Mark Johnston

You Comin'?

This Sunday, we’re getting together. Rich people. Poor people. Black people. White people. Old people. Young people. People with their graduate degree in English. People still laboring to learn it.

We’re going to lift Jesus up high, man. We’re going to laugh, sing, worship, and celebrate. We’re going to take, be, and enjoy the journey. We’re going to experience God. We’re going to leave better than we came.

Sinners will be there. Saints will be there. Sinners who think they’re saints will be there. Saints who think they’re sinners will be there.

God will be there.

We’re getting together. We’re going to experience God. We’re going to become or grow as followers of Jesus. We’re going to slap back, shake hands, hug necks, and show love. Many of us are going to volunteer. Many of us are going to give. All of us are going to engage.

Somebody will believe in Jesus this weekend. Somebody else will believe again. Somebody will do something big on Monday morning as a result of Sunday morning’s experience.

It’s going to happen. Because we’re getting together. And when we do, it won’t matter where we’ve come from, what we’ve done, how we’ve succeeded in the past or how we’ve failed. You can come broke; you can come trying to figure out how to invest your millions. Come believing, come skeptical; at the end of the rope, or the top of your game. On Sunday morning we’re all the same.

Real church for real people. It’s not just a tagline to make the logo look cooler. It’s what we’re all about.

So: you comin’?

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts (James 2:1-4 – NIV)?

Moving Forward

I wrote this yesterday in my car outside Starbucks before going in to study for this weekend:

I’m moving forward. I have a clear vision. I know why I’m on this planet: to make a difference for Christ every day. To pray; connect; preach; and lead. To know God and love people.

I believe in the vision of The Journey. I believe in real church for real people. I believe people are craving reality – reality that transcends the falsities of materialism; reality that is sturdy and yet full of grace; reality that is true to the person and work of Jesus and unfettered by religious red tape; reality that offers such an infinitely better way to connect with God and others than that found in the spoonfuls of spiritual pudding spilled haphazardly upon the carpet of our culture; reality that is about the movement of the Spirit and clarity of the Word, not the details of denominations or pet theologies of the pompous.

I’m moving toward that reality; now more than ever. I’m determined. I’ve burned my boats. They’re hulking wrecks rotting on the shore of this newfound land of spiritual freedom, power, and purpose. The mission of God is my mandate. A relationship with my Father is my greatest privilege. Laboring until the blood hardens on the handle of my sword, forever fastening it in my grip is my calling.

No turning back. No waffling, vacillating, hesitating, procrastinating…. No dabbling in a dozen distractions and letting days stuffed full of divine potential slip by me untapped, un-tackled… No “what if’s,” no “I can’t’s,” no “not right now’s.”

I’m moving forward.

Wanna come along? Wanna rejoin me on the journey of The Journey? Wanna risk it all to know God and reach people for him? Wanna make big sacrifices, stretch beyond your comfort zone you’re starting to resent because you know in your heart, in your gut, that’s never where God intended you to live?

Wanna own up to the fact that something got lost in translation for most of us when Jesus said, “I’ve come that you might have life – and have it more abundantly?” Wanna climb out of the boat, step out in faith, live and give big, go ninety or nothing for your Daddy in heaven? Wanna magnify the Lord with me? Wanna exalt his name together? Wanna live like you really can and will change the world?

C’mon follower of Jesus. C’mon leader of others. You’re no nine-to-five clone with empty eyes and a hollow smile. I’m no suburban, cookie-cutter, plastic Christian who doesn’t live all that much differently from the world around me. We’re moving forward kind of people. That’s what drew you to The Journey, baby. It was clear to you that we weren’t settling for status quo, that we weren’t content with complacently doing the same thing over and over again hoping for different results.

That’s why you’re here. You’re the real deal. You’re made of the good stuff.

You’re moving forward. I’m moving forward.

My little boy, when he wants to make a quick beeline toward something that’s attracted his attention and looks really good to him, says, “c’mon, let’s go.” He’ll say it again and again until we take his hand and head toward whatever he feels is his destiny at that moment. He’s persistent.

God, c’mon, let’s go. Journey, c’mon, let’s go.

Let’s go reach somebody. Let’s go create something innovative for Jesus. I see our destiny in the distance. C’mon, let’s go.

Look out hell.

Look out world.

Look out heaven.

Here we come.

Moving forward.

Sex and Land

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so (ESV).

This past weekend, we launched a series at The Journey called “Sex on Sunday.” During the month of February, we’re tackling the subject of sex through the lens of the creation story in the book of Genesis. Genesis is about beginnings. In the beginning, we were created by God – and we were good. In the beginning, sex was created by God – and it too was good.

Why are we bravely forging a path forward into a discussion of our sexuality? Because for too long a corrupt world has taken the liberty to define for us one of the most meaningful human experiences there is. In the process, sex has been lured into a dark alley and beaten senseless by thugs.

So we’re shining the searchlight of God’s truth into the darkness, chasing away the crooks, helping sex back to its feet and brushing it (and us) off. We’re getting real about sex.

And we’re doing it by going back to the beginning, the genesis of us; the genesis of sex.

At the end of the first two dozen verses of Genesis 1, God creates animals that move about on land. “Let the land bring forth,” he says.

One commentator finds in the first few chapters of this book a theme that will stretch out into the rest of the Old Testament, providing part of the framework for all God will do for and through his people. It’s the theme of “land.”

God creates land; and then gives it to Adam and Eve to rule over. He will later give a fruitful slice of this land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He’ll offer that same fertile sliver of earth to the people who follow Moses out of Egypt four centuries later; he’ll restore it to the Babylonian exiles a millennium further on. God is peculiarly committed to the land that he creates for his people. In the book of Revelation, this land appears yet again; God having apparently never experienced a reduction in his interest or sense of devotion toward it.

“Let the land bring forth…”

I see in this statement of God a picture of relationship. God speaks to the earth, the land, he has created. He leans his influence into it and in response, it brings forth; it produces; life springs from it. God is in relationship with the land he has created. And if he’s going to be in relationship with it, he’s going to be committed to it, through thick and thin, until time as land experiences it ceases to exist.

Because God understands that the kind of raw intimacy that produces life must occur in just such a context of commitment.

I think that’s what God had in mind for sex: that when we lean our influence into another person, when we engage another person at this level of intimacy, a level that has the power and potential to bring forth life… it be in the context of lasting commitment.

God will protect and nurture this land he is creating throughout generations; this is not a one night stand for him.

How’s your sex life? Is it connected deeply to a lifelong commitment? Whether you’re experiencing sex now or waiting to sometime in the future, do you understand that the right environment for it to flourish within is the kind where two people are fiercely determined to grow old together?

Before you lean in, make sure you’re committed to being there the next morning.

And the next… and the next… and the next.