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I am a pastor and a clinical psychotherapist. My life's passion is defining healthiness from a human perspective and paralleling it to the holiness of God, divine perspective. Shifting perspectives creates a paradigm that is alongside of rather than over and against. The parakalein of God and the paradoxes of humanity are redefined. Humanity is all about winning and yet we are losing ground everywhere. Divinity is all about letting go of the desire to win and the fear of loss. The Divine embraces the world with loving care regardless of anything.

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Forget the Church, Follow Jesus an article in Newsweek, April 9, 2012

Posted by Don Paine



Soren Kierkegaard said,
"to know the truth and not be the truth is to embellish that very truth with error."

Andrew Sullivan.s article "Forget the Church Follow Jesus" is a timely challenge to the church to be the church?  The hope of the Church and the hope for the church is to embody the message not to teach the truth but to be the truth.  To do so the church will have to humble itself and say to the world collectively that our agendas and conditions have distorted the message please forgive us.  In the tradition of Jesus we would open our heart to the anger and hurt of the masses to heal the heart and transform the arrows of death to the aura of life.

The Jesus way is the way, the truth and the life not narrowly defined by a few but broadly defined by the one and only way.  I used to believe that Jesus was the way in a particular and exclusive way but I now know that the Jesus way is all inclusive and non-intrusive.  Briefly defined the Jesus way that is the only way to God is the way of love and peace, of serenity and surrender, and of transformational not substitutionary atonement.  The way of Jesus is the way of honor and honorableness of all true followers of Jesus whether they name him in their religion or not, the truth of Jesus is the truth that is fully honest and full of truthfulness of Thomas Jefferson, and the life of Jesus is the life that embraces the humility and righteousness of Francis of Assisi.

I love and accept the challenge of Andrew Sullivan to "follow Jesus".  The Jesus way is not the way of any particular church, temple, synagogue, mosque, or any place that holds out love and peace to the world.  The way of Jesus is not about theology or ecclesiology.  The Jesus way is to humbly, honorably, and honestly invite all to the well that is everlasting that is within all and for all.

Jesus is not the way, the Way is the way Jesus lived. Many faith traditions and non- faith traditions embrace the Way of Surrender, Serenity, and Surprise.

It is the way of an extravagant welcome that is welcoming of all regardless of anything to the well of love and peace. Surprise!

This is the Jesus I now know.  The Jesus that is in all, for all and alongside all.  God has No favorites just conveys and convenes favor on all for all.  

It is time we present Jesus in an all inclusive non-agenda serving way.  That Is the Jesus Way.

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