I am continuing to think through my next book with your help and collaboration. Your input has been awesome! For the background on this, you can go to my last post.
Now, I want to ask you for stories. Your own stories (or maybe even others). Real-life illustrations from real people walking out the truths of this book are needed!
Here are my key points for Chapter 1. Can you share your experiences as they relate to these key points?
Chapter 1 Title: Jesus' Call to Uncompromised Followership
Point 1: God is always calling us to fresh encounters with Jesus
Point 2: Religion provides us a safe place to become ‘comfortable’ that can keep us from living out of fresh encounters.
Point 3: Breaking out of our comfort zones can mean facing the religious/cultural hindrances that we have become accustomed to. This can be difficult!
Point 4: Desire is key. How much do we really want to engage fully with the amazing Person, Jesus—no matter the cost.
Friends, I don’t know how this collaboration will work, but if you are open to sharing some of your own stories here as comments, what a gift to me and to others!
Comments
5 responses to “Do You Have a Story to Share?”
I came to know Jesus when I was 31 coming out of an unchurched background. We chose to go to a little church close to our home where renewal was beginning to happen. Many changes were made within the church but the hieracrchy stepped in and sent a man who was religious to try to contain the “outbreak”. Eventually many people left, joining other churches where Holy Spirit was allowed to move more freely. I foud after that that when i challenged the leadership in other churches that I joined on things I saw being done that wasn’t In God’s Word, I was reprimanded. But I know that I heard His voice….there were many confirmations of it afterwards.It has left me sure of one thing, that Jesus is alive and that choose to follow Him with all my heart and cannot again go back into the “system” that binds. It has cost me over the years as many friends found it difficult to understand why I didn’t just submit and accept the :”system” but it left me without Jesus and His tender presence. now many of them are asking questions as they are feeling trapped and don’t know why they are so restless.
Here is my story:
http://dividingword.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/leaving-the-institutional-church/
Thanks for sharing, Sandra!
I don’t know if you’re still looking for stories, and I don’t know if my story hits all of your points, and it isn’t my full testimony, but it does touch on point four: the desire to encounter Jesus fully, wholeheartedly, single-heartedly, with no distractions.
My story has to do with finding Jesus in my practice of silence.
I have made it a habit for the past eight years or so, to begin every day, before Bible, before prayer, sitting still in the presence of God. It isn’t an easy discipline, though it is simple. It involves only sitting in stillness, breathing and wrapping my mind around a line of Scripture for ten minutes to half an hour or so. It isn’t easy, though. Distractions abound, especially inside my own mind as thoughts can literally dash around in my head. I also like to end the day this way, sitting with my Lord and listening.
The discipline of silence has taught me more about God’s love than any other practice in my life, and it has changed me. The desire to be near Him is growing, and my hunger for His righteousness in my own life. It has brought me to the threshold of leaving “church” behind, a break I plan on making at Easter this year.
I stay, because I have friends there whom I love, and who love me, and many of them very much in love with Jesus. I want to go, because no one there ever sits still in the Lord. No one ever stops to listen.
We never as a congregation practice “be still, and know that I am God” Because I meet Jesus so deeply in my silence, and because of great joy I have known with others who have been with me in this journey (I had the joy of being on retreat with a dozen people, and the amazing unity that God drew between all of us in the communal silence is a foundation of my current practice) …
I want to be with people who are bound in unity with God in Christ, and with each other because of their deep, single-minded, focused desire to be near Jesus, to hear His voice, and to obey Him.
That is what I am seeking, and I have one friend who is like minded. Lord willing, we are building a community with a focus on serving the homeless, and whoever God brings our way…and we are waiting on God. May He bring it about! Amen!
Thanks, Heidi. I know some of your story but it’s great to have a summary here and it’s told well. I appreciate your support through sharing how Jesus has led you. Inspiring!