine

By Beyond Church Walls · Comments (1)
Friday, March 16th, 2012

“Let your light shine!  Don’t hide it under a bushel.” I was told most of my life. But what does that even mean?  For me it always had heavy religious overtones of becoming a salesman for Jesus.  I had to become something that was an awkward and uncomfortable fit for me. Isn’t that exactly what religion always does?  It tries to force us into some weird thing that is anything but natural to us.  Yet, when I was a very religious guy I would turn around with a smile on my face and say, “God made you just the way you are!”  Huh?  Talk about confusion.  God made you the way you are, but you need to fit into this mold that is NOTHING like you!  So either God was really confused when he knit you together or he loves frustrating people.  Any wonder why many believers have major God issues?

Over the years I’ve come to see that I completely misunderstood what Jesus meant when He told us to shine.  The battle to let our light shine is not centered on fitting into some strange uncomfortable mold, but having the courage to be who He created us to be and live from our hearts.  When we simply live in relationship with Father and have the freedom to be who we are in Him (which is who we really are) our lights shine, effortlessly, as simply as the sun shines by being the sun.  People will see our good works, the things God has placed in our hearts to live out, and glorify Him.

I’m so happy to know I don’t have to be a salesman for Jesus anymore.  I get to be who I am.  It almost seems too simple.

This is actually the theme of our movie Jeff’s World.

Loren Rosser

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