Isolation Spirals: Screens, Shows & Social Media

This is Part 3 of a series on “Isolation Spirals!” Read the full intro post for some background on the concept here →

• • • • • • • • • •

Here’s the big idea as a recap: life is hard. life hurts. So we seek momentary relief to avoid that pain and the bigger issues behind it. And those momentary painkillers have unintended long-term effects. They end up creating distance from the people that we need to be close to - the people that we need to help us heal.

Our coping mechanisms are unconscious protection from others getting to our vulnerable place - the place where we can be wounded. They push us away from people because people are the ones who could hurt us. 

The biggest problem with any coping mechanism isn’t the behavior or substance itself: it’s the ISOLATION that it causes.

On that note, let’s talk about the isolating effect of legalism and perfectionism.

• • • • • • • • • •

Alright, blah blah blah… we all know we’re screen-addicted. Not shocking news. But just for fun… let’s throw my favorite stat out there:

In 2020, viewers spent more than 57 billion minutes watching “The Office” on Netflix.

Dang.

Here’s where we’re headed with this though…

Wasted time is NOT the biggest problem with our screen addictions. Isolation is.

Let’s get into it.

• • • • • • • • • •

Shows are a remote and safe way to feed off of others’ relationships and allow us to be distracted from our own real needs. They make us feel relationally connected, but give us none of the real benefits.

Especially when we watch things together with a spouse or a friend - we had a shared experience, which is good. But often, we’re relationally exhausted because of the intensity of what we just watched. And that means we have nothing left for the actual person we just shared the experience with!

With social media, we can even feel artificially connected to people, when really, we're just being entertained by other people’s lives and relationships through a medium that was literally created to keep you addicted! 

But social media feels like it’s better than just passive electronics, right? Because at least there are some real people and real friends there! 

Maybe! Or not...Because between 70-93% of what we communicate is nonverbal. And so when our relationships survive primarily on text or social media, we might be only getting a mere 7% of the content.

(unless you’re awesome 😎 and use emojis 😜 like your relationships 🥳 depend on it 😳…)

Such limited content can’t light up the joy center in your brain because your unconscious brain has no idea if someone is actually glad to see you or not. 

Because all in all, social media is not leaving us room for meaningful relationships with people, it just gives us hits of neurochemicals that make us feel just normal enough to keep moving forward. 

In high school I literally walked around with my mom’s laptop playing Friends, the show. Now… I realize that’s because I didn’t have any friends. At least, not any deep and real friendships with people who knew me and loved me like I needed. 

So how does all this lead to isolation? Well, of course, they steal our time and our energy, leaving us less room for the people in our lives.

But it’s worse than that.

Our brains THRIVE on something called mimicry. You’ve probably heard of mirror neurons - it’s all part of the same circuitry in the brain.

The main point is this: we unconsciously expect that people will react and look like what we’ve repeatedly seen.

So when your thinking brain starts to shut down in moments of stress, exhaustion, fear, or pain, your unconscious mind quickly decides how to react based off of the most common images in your memory. It favors the common responses, not the wisest ones.

And guess what? That part of our brain doesn’t deal in logic and language. It deals in pictures and emotions.

What you’ve SEEN determines much of what you BELIEVE - and therefore what you’ll DO.

So think about the pictures that we’ve uploaded into our hard drives from shows and social media, and what they’ve taught us:

• it only takes 30 seconds or so to resolve conflict, as long as you say something poetic and quippy

• sex begins after one smooth line and a flash of bedroom eyes (forget about all the baggage from the rest of the episode!)

• who wastes time on sitting down to eat right, going to bed early, working out, going on slow walks, playing with their kids on the floor, or grocery shopping? the cool people are all too busy living their “best lives” and enjoying every moment of every day.

• bored is the enemy - everything is supposed to be important and epic and dramatic all the time

• we can even start to expect that others will treat us like the protagonist of the story (this even has a name! It’s called egocentric bias)

Or some other sinister ways this plays out… we expect that someone SHOULD be able to express all the nuance necessary for a loaded political or controversial topic in their social media post, and that the fact that they DIDN’T accurately express that nuance means they’re too far gone to be close to. 

Or maybe, although we “know” better, our unconscious minds expect that other people’s highlight reels are their real lives. It starts to subtly create distance between us if I believe that’s your reality, because it’s NOT AT ALL like mine.

Whether it’s the time we’ve lost, the comparison that haunts us, or the unrealistic expectations we’ve learned, unchecked shows and social media quickly become isolation spirals.

I expect something.
My expectation isn’t met.
I’m hurt.
I cope with more shows and social becuase they numb the pain.
My expectations remain high.
My expectations are even further from reality.

And on it goes.

• • • • • • • • • •

Breaking this spiral, just like any other addiction, begins with sobriety.

Sobriety is NEVER the full answer - but it is always an important starting point. Recognizing and admitting just how dangerous these glowing rectangles in our pockets really are is step 1. Breaking the chemical hold they have over your brain is step 2. It’s very important to reclaim our minds and also stop the uploading of new images and expectations.

But we have more work to do.

This isolation spiral is really all about expectations - so we have to become aware of ours and how they’ve been hijacked.

Do some investigative work anytime you feel let down, wounded, left behind, or anything like it.

Try and fill in these blank:

• I wish they were more like ________.

• I wish it had gone like ________.

• If only I was more like ________.

And make sure to run through the catalog of fictional characters or people whose highlight reels you follow.

Once you’ve identified your expectation, match it up against BOTH Scripture and reality. Is this something that’s healthy to expect of someone else? Is it even possible? Is it in line with how Jesus would live if he were me, or them?

Most importantly, as you do that work, make your way to the core issue:

Identify your real, vulnerable need behind the expectation and ask for help.

Recovery is learning to trust again - getting our needs met in relationship instead of continuing to self-gratify. So move toward someone trustworthy, be vulnerable and share what you need or what you’re struggling with, and allow them to meet that need and care for you.

And then to complete the cycle, be there for them as well.

It won’t be perfect like an Instagram filter. It won’t fit snugly into a 23-minute runtime. But it will be real.

---

It’s time to expose the corrupted beliefs driving your isolation spirals.

The Bible has always said our problems always start in the heart - and modern brain science and recovery principles have helped us see that the Bible was even more right than we knew.

The Done with Stuck Roadmap gives you a reusable process for identifying the core heart issues hiding behind the emotions and behaviors that we actually see.

We’ll teach you how to start treating everything as evidence that will lead you to the “bottom of things.”

And you won’t just find those core issues; you’ll begin repairing the damage that’s been done and moving forward courageously alongside friends who are learning how to encourage and empower you.

Isolation Spirals: Legalism & Perfectionism

This is Part 2 of a series on “Isolation Spirals!” Read the full intro post for some background on the concept here →

• • • • • • • • • •

Here’s the big idea as a recap: life is hard. life hurts. So we seek momentary relief to avoid that pain and the bigger issues behind it. And those momentary painkillers have unintended long-term effects. They end up creating distance from the people that we need to be close to - the people that we need to help us heal.

Our coping mechanisms are unconscious protection from others getting to our vulnerable place - the place where we can be wounded. They push us away from people because people are the ones who could hurt us. 

The biggest problem with any coping mechanism isn’t the behavior or substance itself: it’s the ISOLATION that it causes.

On that note, let’s talk about the isolating effect of legalism and perfectionism.

• • • • • • • • • •

Perfectionism seems like a personal issue, right? An internal struggle against anxiety, insecurity, or fear that I’m not good enough for God or even for my own standards.

But right there, we start to see a deeper relational issue: perfectionism is a desperate battle for acceptance. And acceptance comes from others.

The problem behind perfectionism and legalism is actually judgments.

Judgments are an assumption about your character, based on your behavior. They don’t say you did something bad; they say you are something bad. Judgments are one of the most powerful unconscious things that we avoid - they are a fast track to lasting heart wounds. We’ve all been judged at some point in our lives, and our hearts don’t let us forget those moments.

One protective response to that unconscious fear of judgment is to never be too vulnerable in certain areas. Never give someone evidence that might lead to an assumption about who I really am.

Words like these wound us to the core:

• if you tried a bit harder… 

• if you weren’t such a screw-up… 

• if you didn’t have that long, dark past… 

• if you REALLY loved the people in your life that you’re hurting… 

Judgments lead to instant relational barriers. And PAST judgments leave us with corrupted beliefs about who we are, how God sees us, and how safe it is to trust other people.

But that wall of perfectionism or religious legalism is a TOUGH facade to keep up - and it’s all based on this insecure fear. So anxious energy - which is real energy in the body - is produced all the time to keep the shield powered up. And as damaging as the energy is… it feels good and helpful moment. It helps us avoid the fear of judgment and the pain of shallow relationships.

If no one knows my struggles, then no one knows me.

In his fantastic book The Cure, John Lynch says “When I wear a mask, only the mask receives love.” Legalism creates distance between me and God - if I don’t let Him behind the mask, I don’t get the grace I need. And perfectionism creates distance between me and others - if I don’t show them what’s really going on, then I don’t get the support I need.

Unfortunately, the next stop on the spiral is where it gets rough.

My personal legalism or perfectionism comes naturally paired with a judgmental attitude toward others.

There is an intense connection between my fear of judgment and how I judge others. 

Listen to Jesus talk about this in Matthew 7:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” 

He isn’t just posing an interesting idea… he’s asking a question! And we need to answer it!

WHY do we do it?

WHY do we turn our attention to sawdust in someone else’s eye? Notice, he said LOOK and not TAKE OUT… he knows we’re not doing it to be helpful. If we were helpful… we’d take it out and provide our friend some relief from a perpetually itchy eye!

The reality is that I’m using the dust in your eye to block my view of the plank in mine. 

My plank scares me. But your sawdust relieves me of that fear for a moment. It diverts my attention away from my inadequacy and toward yours. 

And right BEFORE that statement, Jesus describes how this destroys our relationships and continues the spiral:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

And this is not a fear-mongering statement about God raining down judgment on my head because I judged someone else. God is not petty like that. 

But we humans ARE. And we’re defensive.

I throw my judgment at you, you throw it back on me, and we continue “protecting ourselves” by further isolating from each each other so we never have to face the reality of our fears. The spiral continues, until someone decides to break out.

Intentional vulnerability is the only way to break the spiral of perfectionism and legalism.

We don’t start with doing things less perfectly. We don’t throw out the guardrails and try some new bad behavior on for size. Everything we attempt on our own just furthers our isolation and buries us deeper in the hole that we dug.

And we have to remember that the problem isn’t perfectionism or legalism - they’re just symptoms of fear.

Fear of shame.
Fear of betrayal.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of being known.

That kind of fear is not unfounded, either. It comes from real experiences, wounds, and messages from throughout life.

So the next right thing to do is face that fear and choose to be vulnerable. It doesn’t even have to be the whole story yet - just choose something.

A mistake. Something that made you mad. A fleeting moment of envy.

Intentionally share that something with someone you trust. Don’t ask for advice or a fix. And stop someone before they give it to you! The point is to be seen, known, and still loved.

Test the waters of vulnerability, record the new experience, and take the next brave step toward wholeness.

• • • • • • • • • •

What are your Isolation Spirals?

“Triggers” don’t seem to go away, do they? No matter what you seem to do, they just keep coming back.

The same kinds of things hurt you, frustrate you, annoy you, worry you, or stress you over and over again.

And even when you learn to manage them, it almost seems like they keep getting worse at the same exact rate that you get better at managing them “effectively”.

Spoiler alert: you’re on an Isolation Spiral.

To be fair… everyone is on an isolation spiral of some kind. Let’s back up to the real problem first.

Isolation is our default setting in the broken world we inhabit. Pain is everywhere - and worst of all, relational pain is everywhere. We are completely interdependent in this world, and we need safe and intimate relationships to function - people we trust to love us completely and help us become the best versions of ourselves.

But that kind of relationship is NOT the default setting. Even our relationships are fraught with conflict, tension, miscommunication, and sometimes betrayal. We have all trusted and been hurt in return - and that pain doesn’t just go away. We remember it in the deepest corners of our hearts.

Because we live with this painful reality our whole lives, we become experts at protecting ourselves from pain and vulnerability. We find unconscious ways to keep people from hurting us in the ways we fear they could. They help us feel momentarily normal. 

That’s why our brains have created ongoing cravings and pathways for them - that’s why they become easier and easier, stronger and stronger. That’s how they become our go-to coping mechanisms. We never do anything that doesn’t do something FOR us - and avoiding pain is one of the primary goals our brains are trying to accomplish in most settings.

(the foundation for these ideas is part of the Done with Stuck Roadmap - how we achieve real and lasting change with the help of the bible, brain science, and practical recovery tools)

Every one of our coping mechanisms, each and every way that we protect ourselves from the threat of relational pain, eventually becomes an isolation spiral. 

Our coping mechanisms are unconscious protection from others getting to our vulnerable place - the place where we can be wounded. They push us away from people because people are the ones who could hurt us. 

They make us feel momentary relief, a little artificial hit of dopamine to ease the pain. But they have unintended long-term effects. They create distance from the people that we need to be close to - the people that we need to help us heal.

And then that pain of loneliness catches up, and my heart is even more tender than before. So I numb more pain.

Then I’m more isolated.
Then more pain.
More numbing.
More isolation. 

Isolation Spirals pick up more and more steam, moving faster and faster, until we choose to break them.

Here’s where we often go wrong - because usually, we try to stop coping in unhealthy ways. We try to ease our pain in an acceptable way instead of with anger, porn, binge-eating, overworking, or whatever else. We instead choose arts and crafts, working out, cutting loose someone who annoys me, or something else “acceptable”.

But swapping out the coping mechanism will never break the isolation spiral. It will just isolate you in a new way. And the behavior isn’t the real problem: the isolation is the problem.

We only break free when we accept vulnerability and move toward the people who could hurt us. 

• • • • • • • • • •

In this series of posts, we’re going to talk through some of the most commonly misunderstood Isolation Spirals and think about the unexpected ways they isolate us and actually make our issues worse.

For each one, and for all of our behaviors, we’ll ask the same questions: 

1. What am I GETTING from this behavior? What pain am I killing, memory or thought am I avoiding, or fear am I running from? 
   

2. How exactly does this isolate me, creating distance between me and the people I should be close to? What effect does this have on other people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors?
   

3. What would breaking the spiral look like? What is the courageous, vulnerable risk that could break my isolation?

---

Don’t think about pink elephants

Sorry… now you’re definitely thinking about pink elephants.

Little mind tricks like this are all fun and games when it’s pink elephants. But what about when we hear things that cut a little deeper? And worse… what about when it’s our own brains that tell us not to think about pink elephants?

“I’ll never be enough. Our relationship will never be fixed.”

“I’m too far gone. I clearly can’t change, or I would’ve by now.”

“I shouldn’t trust anyone - I’ll just get hurt.”

“If anyone knew the real me, they’d run away.”

Every single one of us has a list of thoughts like these that force their way into the front of our minds consistently. And there’s a reason they’re not positive ones! We all have a clear and noticeable negativity bias as humans:

“…a tendency not only to register negative stimuli more readily but also to dwell on these events. Also known as positive-negative asymmetry, this negativity bias means that we feel the sting of a rebuke more powerfully than we feel the joy of praise.” (from verywellmind.com)

Negative thoughts stick in our minds, command our attention, affect how we relate to God and others, gain more traction as we pick up more evidence for them, and then end up doing physical damage to our brains and bodies over time. (watch the expert, Dr. Caroline Leaf, for more on toxic thoughts VS. healthy thoughts and their physical effects!)

We need a solution to our problem with intrusive negative thoughts. And unfortunately, you may have been told to “stop thinking that way” or “keep your mind on positive things instead.”

Or even worse, you’ve had Philippians 4:8 thrown at you inappropriately as if it would magically fix the constant anxiety you struggle with or shut up your inner critic once and for all: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

So why is “thinking about positive things instead of negative things” such a big problem?

Simple: it just. doesn’t. work.

• • • • • • • • • •

In the book Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day, neuroscientist Amishi P. Jha explains why this strategy or “positive thought replacement” doesn’t jive with how God wired our brains: "

“While there is substantial research that positive is beneficial under many circumstances, tactics like positivity or suppression are not merely ineffective during periods of high stress and high demand - they can actually be damaging. (…) This effort sucks up cognitive resources. Stress goes up, mood worsens. (…) You’re in a downward spiral, cognitively depleted and less able to cope and function.”

Even at the most basic neurological level, NOT thinking about pink elephants is a terrible way to stop thinking about pink elephants.

And she was just writing about things that distract us. She wasn’t talking about deep-seated fears, recurring worry about the future, destructive cravings and behaviors that just won’t go away… or any of the other big hitters that we want so desperately to make go away for good.

In reality, our inability to simply shoo away negative thoughts is not a “bug” in our system. It’s a “feature.” It’s part of God’s intentional design.

To really change, we have to stop seeing negative thoughts, emotions, and even behaviors as problems -
and start seeing them as information about the real problem.

• • • • • • • • • •

The Bible has a very consistent theme that we need to zoom in on to figure this out:

• What we do is an overflow of who we are.

• Behaviors are evidence of what is in the heart.

• We act based on what we believe.

And spoiler alert… that heart isn’t in your chest. It’s in your brain.

And since God wants us to be whole and healthy humans, He wired our brains to constantly seek resolution. Our minds will not let us rest until we resolve what’s broken, confused, or misaligned in our hearts. That’s exactly what Paul was talking about when he said in Romans 12, “…be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

So if we shouldn’t actually STOP the negative thoughts that threaten us, spiral us out of control, or keep us up at night… what do we do?

Well, here’s a start:

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

We can only demolish what we first choose to turn and face.

Step 1: Face the Intruders

If thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are evidence of the real issue that needs to be resolved, then that evidence has to be faced. We spend a huge amount of energy avoiding our fears, emotions, and worries - but they just grow stronger in the dark corners of our hearts.

Proactively approach what you’ve been avoiding. Write them down at length. Speak them out loud, maybe even to a trusted friend. Expose what lives in darkness to the power of some good old-fashioned sunlight - even just facing what we fear takes away some of its power.

And remember, God promises to be with us IN the valley of the shadow of death - not off to the side of it. So if we want to find more of the presence of God, that’s where we’ll find it.

Step 2: Examine the Evidence

Our minds may be the home of our fears and intrusive thoughts - but our minds are not our enemies. The main reason suppressing thoughts we don’t like doesn’t work is that they’re usually not totally wrong. Every good lie has just the right amount of truth mixed in, right?

Our negative or destructive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are based on actual evidence: real pain, real fears, and real needs.

It’s our job to examine that evidence and sort out what is false, what is true, and (the largest category) what is unclear. Our minds are expert storytellers, so they consistently fill in the gaps between data points to construct a complete story. It just so happens… the story we tell ourselves is usually much worse than the reality.

Only when we’ve examined the evidence thoroughly can we move toward resolution.

Step 3: Move Toward Resolution

What did you realize was false?

What was just a baseless claim that your mind invented in the absence of any real evidence? What was assumed and inflated beyond reality? What was actually someone else’s pain or fear that they projected onto you?

• Now you have a response to those thoughts when they show back up. You don’t have to suppress them or visualize puppies and tropical vacations as a replacement. You can face them, take them captive, and prove them wrong.

What did you realize was unclear?

This is usually the biggest category. And it’s a great opportunity! When we realize that we lack information about the health of a relationship, what someone thinks of us, or how we’re doing at something, we can finally replace our assumptions with information.

• So go and get clarity! Most of our fears are relational in some way. Even if they’re personal thoughts about your worth, your value, and your significance - those aren’t things you can give yourself. They’re gifts from God, AND they’re gifts from others. So go take the risk to have honest conversations (with God AND with others) and ask for the clarity you need.
  
  “What did you mean when you said that?”
  ”How am I doing at ________?”
  ”Would you like to spend more time with me?”
  ”Is there anything off between us? Is there anything you need to tell me?”
  
  Honest conversations are the only way to get evidence of what’s true, which gets rid of the need for our hearts to fill in the gaps and invent more stories.

What did you realize was true?

This is the hard one. This is where we have to encounter our pain and feel it. This is the part we’re usually actually avoiding. This is actual evidence that something is wrong: there is a real problem, you had a part to play, and there was a real cost.

But this is also the only place we find grace.

Resolution is waiting on the other side of vulnerability with God and others.
And resolution should look a lot like healing.

• Start with an honest conversation with God about what has happened, what you’ve done, or what you’re afraid of. But don’t ask for strength to do better next time. Don’t ask for more forgiveness so you can be made clean again. You already are. Jesus’ work on the cross was complete and sufficient; it took away our fear of condemnation forever.
  
  God is much more interested in healing you than he is in fixing you.
  You’re not a machine that needs to be optimized for maximum output -
  you’re a broken human that God wants to make whole.
  
  So just ask Him what He thinks of you. Ask Him how He sees you. Ask Him how He wants to make you whole.
  
  But don’t stop there: the work isn’t done.

• “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16)
  
  Forgiveness is the result of our vulnerability and honesty with God.
  HEALING is the result of our vulnerability and honesty with OTHERS.
  
  If you wronged someone, ask for forgiveness and do the work to repair it.
  If resentment is growing inside you, address it and tell someone how they’ve hurt you.
  If you’re hurting, confused, or feel like you lack direction and purpose… TELL SOMEONE.
  
  Figure out what you need and vulnerably ask for help. Allow yourself to be fully known so you have the opportunity to be deeply loved. That’s healing - the resolution your heart has been longing for.

Resolution like that takes hard work, it doesn’t always go well, and it’s not always very straightforward. If you’re going to mine for the real issue beneath all the convoluted evidence, stories you’ve been telling yourself, and real pain that you’ve expertly avoided… you’ll need a guide and a partner.

If you’re ready to be done with stuck and become equipped to go through this process and more in your everyday life, make sure you’re subscribed so you can hear about something we’re rolling out soon! We’ll go on the journey together!

Reimagining the Fruit of the Spirit

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Galatians 5:19-26

Teaching about the Fruit of the Spirit always feels like a conundrum. Paul gives this killer list about what a follower of Jesus looks and acts like, he brings it back to the cross, and gives us this beautiful picture of fruit being grown - not forced out with white-knuckle effort.

That’ll preach.

But then we get to the action step…. because we’ve got to give everyone something to do, right? Some clear way to start living out what they just learned. BUT, we just got done saying that fruit trees don’t force out their own fruit. It’s a byproduct of… something else.

So what do we tell them to DO, without telling them to just DO the things that are supposed to naturally grow when we walk with the Spirit?

Unfortunately, we usually fall back on the go-to answers for all things spiritual growth.

Read your bible.
Pray.
Do more Christian stuff so you can stop feeding that nasty flesh that you keep feeding and can’t seem to stop… (*read as* “do better and stop sinning”)

Seeing the problem?

Obviously, we wouldn’t say it all like that - we would say that the point is that we’re all just branches, and we should do what it takes to stay connected to the vine! And that sounds much better.

But how do you do that…?

Bible…
Pray…
Stop doing bad stuff…
Come to church…
Get better friends…

There is a big WHAT and HOW hole in this story, and the neuroscience of recovery will help us reframe both.

• • • • • • • • • •

First, we have to reframe the WHAT.

It seems like Paul is grabbing this fruit metaphor from Jesus in John 15 and fleshing it out.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”

This image of complete oneness is beyond powerful - it pushes much further than our language’s weak version of the word “love”.

Jesus doesn’t want us to love him like Rose loves Jack or I love nachos… In fact, he’s hardly telling us to do anything! Our oneness seems more like a gift from Jesus TO us, and we’re just instructed to NOT move.

Jesus seems to be painting the perfect picture of the most powerful force that he hardwired into our brains: attachment.

Neuroscientists and psychologists literally can’t quantify or understand yet just how powerful attachment is. It seems to be the strongest force in a human being. It defies logic, produces unbreakable loyalty, and leads to incredible joy.

A lack of it can cause a brain and body to physically under-develop, and a full dose of it doesn’t even seem possible - there’s always room for more. 

Attachment is so much better than the word love! Our relationship with God isn’t a theological exercise or a passive understanding of the logistics of our faith. Jesus is pointing us toward an intimate, raw, experiential attachment with each of us.

But there’s more to the what, and it comes from all of Paul’s context in Galatians 5.

All of Paul’s examples and surrounding comments are all about horizontal relationships.

• he warns to not “indulge the flesh,” but do the opposite and serve one another humbly in love

• every “act of the flesh” leads to relational breakdown and isolation (hatred, discord, selfish ambition, jealousy…)

• he encourages to restore others caught in sin and carry each other’s burdens
  

So the fruit of the Spirit isn’t just about my oneness with God - it’s about God’s desire for my oneness with others.

If I’m not deeply attached to God’s people, I won’t fully experience my attachment to God.

So our new vision of “walking in the Spirit” is a deep attachment to both God and His people.

• • • • • • • • • •

With our new what, we can reframe the HOW.

With a new vision for WHAT the fruit of the Spirit really looks like, we have to provide a new action plan. And if life in the flesh leads to relational wounding, then life in the Spirit should lead to relational healing.

We have to stop thinking about the fruit of the Spirit as “my holier actions” and reframe it as “restored trust with God and others.”

What does that look like practically?

With God, it looks like honest, painful conversations with Him about my sin, my wounds, my fears, and my pain; uncovering and inviting Him into the places that are unresolved, still hurting, and the most shameful. Those are the parts of our hearts that we protect and avoid the most because they hurt the most. So naturally, that would be the place that He’s most interested in securely attaching Himself to.

And with others… it looks very similar. God gave us each other to be His physical presence on this earth. That’s why Paul was so insistent on giving horizontal instructions right after talking about the fruit of the Spirit! Attachment is a gift we give each other. We can’t choose to be fully loved by someone else, but we can all choose to fully love someone else.

And when we each make that choice, everyone gets what they need. Everyone experiences the fullness of their abiding attachment with God.

To make it even more practical, we have to realize what makes FRUIT such a perfect metaphor. Fruit is vulnerable, and so are all of Paul’s examples.

Love is vulnerable because I might not be loved back.
Gentleness is vulnerable because I could get walked on.
Peace is vulnerable because my enemy might make war.
Forbearance is vulnerable because I’m leaving justice to God and not taking it for myself.

The Fruit of the Spirit makes me vulnerable. I’m no longer protecting myself because I believe God will protect me and that the way of Jesus is worth it.

Learning to trust again is the hard work of spiritual formation, and it’s what healing actually looks like. Choosing to act like the vulnerable humans we are and get our needs met by others in relationship instead of on our own is a willful return to God’s original Eden design: naked and unashamed, “one” as Jesus and His Father were one as he walked the earth with us.

It all comes down to a simple idea:
the Fruit of the Spirit is evidence of a healed heart, not of good intentions or even healthy behaviors. So let’s make sure to trust in an action plan that leads us to that healing we all so desperately need.

Sneaky Sunday discipleship you might be missing

Mike Hickerson, Lead Pastor at Mission Church in Ventura CA, starts his messages with some variation of the same 2-minute spiel.

“Hi, My name is Mike, honored to be the Lead Pastor at Mission Church. I love our church. We exist to help people find and follow Christ. We believe that anyone is welcome, change is possible, and that there really is hope for every single one of us - not because we’re awesome, but because God is. He looked down at humanity, we were a mess, we rebelled, we broke the relationship, and he sent his best, Jesus, into the mess to rescue us - for the worst of us, and the worst in us.

I don’t know where you’re walking in today, love God or hate God, love church or hate church… but we call a truce every Sunday and say if God really is who he says he is, and he really will do all he’s promised to do, then that’s really great news for all of us…”

Then most weeks, he’ll do the same thing - he’ll have everyone turn to each other and say “you’re not perfect” and then joke about how they’ll get defensive and say “well… YOU’RE not perfect!”.

It’s a modern liturgy at its finest.

When I was on staff at Mission, I would often get asked why Mike would spend valuable time doing the same thing in almost every message. They were wondering if it’d be more important to teach for 2-3 more minutes, or if the “white noise” for regular attenders would be damaging.

And at first, I would always say that it was for the new person - they’re always out there, and they always need to hear that. It’s incredibly effective for setting up the culture and values at Mission, and paving the way for that new person, who is probably (and hopefully) far from God, to be at ease and really hear the rest of the message.

But after a while, I started to tell them that it wasn’t just for new people - it was for them.

• • • • • • • • • •

God designed our brains to thrive on imitation. That means as they constantly take in information, they store what they see and hear for future use. A huge amount of what we do each day is spontaneous - we don’t spend minutes on end using our cognitive “thinking” brains to logically decide what to do when someone drops something in front of us. We just pick it up and give it back!

Now that’s an easy one… because most people do that. Sure, some make a joke, some smile, some don’t - but overall, it’s pretty straightforward.

But what about when someone cuts you off in traffic? Do you honk? Slow down? Speed up and ride their tail? Yell at them? Sigh loudly in disgust? Explain to someone else in the car that that’s dangerous and they’re really dumb? Or maybe justify it for them: “Maybe they’re on their way to the hospital or something”?

Whatever you do, I’d guess that it’s strikingly similar to what you’ve seen others do most throughout your life.

The unconscious right half of our brains are scanning our surroundings 6 times per second trying to integrate “who we are” with “what we do”. Our unconscious brains determine our spontaneous reactions - the ones we don’t have time to “think about”. And those spontaneous reactions are determined by scanning a massive collection of past images and memories of what they’ve seen done in the past. Maybe it’s something funny and quirky that my family did all my life. Or maybe it’s something damaging that I would never want to do, but I’ve still seen done a thousand times.

Helping people follow Jesus means giving them something to imitate.

From the moment they come into our care, they are building up a new collection of images to inform their future actions. Thinking about spiritual formation like this way has tons of implications.

It means we have to get people into real-life situations with each other, not just constructed environments.

It means we have to tell better stories when we teach to give people images of the real world instead of just ideas about it.

And it means we have to reconsider how we talk on Sundays.
If we don’t talk to the non-Christian in the room on a Sunday, our Christians won’t learn how to talk to them outside the room the rest of the week.

When we talk to Christians at church in a churchy way, and then tell them to go talk to their Nonchristian friends in a way they’ll understand, we set them up for failure.

We give them marching orders, but don’t equip them to live them out. Instead, we need to arm and equip them with the HOW. They need to hear the salty phrases, the hope-filled jargon, the actual words they can go out and use in their real lives with their real friends so that their conversations are full of grace and wildly compelling. 

The way WE speak IN church will be the way THEY speak ABOUT church (and about Jesus) to their friends. We are building their new vocabulary, and we need to choose wisely. 

• • • • • • • • • •

That’s why I started telling people at Mission that Mike’s beginning spiel was for them - not just for the outsider. It was an intentional piece of the discipleship puzzle.

And it wasn’t theory - I heard it confirmed time and time again. Longtime Mission people would tell me stories about how conversations with unchurched friends and family members, and every time I’d hear the same phrases that we all heard every Sunday, and in so many other environments. And the best part was… it was completely natural.

When we consistently talk in a way that disarms the skeptic, welcomes the stranger, gives hope to the broken, and invites the outcast home… then the people we lead will do the same naturally. 

4 Helpful Lists that make evaluation clear and effective

Our primary role as leaders is to look forward, to see the future that CAN be, so that we can help people get there.

But without looking back and evaluating, we don’t know if we are making real progress. And even when it feels like we are moving forward and getting better, good evaluation helps us put concrete evidence behind our good feelings.

One of the best evaluation tools I’ve come across is called the “4 Helpful Lists”. An organization called Intentional Churches uses this tool as they help churches develop a clear vision and a plan to perpetually increase Kingdom impact. I first learned it from them just a couple years into ministry; and even though they introduced a whole toolbox of evaluation and planning techniques, the 4 helpful lists still seemed to make an appearance about 1-2x a month on every team at the church I served. It become a way of thinking for us instead of just a tool.

The Groundwork

One question has to be abundantly clear before we step foot into an evaluation meeting: WHAT ARE WE REALLY TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH? Facts and numbers can often tell us any story we want them to, so we need to be ready to dig deeper than just the surface statistics.

We may have doubled the number of people in groups, but did we help connect the unconnected? Or did we just re-connect the already-connected people in yet another way?

We may have baptized 50 people, but are they still around 6 months later? Was our goal to baptize them, or was it to help them follow Jesus for the rest of their lives?

We need to be crystal clear on our real goal so that we can honestly assess our ministries and change things, no matter how good they may seem on the surface.

Now onto the 4 Helpful Lists!

What is RIGHT?

Never skip what is right. First of all, we need to affirm our team (and ourselves) and encourage what is working. If it was right, we need to keep doing it! Without calling out what is working, we accidentally let the best things slip because we take them for granted. So figure out what is right, and if you don’t know how it got there… figure that out so you can replicate it moving forward!

What is WRONG?

Every event and ministry has mistakes and unexpected flops. This is often the “low-hanging fruit”, the easy fixes that leads to direct action or a quick and healthy cut. Save this list for what is clearly and objectively wrong, though. This is meant to be a “cleaning house” list, giving everyone a chance to make fast and tangible progress by being honest about what was clearly wrong.

What is MISSING?

This list isn’t for fast action and quick steps; it’s made for dreaming. What opportunities aren’t we capitalizing on right now? Many times, it’s okay that you aren’t yet! This is a chance to move forward and take ground where you haven’t yet. It helps you keep your eye on perpetual improvement and stay away from stagnation because “that’s how we’ve always done it”.

What is CONFUSED?

Clarity is king. Whether it’s roles and job descriptions, a check-in process gone wrong, a programming mistake that led to a terribly awkward moment, or a fuzzy goal that isn’t definable enough, this is an opportunity for you as a leader to make sure that everyone on your team is on the same page about the big picture as well as the minutia. Make it safe to ask real questions, because clarity is always worth fighting for. This list helps you gain trust as a leader, too, because it validates your team’s questions and shows how dedicated you are to equipping them with a clear vision.

So… What’s important now?

That’s the tool! It’s not flashy. It doesn’t rhyme. It’s not even an acronym. BUT it’s simple, transferable, and highly effective!

Once you fill up these lists, you get to the fun part… figuring out what is important right now, and how you’re going to move forward!

What is right? LEVERAGE it!
What is wrong? FIX it!
What is missing? ADD it!
What is confused? CLARIFY it!

What tools do you use to evaluate your ministries, events, and strategies? What has helped you look back so that you can help your teams, leaders, and volunteers take measurable steps forward?

Fight for the Right to Party

originally written for the Small Group Network Blog

Of all the grand visions and hopes we have for the people in our churches, and all the methods and tools we use to help achieve those goals… sometimes we forget one of the most powerful community-boosting tools we have: the party.

Fun comes in many different forms, from board games to a softball league to a BBQ pool party. Getting invited to something special, laughing so hard you can’t breathe, escaping from the grind of everyday life with friends – that kind of fun makes a difference in people’s lives and relationships, and it’s more important than most of us realize. 

Here are three reasons we should all consider throwing and encouraging more parties this year in our churches:

(1) Jesus taught us to throw parties in ways that help outcasts belong.

Jesus teaches us in Luke 14 that we should party with those who CAN’T pay us back, because he knows that being INVITED to something special makes someone feel like they belong. And he doesn’t say to invite them to the synagogue, a Torah study, or one-on-one mentoring and accountability meetings. He says to invite them to a party.

Why? Because parties are for friends.

Inviting people to a party is inviting them to be a friend; that’s where trust and intimacy start to flourish. 

(2) Parties connect “spiritual life” and “normal life.”

As people are finding Jesus, God is infiltrating areas of their lives that previously felt untouched by grace and goodness. That’s where the division between “normal life” and “spiritual life” begins.

Work 9-5 is normal life. Church on Sunday is spiritual life.
Tuesday night “out for drinks” is normal life. Wednesday night “small group” is spiritual life.

Discipleship is a process where God infiltrates the untouched areas of our lives so that we can see the real truth: that God wants all of us, not just parts of us. 

We can help people bridge the gap between normal and spiritual life by just having fun together. When we bring spiritual friendships into people’s “normal lives,” it lays the groundwork for people to see that all of life is meant to be lived for and with Jesus. 

(3) Fun sets the groundwork for long-term trust and partnership.

Chemistry matters for long-term spiritual friendships, and fun draws out chemistry in a profound way. But it goes even deeper than chemistry!

Laughter decompresses stress in a meaningful neurological way, and even simply smiling together boosts neurological joy in a way that leads to a secure attachment that is necessary for character formation: God designed us with a deep need for relational joy that we must meet in our church communities.

Whether it’s making sure to have something fun each week to start group, or just regular gatherings where laughter and enjoyment are the only stated goals, encourage your people to draw out each others’ “fun sides” regularly so that they can get to know each other in a real, holistic way.

So get out there and throw a great party!