If for all practical purposes we believe that this life is our best shot at happiness, if this is as good as it gets, we will live as desperate, demanding, and eventually despairing men and women. We will place on this world a burden that it was never intended to bear. We will try to find a way to sneak back into the Garden so to speak, and when that fails, as it always does, our hearts fail as well. If truth be told, most of us live as though this life is our only hope.

In his wonderful book The Eclipse of Heaven, A. J. Conyers put it quite simply: "We live in a world no longer under heaven." All the crises of the human soul flow from there. All our addictions and depressions, the rage that simmers just beneath the surface of our Christian facade, and the deadness that characterizes so much of our lives has a common root: We think this is as good as it gets. Take away the hope of arrival and our journey becomes a type of Bataan death march. The best human life is unspeakably sad. Even if we manage to escape some of the bigger tragedies (and few of us do), life rarely matches our expectations. When we do get a taste of what we really long for, it never lasts. Every vacation eventually comes to an end. Friends move away. Our careers don't quite pan out. Sadly, we feel guilty about our disappointment, as though we ought to be more grateful for the short seasons of happiness.

Of course we're disappointed — we're made for so much more. "He has also set eternity in the hearts" (Eccl. 3:11). Our longing for heaven and eternity with God whispers to us in our disappointments and screams through our agony. "If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy," C. S. Lewis wrote, "the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."

Fact is you and I were made for more than this...

Physical contact distinguishes humans from other animals. From a warm handshake or sympathetic hug to a congratulatory pat on the back, we have developed complex languages, cultures, and emotional expression through physical contact. But in a tech-saturated world, non-sexual human touch is in danger of becoming rare, if not obsolete.


Despite the benefits of digital advancement, it is vital to preserve human touch in order for us truly to thrive. Humans become nearly unrecognizable in the absence of touch. Two hundred years ago, French scientists spotted a creature resembling a human running through the forests. Once captured, they determined he was 11 years old and had run wild in the forests for much of his childhood.


Originally the child, "Victor," was determined to have severe developmental disabilities; French physicians and psychiatrists eventually concluded he had been deprived of human physical touch, which had retarded his social and developmental capacities beyond anything they had previously seen.


Daniel Keltner, the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley, cites the work of neuroscientist Edmund Ross, who found that physical touch activates the brain's orbitofrontal cortex, linked to feelings of reward and compassion. Simply stated human touch helps to bond people together.


According to Keltner, "studies show that a simple touch can trigger release of oxytocin, aka 'the love hormone.'" Our skin contains receptors that directly elicit emotional responses, through stimulation of erogenous zones or nerve endings that respond to pain, according to researchers Auvray, Myin, and Spence.


People require human touch to thrive. Keltner says, "In recent years, a wave of studies has documented some incredible emotional and physical health benefits that come from touch. This research is suggesting that touch is truly fundamental to human communication, bonding, and health."


Early on in the fanfare of his public appearances, Jesus gives what has become known as the famous Sermon on the Mount. This is a “big moment” for Jesus. He has laid out in detail his understanding of a life that pleases God; he has, so to speak, driven a stake in the ground and made his declaration that God is still in control.


It is obvious to all that Jesus’ star is ascending, crowds are growing, and the religious leaders are watching his every move. Watch what Jesus does next: Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside. Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him. “Lord,” the man said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared. (Matthew 8:1–3 NLT)


Clothed in rags, bandanna over the face, hair dirty and matted. Talk about ostracism. In Israel at that time, to get within a stone’s throw of someone so diseased was to jeopardize your own righteousness and reputation. So, that is the danger Jesus is faced with.


The man comes near Jesus—but not too near. What does Jesus do? He reaches out and touches him. Now understand, Jesus doesn’t need to come in to contact with the man in order to heal him. There are many accounts where all Jesus does is say a word and people are healed, even people a county away. And yet he touches him. Why?! Because this is the one thing the man needs.


No one has touched him for a very long time.


The kindness of Jesus in this one act is enough to make me admire and respect him. But so is his amazing courage and compassion. Jesus doesn’t seem to care what others will think or say. Or better, he cares very deeply about the right things. The risks Jesus is willing to take with his reputation are simply stunning.

For some reason we keep forgetting that Jesus, in the Gospels, is operating in enemy territory. We project into the Gospel stories a pastoral backdrop, the quaint charm of a Middle Eastern travel brochure—picturesque villages, bustling markets, smiling children—and Jesus wandering through it all like a son come home from college. We often forget the context of his life and mission.

His story begins with genocide—the massacre of the innocent children, Herod’s attempt to murder Jesus by ordering the systematic execution of all young boys around Bethlehem. I’ve never seen this included in any Nativity scene or Christmas play, ever. Who could bear it? You must picture ethnic cleansing as the twentieth century saw in Bosnia, Rwanda, Burma. Atrocity, the ground soaked with the blood of children who five minutes earlier were laughing and playing.

God the Father, knowing this is about to strike, sends an angel to warn Joseph:
An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. (Matthew 2:13–15)

The little family flees the country under cover of darkness, like fugitives. The Father’s strategy is intriguing—surely God could have simply taken Herod out. Or sent angels to surround the holy family. Why must they run for their lives? It ought to make you think twice about how God goes about his plans for the people of this world.

Surely you see that Jesus was a hunted man?

​We cannot understand his actions, nor taste the richness of his personality until we set them within context—the man is operating deep behind enemy lines. This colors his extraordinary movements across the pages of the Gospels and helps to strip away that benevolent religious fog that continues to creep into our reading. It also gives depth and poignancy to moments of self-disclosure such as, “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20). And that’s because he was relentlessly hunted while behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to save the world.

​In the heart of every human being lies the desire to belong. It is primordial, primeval, some might say it is linked somewhere in our deep memory and our need for survival. But it is a fact; as human beings we were made for ‘community’. To be the outcast is to be sentenced to death. To be shunned is the worst form of punishment. Solitary confinement is used to break prisoners, and it does. Given enough time alone it can drive a person insane.
 
God’s own words at the creation of all things states it simply; ‘It is not good for a person to be alone’. 
 
In our modern world, when we are deemed unworthy (often because of our race, or appearance, or social/financial standing or faith/lack of faith) physical gates do not always bar us from the safety of our communities, but there are gates that are closed to us nonetheless.
 
All of us have known the cruelty of middle school cliques, high school cliques, college cliques, Church cliques. The terrifying power of psychological bullying in being left out. Mean girls. Ruthless boys. Did you make the team, the squad, the court? Do you fit in? How many friends do you have on Facebook? Did you get asked to the dance? Did she say yes when you asked her? Is your picture in the yearbook more than once? Did you get accepted, asked, invited? Are you in, or are you out?
 
While this is all detailed in the Bible, this is true whether you believe in God or not: Life is meant to be shared; we are supposed to feel “in.” As human beings we are meant to live in community, in relationship with others. People may drive us crazy sometimes, but still we need each other. We may not like the company of some people, but we still need each other. As the song made famous by Three Dog Night back in 1969 says: One is the loneliest number.
 
Now you might say; ‘But Robert, some of us are just born introverts — we replenish our spirits and souls best in the company of just ourselves and our God.’ True enough, in fact, everyone needs time alone. And I would say regularly, I know I do. But in the same way, everyone needs to be in the company of others as well, and regularly.
 
I think this is one of the reasons that church is an essential thing in the lives of people. If Covid-19 has shown us anything, it is that living in forced isolation is destructive to our souls in so many ways. 

​There is nothing like stepping out your door into a bright and beautiful world filled with nature all around. This is why people vacation in beautiful places. It is also the secret to the stories you love; that magical moment when the hero or heroine steps into a brave new world, or a new adventure in life.
 
If you have read or seen ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ you might remember that lovely catch of breath and skip of heartbeat the first time you followed Lucy through the back of the wardrobe into a snowy wood. Older readers may recall a scene from the first Star Wars film, when young Luke Skywalker steps out of his home in the deserts of Tatooine to watch not one but two suns setting into the horizon. Two suns brilliantly evoked in a moment that sense of “otherness” and wonder.
 
Personally, I love the mountains and valleys of New Zealand that are showcased in The Lord of the Rings movies.
 
The truth is we are preparing our hearts to receive the hope that alone can be the anchor of our souls, and we see echoes of it in God’s beautiful creation. But you must remember; this world is marred and damaged by the fall of man and sin.
 
If you believe the Bible and take the time to read the last few chapters, one day soon you will step into a renewed earth, a young earth, sparkling like an orchard of cherry trees after a rain shower. And joy unspeakable will be yours.
 
How do we open our hearts to this after we have endured so much pain and disappointment in life? We have lost many things as we’ve passed through the battlefields of this war-torn world; our humanity has been stripped of such essential goodness.
 
One of our greatest losses is the gift of wonder, the doorway into the heart. But each of us has special places and favorite stories that are still able to awaken it at times. Sometimes even a single phrase like “they strode away far into the night” can awaken in us a sense of longing that almost pierces.
 
There are parts of us that, no matter how deeply buried they are, they remember we were made for more than this. Things are not as they were meant to be, but this is not how the story ends.

​Life, you'll notice, is a story.

Life doesn't come to us like a math problem. It comes to us the way that a story does, scene by scene. You wake up. What will happen next? You don't get to know—you have to enter in, take the journey as it comes. The sun might be shining. There might be a tornado outside. Your friends might call and invite you to go sailing. You might lose your job.

Life unfolds like a drama. Doesn't it? Each day has a beginning and an end. There are all sorts of characters, all sorts of settings. A year goes by like a chapter from a novel. Sometimes it seems like a tragedy. Sometimes like a comedy. Most of it feels like a soap opera. Whatever happens, it's a story through and through.
"All of life is a story," Madeleine L'Engle reminds us.

This is helpful to know. When it comes to figuring out this life you're living, you'd do well to know the rest of the story.

You come home one night to find that your car has been totaled. Now, all you know is that you loaned it for a couple of hours to your teenage daughter, and now here it is, all smashed up. Isn't the first thing out of your mouth, "What happened? " In other words, "Tell me the story."
Somebody has some explaining to do, and that can be done only in hearing the tale they have to tell. Careful now—you might jump to the wrong conclusion. Doesn't it make a difference to know that she wasn't speeding, that in fact the other car ran a red light? It changes the way you feel about the whole thing. Thank God, she's all right.

​Truth be told, you need to know the rest of the story if you want to understand just about anything in life. Love affairs, layoffs, the collapse of empires, your child's day at school—none of it makes sense without a story.

​“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1–5)
 
When you live in a system of rules and regulations, it’s easy to think you are righteous because you are keeping all the rules. It’s pretty tempting to feel better about yourself by comparing your ability to get your act together with somebody else who’s not doing so well. “I’m on time to work every day. Jones over there is a royal slacker; he’s always late.” What you don’t know is that Jones has an autistic daughter he has to take across town to child care, and you, my arrogant little poser, live five minutes from work. When it comes to true holiness, Jesus had been saying, “It’s the condition of your heart.” Now he spoke to the issue of looking at someone else’s life. Notice that he didn’t say, “Never acknowledge there is a speck in your brother’s eye.” He said, “Deal with your own life first, and then you will be in a position to help others deal with theirs.”
 
Most Christians know the passage, but they think it means, “Don’t ever let yourself get in the mind-set where you think you’re right and someone else is wrong.” But, how will we know when we are right? And how will we help someone who is wrong?
 
Jesus also said, “Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment” (John 7:24). Wait a second. Now Jesus is telling his followers to judge, and carefully. The context of this passage is Jesus’ healing of a blind man on the Sabbath and the Jewish leaders being so upset about it that they wanted to kill him. Talk about missing the point. They had come to worship the law, not the God of the law. As with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows them that they missed the spirit of the law entirely. “You circumcise a child on the Sabbath. Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment” (7:22–24).
 
Jesus says, “You guys just don’t get it. I established the Sabbath for your restoration. A day of rest so that you may be restored. Now you’re angry with me for restoring a man on the Sabbath?! I want you to start making the right distinctions and not the wrong ones.” He does not say, “Don’t make any distinctions.” He says, “Start making a right judgment.”

What if we started all over?
 
What if we erased everything we know about the institutional church as it today, and way it has been conducted for years, and actually began reimagining ministry as it was intended before it became an organization? What if we started simply with the Scriptures — the Old and New Testaments — and our understanding of people today, as well as our present technology level and culture? What if we were not limited to ‘do’ church like generations past did it because that’s the way we’ve always done it?  What might ministry look like if we started all over and just did what God told us to do (Love God and love people)?
 
A few years ago, several ministers and leaders in various churches did just that and I was honored to be part of this group. After much time digging in to the Scriptures, we came away with a renewed picture of God’s desire for people. Clearly He wants to be in relationship with us, and without a doubt He wants us to share real relationship with each other.
 
So if that’s the simple desire and goal, how can we help make that happen right now where we live in 2019? I have listed a bunch of characteristics that we believed to be conducive for building relationships — with people, and with God:
 
GOD FOCUSED— Even though many have been turned off by overly religious and legalistic people and bad church experiences in the past, they truly desire to grow closer to God. They’re fascinated to see how God works today among their neighbors. They deeply hunger for companionship with the real God who loves them. And they crave authentic relationship with Him.
 
FRIENDLY— People crave other people who exhibit authentic warmth, kindness, care, openness, and pleasant conversation. Friendliness cannot be mass-produced. It’s experienced mostly in small groups or even one on one.
 
HOSPITALITY— Relationships grow in a welcoming and nonthreatening atmosphere. People who understand real hospitality make other people feel comfortable with an offer of food and drink, introductions to other people, and help finding a comfortable place at the table as if they were not just a visitor but that they were invited and expected.
 
FAMILIARITY— Especially when visiting someplace new.  People typically appreciate a degree of familiarity, from the get-go they feel like they belong or have a place. They don’t have to puzzle over when to stand, sit, gesture, or sing unfamiliar songs in public.
 
SMALL— Relationships naturally flourish in an intimate setting rather than a crowd setting. (That’s one reason you won’t find a 5000 person capacity Starbucks with stadium seating!)
 
CONVENIENCE— People are more likely to spend time with others if it fits within their schedule—on a day and time that’s convenient in their already busy schedules. And it helps to offer a location within their established traffic patterns if possible. A bonus is if there was a method to watch/interact even when they could not be present at the services (Online streaming).
 
REAL-LIFE FOCUSED— People want to talk about the everyday life issues swirling around them — from pets to raising children to purpose to peace.
 
CONVERSATIONAL— Most people at some point want to participate in the conversation. They want to share their thoughts and experiences, ask questions, interact, laugh and even cry together.
 
STORY-BASED— People are captivated by the real stories of those around them. And they love to tell their own stories. Story is the language of the human heart. People like listening to stories, but not so much to lectures.
 
Now if all that is correct or even if it’s just partially correct, as church leaders we must ask ourselves what can we do to facilitate those things in our churches. And we must also ask if our current church model and structure/practices actually seek to meet any of those very real cultural needs? Are we as a church willing to actually do WHAT EVER it takes to reach those that are not in relationship with God? Or, are we more concerned with maintaining the time honored methods that were at one time relevant and revolutionary but not so much for today’s people and culture?
 
Please don’t misunderstand me, traditions are precious and in many cases wonderful, after all nostalgia is a very powerful emotion and brings many people a measure of comfort. But if they are no longer effective for reaching people in our culture today we must ask: What is the most important objective? Maintaining tradition or making a difference in people’s lives?