by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Honesty, Integrity, Recovery, Weekly Devotional
Saturday at Riverbend Church here in Austin, TX, a large number of people gathered to say a formal “Goodbye,” and “We love you, Hank!” to our dear remarkable, unpretentious friend, Francis Leo “Hank” McNamara.
It was a strange mix: some 50 or 60 family members; many Austinites who had known Hank since grade school; at least as many who had known him in recovery programs—some only for a few days or months. The atmosphere seemed to be permeated by…love, at least that’s what I kept thinking as I met dozens of them.
The day after he died, his wife, Trish, asked me to speak at his funeral. I nodded my thanks, went home and cried.
Ten months earlier, Hank had broken his neck. It would not heal, which meant that if he tripped or bumped into a wall wrong the second vertebra would shift and he’d be dead—or paralyzed. Since he already had a bad heart and several other serious physical issues, his prognosis did not look good.
One day several months ago I asked Hank if he would like to tell his family who he really was and what he thought of them (he had a very large family). He said he really would. Shortly after that, using a tape recorder, we started on a joint trip through his whole life that for me was a life-changing journey. I swore to him that I would never reveal what he said on tape until he had edited it and given me permission to reveal it.
After only a couple of sessions, I realized that he had raised or co-raised thirteen children who lived in various places around the country. After we had finishing a taping session, I asked him if he would like to say something specifically to them. If he would, we could structure that into our sessions together. Hank said he would. He told me (not on tape) that although he’d been married three times before he wanted each of his children to know that he had loved their mother, that he loved each one of them and his grandchildren especially, and he was glad he’d gotten to be their old man. And he wanted to tell them before it was too late. Unfortunately Hank died before we had any more recording sessions. But because he had told that to me in a personal conversation when the tape machine was off, I could pass that part of our conversations on to them at the funeral. Also I could tell Trish that she was the love of his life—even though I’m sure she already knew that.
Although I never can type and share the information on those tapes now, I learned a lot about Hank McNamara in the last few weeks before his death that I could and did pass on to those who are his friends and family members at the funeral.
Hank was a remarkable man. I can still see him coming up the sidewalk. He had to wear a kind of neck support made up of four rods (two at either side of his face and two at the back corners of his head) going up several inches over his head and connected by wires—like some sort of futuristic scaffolding. He had oxygen tubes in his nostrils, was pulling an oxygen tank, and as I recall, carrying an aluminum cane. And yet he was smiling and gracious to everyone he met. He was going through some of the most scary and painful things a human being can experience, and yet he was filled with gratitude—gratitude for his beloved Trish (he was very much in love), but also I never saw him when he wasn’t grateful “for another day.”
The “magic” Hank brought with him everywhere he went was amazing. The day he died I heard a young woman say that she had come for help to a meeting Hank had started, feeling shame and worthlessness. But the way Hank shook her hand, smiled and greeted her—as if she were a fine worthwhile person—awakened a belief in her that maybe she could become those things someday. I heard many similar stories during the next few days.
As I thought about Hank’s life over the twenty years I’ve known him, I realized that he had changed the focus of his approach to helping people in trouble. For the last several years he had begun to “stand by the door” of the places where people in trouble were frantically searching for God. He had begun to spend more and more of his time helping “newcomers” to get started on a spiritual journey that could lead them to become the people they had lost hope of ever becoming—or becoming again after a life of failure and running from reality and God.
That night before Hank’s funeral, I remembered a poem I had read years before. It had been written by a man who I consider to have been one of the most outstanding men in the 20th century regarding helping people into a life of faith. The man had sent it to me in October of 1961. I decided to read a couple of stanzas of this poem at his funeral because I recognized Hank within in the lines (although I am almost certain that He did not know about the poem).
SO I STAY NEAR THE DOOR—An Apologia for My Life.
I stay near the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world—
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men,
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it…
So I stay near the door.
The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door—the door to God.
The most important thing any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch–the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man’s own touch.
Men die outside that door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter–
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live, on the other side of it–because they have found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him – – –
So I stay near the door.
…
There is another reason why I stay there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them;
For God is so very great, and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia.
And want to get out. Let me out! they cry.
And the people way inside only terrify them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled
For the old life, they have seen too much;
Once taste God, and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving—preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would run away. So for them, too,
I stay near the door.
The startling thing about this poem is that it was written by the man who was “standing near the door” when Bill Wilson’s friend Eby brought Bill to Calvary Church in New York. That man, The Rev. Sam Shoemaker, put Bill Wilson’s hand on the latch of the door. Sam showed him how to commit his whole life to God. And then, at Bill’s request, Sam helped Bill to frame Alcoholics Anonymous and to put the spirituality into the “Big Book”, and The Twelve Steps and the Twelve Tradition’s. And this anonymous movement became the fastest growing spiritual movement in the 20th century during a time when many organized religious organizations were shrinking or floundering.
It was this incredible realization about Hank that made me realize the deep significance of his life: Our friend Hank McNamara (who did not consider himself to be “religious”) had realized—as Sam Shoemaker had half a century before him—that the future of the movement that saved Hank’s life and the lives of so many of us, might be continued only by loving persons willing to stand near the door—wherever they live—to guide the hands of a few lost people onto the latch of the door through which they may find Life—and God.
I am very grateful that I got a chance to know Hank McNamara, a real man of God.
“If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you.”
-Revelations 3:20, The Message
by Keith Miller | Bible, Christian Living, Prayer, Small Groups, Weekly Devotional
Keith, After I decided to surrender my life to God, how should I go about finding my vocation?
Good question. At first I didn’t know what to do. I was a land man for a major oil company. It was a good job but hardly considered to be a training ground for Christian disciples—which I definitely wanted to be after finally trying to turn my life over to God.
I prayed about what to do and at that time there seemed to be only one way for really serious players to go: go to theology school and become ordained to be a full time Christian minister. So I studied the Bible and theology and the history of the church and preaching under some good professors. Along the way I sat with my parents when my older brother was killed and with my father when he died of a heart condition and with my mother when she died of cancer—all before I was 30. All during this time I was praying and reading the Bible and the lives of the saints—the people in the past who had given their lives to God.
I decided that the playing field I was called to in which to help people find hope and real love was in the ordinary life I was trying to live as a businessman. I made a decision that God had my address. Instead of spending all my time “deciding what I would become for God,” I would treat my own ordinary life as a father and husband who commuted in a car pool twenty miles one way to work five days a week—that I would commit that life to God and to learning how to live for him all day long.
I made that decision because I simply didn’t know any ministers at that time who talked, preached or shared individually about having real problems in their own lives and relationships with their spouses, children, parents or fellow clergy. I was still in my thirties and just couldn’t believe that I was the only committed Christian who wrestled with lust, jealousy, and the many faces of fear of failure. None of these pastors seemed to have that terrible three-day silence warfare with their spouses or had to be right in arguments with a spouse or feel like a wimp, or worry at night about developing a retirement plan or squeezing in vacation time. In fact, since I did wrestle with all of these things, for a number of years I thought I must not be a good Christian.
But at another level I was learning that the way out of the fears for me was not courage, which I’d prayed for, but love. When I was worried, I discovered that if I helped someone else, my fear left me—and that maybe Jesus was right (J) when he said that it is “love that casts out fear.”
At twenty-two I had met a man who encouraged me to keep a journal about the things in which I was interested. He helped me write a small book of ballads. And after a few years of talking to lay people about the hope I was finding in an intimate relationship with the God Jesus called Father, I began writing books about the simple yet agonizing discoveries concerning what it might mean to try to live one’s whole life for and with God.
As I’ve written in blogs before, I kept trying to be open to finding out the truth about my own character defects. And that process has made me face many of the denied self-centeredness and control issues with which I had never before been confronted—either in church or school. But because I’d learned a lot about Jesus and his life, teaching and self-limiting love, I knew that when I learned about my sins and character defects, to confess them to some Christian men also trying to live for God. And I began to see how I’d hurt many of the people I love most.
The incredible thing to me is that in spite of my flaws—many of which didn’t surface until I had become a best-selling author and lecturer and had traveled in many foreign countries around the world, teaching about how God can change our whole perception of what it means to live intimately with him and other people. The bottom line about the discovery process is that I would have bet anyone that I would not do the immoral and hurtful things I wound up doing. And they happened to a man who was very disciplined and had “kept the rules” all his life. I was baffled. And when I faced and admitted what I’d done, it was too late to mend some of the fences I had charged through.
What does this have to do with finding a vocation? For me, a great deal. After having a number of best-selling books translated into many languages and having trained with and learned from many powerful and wealthy people as a young man, I finally realized I am just a person. And that I can sometimes love and help people who are struggling with the questions of life and who have discovered the hard way that they are powerless on their own to change their lives at a deep level.
I go to group meetings of people, some of whom I have known for twenty-five years, with whom I share the pain and joy of trying to live for God. When guests and new people come, we discuss our scariest and most fearsome problems. I was writing books and lecturing in different places in foreign countries, but for twenty years I didn’t find it helpful or necessary to tell them that I was a writer and lecturer. But lately, since many of the people who read my books are very old or deceased, I have told some of these people I love and meet with that my vocation is being a writer and a sort of talent scout for God—helping a few people discover the vocational dreams they buried along with their self-centeredness and control issues. That’s come to be the focus of my vocation.
The short answer to your question about choosing a vocation as a Christian is that since God seems to want loving representatives in every culture and every financial, political, educational and medical field, it doesn’t much matter what you do vocationally as long as you love God and surrender the center of your life to God. So I’d advise you to pray about it, ask God’s will, and then pick something that you really love to do. Then go and find out if you can do it.
Will there be pain and sorrow? Of course, but you will find that in the long run your ability to navigate through pain and still be loving will have more effect in spreading the Good News into other people’s hearts around you than all of the sermons you could preach and all the books you could write.
Lord, help me to keep listening for your voice in the pain of other people’s lives and in my own. And thank you that you let me fail enough to wake up and see that I don’t have to “win” to be the person you will love “someday,” but just to open my eyes and see your loving presence in Andrea, our families and the other people we get to walk with on your crazy adventure. In Jesus’ name, amen.
“This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice.”
-Jesus to the Twelve in Matthew 10:42
“But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!”
-Ephesians 1:18-19, The Message
“Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.”
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox—American Writer (1850-1919)
“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
-Theodore Roosevelt—26th President of the United States (1858-1919)
by Keith Miller | Bible, Christian Living, Small Groups, Weekly Devotional
This is a response to the second question of a two-part question that came up after John Burke (Lead Pastor at Gateway Church) interviewed me last month. I responded to the first of the two-part question on last week’s blog. Last week’s question was about why I think the kind of small group I had mentioned was important. My response is that Jesus spent approximately two-thirds of his three-year ministry with a small group of twelve men—the same twelve men. And all Jesus left was that small group and the Spirit in their midst. Further, Paul’s ministry was largely devoted to starting and continuing to correspond with and mentor a few small groups scattered in cities around the Roman Empire.
So now I’m getting to the second question: “What is the purpose of the small groups you talked about, and do these groups prepare Christians to fulfill the Great Commandment to issue God’s invitation to the world?”
What is the overall purpose of an “adventure” group?
Although the members of an “adventure” group learn about and experience ways to pray as Jesus taught the Twelve, and they examine relevant scripture passages, the overall purpose is for the group members to experiment with and actually experience receiving and giving the love of Jesus in their real time everyday lives and relationships. The experiment begins with every member agreeing that for thirteen weeks they will assume that the God Jesus called Father is real. And for the thirteen-week period the participants will live as if they had actually surrendered their entire lives to God. This includes an agreement among the group members not to argue about God’s existence or different interpretations of the Gospel. Instead they will be guided to experiment with how to love the people in their personal and vocational lives beginning with the other group members. They learn how to share in the group meetings by listening without interrupting or challenging what anyone else says they have experienced, and by reporting what happens—the failures as well as positive experiences—when they consciously take God with them clear through their days and nights. Each group member agrees to pray for the others every day during the experiment about the things shared in the group.
This group experience is not like any Bible study or sharing group most people have ever been in. The purpose is not to evangelize your neighbors or become expert Bible students; it is to learn (by doing) how to carry out the new command that Jesus gave the disciples when he was about to leave them: “Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” (Jn. 13:34-35, The Message)
Since we are also called to love the world, the primary purpose of Jesus’ group and these groups is to learn how to love God and do his will in all areas of our own lives, secular as well as “religious.” And as we try to do some simple things to learn how to receive and give love—with the Father and each other, we will be acquiring the core characteristics, attitudes and behaviors that we will need later when we go out to meet the needs of those who have been marginalized in our culture—the hungry, the sick, those without clothing and shelter, etc. I’ve always thought it was strange that Jesus didn’t send the Twelve out on missions until not too long before the crucifixion. He evidently wanted them to be sure to go out with love as well as a perspective in everything they did.
Bruce Larson and I worked for years with dozens of groups to build a course that is emotionally safe. We did this by developing rules (and making these rules clear) that keep the members from putting people down who risk sharing their reality, (i.e. not “fixing” them, offering suggestions or corrections) that would shame them for not participating or for “making mistakes”. The leader and all the group members will help each other to learn how to love and assure every person’s safety in the group. (This experience can be invaluable later in missions to people who have been abused in their worlds.)
Almost anyone can lead an Adventure group. In the meetings, Bruce and I face and respond first (on CD’s) to every question to which group members are asked to respond. And the group leader responds third. So an appropriate level of vulnerability is established before other group members are asked to share, which allows the group to become safer and closer more quickly than is usually possible otherwise. Also, any participant can choose to “pass” on responding to any of the questions or exercises without being shamed or criticized. These guidelines create a safe and more free and open atmosphere than many participants have ever experienced anywhere. An atmosphere in which the real issues, the fears, the joys and the reality can be shared—of trying to commit their lives and relationships to God in the real life contexts of their own families, church situations and vocational and social lives.
So in this safer atmosphere, the participants try various experiments in their real life situations (outside the group, between sessions) of praying, handling the many disappointments of admitting when they are wrong and asking forgiveness. As they do so, they are building a library of experiences—living stories—from the experiences they will personally go through and share with the group during meetings. And while they are carrying out these experiments between group meetings, the group members will also be examining some of Jesus’ stories (parables) and considering with which character they identify—thus adding more living stories to their educational base.
When people close to Jesus (including the Twelve) asked about the stories he pointed out that they (whom he was teaching) were getting a good picture of how the Kingdom of God works in their lives. But other people whom they encountered along the way—people who hadn’t had this much teaching from Jesus and so didn’t understand—for those people stories created readiness—readiness to hear more. (See Mark 3:10-11, The Message, quoted at the end of this blog.)
What usually happens—invisibly at first—is that in the process of being heard and accepted as they are, people who may have been church members for years, come to realize that love has crept in and replaced loneliness and the sense of not fitting—feelings that apparently all people long to overcome.
As to the sharing, it often happens that when someone who has “passed” several weeks in a row finally speaks, he or she may be a different person than the one whom you met at the first meeting.
We believe that these experiences are all parts of the transformation process Jesus said was essential. It is like being “born anew from on high.” And friends, when you see a fellow adventurer being transformed before your eyes, week after week, it is impossible to tell you what this can do to your faith and ability to love God and other people. It seems that one must experience this personally to understand how important it is.
There is also a strong rule about keeping everything that is said in the meetings confidential. At first this seems strange but in the end, this creates an unbelievable sense of freedom and honesty. I remember when I started the first group of this kind in a church in Norman, OK in the 1950’s I had explained the group plan to the pastor and gotten his permission to start the group. We were meeting in our home. After several weeks the pastor called me and said, “What are you telling the people about money?”
I said, “Why are you asking?”
He said, “Well, three of the couples have started tithing since the group started meeting and they were a little vague when I talked to them.”
I laughed because tithing hadn’t even been mentioned. But the minister was so happy that he said, “I’m sending another couple over to join your group.”
“I’m sorry, Joe,” I said. “The rules are that no new members are allowed to join a new group after the second week. In this intimate atmosphere running in new people every week means starting to build the trust level all over again. We may do another group later if some people want to.”
The minister then asked, “Well what is this ‘secrecy’ all about? Where did you ever come up with a rule about people not sharing what’s going on in a group?”
I smiled and said, “Jesus. Several times Jesus told people who’d been helped by his ministry, “Don’t tell anyone.”
This may sound like an unusual way to operate a group, but people who have been together for thirteen weeks sharing their reality, the good news and the bad, sickness and celebrations, have reported time and again that long before the thirteen weeks are over, participants report that they find themselves becoming more caring for people around them outside the group, even difficult people and even in painful situations. But these feelings and attitudes of really beginning to trust and share are new and a little scary for people at first. And we are convinced they need a safe, non-critical place to report failures as well as successes. (We still attend such groups after all this time.)
This sort of group experience can create a spiritual culture of people who want to experiment with really trying to offer to God the living out of their eating, sleeping, working, walking around lives for Christ. (See Romans 12:1, The Message)
No group structure or process is for everyone, of course. But we have found that unless a large church finds a way for new people to learn to love each other and pray specifically for each other in a face to face atmosphere, over a period of time the back door of that church will become bigger than the front—no matter how gifted and committed the teaching pastors are. And our experience indicates that many group graduates go on mission trips after a thirteen-week group, or join a mission group in their own city, or teach a class in the church. They report that because of their experience in these groups, they find themselves listening to and praying for or with the people they are going out to help.
I have not tried to give you a comprehensive picture of the course content. If you would like to read about the course materials, click here.
And one last thing: because of years of being in adventure group meetings of various kinds, I realize that people are all different in their needs, hopes and dreams. And I have discovered that my job is not to change anyone—even any of you who may be reading this blog. So if what we have learned is not something that you feel comfortable trying, we won’t bug you. But this is just my answer to the person who wanted to know the purpose of this kind of group experience.
We are starting up again working in local churches after many years of working in different cultures here and overseas. If you choose to use this group experience as a part of your Christian formation effort, we’ll be glad to do what we can to help that happen.
***
“When they were off by themselves, those who were close to him, along with the Twelve, asked about the stories. He told them, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom—you know how it works. But to those who can’t see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight. These are people—
Whose eyes are open but don’t see a thing,
Whose ears are open but don’t understand a word,
Who avoid making an about-face and getting forgiven.”
-Mark 4:10-12, The Message
“God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s.”
-1st Jn. 4:17, The Message
Lord, Thank you that you took the time to live the life of love with the few people you chose to deliver the Father’s invitation to the rest of us, so we’d know it’s really livable. Give me trust at this time to believe that I will get my work done if I risk interrupting my busy schedule long enough to live your life with a few others…again. In Jesus’ name, amen.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, a few weeks ago I watched as John Burke interviewed you at Gateway Church. I am an emerging leader at Gateway and have a few questions for you. First, specifically, why do you think the kind of small group you described is so important?
(You can watch the interview here.)
This one is a great question. And I’ll save your other questions to write about in another blog soon.
In the first place, I want to tell you that for most of my life I hated small groups and refused to be in one. I’m a classic loner in that regard—or rather I was until I surrendered as much of my life as I could to as much of God as I understood and started reading the New Testament. (1) What I discovered was that in Jesus’ three-year ministry the only “structure” he used was one small group of twelve—with the same membership. And that he spent approximately two-thirds of his time with that group of twelve. (2) The only subject or curriculum on which the group seems to have focused was “What is the God really like (whom Jesus called “Father”)? And “how (specifically) would people live if they surrendered their whole lives to the Father and became citizens of the New Kingdom of God (His “reign” over their lives) and how would they live out relationships with the Father, each other and everyone else?”
In that group they tried to do what Jesus did and told them to do, and they asked questions about everything. Since Jesus was living the life (as the first citizen in the New Kingdom), they had him and each other’s experiences to learn from. And besides hanging out watching Jesus, the content of their learning was largely made up of stories (parables, etc.) about how people who were committed to God would live and spread the life and love that Jesus was announcing and inaugurating before their eyes.
The small group was so important that after Jesus left them they chose another member, Mathias, to replace Judas.
And that small group was all Jesus left them. He left no money, no rich donors, no influential people, no buildings and not even a book. (The Old Testament was locked in the synagogue and there was no authoritative New Testament completed until the fifth century.) He had said that their life together could continue after he left because the Personality (the Spirit) they had experienced in him would still be in the midst of them to keep guiding and teaching them.
And it was the same with Paul. He first tried to use the existing churches (synagogues) as his structure but Jesus’ message (and the Christians’ lives) were so different from the life and attitudes of the people in the synagogues of that day that the Christians were usually thrown out. And when they were thrown out, all they had with which to invite (evangelize) the world was to start small groups and replicate the kind of group the apostles had been in with Jesus. He had told them that whenever two or three of them met in his name (i.e. as he would meet), he would be with them. The letters of Paul, Peter, and John were not theological treatises but mostly dealt with specific everyday problems and misunderstandings about how the Father wanted them to live in love.
And the new “family” spread clear across the Roman Empire—mostly one small group at a time—until the Father’s Reign became the “official” religion of the Roman Empire in about 25 A.D. During this time the apostles encouraged and taught the people in the groups by visiting them, writing letters to them and sending lay teachers (like Timothy) to encourage the small groups who met mostly in people’s homes. The subject of these small groups was still mostly about how to live for God, learning how to love Him, each other and other people as they delivered the Father’s invitation to an intimate and eternal life with Him and them.
The bottom line for Paul and John was the commandment Jesus gave the disciples, to love each other. This was so important that Jesus said it was their primary teaching and evangelizing asset. The way Jesus put it was, “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
So I came to believe that our first task as Christians is to learn how to love each other as Jesus loved. And as we experience being loved as we are and loving each other, warts and all, we will not have to be prodded to love the marginalized people Jesus loved, at least that’s been my experience.
Paul described how the transmission of the living/loving way of life that Jesus embodied and taught occurs. It is passed from Christian to Christian in these groups as Paul told the Christians at Philippi in a letter: “Put into practice what you learned from me; what you heard, what you saw and what you realized.” (Phil. 4:9, the Message)
The people in the groups heard Paul (and each other) say he was (they were) trying to live for Christ. They saw him and each other risk reputation and even life for Christ’s cause. And then they realized, “Wow! I can do that, too.”
So to answer your first question, I think that this particular kind of small group is important because this was virtually the only teaching “laboratory” Jesus used to get across how God wanted us to live and learn to enter into a Father-child relationship with God to whom we give permission to be in control of our lives (surrender). And out of that surrendered life we learn how to be in relationship with each other—a way to pray and read the scriptures. And then—out of this supportive, truth-telling, loving culture that develops in the group, we move out into the rest of the world to invite others to step into this loving culture of people who have surrendered their lives to God, and who are allowing God to transform them and the way they relate to others. We invite them to experience this life along with us. But if we are not being transformed ourselves, then the invitation we extend to others will most likely not reflect the reality and love we are being exposed to in the sermons and lives of our teaching pastors.
What I was referring to in the interview with John was a safe small group process Bruce and Hazel Larson and I created where people can go on the adventure of living for God experimentally for thirteen weeks in this kind of group and this perspective of how to live for Christ. The format is so simple that anyone who wants to live his or her life more as Christ wants him or her to live it can have an opportunity to try it in real time with a few others.
We have helped start hundreds of these groups over the years and more has happened to people who have been in these groups than in all the preaching, teaching and book writing we’ve done in the past fifty years.
P.S. Several people at Gateway have started and led some “Adventure” groups. After the closing prayer I have added a copy of a recent letter from a member of Gateway who led a group this year. If you’d like to get in touch with them, let us know and we’ll give you their contact information.
“This new plan I’m making with Israel isn’t going to be written on paper, isn’t going to be chiseled in stone; this time I’m writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts. I’ll be their God, they’ll be my people. They won’t go to school to learn about me, or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons. They’ll all get to know me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great. They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven, with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean. By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.”
– (Jeremiah quote found in Hebrews 8:6)
Lord, sometimes I still wake up lonely and discouraged when nothing is really wrong. Thank you that you have invited us into your family style Kingdom where you can transform us into the creative, loving people you made us to be, so that we can know your peace and be happy living in our own skin. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Letter to Keith
Keith,
I’m writing to let you know of the profound change that occurred in my small group as a result of doing the 13 week Edge of Adventure group experience create by you and Bruce Larson. Our group went from an intellectual group of socializers to a caring community of honest people who love each other and are committed to walking through life with each other. This 13-week group experience taught our small group how to actively love and live as Jesus did resulting in a profoundly purposeful and vibrant life.
Before this study our small group was literally on the brink of dissolving. We had met together for 2+ years and were “sticking it out” out of a sense of obligation. We were a group of lonely self-centered people who wanted to change but didn’t know how.
As we started this adventure, I noticed an immediate change simply caused by implementing the expectations of this study. There was a safe environment created by the “no cross talk” rule. People who were normally quiet opened up because of the practice of giving each person a chance to speak by going around the circle to answer each question. The confidentiality requirement was a simple, yet critical, element that was referenced many times in the first few weeks as people began to open up and share.
Having you and Bruce on the audio tapes helped set the tone of each meeting in a powerful way. We were able to sense and be inspired by your passion for the discussion topic. We were also assured that it’s okay to have struggles and doubts and that there can be a very real sense of liberation that comes from honestly sharing these thoughts and feelings with others.
I believe that this group experience can be the tipping point for many small groups by helping them develop the community that God intends. When this happened for us, we began to experience a more deep, rich an abundant life. It’s not that life will always be fun and easy, it’s that life’s struggles now have meaning.
My small group was so moved by the changes that occurred during these 13 weeks that we want to share this experience with others at Gateway. We simply can’t hold in the blessings we have received as we feel called to share them with others. We want to share this in any way that would be the most appropriate and helpful. We could split up and each visit other small groups or we could all band together to lead this in a large group format. We would like to discuss this with you and the appropriate leadership at Gateway to see how we could be the best service.
Thank you for this course. It has been a blessing!
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Prayer, Recovery, Weekly Devotional
Keith, Are there specific ways of dealing with the awful feelings of guilt and shame that come over people sometimes in the middle of the night and prevent sleep, etc. Also, if one has these feelings, does it mean that he or she really isn’t committed to God?
That is a great question. I don’t know how many times I’ve wrestled with feelings of guilt and shame in the middle of the night, and wished I could find a way never to have to deal with them ever again. But I’ve come to believe that they’re really helpful experiences, warning systems for all human beings to help us to become what God wants us to be. And there is a way to work through them and learn where we may be off track concerning the way we’re living our lives.
Let’s just imagine that you have a warning system in your mind, like a burglar alarm. When the alarm goes off and you look at it, there are two panels; one is “guilt” and one is “shame.” The feeling is very similar—one of having no value, or as if you’ve been bad, are a bad person, that sort of thing. First it’s good to figure out which panel is giving me the signal: is it guilt or shame?
Andrea and I learned about these two emotions from Pia Mellody. Andrea wrote Pia’s first three books with her, and I consulted with them about connections to psychological literature that had already been written. According to Pia, in Facing Codependence, “Guilt is an uncomfortable or gnawing feeling in the abdomen about an action or thought that transgresses our value system, accompanied by a sense of wrongness. Guilt is often confused with shame, which is experienced as embarrassment and perhaps a flushed face, accompanied by a sense of fallibility.”[1]
For example, if I lie to somebody, or steal something, the resulting feeling is guilt. If somebody saw me spill my coffee all over my lap and the floor, the resulting feeling would be shame—I’m a fallible human being who makes mistakes, and mistakes can be embarrassing. The more you think you should be perfect and never make mistakes, the more likely you are to feel shame whenever a mistake becomes known to other people. In fact, trying to avoid feeling shame about a mistake (breaking a valuable vase, or damaging a car, or getting somebody’s name wrong at a party) often motivates people to try to conceal or camouflage mistakes by lying, blaming someone else, or omitting certain facts when explaining what happened. And in some instances, if a mistake is pointed out to a person, that person may react with anger and rejection because of being in the throes of what we call a “shame attack.” So if truth telling or treating others with respect and kindness are moral/ethical values, the hiding or raging often lead to feelings of guilt—which combines with the shame, making a roiling tide of painful emotion.
Dealing with Guilt
So if your alarm system goes off and you determine that the panel giving you a warning is the one marked “guilt,” you’ll be able to recognize what you’ve done to transgress a law or value. In this case, Christianity has a very specific way of dealing with guilt. You confess to God that you have broken the rule, being specific about what you’ve done, such as stolen something or lied about something or cheated on your wife. And that’s step one. The next thing to do is to make things right with that person. If you stole someone’s lawnmower, you take it back, and say “I’m sorry I took your lawnmower. I’ll pay you if I’ve damaged it in any way.” Jesus was pretty specific about this. He said that it’s more important to handle this feeling of guilt than it is to worship God. In the 5th chapter of Matthew, he said if you bring your gift to the altar, and you remember that somebody has something against you—that you have hurt or damaged someone in some way, then you leave your gift at the altar and you go and get things straightened out with the person first, and then come back and worship God. Because if you don’t get the guilt handled, you won’t be able to really worship God. It’s that important, Jesus said. (Matt. 5:23-24)
The Twelve-Step program has a wonderful way of handling guilt. There are definite steps whereby you surrender your life to God and then you recognize you’re powerless to handle guilt by yourself, as well as any addictions or compulsions you may have. Then you make a decision to turn your life and will over to God. Then you specifically make a list of all the things you’ve done as far back as you can remember that have broken the rules, ways you’ve hurt people, cheated, lied, stolen been disloyal, and things like that. Then you read that list to another human being—a sponsor or minister.[2] Then there is a process for going to the person you have offended and making amends.[3] It’s very important not to harm people by confessing to a misdeed to them or their families, or business associate. But when you’ve done these steps, the guilt is almost always gone. You transgressed a moral, ethical or spiritual value, you’ve recognized it, confessed it, and done everything you could, and then you’re clear.
Dealing with Shame
If you really can’t think of any specific law or value that you’ve transgressed, then the alarm panel marked “shame” is giving you the warning. For example, when I was a kid, I used to come home from parties and often cringe because I’d think I’d made a fool out of myself. There wasn’t anything specific. I just thought I’d been too brassy or silly. I thought my nose was too big, my ears were too big. Physically I wasn’t what I thought I ought to be. It was just a feeling of “not being enough” somehow. And this feeling chases people through life even if they are very attractive and very successful.
Dealing with shame is a different process because there isn’t anything to confess or make amends about. I have come to see that God specializes in handling shame through a community of people on his spiritual journey. And it seems to involve a process done in a group based on honesty and caring love. But unless you find a group of his people who are committed to sharing their lives honestly with respect and love, you may not find relief for shame. This may be why groups based on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous may have constituted the fastest growing spiritual group in the world in the twentieth century.
I got in a group about twenty-five years ago. It was a Twelve-Step group. At first I didn’t want anyone to know anything bad about me so I tried to look like I just wandered in to check the meeting out. After a few meetings I heard people say that their healing and transformation began when they started to get honest about their problems and began to feel relief. I realized that if I wanted to get well from my addiction, then I had to face my problems by revealing myself. In these meetings I heard people tell about what they had done: how they had drunk too much and lied and hurt people, what their addiction caused them to do. At first I couldn’t reveal very much. The fact that I had done so many things that transgressed my value system brought a strong wave of shame over me every time I even thought about them. And telling other people about them seemed impossible—the wave of shame threatened to overwhelm me. But I noticed that no one laughed or looked disgusted or lectured anyone else who talked about these things. They listened with a quiet respect. So I began to talk. It was sort of like pulling a thread out of my mouth, something small enough that I could stand the shame. I looked around afterward and nobody looked away. They just nodded. So at a later meeting I pulled out a little more vulnerable admission—like a string attached to the thread I had started with. And then over a period of time of listening to honest sharing in a matter of fact way, I pulled out a rope, then a chain and then a whole bucket of things I’d made up my mind I’d never share. After I’d done this for some time, I realized that I didn’t feel so bad about myself. The shame had subsided, and I didn’t feel like a bad person any more.
These people seemed to love me more when I was honest about the fact that I’m very self-centered and have had some unethical and immoral behavior in my life that I’d never faced before. And the more they found out about me as I worked through the steps of the program with a sponsor, the less I felt alienated or not enough.
Having been a seriously committed Christian for more than fifty years, it seems to me that Christianity at its best is more equipped to handle guilt but doesn’t deal much with shame. And there may be a lot of Christians who wake up at night feeling awful—shameful. They feel their children don’t love them enough; they’ve been a bad parent, or whatever. It’s a more amorphous feeling of being a bad or inadequate person, or that one’s life is going by and amounting to nothing. But these thoughts that lead to shameful feelings are often not based on reality. That’s a firm conviction that I’ve discovered in biblical Christianity—that everything God created was good.
So now when my emotional alarm wakes me up at night (or any time it goes off), I look at the red blinking light and say to myself, “There’s something wrong I need to tend to.” I ask myself “Is this guilt or shame.” Often a picture will come up of something I’ve done, which indicates the feeling is guilt. And then I know what to do. I’ll confess that to God and share it with a small group of Christians I meet with and make restitution when possible.
And if I can’t think of anything specific, I’ll recognize the feeling as shame. Then I’ll identify the thought or attitude about being less-than, or having looked like a fool or made a mistake about somebody’s name—whatever I can locate. And I’ll surrender my entire future to God again, and remind myself that we’re all sinners, or so we claim, and go to a meeting and share—or share with a sponsor or friend on the spiritual journey. One definition of sin is that we have failed to hit the mark of perfection that we’re shooting at. We miss the mark and according to both programs, “all have sinned and fallen short” of God’s best for us.
But if we don’t face our own sins as Jesus advised us to, we have obviously decided that Jesus made a mistake in telling us how important it is for us to learn how to (as James put it) “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other, so that you can live together whole and healthy.” (James 5:16)
That’s just a very brief picture of our (Andrea’s and my) experience of guilt and shame and how these things can be handled in spiritual programs like Christianity and the Twelve Steps.[4]
Lord, thank you for your consistent love even when I take control of my life and try to make it work on my own. Forgive me for the ways I hurt others and myself (and you) during these times. Thank you for the feelings of guilt and shame that alert me to the fact that I have gone off on my own. Help me to pay attention to them when I feel them. And thank you for the loving welcome I receive when I get honest with you about what I have done and surrender to your guidance once again. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.
– Matt. 5:23-24 (NIV)
Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.
– James 5:16, (The Message)
“The difference between guilt and shame is very clear—in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.”
– Lewis B. Smedes, Shame and Grace
“A guilty mind can be eased by nothing but repentance; by which what was ill done is revoked and morally voided and undone.”
– Benjamin Whichcote, Moral and Religious Aphorisms
[1] Page 95
[2] There are important guidelines about finding a trustworthy person with whom to share this part of your life.
[3] See Steps Four, Five, and Nine, pages (pp58-103) Alcoholics Anonymous, Third Edition.
[4] If you want to read more about handling guilt and shame and how if not dealt with they can lead to serious control issues and relationship breakdowns—you may want to read: Facing Codependence and Compelled to Control.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
I feel like I’m drowning. I’m over my head in conflicting problems. I don’t know what to do, and there is no one I feel safe enough to talk to about all this, yet you are able to write openly about some really hard problems, and how small groups have helped you. How can a bunch of other screwed up people help me? What is the spiritual process in such groups that has given you the courage to face and deal with the problems you write about?
You’ve pin-pointed a crucial question that I’ve heard from many people. There are groups whose primary purpose is to study together, discuss topics, or enjoy a common activity together (like square dancing, quilting, hunting and so forth). So not all groups are helpful for dealing with personal problems.
A certain kind of group has not only helped me but led me into a way of living that has kept me from panicking so much when I realize I’m in deep water, fighting to stay afloat somehow while wrestling with some pretty serious problems. But the kind of help I’m describing didn’t always happen right away.
For example, when I first stepped into a men’s group that dealt with compulsive behavior and addictions, I realized I was “in trouble.” By that I mean I wasn’t sure I could be really honest—because I didn’t trust men much. But these men didn’t try to change me. They just said, “Welcome.” Then as they talked about their lives, they brought their inner worlds out into the open, including the terrifying, frightening and seemingly impossible situations that had driven them to the end of themselves.
They were very honest about themselves and didn’t try to fix each other. Almost all of them said they felt like they were “in over their heads,” struggling in deep water and didn’t know if they could survive. and that they had ventured into the group only because their situation had gotten so scary that they became, after much resistance and struggle, willing to “come out of hiding” and talk honestly in this safe, confidential setting, even though most confessed later that they really didn’t believe the group could give them any significant answers or help!
Somehow, hearing about their fear of losing things they were not prepared to live without made me feel safe, which sounds strange. But my sense of safety came from realizing I was with people that had been where I was.
I came to see that this was no study course you had to make a grade in. These men had not accumulated a large body of knowledge. It was more like a swimming school for people who had almost drowned in deep water and these men had learned how to “swim” in these deep-water situations, and weren’t so terrified of drowning in them. In fact, I saw that if you learn to be a strong swimmer, it doesn’t really matter how deep the water gets.
Although this was not a study course, there was a simple program of steps described in one book, two-thirds of which is made up of the stories of people who are dealing with the same kinds of struggles the members of the group talked about. The stories were about how God was helping them to trust enough to allow them to let the group help them to swim through deep water situations.
As I thought about what I might say about my own situation, I realized that I needed to learn to trust the group before I could learn this kind of swimming. And I realized that talking about weakness and failure out loud took great strength and courage in a society in which many of us had focused on cars, houses, clothes, cosmetic surgery and super deeds to try to appear to be more successful, beautiful and adequate than we really are.
As I sat there listening to these men sharing their guts, I remembered I remembered a time many years ago when I was teaching some little kids how to swim. This one young boy wouldn’t even put his face in the water although I was holding him up. After I gave him a pep talk about how “you can do it!” he still was too scared to put his face in the water. After many sessions, I was about to give up, but then I had an idea. I told him that if he would relax in the water, the water would hold him up, and he would not sink. I added that I had had trouble believing this until I tried it.
Finally I said that at first I would have my hand under him to hold him up. Then I’d slowly lower my hand down just about an inch below his tummy so I could catch him if he began to sink. He asked me again and again to tell him what I would do if he started sinking. Finally, I think his curiosity must have become a little stronger than his great fear, because he took a deep breath and tentatively stretched out face down on the water, trying to relax on my hand beneath him on his stomach. When he had floated for a few seconds, he came up sputtering, and grinning from ear to ear. The next session he began learning to swim. And all the other fearful little boys I taught that summer began to catch on, too after they first learned that the water they were in would support them.
And in the same way, as a new person in the group, I had to learn to trust that the water (group) I’d stepped into would support me so I wouldn’t drown. I kept attending the meeting, and when I could finally trust enough to risk trying to live a whole new kind of life, that was when I could listen to the message of grace about how God would really forgive even me, a man who had failed and hurt so many people. And I began to learn to live a life of facing my problems honestly as they come up so I could swim through the deep water that all my friends in the group are swimming in—ready to hold out a hand if I start drowning again.
But if the scene of the real action of honest, loving and non-judgmental spiritual groups is evidently inside each person’s mind, then how can we learn how to keep learning, growing and facing new problems that happen in all lives and relationships? Well, when this kind of group meets, every person brings his or her new inner failure, and shares how the experience, strength and hope he or she is learning about helps the person to quit thrashing and start swimming again. And before my eyes every week I see how God continues to work in our lives behind the scenes in our personal experience.
And if my twenty-five years is in any sense the experience of others, then I can tell you that wherever you go (these meetings have sprung up all over the world) and whatever happens to you even in countries where you do not speak the local language, you will never have to be alone again!
Lord, thank you that your Kingdom or Reign in people’s lives is broader and deeper than I had even imagined—even after many years trying to learn all about you. Thank you that you came to turn our lives right side up—and then to invite us as we struggle to keep our heads above water to let you teach us how to swim with you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
“But me he caught—reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning. They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me. He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!” – 2 Samuel 22:19-20, The Message
***
“You’re blessed when you are at the end of your rope. Because then there is more of God and less of you.” – Matthew 5:3, The Message
***
“Sometimes God calms the storm. At other times, he calms the sailor. And sometimes he makes us swim.” – Author Unknown
***
“The water is your friend…..you don’t have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move”. – Alexandr Popov, Russian former Olympic gold-winning swimmer, widely regarded as one of the greatest sprint, freestyle swimmers of all time.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, you write a lot about how a certain kind of small group has helped you learn how to face and deal with real temptations, fears, inadequacies and other painful areas of living. How can you do that? I’m afraid to trust other people enough to be honest about my real stuff for fear they will reject me or shame me for being like I am. But I’m not happy and life is getting a little out of control. No one is happy with me—including me. And I feel like I’m over my head and sinking somehow.
Thanks for your honesty. I had to feel like my relationships were bad and I couldn’t see my way out before I’d risk a group where people were being honest about real problems they were having.
When you ask what these groups provide spiritually that helps me the most in my own spiritual growth, the word that popped into my mind was “oxygen.” Why “oxygen,” I wondered? A picture flashed into my mind from more than fifty years ago. I was in a commercial diving boat off the coast of Acapulco, Mexico, going out for my first diving experience, using oxygen tanks. The night before I had ingested too much hot Mexican food and probably too much tequila (this was before I quit drinking 25 years ago). I had gotten sick and thrown up intermittently most of the night. But since we had paid a lot of money up front for our share of the boat, instruction crew, and equipment, I was determined to go out anyway, even thought I was very queasy.
As I recall, the crew didn’t speak much English, so I couldn’t tell them about my queasy stomach, etc. (Only those who have experienced such behavior and consequences will understand my concern about getting into deep water and “losing” my oxygen mouthpiece.) But not wanting to appear to be afraid—which I was—I tried to look cool as I watched them demonstrate how to use the diving equipment.
A couple of the first-time divers went over the side first and disappeared. As my turn came, I was filled with mixed feelings. I did not want anyone to know how afraid I was that I’d get down twenty plus feet and somehow my oxygen mouthpiece would pop out or malfunction—or I’d barf it out and drown. But I was more afraid that the other guys in our group would know that I was that afraid.
The man in front of me went over the side. After only a few seconds he surfaced, choking as if he were dying and hurling salt water out of his lungs through his mouth and nose. After they’d dragged him out, it was my turn. Looking as cool as I could, I went over—and down, down, down into the water—filled with fear of what to do if I lost my oxygen. But to my surprise, it was beautiful down there. I was fascinated with the schools of brightly colored fish darting around me. Then I saw a man lose his oxygen mouthpiece. Immediately one of the professionals took a deep breath of oxygen, then took his own oxygen mouthpiece out, stuck it in the troubled diver’s mouth, and they both surfaced up the rope slowly and easily. And suddenly I was free to enjoy the beauty of a whole other world. I felt safe because I knew that other people in that world would know how to keep me from drowning if I needed help.
I’d forgotten that experience of fifty years ago until your question came up. When I first started meeting with ten of my male friends, I was very afraid of what would happen to me if I went too deep inside myself and found something I’d have to share that might cause me to be rejected or drown in shame. But as I saw these men, particularly in men’s groups, going over the side of their boats and sharing more deeply than I would go, I was amazed at their honest reporting of things they had been or done that were hurtful to the people they loved, or were immoral or unethical. And there was no judgment or rejection, just understanding and identification.
And when over the weeks and months I saw the hope and joy they experienced as they reported actually making amends with family members, business associates and friends, I got the courage to go deeper inside myself, behind my façade of adequacy. And by doing so I experienced a new freedom and understood a little about what James is reported as saying, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healthy.” (James 5:16, The Message).
When I do lose my breath and/or get deeper than I can handle, someone else usually hands me his oxygen connection—in the form of his own similar experience—so I can spiritually catch my breath and come safely back to the surface. This has made it possible for me to look around and see the wonder and beauty of a world in which I’d almost been afraid to open my eyes. And perhaps the best thing about these groups is that when I am away from them and feel the fear that I am going to drown, I can signal one of them by phone and he will reconnect me to our common source of oxygen and guide me back to the surface.
After years of resisting any group like this (that wasn’t being monitored by a psychological counselor or psychiatrist) I discovered that this kind of open, mutual sharing in a safe atmosphere (like that of a Twelve-Step group) is the best practical way I’ve found to move into spiritual transformation from a fearful, compulsive and protective hidden life of inner isolation and denial to a life of learning how to give and receive love without the terrible fear of rejection or being shamed.
This way may not be right for you but in this blog, I am simply holding out my oxygen mouthpiece and saying welcome to the world of “breathing under water.”
***
Lord, thank you for your willingness to go over the side first and for your willingness to get back in the water with those of us who are often trying to look like fearless grown up divers—who are really scared little children inside when we find ourselves in such deep water that we can’t see the sky. Thanks for offering us your oxygen tank if that’s what it takes. In Jesus’ name, amen.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:3, RSV)
“Are you hurting? Pray… Make this your common practice. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so you can live together whole and healed.” (James 5:16, The Message)
On protecting ourselves and our reputations:
“If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.” (Mt. 10:38, The Message)
Note: It occurred to me after I wrote this post that Richard Rohr has written a book with a similar title. I have not read the book so any similarities are merely coincidence.
