Recently, I was talking my pastor about leading a group in my church whose goal would be greater intimacy with Jesus. I wasn’t planning on using John Eldredge’s recent book “Experience Jesus. Really: Finding Refuge, Strength, and Wonder through Everyday Encounters with God“, and since it covered familiar territory, I didn’t finish reading it. “Can You Hear Me?: Tuning in to the God Who Speaks” by Brad Jersak is also good and is required for the Identity Exchange Catalyst program. “Created to Hear God: 4 Unique and Proven Ways to Confidently Discern His Voice” by Havilah Cunnington describes several different ways that people hear God.
I had also related a couple of stories about where I have been led to realize, that we sometimes read things into scripture, especially when it comes to lists. I also have blogged about my profound ignorance, and how that intersects list at a sister blog site that may get reorganized into just one website at a date in the future. I wrote “Being Careful with Lists In Scripture” In that blog I mention explore how we turn the fruit of the spirit into the exhaustive list of the fruit of the Spirit. And how we turn the 5 gifts/callings into the exhaustive list of gifts/callings, i.e. the fivefold ministries. It is the latter one that I perceive usually gets me in trouble. So I just suggested that maybe we could call it “Friends of Heretics”. Neither one of us thought that was a good name.
But what about 1 Cor 12:12-31? It is the passage that talks about the parallels between the Body/Bride of Christ and our physical body. We are very differentiated in both bodies. At the end, it speaks of gifts. And maybe that is what I am really talking about. Just in a broader sense. But, it also now includes both my own profound ignorance and everyone else’s.
As you can tell by the title, I am asking the Lord for help, and trusting that he is leading me. One other clue as to where we may be heading is that I could have titled this “Lord, what do You want to say to me about all the places where I feel that You play things kind of ‘fast and loose’ “
It didn’t start with Identity Exchange, or the Winships, or the 2026 Atlanta Catalyst gathering, but it includes them. They may have been a tipping point. There was a discussion on Friday of the 2026 Atlanta Catalyst where Jaime had made some statement, and a number of the theologically trained in attendence started their questions with “How do you reconcile <what Jaime said> with <some scripture reference>. Donna added after one of Jaime’s responses “Do you see that you are going for certainty here.” Referring to certainty as being part of the separation worldview.
I was somewhat comfortable with not being sure.
But, in the month since then, I have been trying to do some reconciling of my own. In the 2nd half of Being Careful with Lists In Scripture , I listed part of my own journey of listening to Holy Spirit (and as I have noted elsewhere, there are a lot of times that I can’t tell which of the Trinity that I am “listening” to.) But, it occupies a lot of time, and a lot of gifted, hardworking, pioneers in the area of intimacy with God sharing insights with me. And, they are profoundly ignorant too. And, what I have tried to do is combine their insights and experiences, with my understanding and experiences, and synthesize something out of it.
Why?
I haven’t stopped. More recently, I have been integrating Dan Mohler’s passion and insights with Wendy Backlund’s as well. Dan Mohler approaches identity from the direction of being “in Christ”, pointing out how little I know intellectually and, more importantly, experientially about what that really means. Wendy Backlund approaches it from a direction that is different still.
What I find is that sometimes it bothers me when people go all out in a direction, and what they share is incomplete, overstated, or partially wrong. One of the things that really bothers me is that it is sometimes. I feel capricious. Why do I let things slide with some people, and not with others. And how does Jesus make something out of this mess. And not just something, but a bride without spot or wrinkle.
And, is He calling me to put everything aside that I was spending time on: i.e. trying to organize and provide an integrated description / model of dynamic interaction with God centered around hearing Him, and responding.
I don’t have answers. I am just wondering if having gifts, or being created for a purpose might distort our view of the Kingdom, and the world.
