Christians often suffer from a terrible malady: We “should” on ourselves.

Pastors tell us that we should read our Bibles more, and so we feel guilty when we don’t.

Then we hear on Christian radio that we should be giving more money to the poor children in Africa, and we feel guilty when we don’t.

We read blogs, and they tell us that we should love the poor and needy more, and we feel guilty if we don’t.

Mothers hear from female speakers that they should be cooking more homecooked meals and reading books to their children at night, and they feel guilty when they don’t always do this.

Fathers hear from men’s leadership speakers that they should be spending more time with their kids and leading the family in daily devotions, and they feel guilty when they fail at this.

Others tell us that we should memorize Scripture, attend more Bible studies, stop studying the Bible to go serve our neighbors, spend more time with our families, get our children involved in sixteen activities,pray more, do more to be an answer to our prayers, be cheerful more, be more somber and serious, sin less, homeschool our children so they are not polluted by the world, keep our children in school so they can be lights to the world, and on and on it goes.

The end result is that we get buried under a pile of “should.” All that we should be doing or should not be doing.

I have been guilty of doing this in my own preaching, teaching, and writing, and I feel like I should stop.

Ha! See how that works?

Seriously though, I hope that as you read this blog and some of the things I recommend you do as followers of Jesus, you recognize that these are not necessarily things you “should” be doing (even if I said that in a post), but are things you can do.

Instead of telling people what they should be doing, I want to start encouraging people with what they can be doing. None of the things I say or write about are intended to make people feel guilty or like they are not living up to their full potential, or like they are disappointing God, or not doing everything they should be doing as a follower of Jesus. 

No, most of my posts are about things that interest me and which encourage me as I see the Kingdom of God expanding in my life and in the lives of people I know. But this doesn’t mean that you should be doing the same thing. No. Not at all! These are things you can do if you are looking for ideas on how to follow Jesus, but they are not things that you must do or should do.

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Based on some of the recent posts from Sam Riviera about helping the poor and homeless in our communities, many people have emailed me about how they can begin doing this in their own communities.

Here is one example of a message that was sent in:

I have been following your posts for some time. You present a freshness to “Christianity” that I rarely see.

The blogger who said that he had quit going to church but it still hurts I am afraid I share that same sentiment. My husband and I stopped late last year. He for different reasons than myself but both are the reasons you and this blogger mentioned. We are older believers and have seen much.

Since I was a little girl, I have been saddened by the Church’s response to those less fortunate. Today I am deeply disturbed by how much it has become a house of hate instead of love. I don’t presume to say that all Christians are like that. I only know that one is way too many.

I would appreciate any help you can give me on gaining the courage to do what you and your family does. How do I get others involved? Thank you for your daily inspiration and love.

I think that this is a question many people have, so I decided to write a post about it.

First, I am encouraged by emails and comments like this because it shows that many people are taking the courageous step of following Jesus wherever He leads. I am convinced that “leaving church” so that we can “be the church” is one of the most difficult–but important–steps a person can make in their life of discipleship. This step is not for everyone, but I think it is becoming more and more important for people today if they want to see Jesus at work among those in our communities who are truly needy.

Second, as to how to start, Sam included many practical suggestions in his blog series about how to get started, but let me share a little bit about what we are doing in my family.

My recommendation is this:

Begin small. Very small.

How small? The biggest small way you can start: with prayer.

Pray for opportunities to present themselves. Pray that Jesus would open your eyes and ears to see where He is leading.

Then, begin looking and listening.

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In response to some of the posts on this blog about helping the homeless, a woman named Beth sent me the following message on Facebook. It was so encouraging, I asked her if I could share it with all of you as well. She said yes, so here is what she wrote:

It’s so refreshing to find out there are more like my family out there!

I was adopted by missionaries in the early 1960’s, and, in the following decade my Dad became a pastor. His degrees were in Theology, Philosophy, and Business. My dad was the type of man who would bring homeless folks home and sit them at our dinner table. As a teenager, I have to confess it embarrassed me. These folks smelled like urine, body odor, and booze. At some point, I grew up and realized that it was not about giving them a meal, he could have bought them a hamburger. By bringing them home, he gave them their dignity and treated them like any other guest.

As much as I adored my folks and their love for Christ, as well as the way they showed their love in how they treated others, especially those considered unlovable (or invisible) by most…the fact is, their religion — Pentecostal Holiness — was a huge turn-off and as a result, I struggled for 20 years over my faith.

In the Pentecostal Holiness church, one almost has to be perfect to make it to heaven. I wasn’t allowed to have my ears pierced, go to movies, swim with boys, dance, etc. As an adult, I attended various non-denominational churches, but so many of them were more about growing the congregation and offering entertainment choices, then about teaching folks to have relationships with Christ and each other. None of them taught how to treat one another.

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I heard of a woman today who got attacked by a dog, climbed a telephone pole, fell out of a tree, was yelled at by a police officer on a 911 call, got patched in to the State Police in New York, was almost arrested and sent to jail, trespassed on several people’s property, hurtled fences and hedges in a mad dash through a neighborhood, and even convinced a former mayor of our town to call in some favors to the local power company.

It sounds like a crazy plot out of some action movie, but it is just another day in the life of Wendy Myers…whom I am proud to call my wife!

What was she trying to do?

Rescue a cat named Christmas.

Yes, he is our cat. We got him for our girls at Christmas. He has been missing for four days, and Wendy found him perched 30 feet up in the air on a telephone pole, and… well, take all the events I described above and fit them together into some sort of story (any crazy story will do) and you pretty much have what happened today as she tried to rescue Christmas.

So one thing is for sure: today my wife is the talk of the town! And after the events of today, I would not at all be surprised if the police show up at our house to give her a stern lecture. Of course, she will probably lecture him right back. But that’s my Wendy!

I love you, Wendy! Never change.

I am so proud of my three daughters… A daddy has got to boast a bit.

Each of them recently had birthdays, and for their birthday parties, they told their friends not to bring gifts, but to make donations instead to help rescue girls from slavery.

Altogether, they raised nearly $300!

The ministry we are sending the money to is Children’s Hope Chest. They work with children in many parts of the world, and one of the areas they specialize in is with rescuing children for the horrors of sex slavery. For example, they recently launched an effort in Moldova to provide a home and round-the-clock care for survivors of sex trafficking.

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My daughters have started to make fun of me about my coffee addiction.

My oldest daughter sent me an email the other day with this picture in it:

I printed it off and hung it on my wall.

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