{"id":119,"date":"2013-02-18T02:11:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T02:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theroadyoureon\/?p=119"},"modified":"2013-02-19T03:27:47","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T03:27:47","slug":"the-thorny-places-with-shayne-wheeler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theroadyoureon\/2013\/02\/the-thorny-places-with-shayne-wheeler.html","title":{"rendered":"The Thorny Places with Shayne Wheeler"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The only way we can go in and experience the transformative presence of Christ is to go in these difficult places assuming that we\u2019re not coming back.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gayle Trotter<\/strong>: \u00a0I\u2019m speaking with Shayne Wheeler, author of The Briarpatch Gospel<\/a>. <\/em>Your subtitle is \u201cFearlessly following Jesus into the thorny places.\u201d Where are the thorny places right now?<\/p>\n

Shayne Wheeler<\/strong>:\u00a0 They’re all around us. It\u2019s all of those places that challenge our comfort zone, challenge some of our assumptions about what a comfortable life should be. It\u2019s the places of dealing with people who are different from us, whether it\u2019s socioeconomically or how they think about life and think about God. It\u2019s people who are different from us in terms of the suffering that they’re dealing with, social issues. They\u2019re everywhere. We have an assumption, especially as Christians, that we\u2019re going to come to faith in Jesus, and we\u2019re going to follow God and everything is going to be great.<\/p>\n

We spend so much time trying to make our lives comfortable and without any bumps and bruises. We end up trying to avoid all the briarpatches of difficulty. That\u2019s just simply not the way that life actually works, and it\u2019s definitely not the life that Jesus has called us to.\u00a0 I think he\u2019s called us to go into those thorny places with the gospel of grace, hope and affection.<\/p>\n

GT<\/strong>: \u00a0Who would most benefit from reading your book?<\/p>\n

SW<\/strong>: \u00a0I wrote the book with two groups in mind \u2014 those who are dealing with difficulty in their lives, whether the reality of suffering, of persecution, and even a difficult relationship that they can\u2019t quite get their theology around. I wanted to be able to give those people a pathway through the difficulty so that they can begin to realize that they\u2019re not abandoned and alone but that Christ is actually walking down this path with them. But then secondly, I wrote it for people who are in relationship with people who are going through difficult times. I wanted people to have the vernacular to speak to someone who is suffering, to speak with someone who is perhaps theologically different than them or in terms of lifestyle.<\/p>\n

We have a lot of people here in our church that have very, very close friends who are in the gay and lesbian community and many of them profess faith in Christ. I wanted to be able to give them a vernacular of how we can communicate and love and live together as followers of Christ with people with whom we disagree.<\/p>\n

GT<\/strong>: \u00a0You tell the fascinating story of two brothers in the movie Gattaca. How does this relate to the briarpatch?<\/p>\n

SW<\/strong>: \u00a0There’s one brother who is the older brother and is genetically inferior. The younger brother was conceived through the use of eugenics and he is genetically pure. The younger brother is stronger, faster, and smarter. They played this game called chicken where they would swim out in the ocean as far as they could and whoever turned back first lost. The genetically superior brother always won. Then finally the older brother who was supposedly inferior, he won and not only once, but he won again. And so, the other brother said \u201cHow did you beat me? How did you do this?\u201d The older brother answered, \u201cI swam out there and I was committed that I was never coming back. I was never going to swim back. I was committing full force into this.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the sort of mentality that we need to have when we\u2019re entering into these difficult places with people, that we\u2019re following Christ into some of these places where he does his best work rather than saying I\u2019m just going to go and put my time in at the homeless shelter or at the food bank for an hour on Saturday and then I\u2019m going to retreat back to my place of comfort and safety.<\/p>\n

We have to say \u201cNo, I\u2019m going to give my life to loving people who are homeless, loving people in the gay and lesbian community, loving people who are suffering.\u201d The only way we can go in and experience the transformative presence of Christ is to go in assuming that we\u2019re not coming back. This is a path that we\u2019re going to walk down the rest of our lives. The degree of grace and affection and personal transformation and the palpable presence of Jesus that you experience when you do that, when you’re willing to not turn back, is extraordinary. It\u2019s absolutely life changing. I wanted people to experience in their walk with Christ what I\u2019ve experienced in mine and what we\u2019ve seen happen here in our church.<\/p>\n

GT<\/strong>: \u00a0How can one find meaning in the crucible of suffering?<\/p>\n

SW<\/strong>: \u00a0That was probably the hardest part of the book to write for me. Our daughter was diagnosed when she was five with leukemia. I always tell people, as a parent when you imagine what it might be like to hear the words about your child having cancer, it\u2019s ten times worse than you can imagine. I never would have imagined that Jesus could show up in the midst of suffering like we experienced him through those years of dealing with her treatment and almost dying for over two years.<\/p>\n

I always remember lying there in her hospital room asking God where he was and asking him how could he allow something like this to happen and does he even care \u2014 really just crying out to him for answers. It was almost like the Lord spoke. I\u2019m a Presbyterian so God doesn\u2019t speak in audible voices to me, but I\u2019m telling you as a Presbyterian I heard God speak very, very clearly. \u201cShayne, this is why Jesus had to come. This is why I had to send my son to die on a cross, to suffer for sin. It wasn\u2019t just to get you into Heaven one day. It was because the world is all screwed up. It\u2019s not supposed to be this way. Little five-year-old girls are not supposed to get cancer. That\u2019s sin as well. That\u2019s the effect of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus had to come to put the world right. How we met Christ in the crucible of our own suffering was we realized that he was there with us. Suddenly his incarnation and his suffering and his death and his resurrection had meaning beyond just getting me saved. It showed my wife and me that Jesus is concerned about our daughter\u2019s suffering so much so that he came and suffered himself. Knowing that he\u2019s there walking with us even in those dark places in a hospital room was extraordinarily comforting to know our daughter\u2019s suffering and our suffering was not in vain but it was under the gaze of a loving God.<\/p>\n

GT<\/strong>: \u00a0Describe what makes your church community different from others.<\/p>\n

SW<\/strong>: \u00a0I assume most of them are wonderful in their own right. But what I love about our church\u2019s community is the deep sense of honesty about who we are. For our church family Sunday mornings is not the time when we get all spit shined and polished and put on our nice little self-righteous Christ veneer and come to church and try to impress everybody. Sunday morning is a time where we come as brothers and sisters in the faith, where many come who are not Christians but who are looking to find God, to figure out if God is even real. We\u2019re coming together to worship God through Christ with all of our successes and all of our failures, with all of our hopes in faith and with all of our doubts.<\/p>\n

When you have a group of people who take off all that veneer and they\u2019re simply there as they are, not hiding their joy and not hiding their pain, it creates a very strong sense of raw intimacy. What it also means \u2014 people say this all the time when they come into our church \u2014 it means that no matter where people are they feel welcomed. They don\u2019t feel judged. They see pastors and leaders and old people and young people who are dealing with the same things that they\u2019re dealing with.<\/p>\n

I think what might set our church apart a little bit would be that sense of you don\u2019t have to clean up and dress up. You just have to show up.<\/p>\n

GT<\/strong>: \u00a0How do we transform the Briarpatch?<\/p>\n

SW<\/strong>: \u00a0Jesus said very, very clearly, \u201cYou are my disciples. Your job is to go. Your job is to not be perfect. Your job isn\u2019t to be religious or anything like that. Your job is to go and love and serve.\u201d They are going to know you’re my disciples he says, by the way that you love one another. He says go and serve in my name when you give food to the hungry, when you give clothing to the naked, or go visit those who are in prison. You do so in my name. What he\u2019s saying to us is that we are the living embodiment of his gospel \u2014 the gospel of reconciliation, of grace and mercy and healing and forgiveness.<\/p>\n

He says when you go and you serve in this way you’re actually bringing my presence into this world. We\u2019re living as a lamppost saying this is what the transforming of presence of Christ does. We have a hope that when he returns that he\u2019s going to make all things new. He\u2019s going to restore his creation. He\u2019s going to wipe out sin and our job is to be a signpost, a lamppost to what that can look like. We\u2019re not going to do it perfectly. Our light is going to flicker and sometimes even be snuffed out, but we\u2019re still called to go and love and serve in a way that shows that the presence of Christ is real and that something even greater is coming.<\/p>\n

Just in practical terms, it means obviously things like you go and serve the homeless and you serve the poor. But, it also means that we go in our marriages, in our families, in our work relationships and we live lives of forgiveness and mercy. It means we don\u2019t hold grudges. It means we show compassion to people \u2014 even the people we love the most are sometimes the hardest people to show compassion towards. It means we live lives in repentance. It\u2019s showing the people that are closest to us and the people perhaps who are watching us, observing us from afar, showing them what a life of repentance and faith looks like \u2014 a life that\u2019s not lived for ourselves but lived for the glory of God through Christ and lived to be poured out for the sake of other people.<\/p>\n

When that happens, when you start infusing forgiveness and compassion and radical love into your relationships at work and at home and in your community then it will necessarily begin to bring transformation. It changes the conversation. It changes the ethos of the place.<\/p>\n

GT<\/strong>: \u00a0 Yes. What\u2019s something that surprised you in writing this book?<\/p>\n

SW<\/strong>: \u00a0Beyond that it was going to take three years from start to finish?\u00a0 I was honestly thinking I\u2019ll knock this thing out in like three months, write it, and then it should be on the shelves by Thanksgiving that year. That was two years ago. I was surprised at how much fun it was to write. How much I enjoyed sitting down and working through many, many, many hours of putting these thoughts and these stories onto paper. It was cathartic for my soul. It absolutely was rejuvenating and refreshing to me.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t expect to enjoy the writing part as much. I was surprised by that. And, I was surprised by how long it actually takes to go from me typing it out on my computer to it actually coming out in book form.<\/p>\n

GT<\/strong>: \u00a0Was that frustrating for you knowing that you could just throw it all up on the internet?<\/p>\n

SW<\/strong>: \u00a0I know. It\u2019s unbelievable. I will give a compliment to Tyndale, our publishers. I was surprised to find people in the publishing industry who were so fantastically competent but also kind and generous and loving. Every man and woman that I worked with at Tyndale has shown more concern for me as a person and as a follower of Christ than they have for me as a commodity.\u00a0 Writing a book is all worth it just for having met my friends at Tyndale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The only way we can go in and experience the transformative presence of Christ is to go in these difficult places assuming that we\u2019re not coming back.” Gayle Trotter: \u00a0I\u2019m speaking with Shayne Wheeler, author of The Briarpatch Gospel. Your subtitle is \u201cFearlessly following Jesus into the thorny places.\u201d Where are the thorny places right…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":448,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[85,86,87,88],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gattaca","tag-persecution","tag-suffering","tag-tyndale"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Thorny Places with Shayne Wheeler - The Road You're On<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theroadyoureon\/2013\/02\/the-thorny-places-with-shayne-wheeler.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Thorny Places with Shayne Wheeler - The Road You're On\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“The only way we can go in and experience the transformative presence of Christ is to go in these difficult places assuming that we\u2019re not coming back.” Gayle Trotter: \u00a0I\u2019m speaking with Shayne Wheeler, author of The Briarpatch Gospel. 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