The following clip by Jay Ferris is from a conference Q&A, and is only about a minute long.  There are approximately 10 that will be released weekly.  Press the play button to listen to the audio right now (or on your computer by right-clicking and downloading it).  Enjoy!

Track17

Written Transcript

I’d like to throw something into the mix before we get too far into the conversation because it may be too confrontational to say it later.  It seems that one of the ways of describing what we’re trying, is to do the math.  But we’ve been getting the math wrong for a long time.  A kind of a basic rule of “doing the math” is to reduce and simplify.  We are into a kind of “contrivance mentality” that’s looking for stuff to do that’s different than what we were doing, and something that maybe works.  A prerequisite, for instance, for speaking the truth is being in love.  So to begin with, we need to see if we’re in love.  Because until we are we can’t speak the truth in love and grow up.

It took about thirty years of trying to do what Jesus was wanting to do with my life before I found out who I was.  And at root, I was a lover in training. And that changed everything.  That knocks all of the programs and agendas and contrivances…because a lover doesn’t have an agenda.  The street of the city is pure gold.  It’s clear as crystal. There’s no hidden agendas there.  If we’re a lover in training… and then somebody starts tearing your face off…well, it’s just advanced work.  Like we do with each other, you know.  It’d be good to get it right at home, for instance, before we took it out on the street. I think that for openers, to see that we’re lovers in training so that whatever we do is done in love, because nothing that’s not done in love is of any value at all in the kingdom of God.  It’s not the currency of the kingdom.