12/4/24 - 2071: Disrupting Religion

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What could that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Religion is about money, power, and control. You may be saying to yourself Jim, Christianity is a world religion. And I'll say to you, It is not supposed to be all about the organization or the buildings, but about the supernatural rescue plan that our Heavenly Father executed on behalf of his backward, wayward, sinful, and rebellious children.

God sent Jesus to rescue us by way of complete surrender, even surrender unto the cross. Did Jesus intend on creating a new religion? I'd say no. Jesus came to put a knife in the heart of religion and put a stop to the slavery inflicted on others in the name of religion and to set us all free. The religious people hated Jesus. You know this because they're the ones that killed him. So where does that leave us? How do we get the religious people out of the way and celebrate what Jesus did for us in setting us free to live life to the fullest and not under the heavy finger of religious folks?

We need to disrupt religion and focus on the freedom Christ provided for us. Jesus came to set the captives free, not to put them under a yoke of religion, but a yoke of righteousness. Colin Ferreira saw this all from a clear perspective and decided to write about it in his latest book, Disrupting Religion. Colin Ferreira, welcome to iWork4Him.

Colin Ferreira: Thank you. Thank you, Jim and Martha. It's good to be here.

Jim: Colin, we're going to go deep into the discussion about your book, Disrupting Religion, and tie it into why we're talking about this on a faith and work related show. But first, tell us how you became a follower of Jesus.

Colin Ferreira: I was 27 at the time, pretty much, very much in the world, and but always had a sensitivity to God and I was searching, yet I was not searching because I was living pretty wild. But anyway, I got to a point where I remember telling my mom, I said, Mom, I'm done praying. I'm never going to pray again, ever. Because I can't find him. And two weeks later, I got involved in a, what you call a Ponzi scheme. Never been involved in one before. My, my very prim and proper secretary got me into it.

And so I said, I thought it was fine, and I knew I was gambling and I started making money really quickly. And then I started to see people in a frenzy with this thing as it was spreading. And God opened my eyes and said, son, if you want to know me, you want to find me, you got to give all this up, give it away to the poor and just surrender to me.

And that day I did, and something radical took place that day, I could not believe it. My friends couldn't believe it. My family couldn't believe it. It was radical. And from there, I never turned back. It has been a journey. But one of the key things that followed right after that was I said to God, I have got to see your relevance in my life. I got to feel relevance where I spend most of my life or waking hours and it was business .

And I said, so I got to see where you fit into this, not the weekend thing. And that set me on a journey of experiences and searching and pain and amazing miracles that kind of plunged me into marketplace ministry at that time.

Jim: And we're going to, we're going to touch that as we go. But you also said to the Lord, after you became a believer that, okay, I've dated a lot of women. And I don't really know who's the best choice for me as my wife. That's what you said. I did too. And you said, I'm not going to date until God, you bring somebody into my life that's the right wife for me. How long did that take?

Colin Ferreira: I thought it would take one year because I was 27. I had a home, I had a great job. And I thought, okay, God, within a year, he's going to send me my wife. But after one year, I said, God, what is going on? I'm going mad. I'm going nuts. I'm not used to this. And he said, if I gave you what you asked for, would it be fair to her?

And then I realized, oh my God, I got a while because I wanted something really good. And I had a lot of cleaning up to do. So that took seven years. Seven years of waiting, seven years of just dark, a dark seven years. Then he sent my wife from Iowa. She was 20. I was 33 and I just got used to shutting off and not thinking. He sent her to Trinidad and we connected there.

Jim: She was on a mission trip.

Colin Ferreira: She was, yeah, she was on a mission to find a husband and she didn't know that, but(laughter) that's what it was. And we very quickly realized it was a move of God and seven months later we were married. We only spent two and a half months together face to face. It was like one of those arranged marriages in other cultures. You just know that, but we are now 34 years married.

Martha: Wow.

Colin Ferreira: With nine wonderful kids.

Jim: And it was an arranged marriage. I mean it was an arranged marriage. By God. It was arranged.

Colin Ferreira: It was certainly arranged.

Martha: Actually, when you just said that, that kind of hit a lightbulb for me. I'm like, actually, God arranged our marriage. But we need to acknowledge that. It's just very different. Okay. So you answered a couple of questions in there. Obviously, about your accent. You were born and raised in Trinidad then. Is that correct? So what brought you to the U S was it your marriage?

Colin Ferreira: No, like I said, I got very involved in marketplace ministry and I began to pioneer marketplace ministry in Trinidad and the Southern Caribbean and I started hosting conferences and getting involved, and so I was just doing a lot of marketplace ministry and trying to expand. I opened the eyes of people to understand that life is really in the marketplace. That's where our waking hours are, that's where the world lives, pretty much in the marketplace.

And so that was my passion and I was going guns and doors were opening and everything was just going right. It was hard. It was very hard at times and lots of miracles and seeing God breakthrough in ways that became testimonies for a radio program that I was doing every three days a week called God at work. So there was all this stuff going. And in 2005, I was the president of the international Christian chamber of commerce chapter in Trinidad. And I used that neutral organization to mobilize all of the Christian denominations, which had never come together before.

And it was hard, but to get them all together for the global day of prayer and the event came off fantastic. And then the day after that, God pulled my plug. And I felt like I was swimming in condensed milk , in mud. I couldn't do a radio program easily. I couldn't think, that would come natural.

And I thought I was just suffering from exhaustion. And I took a long break. That didn't change a thing. Started delegating a lot more. That didn't change a thing. After six months I literally, I heard, I was planning, I was supposed to get all the denominations together again. And as a business group, we were neutral so they were more willing to follow us than follow some other one denomination. So we started to plan for the year. What do I do for the year? I need to get these people together. I'm supposed to host things, but I had no grace. Zero. And I said, God, I don't know what to do.

And long story short, certain events and certain people he connected me with, he had me fly to Atlanta the next day to go meet with Johnny Inlow. I don't know if you ever heard of Johnny Inlow. But I met with Johnny and that little time, literally God spoke to me quite clearly that what I was striving to build and the avenue and the tool, the chamber of commerce, all of that, I had to walk away from.

So I'm like, wow. But I felt peace about it, even though it was what I was striving to build for so long. So I decided, yes, I'm going to resign from that and whatever. And then one of my employees came to me, one of my managers, my directors actually said to me, I'm going to be with you for six more months because I'm going to, I want to move. I want to immigrate to Canada. As he said the word immigrate, I can't tell you. I can't explain it, but it was like the lights came on and fireworks and the whole bit. I just like, wow. And from that, I felt God saying to me right then and there, I need you to move to Iowa.

And okay, it's one thing leaving my ministry, dropping out of being an elder in the church, dropping out all the marketplace ministry, all this stuff. But you talking about leaving my business, which is my livelihood, in the hands of others. So anyway, we felt, my wife and I felt pretty certain that was his plan. And the thing with me is if I hear God, if I feel in my heart, God says jump, I don't hear the P. So I was ready moving and he did the miraculous and in four months, I had immigrated. It takes two to three years to get your papers.

Jim: And I want to make it clear, it was an incredible story, but it's hilarious that God moved you to Eastern Iowa, which we know really well. We spent a ton of time in Eastern Iowa and it was funny because God does things. He always uses every circumstance in our lives to take us from who we are to who he can use more effectively. God took you from Trinidad and Tobago, shoved you in eastern iowa to shape your life and to write this book Disrupting Religion that has impacted my life so much over the last couple of years. Just answer this question really shortly and then we'll dig deep in it in our next segment, why is God Disrupting Religion?

Colin Ferreira: Because religion Is, I honestly believe the most evil spirit that exists . Is not the spirit of Nazism and humanism... it's just spirit of religion. Because that is the one that has infiltrated the church and has literally made us a sleeping giant and made us a subculture to a dominating secular culture. And it has literally taken our weapons away, our, who we are, our identity, and we have just gotten into activity and stuff. He's got to disrupt this because it has His people in a stronghold.

Jim: So speaking of disrupting things this time of year, there's lots of pretty special and fun disruptions to our normal routines. We just finished celebrating Thanksgiving and at iWork4Him, we're deeply into Giving Tuesday. That's right. As a nonprofit, this is an incredibly important time of year for us as we ask our listeners to make a year end gift and maybe even become a regular supporter of iWork44Him. You're not just giving money to our organization. You're helping other workplace believers to get a better understanding of their workplace mission field. Please go to iWork4Him. com forward slash donate and give purpose to work for others.

Martha: Colin, let's take some time to look at some of the things that God is disrupting in Christianity. I know that there's a list of them. That's why you wrote a book, right? But talk about our relationship with Jesus versus God. Why is that controversial?

Colin Ferreira: It is controversial because the church today basically Man, it's such a subtle plan of the enemy because it's an only Jesus faith. That's what Christianity really is in modern Christianity, is pretty much only Jesus. You would even hear songs that says only Jesus and that Jesus is everything and it sounds good. Who's going to deny that? Who's going to pull back?

But the thing about it is it totally denies the very purpose, that primary purpose of Jesus was sent - by the father. Jesus didn't come on his own accord. He was sent by someone who dearly loves his children, his people, and we don't fully understand that. So we get into this whole thing of just being good servants of the Lord, but not understanding sonship. Sonship is really what the whole of creation is eagerly waiting for, the Bible says, for the manifestation of the sons of God, not the good servants of the Lord.

That's not bad, but it does not, it's part of the equation. And if you have part of an equation, You cannot expect to get a good answer at the end, even if that part of the equation is completely right.

Jim: So really, let me just repeat what you're saying. And this is, I've been studying this for years and I had similar thoughts, but you just worded it really well in your book. Jesus came to seek and save the lost to restore that which was lost. And people need to ask what was lost and where was it lost? And it was Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship with their Heavenly Father, with our Heavenly Father in the Garden. And when sin came in, it destroyed that relationship. Jesus came to restore that relationship, so that we could be one on one with our Heavenly Father again, as sons, as adopted children, in a perfect relationship with our Heavenly Father, which is what we had in the Garden, which was lost.

Jesus is our brother. He's going to be the king. We're going to be the princes and princesses in the kingdom. We're not slaves. We're not servants. We're children. We're inheritors of the kingdom and yet the church has us totally focusing on a relationship with Jesus instead of what he came to do, which is restore their relationship with our Heavenly Father. How'd I do?

Colin Ferreira: You did, and the thing about it is how we view it is that yes, we are now able to become his sons. So now we have entered like a position, it's like me moving to the U. S., I became a citizen. I became a citizen of a kingdom. When it comes to the kingdom operation and all that, there is a Lord, there is a commander in chief, that's Jesus. There is a battle we face, but when it comes to your personal identity that drives how you do, that's what's missed.

God didn't send his son to give us citizenship. He sent his son to reconcile us to him in personal relationship. So, I come into the U S, I don't expect to meet the president. I don't expect to meet him, but I am a citizen, but that is not going to cut it. But what Jesus really planned to do - he sent him. And we look at John 3 16 and everybody focuses on salvation. So that we don't perish, he sent Jesus so that we will not perish. But if you want an expanded version of John 3, 16, you got to look at Galatians 4: 4 to 7, which says when the right time came, God sent his son. The motivating person is God. He is motivated out of his love for his people.

Sent his son , born of a woman, under the law, to redeem us, so that what? So that we can be saved from hell? No, that's a means to an end. The end is so that he can adopt us and that he can send His spirit and we can cry out, Abba Father, Daddy, and walk with him daily.

We don't walk with him. We walk with Jesus only. We walk with the way, who's supposed to help us get there and show us how he did it, but we are basically trying to copy his character, but not look at how he walked with his father in identity.

Jim: So I'm going to, I'm going to stop you there because I want people to get a copy of your book where this goes into so much detail and really helps clarify. This disrupting book, disruptingReligionBook. com, DisruptingReligionBook. com. You gotta get a copy, because I'm only letting Colin take two minutes to talk about this, but it's so key. We need to understand what Jesus was talking about when he said he came to restore that which was lost.

Martha: Let me share a little fun fact though, Jim. So this is the fun connection here with Colin and Jim. Colin asked Jim...

Jim: Go way back. Os Hillman, who impacted Colin's life, was the reason why this ministry and this podcast even exists, because of Os Hillman's devotions.

Martha: So we're connecting a bunch of dots here, but then long story short, Colin asked Jim to read the audio version of Disrupting Religion.

Jim: Read and record it.

Martha: Read and record it to be the audio version. A couple things. People can get the book. They can also get the audio version. You can hear the voice you're familiar with and with a lot of passion because, Colin, it was so fun to listen to Jim record because he would literally sometimes be laughing because he's Oh my word, this is like what I feel inside but Colin wrote the words on paper. So it's just great. So I just want to make all those connections for our listeners.

And that's why Jim is just, he loves what you've written, Colin, because it resonates so much, but one of the things I hear that you say that makes this so important is the fact that we are so easily distracted from the truth of what God is saying in all of scripture. And like you said, the songs say oh jesus is still the you know the only way and that sounds really good, but there's so much more to this story. And we need to break some of those things that we don't even realize we've adopted. And so I just love this conversation. And thank you for interjecting how people can get a copy of the book because there's no way -

Jim: Yeah, we're gonna get one more section talked about because we're almost out of time. We're gonna go for it anyway Disruptingreligionbook. com. Alright, Colin, people need to understand the church. The church as a cruise ship, the church as a battleship, and more importantly, the church as a pirate ship. Explain it as short and concise as you can, so we can get intrigued for them to dig deeper. The church as a cruise ship.

Colin Ferreira: Do you want to start with the battleship first?

Jim: Go ahead. Go ahead. It's your book.

Colin Ferreira: Actually, when you think about the church, we belong to a kingdom. The kingdom has a commander in chief. It has a lord. A king. It has a president. It has whatever. It's a sovereign nation. Battleships belong to sovereign nations. They belong to kingdoms. They're not private. They're not owned by the people. The church is supposed to be that kind of a mindset. And the church is there. The people on the battleship are not passengers. They're enlisted. They joined something and they recognize they have a Lord in charge of all of this and they are part of building this kingdom. And the ship is not the goal, the ship is a means to an end. The ship is there to project power beyond that kingdom, on behalf of the kingdom and into areas where the kingdom needs to control. But it's controlled by other enemies or other entities.

The battleship does that and it goes into any kind of waters in any kind of situation and it's prepared to project the power and authority of the kingdom it represents. The ship is not the goal. The ship is a means to an end. Really, when I say battleship, it's really aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier is meant to get those pilots off with their weapons. They have been equipped on the ship, but it's not about the ship. It's getting you off the ship and extending that authority beyond the ship. And to take back and to take land, to take, you know what I'm saying?

So the cruise ship, when you don't understand your identity and you don't, you're not really walking in that piece that comes as a child you, you get into this servant mode and you start to work to build things. And then soon enough, the things you build is half yours now and half God's. And in many people's cases, it becomes 90 percent theirs. And we build these things, and the whole goal is the passengers and to keep the passengers on board and to keep them on your cruise line and to keep the water calm and don't ever go out in rough waters.

Nobody's ever intimidated by a cruise ship showing up in their area. There's no intimidation there whatsoever. People come off the ship for a little mission trip and get back on the ship. That's right. Then they're back on the ship. That's right. Quote Unquote, mission trip, but get back to the comfort of the ship. And the ship is always competing with other ships. They wouldn't admit it, but there's the competing and everybody's trying to keep the passengers on their cruise line.

So that's two ships that, and I'm not saying that's every church and that's fully what it is, but there's a lot of similarities we can identify with and what I just described . Now the pirate ship, the thing about it is pirates go after legitimate treasure. Pirates do not go after fool's gold. A pirate will only go after true treasure. So here we are, all of us going after true treasure, but in a lot of ways , we are going after it in illegitimate ways, so they go after legitimate treasure in illegitimate ways.

Now, when I say illegitimate, I'm not referring to criminal ways, breaking the law. I'm referring to if it is not by faith, which means you have to be guided by the Spirit of God, it is sin. The Bible says that . And so we create a lot of stuff that looks good, songs, we use a lot of the world's ways and we build things and it starts to grow and grow . And we have a lot of people involved and a lot of money spent.

But look at where our country has been heading, with all the ministry and all the stuff that's been spent. Do we really have the authority to put to flight 500? And the Bible says one can put to flight 500. Do we have that authority to do this? It's not been happening. And so we create the cruise ships and we don't understand identity. And we're all living as good servants. And we have no idea what His Sonship intended to do. And what it means to walk with dad daily.

He's not a distant father. We know what fatherhood should look like. Why should he be worse than us? You know what I'm saying? A distant father. If you love my eldest son, I'm good. That's not what he sent Jesus for. Jesus himself said there is coming a time when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father himself teaches us to worship him.

Martha: I love this whole analogy to the ships and I think that it's gonna cause a lot of intrigue for our listeners because as you were saying those things, Colin, I was relating to how that makes sense on a cruise ship versus a battleship, which is actually an aircraft carrier and the pirate ship. And so speaking of pirate ships, it reminds me of a podcast that Jim does with some guys at SaferNet that's called Digital Desperados.

It's not a perfect analogy with where you were going, but the cyber criminals that he highlights are like pirates on a pirate ship. They take the things that don't belong to them when a company or individual's electronics are not protected. The stories that are shared on the podcast are amazing. And the software that can protect each one of us from the, these bad pirates is called SaferNet. They have 84 website filters, a VPN, internet controls, and virus protection to proactively keep the pirates out of our computers, cell phones, and other devices. Both at home and at the office. So learn more about Safer Net and also subscribe to the Digital Desperados podcast.

I'll put the link in the show notes and you can listen to the podcast or watch it on YouTube. And you can go to, I'll put all those links there for you for SaferNet.

Jim: All right, so Colin, because I wanna land on this on the podcast. There's just so many more things. I really would love to talk about your thoughts on prayers and so many different things. But this pirateship thing - christians going after legitimate treasure, but doing it in illegitimate ways, really with our own strength. What you're really saying, this is my interpretation, Jim's interpretation of Colin's words, is that so many Christians working in their own power, in their own strength, without need for faith, or without need of interaction or intervention from God, accomplishing things instead of accomplishing the greater things that God intended us to do, walking by faith. One example of that would be ten trillion dollars worth of buildings , that we call church buildings, in this country alone, that Jesus never asked us to build.

Colin Ferreira: Exactly.

Jim: Exactly. Think about that. Jesus said, go ye therefore, and build big buildings and create little kingdoms across the country. Oh no, he never said that, did he? No.

Colin Ferreira: Let me give you a little example. You will remember the time Jesus healed a whole bunch of people. Everyone that evening, they went home and obviously they brought back every relative and friend that was sick the next day. The disciples couldn't find Jesus. He was spending time with his father and that's another point. Jesus is not the father. The father is not Jesus. They're all the Godhead, but they are three different persons and they have different roles. So we can't just say, I'll just pick whichever one I want. It makes no difference. We need to understand the three roles.

So he's just talking with his father, which is what we supposed to learn from him. He gets direction. He comes back and he says, we've got to go to the next town. And the disciples are saying, are you kidding me? We have this huge crowd of people all eager and waiting and in need. And we have this thing that once there's a need, we need to stick around and make it happen. But we have to act on obedience, not need. Because there'll always be more needs than we can handle. And he says, I need to move on.

How many people in today, in ministry, would walk away in the middle of something going well, or see an opportunity, walk away and say I just know the time for this is up and God wants me to move on? Such people do not get the identity aspect. They don't understand sonship because God is not going to mislead his children and he is going to get the best out of you, but it may not look like the path we want. So we build and build and build, and then we start , we create what we have today and look at the result.

Jim: And once you start building these buildings, then you have to build a whole organization around it to support the building and instead of being flexible and the ability to just adjust left rudder, right rudder, like a battleship could do, instead you're stuck in port, the battleship never able to go anywhere.

All right. Tie all this together in a neat little bow for our believers that are listening today - maybe there's some unbelievers even listening today - to work. Because for the workplace believer that's listening today, they're going, wait a minute. This is some new stuff I've never heard of today. I got to get a copy of this book, disrupting book online at disrupting book, Disrupting Religion books. Excuse me. I need to get a copy of the book, Disrupting Religion online at Disrupting Religion book. com. But they're saying, Colin, how does this transform the way I look at my workplace like my mission field? Last word for you.

Colin Ferreira: Okay. Quickly. You can get the book on Amazon, does not have to be disrupted in book. com. Anyway, if you don't get this understanding of your sonship, that really brings that peace. Servanthood does not bring the level of peace that sonship does.

We are ready in the workplace. We know how to work. We work hard. And we will work hard for Jesus and miss it. What is in that book is the fundamental restructuring of a foundation that would shift what you do, how you do it, so that the purposes of God will be accomplished in your workplace and you can truly do ministry in the workplace and bring God into it.

People are not attracted to a workaholic that is burning out saying he is working for God because I don't want to serve a God that's going to kill me. Get my point? So it's crucial that we understand that identity that God intended. It's what he came for. Ultimately, he told the father, he said, he told us in John 17, he said two key things. He said, I have finished the work you gave me. He didn't die yet. He wasn't crucified yet. I finished the work you gave me. I have revealed your name.

And then the last verse, he says, I have revealed you and I will continue to do so the love I experienced with you in me, they will experience the same. John 17 is not about church unity. It's about the unity of God's spirit in us and sonship and him loving us the same way he loved Jesus. When we get that , it shifts everything.

Jim: I love the fact that you summarize it that the peace we get as a servant is nothing like the peace we get as a son. That's powerful, Colin. There's so much , we could talk for several hours, but we don't get to. But you can get the audiobook and listen to my voice for four and a half hours, or you can read the book at Disrupting Religion Book. com or on amazon, as he said, and get a copy and read it for yourself. So you can underline and highlight it, wrinkle the pages. Because my book is tattered already.

Colin Ferreira, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for letting the Lord disrupt your life and send you to purgatory in eastern iowa so that you could write this book 20 years later. Thank you. Colin.

Colin Ferreira: Thank you for having me. This was fun.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host jim and martha brangenberg. We're christ followers. Our workplace It's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.