Natasha Dongell

Normal Grief is Complicated.

Natasha Dongell — Sun, 17 May 2020 15:57:07 +0000

This is an excerpt from my grief book manuscript:

IT IS HUMAN TO GRIEVE

Grief touches everyone’s life. It is embedded in the seasonal rhythms of nature. It is mingled throughout all of life’s natural ebbs and flows. We all have a story of loss. Despite our best efforts, it remains a companion to the earth and all human existence.

Many of us can remember the devastating loss of a pet. Or we remember moving to a new neighborhood, trying to embrace a new life while longing for the one that was. Many of us have lost grandparents, changed jobs, or retired. We’ve experienced heartbreak and disappointment, loss of dreams, and failed expectations. We’ve watched our children grow to eventually leave the nest and witnessed the slow decline of our parents’ health as they age toward their last days on this earth. All of these losses are laced with grief and deeply touch our souls. Still, they fit into the natural ebb and flow of living and dying, growing and changing, gaining something new while saying goodbye to something old

In this way, grief is normal. It is natural. It may not be considered the norm in western, post-Enlightenment, modern society. But in the experiential hunger of a rising post-modern age, and in the broader, universal spectrum of all that it means to be human, it is normal for people to grieve. It is the way of humanity to ride the natural rhythm of life and loss throughout their lifetime.

COMPLICATED GRIEF

Most counselors suggest two kinds of grief. There is normal grief, as mentioned above, that stings of pain and sadness. It causes at least a momentary stillness, a pause of reflection, but does not necessarily hinder the griever’s development, growth, or his capacity to move forward in life. Normal and healthy grief may impact a person very deeply, but without paralyzing his ability to go on living.

Sometimes, though, and all too often, we as human beings are launched into a grief so inordinate, with sudden and aggressive force, that it overwhelms our capacities, de-rails our normal sense of living, and threatens our ability, or desire, to survive. This is considered “complicated grief,” and represents that state of being overwhelmed and paralyzed by the magnitude of one’s loss. The griever is overcome, unable to heal, or move forward in life. In his book A Grace Disguised, Jerry Sittser calls this grief catastrophic loss, the kind that “wreaks havoc like a massive flood. It is unrelenting, unforgiving, and uncontrollable, brutally erosive to the body, mind, and spirit.”⁠

Catastrophic loss invokes a dark and destructive force. It catapults a person’s life beyond the boundaries of normal into a complicated mess of brokenness, trauma, and unrelenting pain.

UNPREPARED FOR DEATH

A myriad of social and cultural factors influenced the way we approach death today. Whether we blame the Age of Reason and our disconnection from spiritual mystery or the deceptive glint of America’s wealth, we go about our lives in distinct separation to the realities of death, assuming that we can control our lives through grit, money, or acquiring knowledge. And so, where a loss would be common and natural, or when we encounter a death that has been anticipated, even prepared for... still, we find the mind, soul, and spirit completely overwhelmed and incapacitated. The unwelcome visitor of death breaks down the walls of our enlightened worldview, derails our lives driven for success, and shatters our ability to cope. Our capacities are laid waste, and society offers little help. The result is so much shock and trauma that wreak terrible havoc in the griever’s psyche.⁠

In some ways, we’ve created a culture in North America where all loss becomes complicated and every death becomes sudden. Therefore, most people are unprepared for what the finality of death is really like, how it unveils our total lack of control, and how it ushers us in a lifetime of excruciating pain and separation that contradicts everything we believe in.

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UNPRECEDENTED PEOPLE: WE HEAL

Natasha Dongell — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 16:36:46 +0000

The Easter story is one of great celebration and yet filled with heavy sorrow. It highlights real human beings, journeying through thick darkness and uncertainty. It encompasses the essence of our faith - a hope in God that sees beyond the dark night into a new day.

Today, we have a generation coming up who ache to give expression to their mournful cry. In times past, we explored the value of positivity, of setting your mind on the next thing, pulling up bootstraps and getting to work... We have celebrated faith often in the context of positivity and perseverance, but we have not always exemplified a faith that co-exists with pain, one that navigates the inner groaning of all creation.

Sometimes, I wonder if we have disconnected from the deep heritage of soulful intelligence that marks many of our predecessors. Our long-standing faith tradition is full of soul-intelligence and spiritual depth. The Bible is written in various layers of literary brilliance, metaphorical depth, and prophetic wonder. It encompasses all the crucial aspects of the human-faith journey. Some of these layers, though, are lost on the modern paradigms that have marked the Western world, those of reason, logic, chronological order...

Has our neglect of contemplative practices and spiritual depth in the evangelical church opened the door for this generation to find a deeper human connectedness in secular, Eastern practices like yoga, meditation, and mindfulness? Have we demonstrated the gift of Sabbath rest in a hurried world, a meditation on God's word that draws His light into the deeper layers of the soul, or a kind of prayer that stirs the bones of the dead and awakens the spirit within?

Today, we need a generation of people who know how to pray, how to rest, how to rejoice, and how to grieve. We need faith-filled Jesus lovers who are connected to the rhythms of humanity. We need spiritual mothers and fathers who demonstrate a gospel that lives and breathes from within that space of raw, true, honest soul awareness.

This generation does not need a Jesus who promises a life without pain, they need to know a Jesus who is willing to co-exist with pain. They need to know the Jesus who feels, who suffers, who mourns, and who weeps. The one who unleashes the deepest cry of our souls and gives a voice to each generation.

He is a master at connecting with people in pain because he is a master at connecting with people who are human. And the Western world, whoever and whatever that encompasses today, has forgotten what it means to be human.

I think God is ready to unleash a movement of soul-deep, gospel healing. I think he is raising up a generation who are not afraid of the dark, but who are prepared as children of the Light to navigate the dark corners and crevices of the human soul as well as our outer world. We, as His kingdom ambassadors, cannot shy away from the complicated mess of broken humanity - particularly our own - but can learn to navigate it with Him in a way that leads to Holy Spirit filling and fruitful empowerment all to the glory of God.

In the coming months, I'd like to share some of the principles God taught me on my own journey through the darkness of my soul. By no means have I arrived at the end of my journey, but I am deeply grateful for the change that has already taken place as God's living Word is alive and active in me (Hebrews 4:12) and His grace all-sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9) to lead me from glory to glory and strength to strength (2 Corinthians 3:18).

I'm excited to walk alongside a generation of people who develop soul-intelligence, which is more than a good EQ, as well as a Spirit-intelligence that recognizes God's movements of grace in the inner crevices of the human soul.

We need to be healed in order to be filled and empowered for His amazing purposes.

Much love,

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Christians and the Fear of Death

Natasha Dongell — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 17:43:52 +0000

Fear is a powerful force. Sometimes we don't see or recognize the power it has over us until something draws it out.

This is one of those moments. A moment in time when deep-seated fear is being drawn out and staring us in the face.

THE FEAR OF DEATH

It is normal to fear death.

When my husband, Lynn, died I encountered a pain and darkness, unlike anything I could have imagined. It taught me what an evil death is. What a terrifying evil that slices through the fabric of our human interconnectedness.

Healthy humanity values life and sees death for the ugliness that it is, something evil, not of God, a dark separation that we were not designed to experience. It is not something to belittle, avoid, brush aside, or disrespect. Furthermore, for the Christian, to deny death is to deny sin and the role it plays in our human experience. It is to close our eyes to injustice and all manner of human suffering.

Dear church, do not belittle or brush off the reality of death. Still, put it in its place inside the whole story of God.

The Church offers a narrative in which sin and death play a role, but they do not determine the beginning or the end of the human story.

WITH JESUS THERE'S A BIGGER PERSPECTIVE

In the gospels, in my estimation, Jesus never belittled the wretchedness of death but accepted its role in the whole story of God and humanity. He himself grieved and honored the reality of death. He took moment to pause and weep all the while knowing that He Himself was "the Resurrection and the Life" (John 11:25, NIV). He healed the masses and wept for his friends. He sorrowfully delivered his own life into the evil hands of death, purchasing life everlasting, the salvation of many.

Jesus had both the God perspective of victorious eternal life and the human perspective of empathy toward our suffering under the curse of sin.

He leads the Church, His body, with a brilliant capacity to "Rejoice with those who rejoice [and] mourn with those who mourn" (Romans 12:15, NIV).

WESTERN CULTURE LIVES IN AN INCOMPLETE STORY

Western, or North American culture does not promote a human story in which death makes sense. It's narrative stems from an ideal of self-made freedom, happiness, and success. Other than the burial and funeral after a loved one dies, there are little to no celebrated traditions or rituals in our culture that retell the ongoing story of loss in the context of our natural human experience.

No wonder our culture is obsessed with both a fascination (as evidenced through movies and media) and a denial that death exists. We block death out, desperately trying to convince ourselves that we have outsmarted it... With enough money, enough technology, enough discipline, good choices, and precautionary measures, surely we can avoid this evil. Surely we can climb ourselves out of the curse and away from those fingerlike tentacles that wrap around our ankles and draw us, one day at a time, into death's gaping maw.

Many of us within the influence of American Christianity are affected by these tendencies and mindsets. We have not re-formed the deep foundational pieces of our inner paradigms to live in the true Christian narrative, but continue to interpret our lives through our culture's version of the human story. The result is some kind of mixture or separation in which we celebrate salvation and victory in Christ without a true understanding or healthy respect for the disease that clings to our bodies and wreaks havoc within our souls, or we obsess over death and become cynical toward ideas of life and wholeness.

I see this contributing to a fascinating division between contemplative Christianity and Charismatic Christianity. This generation is trying to reconstruct the Christian narrative in our new global context of understanding, but struggling to place all the right pieces in their right place according to God's design.

THE WHOLE CHRISTIAN NARRATIVE SETS US FREE FROM FEAR OF DEATH

Paul didn't want us to be uninformed about death "so that [we would] not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13, NIV). He wanted us to have a proper narrative in which death has a lifespan, a beginning and an end. He was acquainted with the sorrows of death and loss but learned how to orient his perspective around the story of God and everlasting life.

Sometimes, we lose perspective and live in parts of God's story.

When my husband died, I was absorbed in the shocking reality of his sudden death. I was fascinated to discover, though, the assumption that a victorious perspective over death looked like a denial of death. Faith somehow necessitated a lack of acknowledgment as though Lynn no longer existed and grief had no place in the Christian story.

How far can that be from the truth! To acknowledge death is part of the story of our salvation in Christ, just as much as the cross is a necessary part of Christ's resurrection.

You can't remove sin and death from the Christian story and still get eternal life. Nor can you acknowledge someone's death and forget that they still live, fully alive in Christ. You can't be filled with the Spirit of God and all manner of healing and ignore the reality of a broken soul. Nor can you live in the brokenness of a depraved soul and not allow God's Spirit to fill you and lead you into healing.

A healthy and vibrant faith seems to acknowledge the real suffering of our human experience, without losing sight of the bigger story of victory in which "to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21, NIV).

FREE TO LOVE GENEROUSLY

The whole story of God both compels a life and compassion and frees us from the fear of death. It launches us into love, intimacy, urgency for the care and salvation of many, and anticipation for the coming day. We can be free to love generously in times of great darkness and walk in Jesus' footsteps to touch the untouchable.

In Christ, we can have absolute confidence that our souls are hidden with Christ in God! Nothing can separate us from His love! And when this body dies, we get to relinquish the cursed cloak of death and step fully into freedom, aliveness, and restored fellowship with God, ourselves, others, and new creation!

LIVING IN GOD'S STORY

No matter the reputation of the church, the doubts and questions, the divisions in and around our theologies or expressions, we are called to lose our lives and find them in the whole story of God. We represent a God of unrelenting compassion toward the brokenness of humanity. And, we represent an invitation to step into a Love like no other that extends backward to the beginning of time and forward to an eternal home.

Let us rise to the occasion as the people of God and demonstrate with grace and power what is possible in Christ.

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UNPRECEDENTED PEOPLE: We Gather.

Natasha Dongell — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 23:46:33 +0000

I remember the privilege of sitting across from a powerful, anointed woman of God several years ago. I was a fly on the wall as she spoke openly and casually with those around her. The simplest thing came out of her mouth, "We need to gather in all manner of places, under trees, in parking lots, wherever..."

The word gather came off her lips dripping with anointing. It was as though God Himself had spoken it. It lingered in the air with divinely activated potential. How could such a simple word come with so much power? It lingered in my spirit for years before God began to unfold the vision for Unprecedented People.

CHRISTIANS ALWAYS GATHER

All over the world, Christians are gathering. We gather in large numbers and in small. We gather in public and in underground churches. We gather in celebration and we gather in loss. Gathering for the Christian is nothing new! In fact, the Hebrew author instructs, "And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near" (Hebrews 10:25, NLT emphasis added).

Still, it is under attack.

To gather is perhaps the hardest thing for the North American church to do in the digital age. There is too much. There are too many choices, places to go, people to see. We prefer getting groceries delivered to our door, ordering from Amazon to avoid another stop, and telling Alexa to play worship music while we do dishes and stay home.

Churches have been grappling with the shifts in membership trends for some time now, slowly acclimating to a new pace of life and cultural mindset. But what does this mean for discipleship? How does it affect the need for accelerated discipleship to raise this generation and the next as effective, kingdom ambassadors, equipped to steward the gospel in a new world?

Effective, transformative, and empowering discipleship cannot take place without consistent and intimate gathering. Why? Because transformation happens in the context of relationship. And relationship happens in the context of consistent and intimate gathering.

Just like you and I have been formed by our own families and cultures of origin, we are re-formed by living in a new family and culture. By gathering in and living life together, in loyalty and commitment, we can re-wire the default settings of our old ways to establish new ones. We can become new – kainos – “Unprecedented - without precedent, of a different kind.” New blood and bond unite us as we are being newly created in Christ.

Here's the thing. I may want to be "transformed by the renewing of my mind" (Romans 12:2), but I still don't have time! I can't do it all! I can't build my career, maintain relationships, keep up with the trends, pay attention to my health, and engage with the church enough to see real change bear in my life. The pieces aren't fitting together, and this generation is struggling to make sense of it all.

AN OLD CHALLENGE

We are facing a new challenge in this digital age if we are going to get serious about discipling the next generation. One hour on Sunday isn't enough to develop relational intimacy with God and others, but no one thinks they have time to add more.

One of the things I love about being Wesleyan is our heritage as master disciplers. John Wesley created a unique network of gatherings that varied in size and purpose. He realized that several kinds of gathering were necessary for transformative discipleship to take place that would advance the kingdom of God here on earth. There were large societies of 50 or more for a more cognitive learning experience, then class meetings of around twelve met for prayer, study, and fellowship, then bands of 3 people gathered regularly for accountability and deeper encouragement.

Wesley developed an organizational strategy to meet a very clear objective. He raised up a kingdom army of Christ-followers who spread the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the known and newly discovered world. It was God's provision for a new age, a radical act of faithfulness through which hundreds of thousands were saved. The new world was radically influenced by these Jesus-followers and the Person they represented, affecting our lives even today.

UNPRECEDENTED PEOPLE

Are we in the same kind of time? Are we facing the same kind of need Wesley was caught up in so many years ago? I believe we are! And I believe God will be faithful today as He was before. I believe He is crafting a new/old strategy to meet the same objective as Wesley, to raise up a generation of Jesus-followers equipped to carry and unleash the grace of God on an unsuspecting world. One very key part of this strategy is how we gather. In this digital age with virtual communities and endless connectivity, we need a serious strategy to build intimacy with God and one another for the purposes of re-formation, being made new (Unprecedented).

Unprecedented People are rooted in the love of God and our love for one another. We are re-formed into a different family, with a different culture, and a different perspective. Out of that place, like branches grafted into the Vine, can we bear fruit, living lives of effective grace that truly bless and impact the world around us (John 15).

So we'll gather. In small pockets and in large. Online and face-to-face. In houses and church buildings. Under trees, in parking lots, wherever.

Learning how to gather effectively is for another post.

Stay tuned!

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UNPRECEDENTED PEOPLE: Restoring Unity

Natasha Dongell — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 23:19:42 +0000

RESTORING UNITY

DIFFERENT PEOPLE. DIFFERENT VALUES.

I love being a mom. I think I'm a good mom. I have some parenting strengths that have helped me maintain a solid connection with these little (not so little) people through all kinds of ups and downs. I've developed deep-seated values along life's way that make space for the soul, prioritize a connection with God, and pay attention to the heart "for from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4:23, ESV). In many ways, these serve me well and remain solid value systems in my life today.

Still, whatever these strengths represent, they have some serious downsides when raising little people into future adults. So often I can't decide whether to laugh or cry as I watch Brent step into fatherhood like an absolute hero and try to correct all the crazy ways I"ve messed them up!

I am an artistic personality and decided early on that life was something more than a clean house, a list of tasks, and a tight schedule. If the girls want to pile all the pillows in the house on the living floor and have a sleepover inside their "nest," I say, "Sure!" If it's raining in that perfect warm downpour outside and the girls want to put their bathing suits on and run out into the puddles, I say, "Do it!" In these moments, I don't care about chores. I don't care about homework. (Selfishly, I care about the repercussions I'll experience on the other side, particularly the amount of time it will take me to clean up the mess...). Still, what could be more important than connecting with nature, making room for a surge of creativity, and expressing our delight in being alive!?

Imagine a family unit where I am the sole parent. My personality, values, and preferences are shaping the culture of our home and the lives of the littles within. Boy, were we a soulful, connected mess when we met Brent!

Though Brent is the master of spontaneity and wild adventures, he values discipline and responsibility as a dad. He has excellent boundaries and objectivity in parenting. When we set out to go somewhere, he expects us to arrive at point B in a timely manner. When we start a project, he expects us to finish it before moving on to something else. He tends to move from task to task, project to project, with some spontaneous adventures thrown in as often as possible.

So while brent is working to keep us on task and moving from point A to point B on any given subject, I stop everything and say, "Look, girls! Look how that vine is weaving itself up the tree! Doesn't it take your breath away (even though we've seen it a hundred times before)!" or "Oh, is there something stirring in your heart? Let's push pause and explore what's going on to deepen our connection with God and each other. Our task can wait for another day."

So often, in the run of a busy week, Brent and I collide into the tense friction of opposing values. Diversity presents itself not only in the global varieties of our current culture but in the most intimate places of our lives and hearts.

UNITY IN DIVERSITY

Learning how to blend our parenting, hearts, and lives have been one of, if not the hardest thing either of us has ever set out to do. Why? Of all the things? Of all the challenges? Why this one?

At the core of our fallen selves is this need to shape the world according to our own desires and preferences. We create a world in which we are at the center, and therefore diversity becomes a severe discomfort! There have been times in our blending that I have looked back to widowhood and thought, "At least I could live how I wanted to live and parent how I wanted to parent." Doesn't that sound just like the Israelites who longed for the soggy food of slavery in Egypt (Exodus 16:3) when God was leading into wealth and abundance?

Our selfish minds trick us into all kinds of bad thinking. We were better off alone. If only we had someone to meet our needs. Somewhere back there we had more control. We start to crave an imagined happiness that flows from an imagined life revolving around ourselves. Deceptively, this appeals more than the life of cost required to build anything new or that blesses many.

KINGDOM LIVING AND GLOBAL COMMUNITY

Right now our world is a clash of values. Though a global community is championing tolerance, acceptance, and unity in diversity, our selfish hearts struggle to build such a reality in our families, neighborhoods, and communities. Even within the church, we have allowed dividing lines of separation and a tribalistic culture to mute our testimony to the Truth of Jesus and His incredible vision (and provision) for the whole of creation.

Though good people are doing good things everywhere, Jesus longs to restore our hearts to unity and oneness in Him! In Him, we find a way of life that meets the needs of our individuality as well as the whole. In Him, we discover an uplifting life of purpose through our humility and self-sacrifice. All these things come into a life-giving balance when we align ourselves to Him.

Losing our lives to find Life in Him is how we become people who change the world.

RESTORING UNITY

God is stirring in this generation a breed of disciples who advance across dividing lines and demonstrate a love so captivating that it calls the whole world to attention.

But how do we get there? Where do we start? We learn this courage in the context of our marriages, our friendships, our relationships with parents, bosses, coworkers, and kids. We learn the way of Christ in the smallest and most invisible places of our lives before fruit can manifest itself into a global movement.

This generation may want to end slavery, but we will not accomplish it if we don't learn how to love our neighbor. Our lack of love will continue to draw lines of separation that create spaces of slavery for other people.

There is slavery in marriage, in parenting, in teams, and on playgrounds. Unity in diversity happens only one way, as we learn how to love.

LEARNING TO LOVE

Jesus' love is so radical because it doesn't see lines. It doesn't notice separation. It doesn't realize, "Oh, I'm not supposed to talk to that person, touch that person, or become friends with that person."

Jesus sees humanity. He honors the one within the whole. Every one has dignity and is an essential part of the whole that is humanity. In fact, the one is the whole and the whole is the one.

This is the simple profundity of Jesus' ministry. "Love your neighbor," He says, as though it was easily done (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 5:43, Matthew 19:19, Matthew 22:39, and more)!

START WITH THE PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU

Brent and I pay what is often a painful price seeking to live as a unified whole, but man, have our kids benefited. Our sphere of influence has widened and the wealth of our lives has deepened. There are times we've felt crushed under the weight of compromise and self-sacrifice, but the culture of our home is expanding and morphing to represent new, diversified values that feel like kingdom living. Slowly but surely, we're learning how to love.

Where is there tension and friction in your small world of up-close relationships? Who do you avoid due to opposing values, unhealed wounds, or lack of preference? Where are you lashing out in fear or withdrawing your voice into a constructed and controlled reality (self-protection)?

This is where God's kingdom is nudging, asking to break out, in the secret places of our hearts and the invisible spaces of our intimate relationships.

Start here, and before long, we'll be equipped with the kind of love that can restore a broken world to unified oneness.

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Calling New Wine

Natasha Dongell — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:56:12 +0000

In the seas of change and cultural confusion, I see a generation of world changers arising.

Are you one?

Do you ache to see something good happen in this world?

Are you longing to give your life to something bigger than yourself?Do you have a genuine love and desire for Jesus?

I see these hungry disciples with their hearts stirring within them, but lacking guidance or a clear path forward... They're waiting for someone who can show them the way into a life of meaning and purpose executed on a completely different landscape than the world we once knew.

A NEW MOVEMENT FOR A NEW MOMENT IN HISTORY

If I may boldly declare, God is birthing a new movement in North America, a new spiritual awakening that is stirring in the hearts and lives of this generation. This is not because our previous generations have failed, or that the traditional church is bad. Every Jesus-believing generation stands on the shoulders of faithful men and women who have gone before.

NOTE: We will offer them our honor, gratitude, and respect, always.

Still, we are reeling from the radical shift in the Western world over the last few decades (much longer than that actually). The same way the printing press acted as a world-changing catalyst that led to the Rennaissance, Enlightenment, and Reformation, the World Wide Web birthed an unprecedented time in global history. With accelerating levels of change, every culture now interfaces at complex and intimate levels of interaction and socio-networking. That kind of global interfacing necessitates a re-evaluation of each individual culture. In many cases, this interfacing has become its own catalyst for a kind of deconstruction and reconstruction process where certain paradigms that cannot co-exist within this multi-cultural community are replaced with ones that can.

As a millennial, and maybe as a Canadian, I cannot avoid or deny the reality of a collapsed cultural construct, that the "modern" culture (as in Age of Reason) has essentially collapsed in the Western world partially due to its incongruence with multi-cultural interfacing. I now think of millennials as a transition generation. We were raised primarily within the "modern" cultural constructs only to step across the chasm of child to adult and discover it in ruins. Instead, we faced an entirely different world for which we were never prepared. Out of this great struggle came the quickly adopted phrase, adulting!

If you resonate with that, then you may also resonate with the feeling that you no longer fit. That a gap exists between you and other aspects of our Western society. You know you can't go back and be what your parents were, what their parents were. You can't exactly think the way they think or experience the way they experience life. And yet, there is no clear path forward! There is no new way to step into. A whole lot of people are looking for it, claiming to have found it, trying to deliver it, and yet... something still lacks.

NEW WINE (waiting for new wineskins)

I believe that God is faithful to each generation. He never abandons His people, but always makes provision. He has prepared the way with new wine for a new age!

Do you have new wine inside of you that is meant for a new wineskin? Jesus mentions a tension that exists when new wineskin is kept within old wineskins:

"Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." (Matthew 9:17, NIV)

Old wineskins are not bad. They aren't wrong or evil or the cause of all our problems! They are the testimony of God's faithfulness to our spiritual mothers and fathers and the systems within which we were raised. Still, new wine doesn't find its fit within an old wineskin. Rather, a feeling of pressure and discomfort starts to build within those who carry new wine inside of them.

Some of you have been angry at the church, but you need to redirect your passion toward blessing the church and trusting God to provide a new wineskin within which you can release the new wine He has put inside of you.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: New Wine does not refer to a new gospel! There is only one new wineskin and that is the new covenant of salvation found in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. This will never change. Our gospel is not changing. Our Jesus is not changing. The Word of God is not changing. Rather, time is changing. Culture is changing. The system within which the gospel of Jesus Christ pulses with new, living, saving potential is changing.

UNPRECEDENTED PEOPLE (people who change the world)

I believe God is raising up an incredible army of faithful followers of Jesus Christ who carry new wine and will release an unprecedented move of God that is divinely appointed for such a time as this. God has entrusted us with a most profound cultural moment. Will we steward the grace (new wine) He's poured into us for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be made known in this generation and the next?

If this resonates with you, if you are called by God to this end, then I am called to you!

I am called to gather, heal, train, and send Unprecedented People - followers of Jesus Christ who carry this grace (new wine) to unleash an unprecedented move of God for such a time as this. I believe we're about to unleash an outpouring of His presence that will not look like anything we've seen previously. (Again, not a new gospel, but a fresh system within which we can unite, transform, and release the saving power and presence of the living God.)

Together, let's keep in step with His Spirit and pioneer forward into a new global age. We will have front row seats to the miraculous work of God building a new wineskin before our very eyes!

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."

Isaiah 43:19, NIV

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When words come alive.

Natasha Dongell — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 16:03:58 +0000

Introducing Cycle #2 - "ACTIVATE" - of His Words Series: Real Change with His Words

The Activate cycle intends to take the words we’ve considered, pondered, and meditated on, and bring them to life by personalizing them and infusing them with faith. We want His Words not just in our intellect or knowledge base, but to be “alive and active” in our innermost being (Hebrews 4:12).

What does it take to bring His Words to life? Meditating is a passive practice, but activating is… active! To activate something, a catalyst is required, a spark to get the candle burning. In this case, that catalyst is faith. Without faith, His Words sit like unlit candles, taking up space but providing no light or warmth to the soul. So, in this cycle, we will be praying His Words, not just thinking about them. We’re picking them up like arrows from the quiver and pointing them toward the goal of unprecedented living.

Here’s the thing though, activating God’s Word in your inner being is dangerous business! By that I mean, it ignites the Refiner’s fire within your soul! You will be changed if you allow His Words to come to life inside of you. There’s no telling what the outcome will be, except that you will look more and more like Jesus, discover more of your true self, and become freer of all this life’s strongholds and constraints.

So hold on! Like Lucy and Mr. Tumnus say of Aslan, “No one said he was a tame lion…”

“No, but He is good.”

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HIS WORDS SERIES: Ephesians 3:14-21 breakdown

Natasha Dongell — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 16:32:25 +0000

I am hungry for real transformation. The main reason is that I am so sick of my own self. I am desperate to believe that God can really do what he says he can do in me! Otherwise, I am stuck with the me I don't want to be, a failed potential of all that I was made for.

Can you relate?

I've decided to share just one of the ways I engage with God and His very powerful grace to see real transformation take shape in my life. Discipline and commitment are involved... but I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for you!

MEMORIZATION

The digital age offers little motivation for memorizing anything. I may need to know a few passwords and codes or memorize dates and facts for a particular test, but otherwise, all my important docs and info are accessible through my device.

As someone who loves Jesus, though, I want to live in Him. I want to be one with Him as He is one with the Father (John 17:21). I want my life to reflect His image. Personally, I've needed a deeper engagement with His living Word in order to see some level of realization of this work in my present life.

If you're hungry for the same thing, I'd love to work together and become a people who can truly change the world with the love and light of Jesus Christ.

THE STRATEGY

I've designed a simple strategy that can be implemented for any variety of passages. It takes some time but provides a simple breakdown and approach to digest God's Word at a deeper level for real transformation.

This time, for Ephesians 3:14-21, I'm using the New Living Translation. (Please feel free to use another of your own choosing.)

We will walk through the passage 3 times:

CYCLE 1: Meditate

CYCLE 2: Activate

CYCLE 3: Renew

Each passage is broken into 21 phrases or verses. There's nothing magical about 21, but the idea originally came from a number ascribed to the power of breaking old habits and setting new ones. 21 days alone are not enough, but 3 cycles of 21 days have the potential to bring about some degree of change.

Please feel free to do what you can, as you can. If you get behind, then want to jump back in later or start from where you left off, please do!!

When it comes to spiritual disciplines, we are always managing the tension between discipline and grace. Both are necessary tools on the road to transformation!

THE BREAKDOWN

Here is the breakdown for Ephesians 3:14-21, NLT.

Day 1. When I think of all this

Day 2. I fall to my knees and pray to the Father

Day 3. the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth

Day 4. I pray that from his glorious unlimited resources

Day 5. he will empower you with inner strength

Day 6. through his Spirit

Day 7. Then Christ will make his home in your heart

Day 8. as you trust in him

Day 9. Your roots will go down into God's love and keep you strong

Day 10. and may you have the power to understand

Day 11. as all God's people should

Day 12. how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is

Day 13. may you experience the love of Christ

Day 14. though it is too great to understand fully

Day 15. Then, you will be made complete

Day 16. with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God

Day 17. Now all glory to God who is able

Day 18. through his mighty power at work within us

Day 19. to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think

Day 20. glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus

Day 21. through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

I'm putting this online as I go, but it will then be available for you to access anytime you like! Start and end whenever is convenient for you!

Bless you, dear friends, and may you uncover hidden treasures in secret places (Is 45:3), placed there by the Holy Spirit for YOU! May you become more intimately acquainted and connected to the God who loves you and has called you according to His purposes

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Ephesians 3:14-21, Cycle 1, Day 1

Natasha Dongell — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 16:25:37 +0000

"When I think of all this..."

This phrase may seem inconsequential. What amount of substance can it offer to a hungry soul? Still, as we let it linger in the mind and expand to its full potential, we find limitless depth and enlightenment!

Paul has engaged the most profound mystery, that is the mystery of Christ and His Church. He sets his pen to masterfully expound on the revelation of her, the bride, the object of such affection and sacrifice She is the chosen and adopted one, the redeemed and delivered, the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, the intersecting point through which heaven comes to earth and all things unite under one Sovereign Lord.

Paul revels in the absurdity of it all, in the great mystery of what God has done through Jesus Christ. He drew the world into Himself, bringing those who were far off near into the epicenter of His heart. He gave them every spiritual blessing under heaven, opening the storehouse of endless treasures made available to us in Christ (3:8), “to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (3:10).

When he thinks of all this…

Ephesians 3:14-21 is written as a response to all that comes before in Ephesians 1:1-3:13. It is widely accepted that Paul is writing to the global church, not just the church in Ephesus. He holds nothing back as he casts the glorious vision of this new thing called the Church to which he has been called. Never before has heaven been so close and accessible than when Jesus’ Spirit invaded the lives of everyday human beings like you and me.

When was the last time you felt awe around the provocative idea of our salvation? That regular people like us, sinners who fall and fail and make mistakes, would be called sons and daughters of God, co-heirs with Christ, be granted freedom and forgiveness of all wrongdoing and given authority in heavenly places?

How often do you think of the great mystery and awesome wonder of all that it means to be her, the bride, the apple of the Lord’s eye, and the one for whom he died?

When I think of all this…

Remember these words today, keep coming back to them, and allow your imagination to swell as you consider the wonders that are available to you in and through Jesus Christ.

When I think of all this…

Father, I am available to receive your wisdom, your insight, and the gift of understanding you provide. Let your Spirit administer your Word to my inner being, and may it not return to You void, but work something wonderful in me that brings glory to your name.

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Meditating like King David

Natasha Dongell — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 16:40:21 +0000

Summary:

What do we mean by meditation, and how do we engage this practice as the people of God?

1. Meditation is not new to Christianity! It is firmly established in our rich history and easily demonstrated throughout the Scriptures. We see it most pronounced in the life of King David as he passionately pursues oneness and intimacy with God. He says in Psalm 119:97, "Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long." To David, meditating on God's words and instruction is a means to know Him, to access His presence, and to learn of His life-giving ways.

2. Whereas some forms of meditation are designed to facilitate an emptying of the mind, meditating like David demonstrates a way of making space, maybe cutting other things out that war for our attention, to engage the mind at a deeper level.

3. Furthermore, whereas some meditation might lead you in connecting to a universal force that exists both in and around us, meditating like David means engaging with a personal God for personal intimacy, the God is the very Source of that energy and connectedness throughout all of creation!

So what do we mean?

When a lot of things are warring for our hearts and attention, we need to make space in our minds to be attentive to His Words, with openness and availability to hear from His Holy Spirit.
This might mean cutting some things out, maybe media/tv or a few extra minutes of sleep so we can take advantage of the early morning or late night quiet... Sometimes, in the run of a busy day, it means less worry and more trust as continually bring our attention back to God's words.
We trust that God wants to connect with us at a personal level through His Word. These are not impersonal words, just as he is not an impersonal being! He wants to speak, and He wants His sheep to know and hear His voice!

Meditating on God's word is a discipline with a cost. It is a counter-cultural move, a leaning into the Narrow Gate, while the world flows with seeming ease in another direction...

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" (Matthew 7:13-14, NIV).

Still, it will not leave you wanting! But will do the saving work of restoring you into a fruitful, life-giving, and whole human being!

Blessed is the one ...whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in seasonand whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.

(Psalm 1:1-3, NIV)

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