Anne Marie Miller

Category: Church

  • And Under the Lights, We Drove Away

    I’m staying at a hotel where they have a duck ceremony twice a day. It’s pretty posh, at least by Arkansas standards (I kid, I kid.) It is a really lovely place to stay.

    Tonight after dinner, my friend and I stood underneath a well-lit driveway with large columns and doormen, waiting for the valet to bring my rental car so we could head back to the conference we are speaking at. The valet attendant closed my door, and I adjusted the seat to fit my ridiculously abnormal 34″-inseam-long-legs.

    I’m not even 5’5″, so this leg length could easily be considered a freak show by some.

    I began to pull out of the driveway slowly, narrowly missing a man who was walking on the left side of my car. As I pushed on the brake pedal, I noticed he was homeless, glassy-eyed, and had literally wet himself, the dark stain of urine soaking through his thread-bare pants from his crotch all the way down to the middle of his right shin.

    Quickly I shifted my eyes back to the driveway, then glanced down at the green LED lights telling me it was 7:02 pm and that I needed to hurry back to the venue. I took my foot off the brake and under the lights, we drove away.

    The one word that has reverberated inside the folds of my brain tonight is dignity.

    Dignity.

    It’s something we feel we must hold so tightly to, and also something we don’t know how to give to others who need it, whether they realize it or not.

  • Drenched & Whole & Healed

    I heard somewhere once that during Billy Graham’s crusades, after he finishes his message, he returns to a chair and closes his eyes and prays. From what I understand, he doesn’t want to see how many people were (or were not) coming forward, and just wanted to pray for the change that was happening.

    Granted, I’ve never been to a Billy Graham crusade and I am probably a terrible Christian for even admitting I don’t know that much about them to validate if this actually happens or not.

    However, as I’ve had the opportunity to speak at several churches in a variety of services, I’ve noticed how easy it is to get caught up in how people are responding and thinking it has something to do with me.

    (Case and point: My Encounter with Church Sleeping Man).

    Recently I spoke at a college and young adult service about the freedom that comes with confession; the healing that takes place when we share our brokenness with others (James 5) and at the end, I turned the service over to the pastors and leaders at this church to pray with anyone that needed it.

    I walked off the stage, sat in a chair, and buried my head in my hands praying for the people at the service while trying to overcome the temptation to look around.

    I assumed that since I was a guest speaker, the people at the service would feel more comfortable praying with the pastors they knew, but a few moments after sitting down, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I sat up, expecting to see a staff member or maybe someone to take my mic but instead was met by the tear-stained face of a beautiful young woman.

    Instantly, I leaned over to hold her for a moment and her body began heaving in my arms as she wept. Her tears rolled off her face and landed on my jeans, one by one. I could feel them as they drenched the denim and melted onto my skin.

    Pulling back from her, I asked her what her name was and if there was something I could pray for her. Given the story I shared from stage, about the addiction I faced when I was in my teens and twenties, I assumed she needed to confess something about that.

    But what came out of her mouth surprised me.

    “I just don’t feel like I’ll ever be good enough.”

    I had to catch my breath just a little.

    I’ve been healthy enough for a few years to talk about addiction but the feeling of insecurity and worthlessness is a chain of mine that I wonder will ever break.

    Inhaling deeply, I leaned back in, silently begging for words of truth. Scriptures I don’t even know by memory began to flow out of my mouth and my heart. I felt as if I were praying them not just for her – but for me.

    When I confessed the lies she said were in her head (Not good enough, not worthy enough, will never be enough) I discovered I was confessing them for me as well.

    The passage in James says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.”

    Interesting.

    I was supposed to be there to help other people confess…to help other people take a step into freedom.

    It just goes to show how powerful confession is.

    Here I was with a complete stranger, and we were both confessing, praying, and were beginning a path of truth together.

    Together, whole and healed.

    ——-


  • The Boy Made of Post-Its

    Sorry it’s been quiet here lately.

    Really quiet.

    The manuscript for Permission to Speak Freely is due in a couple of weeks, and I’m traveling to six cities (from San Diego to NYC and everything in between) and speaking while trying to finish writing the book…so…it’s been a bit hectic, but wonderful and stretching at the same time. I am looking forward to some much needed down time over the holidays!

    Last night I spoke at The Walk, which is the college & young adults ministry at Sevier Heights Baptist Church in Knoxville, TN. It was an honor to hang out with these students (have I told you lately how much I love college students? It’s a lot.) and share with them a bit about what God has shown me during my trips to Uganda and India and what the Bible says is our responsibility for caring for the poor as an act of worship and transformation.

    Something very cool they did to launch the series last night (It’s called A Message that Sticks), was make a mural out of post-it notes. This mural has around 30,000 post-its on it (each post-it representing one of the 30,000 children that die daily from starvation), and the little boy is named Moises and he lives in Haiti.

    —

    30k—

    I never knew that so many random, seemingly trivial things could be put together to make something so beautiful.

    Or, wait.

    Maybe I did.

  • Should Sex Offenders Be Allowed in Church?

    I just woke up an hour ago.

    Flooded in my “@” column in Twitter were tweets about an article TIME magazine released about sex offenders attending church, and in some cases, being arrested for it.

    No doubt this question is a highly sensitive one, and one most people in churches don’t exactly want to bring up and discuss. Given the topic of my new book Permission to Speak Freely, a few people connected the article to the book.

    Interestingly enough, as I share my own story in Permission to Speak Freely, I talk a bit about a time in my life when I was sexually violated by a pastor when I was sixteen years old. So this is a question I have wrestled with for a long, long time.

    On one hand, I can logically comprehend how most sex offenders operate. Sometimes, they’re genetically predisposed to their addiction and preying on children (or even adults). However, I’ve also met people who have been legally labeled as sex offenders, who just got caught up in a bad mistake – maybe a guy was 18 and he had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend and she wasn’t old enough to legally consent so her parents pressed charges. There are also people who have committed terrible offenses in their past, but they have been redeemed and restored fully.

    Then you throw in the “church” side of things. I couldn’t agree more with what a source in the TIME article says,

    church-door-locked“There are serious constitutional problems in banning someone from going to church, not to mention this runs counter to the church’s mission of inclusion, hospitality and redemption.”

    Jesus didn’t hang out with the religious people of his time. He spent time with those far from him. When a woman was about to be stoned for committing adultery, he covered her in protective grace which saved her life.

    I remember working at a church a few years ago and they were going through their insurance policies. For some churches to get the right kind of coverage and protection from liability, they have rules in place about how and where sex offenders can attend and serve.

    Personally, I know where my heart should land on the issue, but I don’t know how that actually plays out in real life scenarios. I know that the person who abused me is still serving within faith based organizations and I pray almost every day that what happened with me was his exception and not the norm. I also know he needs healing and grace and community to live a life that is whole and healed.

    What do you guys think? How have you seen this topic addressed in your own communities of faith or in your own life?

    —–

  • Where is the Church? – Part One

    A couple of weeks ago, Atlanta was hit by serious flooding. As in, houses were submerged…completely devastated. In an area called Austell, thousands of families are displaced because of the damage.

    People. Have. Lost. Their. Lives.

    Last week, I met Pastor Shaun King for the first time, face to face. He shared with me a movement his church has started to help flood victims called Hope ATL.

    Hope ATL is pulling together resources, financial and practical and human, to help these victims. Victims who have lost, literally, everything.

    The thing that amazed me during my conversation with Shaun was that their church doesn’t have a lot of money. Or people. A couple hundred, at most. Instead of having meetings about how to help, or who to point people to in case they needed help, they simply stopped what they were doing…and helped.

    Now, the thing that disturbed me during my conversation with Shaun was that he had made many calls to many churches in the area, and so many churches said…

    No.

    They couldn’t help.

    I was shocked. Where is the Church when a city needs it the most?

    That didn’t stop Shaun. He kept rallying the people he could and went into the most dangerous and most flooded places and they went to work. They even decided to NOT meet in their building on Sunday or in their offices during the week and instead they met at the largest Red Cross Shelter for flood victims in Marietta (near Austell), where the flooding was worst, so they could provide care and hope and a place for people to see Jesus. They didn’t take up an offering that Sunday either, as most of the people who came had nothing. 50% of Austell is now homeless. So they gave back to them instead.

    And they’re still working.

    In order to get the help they need, Shaun had to reach outside of Atlanta. Out of the state, actually, to find the Church. Healing Place Church out of Baton Rouge and NewSpring Church from Anderson, South Carolina, offered to send teams to help.

    There is the Church. Thank God. Literally.

    Shaun didn’t complain. He didn’t stop to say that he was disappointed or tired or confused or frustrated that there are probably over 1000 churches in Atlanta and so few are stepping up to aid their own city. He humbly asked on our live video that if anyone who was listening could help, to please help.

    I asked Shaun if I could extend his request to you…the ever generous and ever faithful readers here at FlowerDust.net. Because you’ve joined together so many times before to help others. When push comes to shove you are the ones who stand in the gap for the church that hides behind religiosity.

    If you can send teams, send them.

    If your family can go help for a day or two, go.

    If you can donate money, or food, or clothes, donate.

    We are always asking for opportunities to be the church instead of just do churchy things.

    Well…here you go.

    The HopeATL website has all the information you need.


    (On Wednesday, I’ll be posting part two of “Where is the Church?…Hope you’ll join me.)

  • I Got a Face Lift (And Catalyst Backstage…)

    First thing’s first. I got a face lift. Well, my blog did anyway. So if you read this via email or RSS, hop on over and check it out. Many thanks to Brad Ruggles for his amazing design work on figuring out “if Anne Jackson was a website, she’d look like….”

    I’m in Atlanta for the Catalyst Conference this week. On Wednesday, I’m doing a Lab with Los and Jon about blogging (more or less, really about things off the blogs), and then Los and I are hosting Catalyst Backstage on Thursday and Friday.

    catalyst-backstage

    This year, there’s gonna be live video feed from the main room of music, speakers, and some surprises too, as well as exclusive interviews with most of the speakers including Malcolm Gladwell and Rob Bell, which I am super psyched about.

    So if you didn’t make it to Catalyst this year, tune in to CatalystBackstage.com. Before you know it, we’ll be the new Regis and Kelly.

  • Help Some Inner City Pastors!

    Did you know that over the last two years, the readers from this blog have donated over $250,000 to charitable causes via child sponsorships, funding missionaries, buying malaria nets, blue tarps for hurricanes, shoes for the needy, and the Global Food Crisis? Pretty dang amazing! That is a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS, you guys!

    I got an email from my friend and hero Ben Arment, purveyor of the Story Chicago Conference letting me know that he had just invited hundreds of low-income, inner city Chicago pastors to come to Story FOR FREE.

    Story Chicago

    —–

    Now, I don’t really know a whole lot about how conferences get funded, but my main guess is that it’s between sponsors and registrants. I think that it costs X amount of money per person to actually put on the conference. But Ben doesn’t care. He just really felt like he needed to invite these pastors to attend so he invited them without knowing where the money would come from.

    These are the pastors that never go to any conferences because many of them don’t get paid. They are in small inner city churches doing work and ministering in one of America’s poorest areas.

    Here’s the deal – just because these pastors are attending for free, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t “cost” anything for them to attend. Ben pretty much invested the hope of tens of thousands of dollars for these pastors to have this opportunity.

    I think this is one of those times where we can unite together as the church from all over and give generously again to help cover these pastors’ costs. Each ticket is $189, or $169 if we buy four or more. Which I think we can do.

    Since I know not everyone can drop $189 in a bucket, I asked Ben if we could allow everyone to donate what they could – whether it is $1, $5, $10, $100 or whatever over the next month to a Paypal fund and turn it all in at the end.

    To put my own money where my mouth is, I will personally match up to $500 of whatever is donated. And if you want to throw in a match amount as well, please email me! It can be a match of any amount.

    I am praying so hard that we will blow Ben away and that these inner city pastors will see the generosity of the church taking care of each other!

    For those of you who don’t know Ben, this guy quit a very successful career path in church leadership to put together this dream of Story Chicago which has been percolating in his head for years. His wife just had their third baby and he is literally living by faith daily. It’s incredible! And insane!

    Because he’s been such an inspiration in my own walk to do what God has put on my heart, I love supporting him however I can.

    And I hope that you will too.

    And by helping with these scholarships, you’ll be helping these pastors experience an amazing event.

    Donate below, and please spread the word!






  • Of Video Venues and Internet Churches

    The other day, I was having a conversation with two friends of mine: One is the worship pastor at a large, multi-site church and the other is a writer in disguise as a church conference guy.

    We were talking about multi-site churches and video venues and internet churches and we started wondering…

    Why is there more than one internet church? Couldn’t we all pull resources together for one online church?

    Why do most multi-site churches have to be video venues with the same speaker? Couldn’t each “campus” have their own campus pastor teach within the same theme or topic?

    There are many a great debate over these questions and so I ask you, with all the love you have inside of you, to discuss those questions.

    Let’s not debate if they are inherently right or wrong…but…let’s explore these expressions a bit, shall we?

    Respectfully. Please. Of course.

    (I wouldn’t expect anything less because you guys and gals are full of The Awesomeness!)

  • Blessed are the Peacemakers

    I’m happily in isolation on an island that can only be reached by seaplane or ferry. During this week away, I’ve asked several friends to fill in for me this week. Hopefully you’ll meet some new voices of people I admire.

    Today?s post comes from Josiah Potter. I’ve never actually met Josiah in person, but over the last few months, he’s been a huge cheerleader (is it okay to call a guy a cheerleader?), encourager, and a darn good songwriter.

    —–

    Blessed are the Peacemakers

    It?s no secret that if you work at a church you will get burnt one day.

    I?m talking about a deep wounding that is inflicted from someone you look to as either a mentor, elder or spiritual authority.

    My dad got burnt by the church.? My wife?s father got burnt by the church.? Anne has been burnt by the church.? I have recently been burnt by the church and I continue to hear heartbreaking stories from pastors around the nation staggering through the same valley.

    When people hear these stories they are blown away.? The western church has fallen into a dangerous niche where we elevate certain men and women to sinless standard because they teach from God?s Word on Sunday mornings.

    These men and women are filthy sinners just like you and me.? They need Jesus just like you and me.? They are subject to their own sinful nature yet we place them on a pedestal and then are amazed when they fall from it!

    The reactionary trend has been to respond to getting burnt by being angry and afraid.? The enemy loves is when we live in fear.? If we surrender to those things we ignore direct commands from Jesus Christ.

    God revealed to me last Friday that He wants me to be the peacemaker in my ?burnt situation.?

    I don?t want to be the peacemaker.? Everything in me and everyone around me tells me not to darken the door of the church.? Going and making peace scrapes against everything I?ve been taught about being a man, not backing down and the resistance has been bruising my spirit in the way a street-fighter’s fist collides with the pavement after his opponent dodges the attempted blow.

    But God told me to be the peacemaker so I will make peace.

    I will go to them this week, ask forgiveness for any wrong I have done against them, tell them I forgive them for the wounds they have inflicted and make peace.

    This isn?t a prideful attempt to steal glory or even draw sympathy to myself because of my situation.? This is done out of obedience to a Holy God who?s Son taught us to live in peace in a very functional and contagious way.

    Romans 12:18
    If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

    Mark 9:50
    “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

    I don?t know how my offering of peace will be received.? I am trusting God to handle that part.? I do know, however, that one day I will stand before Jesus Christ and He will ask me if I made peace with them and I will be able to respond.

    Yes.? I did.

    What is your story?
    Were you burnt?
    Did you make peace?

    —–

    If you’re currently wrestling through some hurt or trust issues, download Chapter 11 of Mad Church Disease. It is exactly about that. And it’s free.

    Download Chapter 11 – Processing through Pain

    Get the whole dang book.