Staying inside doesn’t feel safe anymore, so it’s time for some dangerous business.

A few years ago, a massive wildfire ripped through the town of Paradise, California. It covered and consumed everything in its path at an average rate of a football field every second. If you saw the wall of fire, you had a few seconds before it surrounded you.

I didn’t know any of this when I pulled into the parking lot, already half-full in the middle of the day on a Thursday. The church where I worked was activated as the Red-Cross evacuation site for that fire. I had driven over from the coffee shop where there were a lot of people who had fled the fire to see if I could help at the church.

The first family I walked up to was a couple with their two pet carriers. The woman was on the phone, so I asked the guy if they had checked in? He just looked at me blankly. He was holding his phone in his hand and it was on, but none of the apps were open. He was just this frozen statue. I sat down next to him and asked him if I could do anything to help him. He just stared. I asked if his cats had had any water. He blinked and said that he didn’t think so. I went and got a couple styrofoam bowls from the fellowship hall kitchen, filled them with water and brought them to him. And he looked at me and told me his story.

There was a long pause and then he said, “I think everything I own just burned up in that fire.”

He stared blankly at me.

I remember him blinking, searching my face, waiting for me to speak.

What do you say? He wasn’t wrong. It was just as bad as he thought it was.

I’m sure I said something, but I don’t remember what it was.

Maybe he does. Maybe he’ll always remember the way that pastor talked to him that one time.

I don’t know.

But this is one of those stories, one of those conversations that sticks with you.

In no way do I want to diminish what it is to lose your home, all of your earthly possessions, and for some, loved ones who couldn’t get out. The victims of that fire have had to grieve and rebuild in a way I can only imagine.

But I had no idea how much that fire would change my whole life.

A couple long, grueling weeks into helping the Red-Cross team, the HS made it clear to me that my time at that church was done. Only a handful of months later, we were packing up the moving truck, driving halfway across the country and starting over in our own way.

It would take a few years before the numbness would wane and I could feel the effects of the firestorm that had made Church so difficult for me.

Initially I stepped out of full-time vocational ministry to set out on a “tent-making” season, but instead of making tents like Paul, I could make apps. Just like Paul, however, I wanted to be devoted to preaching.

Make apps. Preach Jesus.

It was a good plan back in the middle of 2019.

I can work on apps anywhere, so I started traveling to speak in churches and chapels, but pretty quickly, 2020 happened. I spoke once in a sanctuary to a camera in an empty room. It was not what I had envisioned. I wasn’t looking to put on a show. I was hoping to be with people.

I was hoping to really be with people and to be real with people.

But that wasn’t happening as the Church was dead set on making sure the show went on while tip-toeing around difficult conversations so as not to make any waves. And there were a lot of difficult conversations in 2020 that didn’t just go away.

So there was less travel, less church, less connection, and less community. It’s weird to write, but I needed this reduction in ways I didn’t understand at first. This was the space where my heart settled down, my mind slowed to a crawl, and I started to process everything that had gone on back in California.

I had no idea how hurt I was and how much those injuries were causing long-lasting issues. Everything really came to the surface during that downtime. Maybe someday I’ll get into all of the unique ways that I was hurt, but I’m not writing this to focus on the specifics of the unhealthy culture in the church where I served.

Every one of us, you and me, your friends and family, the celebrity pastors (who all have their own documentaries) and the victims who suffered because of their selfishness–we all have a unique story that has caused Church to become difficult.

I could go on and on and on about the pain we all have suffered (and if I told some of the juiciest stories, I could probably gather a pretty good crowd of gawkers, but that’s not my goal). There will be appropriate times to share some of those stories, to know that we’re not alone in the pain we have suffered, but I’m fighting my own propensity toward magnifying the hurt to instead direct the tone of this letter toward hope, toward exploring another way.

Church has a distinct meaning for me–a shape in my mind from experience, from tales passed down, from conversations on what it could be, from lament on what it has become, from looking back and dreaming forward–all of it forming a shape I can’t fully articulate.

Church means something for you, too.

For the purpose of this letter, when I refer to Church, it is not a finite shape for me, but it is primarily American, protestant, evangelical, charismatic, experiential and institutional. These may not all seem congruent, but that is precisely the point. If all of my thoughts on the Church don’t fit your view, that’s ok. I would love to hear how it is different for you, especially if it helps us hope. (You can always reply to these, and I hope you do from time to time.)

I’ve spent the last few years, and more intensely these past few months, thinking about the great commission as the genesis of the church. Our King and leader, Jesus, gave us one really great commission with four actions.

Go. Make. Baptize. Teach.

These actions are the movement of the church.

Most of us will go. We have gone, and we’ll do it again. Whether it’s across the world or across the room, we’ve been obedient to the HS in some way to go to people.

Most of us will teach. We have taught, and we’ll do it again. Whether its preaching from a stage, encouraging someone who is hurting, or passing on helpful or interesting things we’ve learned. Pointing people toward the love of God has probably come up from time to time.

But most people who love Jesus have not baptized anyone.

Most people who love Jesus have not made any disciples.

Sit with that for a bit.

For all sorts of reasons I will get into in the letters to come, the Church has professionalized these actions of the great commission, if not the whole thing.

Amateurs sit in the stands and cheer on the pros as they baptize and disciple us.

And as I’ve been reading about making disciples and discussing it with anyone who will engage with me about it, it has become clear that we don’t even really know where the line is.

At what point does someone become a disciple?

How do you know if you are one?

How do you make one?

How do you know that you’ve made one?

At what point in the making process have we fulfilled the great commission?

Is it possible that people are baptized who aren’t even disciples?

How have I spent the better part of 40 years in Church and the work laid out for us by our King and leader is still so fuzzy for me and others who love Jesus?

I’m not going to answer these questions today, but these are the types of questions that have compelled me to explore another way.

In case it helps you find a slice of hope and a leaning toward actually opening and reading these letters as they land in your inbox, I want to share the two primary quotes from Jesus that have helped me settle on using the word another as I describe the Jesus way.

Love for one another is the first facet of another way.

The presence of another Helper is the second facet of another way.

The intersection of these facets is the hopeful direction we are exploring, fully expecting not to keep our feet, curious of where we might be swept off to.

This is another way.

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Much love, friends.

–Kurt