Seeing Jesus with Paul Miller

This is the first episode in a new series titled A Praying Church. Bob Allums, Director of seeJesus's A Praying Life Ministry, joins Paul, Jon Hori and Liz Voboril for this series. "In Luke you have the praying Jesus, and in Acts you have the praying church. But over the past 50 years, corporate prayer has been on very significant decline in the American church." "The reason why we pray together is because the beating heart of the church of Jesus Christ is the Spirit of Jesus." "Advent is like the feel of the early stages of the work of the Spirit. It's just pure faith and waiting. You're not doing anything. There's this incredible American "allergy" to advent as a lifestyle. The cadence I've just described is almost unknown – no that would not be right to say - it is lost to the western church. It has been very known in the past, but it is now currently at a low ebb."

This is the fourth and final episode of our Advent series called, "Joy of Every Longing Heart." Liz Voboril and Jon Hori interview Ian Nagata, a missionary in Japan who serves both as an associate pastor and musician. You've heard Ian's music as it opens and closes each podcast episode! "In The Pastor's Kid, Barnabas Piper writes, 'I grew up knowing of Jesus as God and man. I knew all the stories of His life. But it wasn't until I began to understand the depth of Jesus' humanity that I began to love Him truly.' And I think that captures how we know all these different Bible stories, but often have not really entered into the story with our imaginations. Not imagination like reading stuff into the story... but informed imagination, to really draw it out." "It wasn't just rediscovering the gospel again - it was rediscovering the heart of Jesus." "There's a phrase in Japanese that we use here is called 'Kuuki wo yomu' which means 'to read the air' or "'to read the atmosphere.' It's an art form in itself, like when do you say something and when don't you say something? You're reading people's faces and it's like a slight twitch in their eyebrow - what might that mean? What are they trying to communicate? It's so subtle. It's not that Jesus can't read the air, it's just He chooses not to so many times -- that always kind of gets people excited I think."

This is the third episode of our Advent series called, "Joy of Every Longing Heart." Liz Voboril and Jon Hori interview Jill Miller and Felicia Grandinette about their experience with discipling people with special needs. "One day Kim was very frustrated with work—she walks dogs, going from house to house with an aide. She came home fired up, lit up with anger. That morning I was at a Bible study. After Kim got her shoes off, I shared with her really briefly what I had learned that helped me with anger in that study. As soon as I talked to Kim I saw her anger deflate. I had just left my teaching job and I was struck how little people with disability are actually discipled and how they can learn…" "We've limited the soul and the power of learning – the soul is not disabled!" "If there's parents out there you know you're longing for this perfection. I remember I could hardly I could hardly like watch other children that were Kim's age it was just so painful. I like my heart was broken it was such a longing. Over the years – Kim's going to be 38 this month – I've seen that I'm the one that had a heart that needed adjusting. I've really seen how God has created Kim the same way as he's created me for particular purpose. That longing in me has really turned into thanksgiving."

This is the second episode of our Advent series called, "Joy of Every Longing Heart." Liz Voboril and Jon Hori interview Robert Row, seeJesus's Student Ministries Coordinator, and hear more of his story and his heart for junior and senior high school students. "At some point as a church we're going have to look in the mirror and ask the question what have we missed, what in our training has led to what we're seeing [with youth leaving the church]. I'm deeply convicted that part of that is that we've given them lots of truth – which we all wholeheartedly agree with – but we've missed giving them a love to fall in love with: the Person of Truth." "The study of the person of Jesus has just riveted and changed my life." "I see [students] starting to contemplate who this person really is. Most of their church lives they've known the 72-hour Jesus -- his cross and resurrection -- but they haven't really known him as a person."

Today we begin a new series for advent, titled, "Joy of Every Longing Heart." In each episode, Liz Voboril and Jon Hori will interview a different staff member or trainer about how they've seen Jesus and see others seeing Jesus. We start with an interview with Laura McCaulley, seeJesus's Central Florida Trainer. "I remember sitting on the back patio and thinking I was just showing up for a regular Bible study. I did not expect my curiosity would be engaged the way that it was. I remember the lesson asked 'Can you think of any non-spiritual reason that Jesus might have for wanting to give the disciples some fish?' I thought to myself, 'Do I have permission to think about Jesus in any non-spiritual category?'" "The questions invited me to bring my imagination to a God that I thought I knew... but perhaps didn't know as well as I thought." "I said, 'I am making Christmas happen here at this house. If I weren't doing all of these things we would not be having Christmas!' So, as you might imagine, while I sat in the worship service that night I had some major repentance... what happened to me on that Christmas Eve was recognizing how I had inflated my own importance and the importance of my efforts to bring about a perfect Christmas."

This episode is the fourth and final in our mini-series on Leadership. "One of my primary tax tasks as a leader is to create foster and encourage a praying community and then my second task is to be a praying leader myself." "The heart of it is not the discipline of praying but the awareness that the spirit of Jesus sits at the center of all Jesus' work." "There's a big difference between the idea of having a leader standing in the middle of a circle holding a big torch and everyone looking to that person for direction and the idea that we all gather around this big bonfire of the Spirit including the leader.... for everyone to look at the leader creates dependence. The leader is eventually going to die or retire. So to gather around this "campfire" of the Spirit creates enormous future confidence. As a leader, you're binding people to something that's so much better than you. I see myself then very self-consciously as the friend of the bridegroom."

This episode is the third in a mini-series on Leadership. "I love the older term 'missionary order' because that it conveys a sense of calling and ordering. There's a long tradition going back to the earliest monasteries in the late Roman era of having an actual written document that defines what your community is like." "Every community has weeds, and weeds are a problem, but often the bigger problem is how we handle those weeds." "The New Testament says very little about leadership… it is much more concerned with the two basic thrusts which are faith and love—believing in Jesus and becoming like Jesus. If those are working in the community then the community will even begin to help or shape an immature leader and vice versa."

This episode is the second in a mini-series on Leadership. "One of the proverbs that is just drilled in my heart is Proverbs 27:23, 'Give attention to your flock.' Solomon says pay attention your flock because riches do not last forever. Organizations of any size get complacent - they just do... It's easy to not take the time to tend your garden." "The hardest garden to attend as a leader is guarding your own heart." "A lot of my work is to watch people and I just hunt for where they thrive and try to get them where they're thriving. No no one is is good everywhere; where someone's thriving you just have less weeds."

This episode is the first in a mini-series on Leadership. "To concentrate on where something's not working is a dying because no one likes to stare at failure. But I find that kind of dying produces the spirit's life." "I remember being physically sick at the thought of disappearing but that's how the Kingdom works." "It's the people working in IT, the hairstylists and moms who are friends with their neighbors—that's where the cutting edge of the church is. You disappear so that other people can come up. You can't equip the church if you are the center."

This episode is the seventh in a series called "Forming a J-Curve Community," based on Part 5 of Paul's book, J-Curve: Dying and Rising with Jesus in Everyday Life. "All of God's principles aren't enough—God needs to be at the center of his principles. What does that look like? That's the Spirit." "I've got this map, and I've got my goal on my journey, but I need the guide." "I'm at the edge of the story. I'm self-consciously realizing that I'm not in charge of the story. It might look like it on paper, but I know in fact that I'm at the edge. It's like I'm body-surfing and waiting I'm for a wave to catch. I know I can't create the wave, and I need for a wave to come."