As part of my day job, I lead a weekly staff meeting. Nine of us who spend our time supporting the people who call themselves Grabill Missionary Church. We mostly have the title ‘pastor.’

At these meetings,  we talk about what’s happening in our lives, what’s happening in our areas of responsibility. We like and respect each other. The meetings are good.

Except for my opening question.

I ask things like “what song best describes how you are doing this week.” This week I asked “What is the most recent thing you learned how to do?” I asked that because I had spent the week learning how to use new video editing software. I was at the limits of my old software and realized that we would all benefit from me having something less frustrating and more stable. For all the upside of the switch, however, the process of learning while in the middle of producing a couple of  short projects was pretty draining.

Everyone talked about learning. Often about technology. Often about the frustrations of learning new technology. Most of us on staff are not IT people. We are people people. (They all are anyway. I’m more of an IT person. I don’t really like people. But don’t tell anyone. Please.)

After everyone talked about how it feels to feel trapped by what is so easy for the tech people but so paralyzing for normal people, I said, “That’s what it’s like for most of the people we talk to about church stuff and God stuff.”

“Having a problem? Just pray,” we say.

“But how do I just pray, ” someone asks.

“You just talk to God.” we say.

“But what if I do and I don’t hear anything?”

“Just read the Bible.”

“But where do I start?”

“I dunno.”

—

I was privileged to guest write for Jonny Rose on Sunday: I blog on a Sunday.

This list started last week in “The recipe that isn’t.”

1. Jesus often helps you with the conversation.

2. Jesus loves you more than you hate yourself.

3. Jesus challenges just about every attempt to routinize religion. Or, better, to routinize a relationship with him into religion.

4. Jesus does make demands. But not the ones that we impose on ourselves. Happens all the time. People say, “I shouldn’t say that in church.” “I couldn’t say that to God.” And I say, “Why not?” We filter ourselves by demanding that we talk the way we think God would want us to talk. But let him decide what he wants us to do.

5. Jesus is more like mystery than a puzzle. (This image is from Gregory Treverton who is an intelligence analyst, not a theologian.) A puzzle just needs the right number of pieces to make sense. The focus is on finding pieces. A mystery can’t be solved, can’t be all put together. People are mysteries. Relationship is a mystery. Not a puzzle.

6. Jesus will take the washcloth out of your hand. I want to clean up my own messes. Every time, I make it worse. Rather than a washcloth, I sometimes need a powerwasher. Or a toothbrush. Or spit. When healing, Jesus once used spit. When serving, he used a towel. Once, he even used blood. So don’t be surprised when he doesn’t take your cleaning recommendation.

7. Jesus keeps promises, but only the ones he makes. Not the ones I make for him. You know how when you are with someone and the two of you decide something and you start doing it and the other person isn’t? And you realized that the two didn’t decide. You did? Like that.

8. Jesus…

Wait. You write this one. What have you learned about talking with Jesus?

I was talking with a friend about following Jesus. My friend, like many of us, like me, would find a formula helpful. It would be great to have 3 steps or 5 levels or 12 magic words.

But recipes don’t seem to work with Jesus. My friend reminded me of the opening chapter of Searching for God Knows What, where Donald Miller says,

“To be honest … I don’t know how much I like the idea of my spirituality being relational … the formulas seem much better than God because the formulas offer control; and God, well, he is like a person and people, as we all know, are complicated. The trouble with people is that they do not always do what you tell them to do.”

I thought about this idea of no formulas, and of God as a person. I realized that though I can’t offer formulas, I can offer something else. I can suggest what to expect in conversation with God.

This is what you would do, right, if a friend of yours was wanting to meet another friend of yours who is a person of some authority? You’d offer some character insights?

So, here are a couple thoughts.

1. Jesus often helps you with the conversation. “What do you want?” is what he asked a couple disciples who came to him in a referral from John. Not meanly, but invitingly.

2. Jesus loves you more than you hate yourself. Our self-loathing gets in the way of conversations at times. We assume that people won’t want to talk to us. But Jesus seems pretty willing to talk with people who didn’t have things together.

I’ll keep going next week, starting with these:

3. Jesus challenges just about every attempt to routinize religion.

4. Jesus does make demands. But not the ones that we impose on ourselves.

—

300 Words A Day – Kindle edition