Psalm 27 ends with the admonition to “wait patiently for the Lord, be brave and courageous, yes, wait patiently on the Lord.”

What does that mean?

I normally don’t associate patience and waiting with much bravery.  How brave do you have to be to just sit there?  I suppose it depends on where you are sitting.

The Psalmist makes it clear that he is surrounded by trouble in the land of the living.  That there is no earth on place to remain safe except in God’s holy sanctuary.  So he sits and waits, with everything crashing in around him – with the enemies assailing the front door, he meditates.  “The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?  …Even when I am attacked, I will remain confident.”

What really caught me was what came next in the Psalm: “Hear me as I pray O Lord.  Be merciful and answer me!  My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’  And my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming.’” (v 7-8)

So much to consider and meditate on there.  The Psalmist is begging God to listen as he pleads for safety, and there is more than enough trouble to focus on.  But somehow he is able to quiet his mind, and heart in order to stopping running around protecting himself, and begin asking God to intervene.

In that space of stillness, with the enemy at the door of this space of peace, God is able to be heard: “Come and talk with me.”  An invitation.  A momentary returning to the garden where man and God may take a stroll together in the soft morning light.  Where all can be confessed, souls laid bare, tender words spoken, peace offered – between creation and Creator.  This is what the Psalmist desires “more than anything” (v 4) – “to delight in the Lord’s perfections and to meditate in his Temple.”

This Psalm is encouraging in that it gives hope to those of us being crushed on every side – with pressures from work, family, finances, and perhaps most of all – the very expectations we have of ourselves.  There are enemies at your gates.  They have surrounded the city and are attacking the sanctuary of your heart.  Is it possible that you have even joined their ranks?  That you have so many stresses and ticking time bombs in your world that it is simply easier or more fashionable in this world to join the cause of your own destruction that to fight back for your sanity and for the divine relationship you share with God?

Your life is in danger, yet you have a choice: run around gathering swords and weapons to fight back in your own exhausted strength, or quiet yourself, and call out to the Lord.  Hear him inviting you to “come and talk,” remembering that just as important as God’s invitation is your response.  Will you be able to courageously wait?

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*Want to learn more about a powerful practice in hearing God’s voice?  Click here.

Interesting video (above), eh?

Each tribe in America has certain taboos that make them cry out to their constituents, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” ([youversion] Col. 3:21-23 [/youversion]) For liberals, its gluten, genetically modified foods, gas guzzling cars, and the like. Just try to order a steak at a vegetarian restaurant, and see the looks you get! Its amazing how many pious rules and regulations health-conscious have set up for their own personal quarantine. For conservatives, they make no mistake about it – personal ethics like curse words, drinking alcohol, or voting for big government policies. Doing these things or involving yourself with people who do will keep you out of the “inner circles” of the Tribe.

There are literally thousands of other tribes out there with the same spoken or unspoken boundaries on what they are willing for you to accept. Sports tribes, politics tribes, business tribes, family tribes, etc.

When you cross that border, you are no longer considered clean by your tribe. You “are off the deep end” and they now consider you an outsider.

Paul makes the case that in Christ, and in the Christ-Tribe, we are no longer to condemn (or be condemned) with such rules. There may be other benefit in driving a Prius, but your association with Christ is not made or broken on that. More importantly, following all these rules will get you no closer to the real problem – the evil and divine “ME” in all of us. Only Christ can set you free from your selfish desires. You are in his family – and as such you are set free from the bondage of worldly constraints. In a very real way, you have already died – and the limitations of an earthly life no longer apply to you. Now your life is brand new, and following Christ is the only path out of self-centeredness and into resurrected life.

It is no secret that this is the most neglected and forgotten layer in the Church.

It is also in this layer that lies the secret to everything – the pathway to a spiritually vibrant community life.

In the first layer we considered the power of a life centered on God.  While the Christian walk is never private, it is inherently personal; inviting each heart to pay attention to the love and power of God in their life.  Learning to cultivate a unique, organic relationship with the Divine is what produces the unyielding stream of life that Jesus promises in [youversion] John 4 [/youversion].

As John Donne has aptly stated, “No man, is an island.”  We cannot thrive as humans while separated from others.  Nevertheless, there is a neglect of the Micro Layer, especially in the West, where individualism and mass corporatism reign supreme.  We are a highly narcissistic bunch, and unfortunately, this makes truly engaging the lives of one or two others very difficult, if not impossible.  We want it to be “all about me” making “empathy,” “teamwork,” and “community” good ideas only…but ones that are never realized.

Generally speaking, the Church in the West has only a tacit awareness of the Micro Layer – the communities of two or three.  Accountability groups became for many nothing more than sin-management sessions, and Catholic priestly confession took an important habit of the early church and distorted it, setting up an actual one-way wall that only invited one-way confessions.  In contrast, I believe that we are all priests, and we are all confessors. [youversion] 1 Peter 2:9 [/youversion]

Much of the burden of  spiritual formation has been left up to two people in the Western Church: the first is the pastor, who does what one can to spiritually nurture a crowd once a week, and second, the loner Christian whose spiritual life and struggles are not to be shared with anyone else for fear of rejection from the group.  This becomes particularly toxic when the pastor takes his own spiritual formation as privately as the rest of us – which results in many of the clergy scandals we’ve seen in the news of late.

But a quick skim through the relationships found in the Scriptures shows a different life.  David and Jonathan didn’t have the private-life reservations we Americans hold today.  They knew that life was best lived with a friend at your side.  Jonathan even made a vow of brotherhood to David in covenantal friendship, [youversion]1 Sam 18:3-4[/youversion].  Or what about Moses and Aaron – learning to lean on each others’ strengths to fulfill the will of God that bound them together for life.  Or Paul and Barnabas, who relied on each other to earn the trust of Jewish Christians and Gentile skeptics for the sake of the Gospel.  Or Peter, James and John – Jesus’ tight knit band of brothers.  That’s what we need – we need a band of brothers.

We need a fellowship of the heart that will fight for each other.  To be a place of sanctuary for another’s heart where they can feel safe to ask tough questions without fear of rejection, mutually confess sin, and realize dreams they could never achieve on their own.  Where the challenge of discipleship can be lived out on a practical level and practice the teachings of Jesus.  It is in the Micro Layer that we first experience God’s Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven…the hard work of peace-making, reconciliation, and loving/ serving/ submitting/ praying for one another.

It takes a church to raise a Christian.

This is the smallest unit of church – where the core elements of the Church’s DNA are first expressed: Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships, and Aposotlic Mission.  I think of the Micro Layer as the most important part of the church.

Like leaves on a tree – they may be the weakest part of the organism, but leaves are where light enters in, and collectively they keep the tree healthy and strong.  If a tree has a strong trunk, but no healthy leaves, we assume the tree is sick and dying.  The same is true for a church – the massive worship gatherings may be strengthening to the church, but if marriages, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and soul friends throughout the crowd are not connecting with each other and inviting God to speak to them, there is something very sick about the church.  This is the power of the Micro Layer.

Why do so many avoid the Micro Layer?  Because it is easier to keep our masks on and hide in our shadows.  But the benefits of community ([youversion] Eccl 4:9-12 [/youversion]), accountability ([youversion] 1 Tim 5:19 [/youversion]), confession ([youversion] Matt 18:15-17 [/youversion]), flexibility ([youversion] Matt 18:20 [/youversion]), and especially reproducibility ([youversion] 2 Tim 2:2 [/youversion]) bring transformation to every child of God.

The Micro Layer is the “on ramp” for each disciple into living the abundant life Jesus promised and the earliest Christians experienced.

I’ve observed that many, when they realize this piece of their spiritual life is lacking, quickly get frustrated because there is no program to join or curriculum to follow.  At the micro level, there are only simple structures.  Below are a few examples of the Micro Layer in action:

• Life Transformation Groups – our organic church network attempts to make LTG’s a community practice.  It involves a same-gender group of 2-3 reading lots of God’s Word (25-30 chapters a week), confessing sin to each other while speaking forgiveness over each other, and praying for the lost.  The DNA of the Church in its most raw form.
• CO2’s – or “church of two.” In addition to LTG’s we are pushing marriages and families to take on the task of being the church together in a daily way.  It means listening to our hearts and sharing them honestly with one other person.  Using the tool of SASHET and VIRKLER we are “listening attentively to my heart, your heart and God’s heart.”
• Read up on the Anamchara from 6th Century Celtic Christians in Soul Friend.
• Read the Shack, and consider the “Micro Layer” found in the Trinity!
• Check out Centered by my friend and mentor Kent Smith.

Why would Jesus send his 70 disciples out to share his gospel in pairs?  Couldn’t he have spread his message further with 70 individuals rather than 35 pairs?  I think his decision reveals God’s desire for a the human heart – to have a companion for the journey.  Whether its Adam and Eve, Paul and Timothy, or you and me, as soon as one disciple of Christ joins another, they become an “incarnate capsule of the Kingdom,” “Jesus with skin on,” displaying the glory of God through redemptive relationship.

Imagine what would be different about the Church if everyone was in a covenant friendship with just one other Christian.  Just imagine…it would change the world.  The Micro Layer may be the hardest to find, and the hardest to keep – but for those who seek it – there is no doubt they will find it.  And lives will be transformed.