Keep going …

What this reader shares with me (after the jump), I would like to share with all of you …

to encourage you to keep going and NOT STOP, NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!

The reason?

So many of my friends are sitting on the edges of churches, unable to give their hearts fully to the ministry of the church either because they or their contribution are (or are made to feel) unwanted (e.g. most women in conservative evangelical churches), or because the relentless push towards doctrinal distinctives makes them long for the unity of the body all the more (like me, really) OR, because they know that Jesus gave us a new way of living in a new kingdom but nobody ever talks about this in these terms in church!

Or as another reader recently wrote:

Dear Brian – I have just finished your trilogy. Thank you so much; you have raised questions that I thought I was alone in asking, and also given possible avenues for answers to them. I had pretty much given up on Christianity, after 9 years of dedicated evangelicalism. I feel like you have given me permission to follow a new understanding, one which neither constricts the intellect, nor requires me to discard God. I have no idea where to go from here, other than to start rereading the books again a little slower this time. It’s the start of a new adventure.

Dear Brian,
I have just spent the last couple of months reading The Secret Message of Jesus and A Generous Orthodoxy. Twice. Which is once fewer than Richard Foster says you should read a book. This is because a) I don’t have time and b) I would like to read them again before 2009 is out and reading anything four times (except the bible and the Book of Common Prayer!) just seems excessive! I mean, there is Tom Wright and Dallas Willard to tackle as well!
Anyway, a brief introduction – I am a relatively evangelical-charismatic Christian… in the west of England. I have been a Christian for 30 years (yipes!)… in my life I have been an Anglican, mad charismatic, Presbyterian, Black independent, Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal. So you can see why I fell into AGO with such delight. For years it has been obvious that everything God reveals to people will be brighter to some than to others (like looking at a gem – some facets shine more brightly and assume more importance) and therefore theological differences will form around what we see most clearly and fall in love with. Thus “truth” becomes the lens through which all other “truths” are seen…
But I am REALLY writing to thank you so much for your great spirit and your willingness to share what God has given you, to encourage you to keep going and NOT STOP, NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! I have so appreciated the openness and broad canvas that emerges from AGO and the sense of romantic adventure that grows from it. I feel that thanks to you (and Willard, Wright, Brendan Manning, Nick Baines, etc) I am really finding the gospels speak to me in new, bright ways, and it has reinvigorated my walk with Jesus no end.
So many of my friends are sitting on the edges of churches, unable to give their hearts fully to the ministry of the church either because they or their contribution are (or are made to feel) unwanted (e.g. most women in conservative evangelical churches), or because the relentless push towards doctrinal distinctives makes them long for the unity of the body all the more (like me, really) OR, because they know that Jesus gave us a new way of living in a new kingdom but nobody ever talks about this in these terms in church! Last week we were in [a Muslim country talking to a professor]… . His view of how Islam informed his ethical and relational behaviour, especially towards the poor and those in his own community was so much more whole than most Christian teaching on this subject – it made both of us feel quite ashamed of what we do in our communities. But it has strengthened my resolve to see the kingdom (which impacts my pastoral work, my work in school, my relation to the government both local and national, my view of the environment, my relationship to my village and to other Christians) rather than my involvement in the church, as the central expression of my faith. I want to engage with the local church, but for me, that means engaging with a variety of expressions of it.
Now see what you (and God!) have started.
Be encouraged. The Lord has raised you up for SUCH important work!
In my schooldays, there used to be a saying on our school sports board –
I-NON-C. It stood for Illegitimens non carborundum (be not letting the b****** grind you down!). A bit naughty, I suppose, but like Churchill’s KBO, it is a spur to perseverance.
I am off to discuss Secret Message of Jesus with my pastor (whom I have badgered into reading it).

I hope all of you who are seeking to discover and live a new kind of christianity will take this encouragement to heart. We’re all in this together.