The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit wanted the best possible relationship with the people who they had created in their own image. They envisioned heartfelt repentance, reconciliation, and the freedom to celebrate lavishly.

Some of the Old Testament leaders understood what God meant. Take David, for example.

^{1 Chronicles 29:20-22}Then David said to the whole assembly, “Praise the Lord your God.” So they all praised the Lord, the God of their fathers; they bowed down, prostrating themselves before the Lord and the king. The next day they made sacrifices to the Lord and presented burnt offerings to him: a thousand bulls, a thousand rams and a thousand male lambs, together with their drink offerings, and other sacrifices in abundance for all Israel. They ate and drank with great joy in the presence of the Lord that day.

Old Testament laws required people to bring choice animals at regular intervals throughout the year for times of repentance, reconciliation, and celebration feasts which sometimes lasted for days on end. Imagine if all of society celebrated Christmas or Easter for seven solid days every year, plus five other national special feasts in honor of God’s relationship with us. When we first became missionaries we came with about 2/3 of the minimal support we needed. It took us a year to talk to our friends and to get enough commitments for even this. We were frugal. Two litres of soda pop was included in a rare celebration, like a birthday party. One time, when we bought and opened a pop, it was flat. We took it back. During those years the Canadian government said they would help us homeschool our daughters. They reimbursed us $1,500 / year for school-related receipts. They had a wide definition of what was school. The entrance fees at zoos, the Chicago Museum, parking our car at the Chicago Museum for US$45 back in 2003, board games, computer games like Age of Empires 2, oil and acrylic paints and any art supplies . . . our whole family loved the home school experience. WE LIVED BEYOND OUR MEANS! Actually, we had so much fun this shifted our normal. Our family grew to love art, games, museums, life . . . ! If we would have chosen not live like this back in the home school days, the government would not given the money. We could have chosen a poverty lifestyle. God has the same idea for His people. In David’s time I am sure there were poor, sick, desperate, complainers, frugal-scrooges, and the whole cross-section of humanity in the group. David understood that God says there is a time to look beyond all the problems and pain, a time for lavish celebrations. “Bring healthy sacrifices that are going to be good to eat. Repent from your heart. Make up with your neighbor. Bring your garbage and your pain and leave it at the altar. Then come and enjoy the feast. Let’s have some fun!”

Unfortunately, for many reasons, God’s plan for His people did not work out as hoped. Finally God turned to Jesus and said, “When you go down there, will you explain to them what We meant?”As Jesus was nodding thoughtfully the Holy Spirit chimed in. “I want to help too.” The Father looked at Him and said, “OK, You be the Helper. You can explain Us to them, to each one of them personally. And can You please explain them to Us? Find out what they need and let Us know. You be an Advocate, a Lawyer. Find those who desire relationship with us and make it work.”

One of the first things Jesus did after entering His public ministry was to publicly and clearly explain how things had gotten skewed. He updated God’s plan. “In the law it was written like this, but the bar is much higher than that. Here is what we really mean. We know this is impossible for you without Our help so We are here to make it work for everyone who wants in” (Matthew 5-7). Church leaders started criticizing Jesus for befriending outsiders. Jesus’ cut to the heart of their dysfunction, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13).

Jesus said God adopts people who make peace.

• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

The angels prophesied Jesus and peace on earth.

• “. . . Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:9-14).

Jesus said He came to bring . . . not peace, but a fighting weapon!

• “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).

How do you reconcile the above statements?

“I hate conflict”. Have you ever heard a Christian leader confess this? I know I have said these words in the past. At first glance it might seem that peacemakers should hate conflict. They try to stamp out conflicts like firefighters extinguish flames. As a young leader I thought that the easiest way to make peace was to work to please those around me. I am learning, by trial, error, and godly wisdom, there are times we need to start conflicts in our quest to be peacemakers. Working to avoid conflicts or to resolve them simplistically may not be the way forward. Leaders who hate conflict, then, may end up hating the way forward. I have found that the peace we are looking for is often on the other side of many extensive conflicts. If we learn to embrace, look forward to, and to even enjoy conflicts, we may forge a trail towards heaven for many people.

Of course this depends on God’s people spending enough time with God to know the way forward, or at least the next step. If we try forging a trail with conflicts in our own strength this will be a bitter path to burnout. But if, as little children, we hold our Father’s hand as we walk into conflicts, He will lead us through to the other side.

God is looking for a humble, resilient people, who listen attentively, who speak the truth as they perceive it, and who keep getting back up again on their journey to heaven. Sometimes it almost seems like prisoners and outcasts have a certain edge. Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit chose Jesus to explain their intent to people, face to face. “Here is what we meant in the Old Testament.” Jesus starts His whole Sermon-On-The-Mount behavioral-expectations talk with the following verse. Who are the poor in spirit? How do the poor in spirit handle conflict and peacemaking? Would you have picked this opening phrase if you were Jesus? What do you think it means?

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

What are your experiences with peace, conflict and the way forward?

Deanna and I continue to work with small groups and individuals. I see this as a season to develop pilot projects and training systems which will multiply in the future. We are looking for keys to unlock a viral-type of church growth in the Amazon. One key will be how to get past people’s assumptions about God and Christianity. Jesus said  ^“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

This week I asked one group, “How could fishermen and carpenter’s surpass trained leaders?”

This was a stumper. I let the silence do its work and build pressure. Finally one man responded, “They could try harder?”

After another thoughtful silence I asked, “How could they do that? The religious leaders had studied for many years. They tithed everything, even the herbs from their gardens. They fasted twice a week. How could fishermen and bricklayers try harder than that?” Personally I feel sorry pharisees. They try so hard.

One of the women was thinking out loud. Giving people space to think out loud is healthy as we develop our beliefs by talking about them. “The leaders of the church always dress right and get to the services early because they want to be perfect. It’s hard for ordinary people.” In Portuguese there are two verbs for “to be” or “is”. One is permanent, like your name, and the other is temporary and changeable, like the weather. My name is (permanent) Rick. The weather is (temporary) sunny. This woman used the permanent verb for the pharisees. “They are always trying to be (permanent form) perfect.”

“Are they always trying to BE (permanent) perfect, or trying to APPEAR perfect?” The Holy Spirit was among us. I could see the lights coming on. It was especially cool because BE and APPEAR rhyme in Portuguese. SER and APARECER. I had to ask the question several times as the group thought through the implications of the question. Be the right person or Appear to be the right person? In Brazil we have a saying, “A ficha caiu.” This literally translate as the moment when the quarter falls into the bubble gum machine and the candy gets released. I saw the quarter drop for this small group. We have to BE the right people. Jesus said it is not enough to try to APPEAR TO BE the right people. We cannot talk nice to someone’s face and bad behind their back. We cannot pretend to give money in the offering. We cannot “LIKE” a Facebook sermon just so others will think we actually listened to it and liked it. The motives behind our actions are more important to God than the actions themselves.

A big smile spread across the woman’s face. “Now I get it. I am always worried about appearing right. From now on I will not try to Appear (temporary) the right person, I will Be (permanent) the right person.” I smiled inwardly. Easier said than done. This is a lifelong quest requiring all the help we can get from the Holy Spirit.

This lesson and several others like it have convinced us that encouraging Discovery Bible Studies on all the little parts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) will play an important role in producing a viral-like Disciple Making Movement here in the Amazon.

Imagine the Trinity before Jesus came to earth. They created the world. They chose Abraham through whom to reveal their ways and through whom to bless the whole world. Finally the Father asks Jesus, “Will you go down there and explain what We mean?” Of course Jesus came to pay the price for our sins, to be the ultimate sacrifice. But He also came to show us the way. Matthew 5-7 is Jesus explaining how God expects His people to live and behave. Learning to walk with God in the way that He wants is so satisfying.

Along with Discovery Groups we also do a weekly Healthy Habits of Catalysts training, and Deanna does Immanuel Prayer several days a week.

This week our front gate broke. I called a friend who called an acquaintance. A young man arrived on an old motorbike with a bald front tire from way across town. As he was working on the gate motor he answered a few of my conversational questions.

“I am a Christian from the Assemblies of God.”

“I am one of eight children.”
 
Then he stopped working and started telling his story. “My dad abandoned our family when I was 3 years old. He always liked other women, outside of his marriage to my mom. He had 6 children with my mom, and 2 with other women. Finally he left us for one of his lovers. My mom raised all six of us. We were very poor. One time when our electricity got cut because we could not pay for it a man showed up at our gate. He asked questions about my father. Finally he told my mom, ‘I am your husband’s cousin from São Paulo (5,000 kms away)”. This sounded plausible, so mom let him in the house. He stayed all day. In the evening my mom got concerned because here was a strange man in the house, and her and us kids. She decided to talk to him. She talked from 7 pm to midnight, using candles for light because we had no power. She told her testimony, and how her husband abandoned us, and how God was helping her. Finally the man said, ‘I have decided to tell you the truth. I am not your husband’s cousin. I live in São Paulo. Your husband stole my wife and that blew up my family. I decided I would do the same to him. I found out where he was from, and I came here to kill you all, to do the same to him as he did to me. Now I see that you do not deserve this, and I decided not to kill you. I will kill him. Here, look in my bag.’ He opened his satchel and showed her a revolver and a dagger. ‘I was going to wait until you were all asleep. But now you can guard my bag for the night, and I will not do this.’ The next morning the man left. Soon he was back from the grocery store with two huge boxes of food. This was an incredible windfall and blessing for our family at that time. That man became like an uncle to us, helping us every so often. Mom was just talking about him the other day. He died recently.” 

“What happened to your dad?”

“He never got killed. He is now a pastor of an Assemblies of God church.”

“Another time my sister, when she was 8, was riding her bicycle. It did not have the rubber part of the pedals, just the iron stub. She fell with her bike, and one of the iron stubs sliced into her calf. Over the next days her leg started to dry up at the calf. Tetanus set in and her thigh got swollen. Finally she died. My mom got the prayer ladies from the church. They came and gathered around my sister and cried and prayer. My sister remembers leaving her body and watching them from the ceiling, this group of ladies and my mom praying and crying. Then suddenly she returned to her body and opened her eyes. After that she started healing until she was completely better. She lives near where I live now. She is 32 years old, and has a gift of prophetic dreams . . . “

The stories continued to flow. The stories continued to flow. God is miraculously providing for his mom, enabling her to build a house, while she is sick . . .  It got dark. I was tired. He would have kept going. Aslan is on the move, and the poor have a special place in His heart.

Possibly the hardest part of church planting is to successfully develop transformative communities out of people who were far from God. It starts by getting to know them.

We have planted churches in unchurched communities. Very soon, in two different communities I am remembering right now, two or three other church plants suddenly appeared from other denominations. These newcomers spent much of their time evangelizing the people who were frequenting our church, explaining their version of right and wrong. It is easier to engage in a theological discussion with a new believer than with an unbeliever, and especially if you come in with superior knowledge. Often a codependent relationship starts. The great teacher needs to be great, and the new believers need this person to tell them what to believe and how to behave. They both need each other. If the great teacher quits coming it is very likely the dependant church will quit meeting.

So how do we engage unbelievers and young Christians so they will connect directly to Jesus, resulting in transformed lives and transformed communities? It starts by finding teachable people who want to learn to connect directly to God, and who want to help others learn to do the same.

Lessons from Jesus

1. We eat from the Tree of Life.

We frequently spend quality time with God.

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (Genesis 3:22). 

And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die (John 11:26a)

2. We do not judge others.

We move away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:1,2).

3. Who wants us around?

These are our people. Here we invest our pearls and sacred treasure.

“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces” (Matthew 7:6). 

4. Wolves like lambs.

Lambs are not scary. The wolves have the power. We spend quality time with Jesus every day to build up our superpowers which come through as mercy, empathy, and compassion.

Luke 10: 3 “Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.”

5. Get out of God’s way.

We don’t have to know the answers. We share God with our friends, share how it works for us, and then we step aside.

John 6:45a “It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’”

Summary

1. Spend time with Jesus. Feel His heart for the lost.
2. All people are created in God’s image. Feel the pain of their wounds.
3. Some people around you would love to be your friend. Find these people and share your pearls of wisdom and your sacred treasure.
4. Look for wolves. Do not be afraid to enter the dragon’s den to get the gold. Start with a prayer for direction, and then take the first step of obedience.
5. Once you find these people work to connect them to directly to God without your presence.

QUESTION: Have you had any success in engaging unbelievers that ended up with a transformed community?