A Case for Journey by Rocky Fleming
“An Atmosphere of Relationships is an Arena for Change.”
My son, who is a pastor in Charlotte, NC shared the above quote from a Christian school his son attends. The school was founded to help troubled teens, and my grandson is one. However, we’ve seen tremendous improvement in him, and we are hopeful that it puts him on a different trajectory going forward. I believe the quote speaks of the mission and practice of his school, and it is producing good results.
As I heard this quote from my son, I began to think of a broader application than the school that created it, for I believe it also speaks to the heart of a Journey Group. What is the heart of a typical Journey Group? It is about creating an environment of relationships that is vertically oriented toward building a deeper, abiding relationship with Christ. A Journey Group, if it follows the original DNA of the process, will become an atmosphere of relationships that will create an arena where life change occurs. Some people who do not understand the fruit-producing aspect of abiding with Christ question whether we can build strong relationships with each other where life change can occur if our priority is so focused on Christ. “After all,” they question, “Don’t people need people to help them change?” My answer is yes, when the Spirit forms those people around us and we help each other Journey together. He will use people to encourage, comfort, exhort and challenge us to live closer to Christ where true life change occurs, provided they are finding the same. Otherwise, it becomes just another theory-born effort where the blind is leading the blind.
I mentioned the “fruit-producing aspect” of abiding in Christ. I’ve discovered that when we abide in Christ, as mentioned in John 15, the most visible and remarkable changes that occur in our life are in our immediate relationships. When a husband and wife abide in Christ, the most visible and immediate fruit begins to show in their relationship with each other, and it verifies that an atmosphere where Christ is the center will produce an arena of change. I’ve also discovered that a healthy Journey Group that moves us to a closer emotional proximity with Christ, also moves us toward a closer emotional proximity with each other. In other words, His love begins to flow to us and through us to each other. I say often that a horizontally focused group rather than a vertically focused group will, at best, only create a friendship. However, a group’s vertical focus on Christ can produce a covenant relationship, which will last a lifetime. This is a promised fruit that Jesus speaks of.
The last twenty years we’ve seen an outward expansion of this ministry in ways that we could never have envisioned. But what is easy to recognize is how the outward expansion has always been connected by people to people who had some kind of relationship with each other. In ways it has been a spiritual virus that has “infected” people who know people, as the Spirit of God has carried His message of abiding in Him to others. What we’ve been part as a ministry is an organism that is flowing and absorbing and expanding and capturing hearts, and these people become messengers. I believe the Lord’s hand is on us because we give Him plenty of space for Him to work our relationship with Him to the surface of our life, and the promised fruit is showing itself. We also believe the most essential aspect that keeps His hand on us is the fact that it is about Him. It is about our relationship with Him. It is our intimate, abiding relationship with Him that changes our life and infects our world with His presence. This is the key. It is the heart and soul of what we do and the way we do it.
For years now I’ve encouraged other ministries to listen to what we’ve discovered about vertical orientation, and if they will adopt it into whatever form they use to minister to people, they will see true disciples being raised up. I wrote a book a few years ago called Proximity, which was primarily written to ministry leaders to help them understand the purity of simply getting people to an intimate, abiding relationship with Christ, and how it expands and grows into lives who touch other lives. It grows a ministry deep and wide, for its growth is anointed by the ONE who inspires it. But it has to be real in the leader’s life, and not just another clever way to lead with theory rather than experience. I believe the most important indicator of a true disciple of Christ, including our leaders, is his or her soul health. It is not the busy activity that we often judge people by. It is not the obvious attractive appearances, for there are many ways to hide the truth of how damaged, or hurting, or deceitful our soul is. Just think of the ministry leaders who have fallen, revealing a secret life that is so contrary to their public image. Character, however, shows itself when up close and personal. It is those people closest to us that can speak for or against our character, and if we are hoping to lead other people to a place where life change occurs, we must go as one as needy as the ones we lead. It is there that we become a reflection of Christ’s character, and if His characteristics are not showing in a leader’s life, then we should not follow this person.
As the Body of Christ, our mission is to bring glory to God by the way we live our lives, and to share Him as He reshapes us into credible messengers. This work goes on within us before it reaches to the surface of our life. The work is within us first, and it goes from there.