Trying It On
So, anyway, here’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. How do these truths of grace and identity and humility and trust, and received love, and safety and permission and protection and vulnerability and so on and so forth…how do they really get transferred?
We’ve got a DVD and CD entitled something like “The 2 Roads Talk.” It’s a fairly revolutionary message for folk who’ve grown up in environments of performance or young people who are discovering their own faith. And just about anybody else.
We’ve heard from dozens and dozens of friends who say something similar to this: “I’ve listened to that CD 30 times. I’ve read TrueFaced over and over, underlining it in highlighter. You can read my copy at night, it’s so fluorescent with yellow.”
There is something so different in these truths than the message we’re used to hearing that it’s like we’re having to retrain our thinking and way of seeing. So we just keep absorbing any shred we can get that seems to bring us the hope of living out of our new identity and grace. It’s not a new message, but a largely hidden message.
But I wonder if the very staying power of this message is found not just in the information or inspiration, but in actually just trying on these truths. Experiencing the risky promises of grace and identity. Seeing if they hold, or if we must return to something less.
For 23 years I’ve been consistently preaching these messages in the same church, to many of the same people. For 30 years they’ve also been getting Bill Thrall. Bill freaking Thrall! He’s like the czar of these truths for this generation. He’s the man. He’s like Shaft! You’d think our church would have this stuff perfected. But some still, after all this time, understand these truths only in their head. After awhile it almost becomes untenable to keep hearing these truths, watch it impact others and not have it change you.
The only distinguishing factor of who begins to “get” these truths appears to be a willingness to risk trying out this outrageous way of life in community.
These are not add-on truths, they are not another Bible study to pile on top of the last 10 new 7-step-programs-to-whatever. They are a way of life, the grid, the paradigm, the unifying voice of God’s intention for His children.
Many come away from TrueFaced saying, “I liked the thing about masks,” or “that forgiveness chapter was helpful.” For many of them, these truths are simply part of the smorgasbord of random “God stuff.” Then onto the next study, perhaps from an author stuck in the “Room of Good Intentions.” It all blurs together.
Something vitally different happened to those who are now being used to shepherd and revitalize cultures with these truths, in families, churches, business, countries and friendships. Their world got rocked. They came undone. They saw God’s heart differently. They saw how we could live together differently. They saw how they could see themselves differently. And now they can’t go back. They are desperate to experience these truths and waste not one day longer in something less. They are the ones who call to say they’re going to move in with us, until they figure this stuff out. They are the ones who are begging us for the next tool, materials, book or codified principles. They are the ones bribing us to come speak to their home group, imagining there must be 500 of us, in a warehouse somewhere, all highly trained professionals, just waiting to be asked to go to Muncie, Indiana, or Weber Falls, Idaho.
Eventually, frustrated with our limited ability to accommodate their needs, they give up on us…and, out of desperation, begin to bumble through trying to figure out such a fledgling environment of grace. They take as many tools with them as they can find and then they just wing it. No professionals, no authors nearby. Just fragile, hungry men and women, who God is well pleased to teach, enable and release. They will say it differently, stress different points, botch it up, hurt each other, stumble and goof it up. And slowly, imperfectly, erratically, imprecisely, but beautifully, they get to witness an environment of grace being birthed and matured.
No notes that we get are more rewarding than to hear of those groups who finally tried it on, who are now in so deep they can’t, won’t turn around. They are the ones God is using to turn the Church upside down. They are the ones who are recovering God’s message of grace. They are the ones whose marriages are being restored, whose lives are becoming free, whose children are living winsomely in Christ dependence, without religion’s double lives.
We’re gonna keep pumping out new ways to say these eternal truths. We’re gonna keep convening conferences, banging out books, coming to a town near you. It’s who we are. It’s what God’s given us to do. But at the end of the day, each of us learned this not only by a tidy well-divided notebook, but by daring to try it out. People like you and I. And not a “professional” in sight.
…so when are y’all going to be courageous enough to come to the Denver area to “try it out” with some new audiences you’ve not been in front of before?
…masks, at this altitude, are, in some ways even harder to drop and leave behind
…or…how do you release others to share the same message, for it is sorely needed here between 4,000′ and 11,000′
…so…sea level, or any level, keep going, and know I thank God for you and your whole team
…and am still warmed by the time this past Monday with you and your remarkable lady!!!
I think the hardest part is that it’s not a “program.” I mean, that’s what makes it fundamentally different than just another approach, but it’s the hardest part because it’s programs and structures and lists that make us feel safe.
Hence the difficulty of finding a place that, corporately, is taking the boldest step of trying it on as a community. In too many crowds, the full extent of God’s grace is just too dangerous to unleash.
It seems, in my particular place & time in life, that the best I can do is keep klutzing through it in my family and surroundings. It’s hard to find places, but there are pockets of people everywhere who are doing it. They might not use the same terms and whatnot, but grace is grace. That’s the good part.
I like to think of it as benevolent subversion–doing this life from within some other structure. Makes me feel a little rebellious, like I’m sticking it to the man in my own little way. Yee-haw.
Thanks John for the encouragement.
Your ministry shared at our Mission (Ripe for Harvest) 2 1/2 years ago.
I have been trying for 2 years to have one of my Pastors come to our home to hear this message. I wanted to “be there when God spoke to him” after many disappointments I released it into his hands last Wed and now I await our meeting back together in two weeks to hear how he was touched and if he would “approve” of it’s use for the church’s Home Group Ministry. (I approve of it). We have shared it with several friends from other areas of the country and they all are “trying it on”. Could you send me some info on the conference in Atlanta in Jan.? I have watched the DVD numerous times and find exactly as you say truths grab in different areas each time. We are waiting on God’s timing to make a move to NH and begin sharing the gospel message there. I want to “try it on” more. Thanks again
For many years I literally collected masks – porcelain ones which hung on my wall. When I realized that said more about me as a lost child of God than about my decor, I literally threw them all away. Living out who I am in Christ for all the world to see, warts and all, is incredibly freeing and incredibly scary, but SO worth it! I keep telling people the truths about TrueFaced living…and watching as they slowly “try it on” for themselves. One person at a time, just as the Kingdom grows. Casting my net with yours, Suz
“They are the ones who are recovering God’s message of grace. They are the ones whose marriages are being restored, whose lives are becoming free, whose children are living winsomely in Christ dependence, without religion’s double lives.”
This is our ongoing story in the rroom of Grace. Thank you. I am so grateful you are willing to face the challenge of speaking and living this message.
Hey John (from Louise in the deep South). When I live for God and with God and love myself enough to trust God with who I am, I feel so much joy! Things come back to me that I share with groups… Things that Bill or Bruce have said… like… Satan will distract you from your God given purpose with many “worthy” projects… or “don’t invest your life energy in a compromise”. I am learning to live for God FULL OUT. How did I ever do it before? LOVE YOU GUYS. LOVE THE GRACE and POWER. Louise
I think I have been holding back what I really believe to my friends and family on TrueFaced because of the fear that they may not be ‘in love’ with it as I am. No more!! I am committed to living out grace and ’selling’ these truths that are so freeing. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your eagerness to share the message of grace.Prayers for you and Staci. Shirley
I have to warn you that for people who identify with what you have written, the title “Trying it on” is TOTALLY inappropriate. It is like “trying on” a pregnancy or a tattoo. I have warned my family, my friends, my church and everyone else that I have come in contact with for the last three years… I am NEVER (consciously) going back to that other road and that other room. I “BEEN THERE… DONE THAT!”
I used the TrueFaced material with a Small Group at my church. As a result, twelve women have been dramatically changed forever! In fact, stepping into the Room of Grace has been so exciting and freeing that I invited some of my clients (I’m a Registered Counselor) to participate in a TrueFaced group, and six more women have stepped into the Room of Grace with me. Both of these groups are continuing long after we finished the material. We were starving for grace and are greedily crying for MORE! Thank you for your life-changing ministry!