Ever struggle forgiving someone? (That’s like asking: “Ever put shoes on over socks?”) We’ve devoted an entire chapter to it in “The Cure” because it confronts every one of us, often. “First you get hurt.

Few, other than parents, read the Acknowledgment section in a book. But we spent the better portion of several hours on this so I’m going to give it more airplay. And besides, we’re writing this about you.

In the last blog I explained in our upcoming study guide for “The Cure” we devote considerable time to discovering how the same Scripture can be understood differently in the Room of Grace and the Room of Good Intentions. We describe it as a “filter” placed onto the unvarnished Word. While the words are agreed upon, our own shame and even unintentional attempts to get ourselves and others to do better, be better, has often distorted the meaning and intention of the verse.

In each section of our upcoming study guide for “The Cure” we devote considerable time to discovering how the same Scripture can be understood differently in the Room of Grace and the Room of Good Intentions. We describe it as a “filter” placed onto the unvarnished Word. While the words are agreed upon, our own shame and even unintentional attempts to get ourselves and others to do better, be better, has often distorted the meaning and intention of the verse.

When people read The Cure, we get this single response almost more than any other: “I don’t get it. You make it sound too easy. Aren’t we supposed to do something?” Now, stop for just a moment and stare at that question-“Aren’t we supposed to do something?” Then think about when you first fell in love with another person.

When I wear a mask it’s because I’m still believing the lie of my old shame, that says there is something uniquely and unusually wrong with me. So, I wear a mask to cover that reality from you, in hopes you’ll love me more. It doesn’t ever work, but if I’m not trusting who Jesus says I am on my worst day, I’ll still default to it.

It seemed appropriate this morning, as “The Cure” is newly wending its way around the neighborhood, to repeat a statement I’ve made in several sermons and posted onto my Facebook page. People give me credit for the statement, but like most things I express that are wise, insightful or a betterment for society, they did not usually emanate from me. This particular one is from Bill, I think.

Last night I looked around the room once again. I’ve been catching myself doing it for over 20 years. Some of the faces have changed, but what I’m about to say never has.

A month ago, I was walking through the Stamps Theological Library at Azusa Pacific with my daughter Carly. We were strolling along beautiful rows of commentaries, theological dictionaries and word studies. Suddenly, Carly looked at me and smiled, “Dad, look.

It’s the 26th. And I’m reflecting on the season. I’ve been a bit out of it this year.

Every Christmas morning of my childhood I had the same thought. “Today the world gets new again.” I loved it. I could imagine all over the world new and better changing the world into a happier and more magical place.

One of the great perks the three of us get is to receive the stunned, elated appreciation of those experiencing for the first time these truths about their righteousness, these reformational truths of the Original Good News. They say things like, “You just don’t know. My life is changed, forever!

What is it with this season? I don’t think I’ve ever gone through it unscathed. It undoes me.

As I was checking how many hits we had on a particular “Cure” trailer piece, You Tube invited me to watch a video of a popular Christian speaker chastising followers to not participate in any “Christianized” version of yoga. His warning was that any such practice opens one to demons. As I watched it, I was again struck with our propensity to want to be frightened, shamed, mistrusting almost everything around us.

Two weeks ago I was driving the long, painful stretch from Banning to Indio, on my way back from Los Angeles to Phoenix. The route is littered with energy-generating windmills and billboards of coming performances at local casinos. One of them announced a Christmas season show with Carol Channing.

My bags are packed. I think they’ve always been packed. You might not know it to look at me.

Grace, if nothing else, you’d think, would give us the ability to tell others we love when we’re hurting. We make the statement “What if there were a place so safe that the worst of you could be known, and you’d discover that you would not be loved less but more in the telling of it?” Oh, how I love that statement. I love how God has wired it to be so.

So, the release of “The Cure” begins. It initiates with me driving through the three-block target area around my home. I first strategically shout through a bullhorn while pressing on the horn, just to gain initial consumer awareness.

In preparing a message this last Sunday I was reminded gratefulness is most certainly not… *A positive attitude or personality *A religious denial of reality, pain, grief. Not about denying what is real, in some distorted manner of loyalty check. God can handle your unvarnished doubts and cries to Him.

This life in Christ is not primarily about learning more stuff. It’s almost all about the lens through which we interpret what we’re learning; the lens through which we see God and His Word. Same words, same syntax.

The three of us are often asked why so many in this next generation are moving away from their religious culture the first chance they get. Not just the expression of their faith, but often their hope in any of it. Our answer is this: They didn’t buy it.

Our new book “The Cure” comes out this week, or soon after. Folks in Topeka may be reading it at this very moment. Though I doubt it.

The Grace Journey Trans World Radio, Singapore One of my mentors gave me a book called The Ascent of the Leader, authored by Bill Thrall and Bruce McNicol of Truefaced and Leadership Catalyst. Since then these two and John Lynch have also written TrueFaced, Behind The Mask and Bo’s Cafe. Reading through The Ascent of a Leader opened my eyes to facts such as ‘character development is assumed’.

A Chapter of My Story With Grace For more than twenty years I relegated Grace to an academic concept, safely buried in commentaries that belonged and stayed on shelves. You see, I already knew about Grace. And I knew that I was the one person for whom it didn’t extend quite far enough over the chasm.

FINDINGbalance Grappling with Grace… June 11th, 2010 http://blog.findingbalance.com/ Hey FINDINGbalance Friends! I just returned from Fb’s amazing Hungry for Hope Conference in Colorado Springs. If you didn’t attend this year, be very sorry you didn’t and get your behind there next year!

Associate Pastor Cerritos Baptist Church Cerritos, CA Growing up as a 2nd generation Asian-American Christian, I was brought up in a culture deeply rooted in shame along with a theological framework that is often more shame-driven than grace-driven. In other words, I had to be someone “better” than who I was if I wanted to be accepted and valued by God and by others. Being me wasn’t enough—I had too many flaws, weaknesses, and imperfections.

Retired Prescott Valley, Arizona It was September of 2004. I had just been given notice that my job of almost 15 years had just been shutdown and along with 300 other personal, I was out of a job. It was only four more months and then I would retire.

Co-Founder The Broken D Ranch Denver, Colorado I had known for quite a long time that I had a story to write. Too many things had happened to me and evidence of God’s presence and protection was scattered throughout my life, even before I gave my life to Christ. My fear of putting my thoughts on paper for all to read was my excuse.

Phoenix, AZ (Grew up in Nebraska) A late in life surprise has transformed my perspective and lifestyle. From early childhood I had known and experienced the grace of God through salvation in Jesus Christ. Intentionally and with satisfaction to the degree I had been taught about spiritual matters I walked with God.

Biblical Discipler Bella Vista Church Rockford, Michigan I grew up in a home where my father didn’t want me. He told me I was stupid and that I never should have been born. His treatment of me dealt a blow to my self-worth.

San Juan Islands, WA Registered Counselor/Certified in Domestic Violence Advocacy/Spiritual Mentor (Grew up in Farmington, NM and Ashland, OR) I remember my early childhood with fondness. It was an idyllic time when neighborhoods were safe and being part of a gang meant being in a gang of kids who played Kick the Can and Run Sheep Run. It was a time without televisions, computers and iPods; a time of family togetherness; listening to the Hit Parade on the radio, having taffy pulls, and summer ca...

Associate National Field Leader The Navigators Colorado Springs, Colorado I was born into a football family. My dad was (and still is at 79) a football coach. I am the oldest of 5 kids.

Director of Student Life Southwestern College Phoenix, Arizona (grew up in Iowa) I grew up in a Christian home, and have been involved with a church my entire life. Early on I learned how to behave really, really well. I learned to be good kid.

Cave Creek, AZ In 1984 I looked, perhaps, a lot like you. Although I was a pastor, I lived a life of hiddenness, a life of barely concealed shame: Shame caused by the secret sexual sins that plagued me, sins I would contritely and tearfully confess before God, vowing with all my heart never again to be lured into their sticky web. And then it would start all over again… I knew the people in my congregation; however they did not know the real me.

High School Principal (retired) Glenbard East High School Chicago, Illinois I am at the stage of life where I have more history than future! As I get older I find that dramatic, life changing “before and after” experiences tend not to be the norm. But don’t confuse this statement with meaningful change not taking place.

Open Door Fellowship – Jail Ministry Phoenix, Arizona It had been almost two decades since I had first smoked pot, and rarely a day passed that I had not used or pursued the use of some mind-altering substance. My addiction had progressed into harder drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines, and it was taking its toll on my life. Homeless, penniless, hopeless and lost, I was finally arrested and incarcerated, and though I didn’t know it at the time, my life would take an incredible new direction....

Phoenix, Arizona As I think about it, most of my life has been spent trying to please people. As a child, I tried to please my parents. As a student, I tried to please my teachers.

I didn’t used to get out much. For twenty years I learned grace in a pretty sheltered environment. Now, go figure, I go out and speak about it.

Thanksgiving Day 1970 was not a good one in the Lynch home. Dad and I were not in a good place. By 17, I had developed into a fast talking, rebellious punk, with a sharp, clever and sarcastic vocabulary and attitude.

Several weeks ago, my wife Stacey and I got into a fight. It was over nearly nothing. But that we would get so sideways revealed much deeper sadness and disappointment had been lingering around for awhile.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” After thousands of years of sincerely religious people bluffing and play-acting with love, God gives His children a new heart: completely new creatures, fully righteous, without any condemnation, who can actually live out this verse without it enflaming them to rebellion, like every other command had done before. So, you’d think we’d automatically now fully love each other...

Maybe it’s just me. (I’m told it often is)…But I witnessed something wonderful and maybe even historic at our TrueFaced 12 Intensive Conference, held last week in Scottsdale, Arizona. When we started inviting others, back in the early-90s, to partner with us in these truths of identity and environments of grace-it was often kind of sketchy.

Late afternoon, on “Black Friday” my daughter Carly was dropping off Stacey and Amy in front of a Scottsdale mall. Each had armloads of gifts and boxes to retrieve. Stacey couldn’t get out of the car until Amy had gathered all her packages.

So, our State Fair is going on here in Arizona. It’s not quite like State or County Fairs in places like Wisconsin or Oregon. I imagine in those places all manner of fall magic: real cider, pumpkin soup and fresh smells of cinnamon and roasted corn with churned butter.

I can’t adequately describe how much fun I’m having writing content for the characters from “Bo’s Café” as they talk to each other on our new website-bo’scafe.com You click on the door of the restaurant and it takes you out onto the upstairs deck, where you’re seated at a table next to the regulars. Each week some combination of Hank, Cynthia, Lindsey, Carlos, Bo, Andy and Steven show up to discuss their lives, Bo’s cooking and whatever messy stuff coming out of an environment trying to figure o...

I spoke last week at a wonderful Arts Conference at Woodmen Valley Church in Colorado. I quoted a snippet by the 14thcentury philosopher Machiavelli from his work “The Prince”. Bruce McNicol handed me the quote long ago.

Hey, it’s me, John. By the time you read this I will probably have already come out of my surgery. No big deal.

September 7th, 2009 by John Lynch Today I’ve been thinking about that place in us that doesn’t change by will power, diligence or good intention. It’s our perception of ourselves. My self-perception,  historically, has seemed to fluctuate like the stock market, between an inflated sense of greatness and irrational inferiority.

It’s been several weeks now since I returned from the eleventh annual Ernest Borgnine Memorial Music Appreciation Society weekend. I know. Odd.

September 1st, 2009 by John Lynch So, “Bo’s Café” is coming out September 25th! I was cruising around the Internet the other day, seeing if anyone had written anything…and I came across our first review! It’s from “The Review Broads.” I love that our first review was from such a title.

August 24th, 2009 by John Lynch Not long ago we were out on the road again, presenting the Two Roads talk. I think I have spoken that message over 200 times and have never lost my passion for it. Anyway, long story short-afterwards I’m chatting with a handful of new friends-and a man I don’t recognize steps into the circle.

It’s the middle of the night-and I’m up. This happens predictably when I don’t take a Tylenol PM. Somewhere in middle age I’ve lost the ability to sleep.

If if we are supposed to trust God, and if we can trust God;, then what are we to trust Him with? *1st-trust is not expecting that He’ll make things work out the way we always want. That’s not trusting God-it’s conjuring up a stupid and mean genie.

All my childhood I can’t remember trusting anyone with me. My best guess is I wasn’t sure anyone could or would adequately protect me. My response to hurt was not to find protection, but to resolve I wouldn’t allow others close enough to hurt me.

Well, the three amigos are back from the Land Down Under. One of our conferences was cancelled, Bill’s luggage handles were torn off in transit, I got food poisoning the evening before speaking four times in one day, and Bruce and I most assuredly made enemies throughout New Zealand as we drove on the wrong side of the road, inadvertently turning on our windshield wipers every time we wanted to indicate a lane change. …But what we asked God for happened in spades.

Hello everyone. So, today Bruce, Bill and I head off for Australia and New Zealand! It sounds romantic but most of the time we’ll actually be enjoying some of the continent’s finest conference halls and room partitions.

Tonight, I’m setting up a discussion time for our next generation leadership group. Some of our leaders and all our elders are taking about 70 young leaders through a process of preparing them to gradually take over the leadership of our fragile, funky church. We call it Timothy Trust.

I never wanted children. I just wanted to be married. Stacey never wanted to be married.

We did the memorial service for an old friend yesterday. Gordon Barr. Yea, most of you have never heard of him before.

“There are no together people, only those who dress better”, or as Bruce says, “…only those with brighter teeth.” Everyone needs grace all the time. Everyone needs to live out of their new identity all the time. No exceptions.

It was two and a half years ago. He picked me up at the Springfield airport for a convocation series at the College of the Ozarks. The moment I met Dean Zehnder I didn’t feel good about this whole gig.

So, I’m on this elevator, to see the doctor about my elevated cholesterol and general physical malaise. Across from me is a mom and her 8 year old son. He is all boy.

I became a believer 29 years ago. On December 23rd. This week I was transported back to that time.

I have donned the cape of Middle Aged Man for the last time. Last Sunday ended my run with the “Lesser Known Super Heroes”. I will no longer fight crime next to Poultry Man, Accordion Man andSopapilla Woman.

Several weeks ago I was on facebook, instant messaging with a really funny and great guy named Dave Burchett.  He’s a writer, blogger and television producer for the Texas Rangers baseball games. Anyway, in the middle of our conversation he wrote these words: “Hey John, my 1-year Grace Anniversary was this week.” I stopped typing, took my hands off the keyboard and just smiled. My friend gets it.

When I start thinking about what I’m thankful for, it all gets garbled with the normal things: God, family…oatmeal with peanut butter. The things I’ve been given, which I deeply appreciate. Today, I’m thinking about a few things that God, in His tender and kind grace, didn’t allow to happen, when by all means they should have: 1.

So, anyway, here’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. How do these truths of grace and identity and humility and trust, and received love, and safety and permission and protection and vulnerability and so on and so forth…how do they really get transferred? We’ve got a DVD and CD entitled something like “The 2 Roads Talk.” It’s a fairly revolutionary message for folk who’ve grown up in environments of performance or young people who are discovering their own faith.

Well, if you remember, in my previous blog, I was recounting an incident of getting trapped in a lie regarding a neighbor’s dog and my garden hose. (That sounded like an introduction on one of those old radio shows. “When we last left our hero, he was trapped in a mine shaft and his flashlight had fallen out of his hand. Let’s see what happens today on Crisco theater!”) Anyway, some of you wanted to know how things turned out with the woman I lied to.

The Lynches have a nice backyard. It used to be crab grass mixed with dirt and a rusted swing set. Over the years we’ve added a pool and some dear friends surprised me one birthday with a giant, tiled “grilling center” and glorious fireplace.

I know a really neat high school student in our church. Recently she was spending the weekend with a friend and visited that friend’s church. Early the following week I received a text that she’d like to speak to me about the message.

I went to Carly’s “Meet the Teachers” deal last night. It’s a fine Christian school. Carly loves it.

About a week ago, the Lynch family came back from a vacation at Newport Beach.  It was a great time.  I was allowed to take naps and mindlessly surf cable stations through Ginsu knife infomercials and reruns of Barnaby Jones.  None of this, of course, am I allowed at home. Stacey works me pretty hard.  But I digress. With us, was our Golden Retriever, Bali.  I like her more than I do most humans.  We made a bed for her across the front seat, while all three girls cr...

My wife Kelsie and I were comparing notes last night after 6 days away with high school students in San Diego. As we continued to roll out our memories, ask each other questions, and reminisce on our favorite times something was apparent; with 10-15 camps in our rear view, we had never experienced a week like this. We sat on our couch too tired to move but unable to stop talking when Kelsie said, “Our kids were so benefited from you working at Truefaced.”I filtered that statement for a minute as...

This morning on my run in the desert mountains I was asking myself, “What’s a diamond ring mean to the typical married woman?” Treasure beyond price. So, why did Lisa give hers away to start a prosthetics ministry for the maimed children of blood diamond country, Sierra Leone? And, this.

So, my son Caleb is getting married this Saturday… to his childhood sweetheart-Kali. Ten years of dating for committed believers is no small deal. I’m pretty sure if it were me in those shoes we would have eloped to Vegas and been married by an Elvis impersonator by the time I was 18…I’m just saying.

The Leadership Catalyst Team was in Seattle last week for our second 24-hour Taste of Bo’s Café of the year. We were joined by 20 couples from the Washington and Oregon area. Sunny and 90 degrees is nothing new to our Phoenix-based team, but for the couples from the Northwest the weather couldn’t have been better.

So far being a new mom has been the most exhilarating, thrilling, tiring, joyful, humbling ride I’ve ever been on. I never thought it would be possible to function on two hours of sleep, but not only through God’s grace can you function, but you can also have some really fun, albeit delirious, conversations with other new moms who also had little sleep that previous night. ☺ Karly Grace turned 9 months this week.

I was 15 when I purchased my first set of golf clubs. There they were, unceremoniously propped against the range ball machine at our neighborhood par-3 course; a bulky black bag containing a used set of 3 through 9 irons, several “Tommie Bolt” woods and a non-descript putter. A sign taped to it read “25 bucks”.

Ever since I was little, I remember feeling a sense of entrapment, even claustrophobia when I was in the dark. My most treasured possession at bed time was a MacGyver pen light I would sneak into bed. The fear of abandonment or harm from a burglar was so real to me even though I had never been exposed to either.

Last weekend, our TrueFaced/Catalyst team offered a marriage retreat for business and professional couples, from their 20′s to their 60′s. One of the last persons I talked to said to me, “For the first time in several years, I have hope for our family.” This couple has been through many Bible studies and even more sermons during those years. They have generously served many people during those times.