A Personal Letter from Peter
What are we doing here?
That’s a question that pops into my head quite often.
Sometimes I suspect that the Devil is asking, for it comes as accusation and fear.
Sometimes I suspect that God is asking, for it nurtures a great hope.
Sometimes I think I get a glimpse of the answer.
Recently someone left this message on our Relentless-Love Facebook Page:
Hello... I would like you to know that you have changed my life. I am a Volunteer Soldier in Ukraine; I've been wounded and have been very close to dying many times. Many of my friends and people I know have died here, some in front of me. The doctrine of eternal hell ate me up from the inside. I couldn't bear the thought of my friends who had sacrificed their lives for other people being tormented in literal fire forever, or even to the point of annihilation. But one day I decided to watch your project "Hallelujah in Hell" I couldn't believe how beautiful and concise it was, or how much it aligned with Scripture. It was as if Universal salvation had been right under my nose the whole time, and I had missed it. But now, I have a new hope, and I love the Gospel that once scared me. I listen to your sermons every night that I'm not in the field. Thank you so much for your work! God bless you and Your church.
I think his name is David. I’ve tried to contact him but haven’t heard back. David is what we’re doing here. I get notes like this fairly often—not from Ukraine but from all over the world. They don’t belong to me; they belong to us. Recently my wife was asking God this very question: Why is the Sanctuary here? She heard: “You are my faithful witness.” “You” is us. Of course, that’s a very practical observation—preaching about Jesus is something that we all do together, something that I couldn’t do without you, at least not in the way that we have done it. But far more than that, preaching is not only something that we do together; it’s something that we ARE together. And I think it matters to folks like David that there is a group of people who trust the testimony of Scripture, believe that God in Christ Jesus saves the whole world, and want to worship him together. It matters that we are a church. Together we proclaim:
God is always better than you thought.
The Love of Jesus is deeper than you know.
And the Spirit is everywhere working the wonders of Mercy.
We are a church but an unusual church. Particularly since COVID, we’ve had more who worship with us online than in person. I think this is what God has called us to be— “A church without walls”—but figuring out how we will function and how to do community, without forcing artificial community, is a challenge. I trust that God will guide us, and I hope that you are willing to follow with us so that we might all see it happen.
If you worship with us in person on Sundays, I want to say “Thank you! Your presence is truly a gift to all of us.” And if you worship with us online, “Thank you!” And I hope that you have found ways to connect with us personally and that we can be of help to you in connecting with fellow worshippers, wherever you are. And I want to thank you for supporting all of us with your financial offerings. I don’t know what you give unless you tell me, but I know that many of you do give for we have gotten—far more than what has shown up in the basket on Sunday morning. And yet, we are behind for the year, more than usual...
Giving is down by about 6% for this time of year compared to our historical average. Through October we are behind by $88,554. We’ll need $178,555 in donations in November and December to break even. That’s a lot, but we did overcome such a deficit once before in 2017.
The point is that in order to keep doing what we’ve been doing, we will need to give quite generously as we approach the end of this fiscal year. Would you ask the Lord what he’d like you to give? And would you pray for us as an organization, that we would spend that money as he desires?
Well, that’s the gist of it. But if you’ll keep reading, I’d like to tell you more
Our Online Community (Sanctuary Abroad)
In 2014, our board considered founding a separate entity called “Sanctuary Abroad” that would work to take the Gospel of Relentless Love beyond the walls of our church. Instead, we concluded that “Sanctuary Abroad” needed to be a focus and ministry of our local body. Since that time, we’ve hosted two conferences, developed the Relentless-Love.org website, produced five Downside-Up films including “Hallelujah in Hell,” and partnered with our sister church (or churches) in the Philippines (we have visited twice, helped Pastor Haziel Garcia visit us twice, and we’ve supported them financially for several years). I’ve also written two or three books, spoken at other conferences, and done my best to help pastor people from other cities and countries who have contacted us looking for advice and resources. We did this, together.
Since COVID and our recent staff transitions, we haven’t undertaken any new projects, and I don’t know that we were supposed to do so. We have been talking with someone about hosting another conference in our facility. However, since COVID we have become more of an online community, and I suspect that this was supposed to happen.
Currently, people connect with our services and messages online in one of at least four ways:
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We have a Facebook Page for “The Sanctuary Denver.” Along with our site on Vimeo, people can live stream the service on this page. We also have a “Relentless-love.org – Peter Hiett” Facebook Page. Sometimes when we boost messages on this page, we’ll have thousands of “likes,” scores of “comments,” and several “shares.” I don’t know what that means exactly, but I do know that many in the Philippines and other foreign countries connect with us in this way. I write those long “sermon summaries” because I’ve been told that many can read the summary on their phones even if they can’t stream the message for lack of bandwidth. And hey, admit it: You don’t watch every message, but maybe you’ll read that summary too
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Several hundred regularly watch messages on the “Peter Hiett Channel.” It feels silly to call it that, but it includes all our messages and seems to be an effective way to communicate.
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Our Sanctuary Denver Website will direct you to this site when looking for sermons. It’s also a helpful resource for those who want to investigate the Theology of Relentless Love (The Idea that God is Love, Love is making us in his image, and Love is entirely successful), find particular sermons on particular topics, or access our Downside Up Films. This site has seen more than 19,000 unique visitors over the last 30 days.
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Some connect on a regular basis through our podcast. According to Apple Podcast, we see several hundred “engaged listeners,” whatever that may mean. We added our podcast to Google Podcasts this year and hope to join Spotify next year.
If you have ideas as to how we can be a better online community, please feel free to send those ideas our way. Brett Eades is our Executive Pastor (brett@thesanctuarydowntown.org), assistant to me, and our website manager.
John Pyrc (john@thesanctuarydowntown.org) is our Pastor of Spiritual Formation and Community Life; John would love to have you join him for classes online or simply a conversation about walking with Jesus and each other.
You can contact me (peterhiett@thesanctuarydowntown.org) with comments, questions, prayer requests, free beer, or to get a link to our online sermon discussions on Zoom which we call “Chew the Fat.”
It's hard for me to get a handle on “The Sanctuary Abroad”—and I suppose that may be a blessing for all—but the Sanctuary is bigger than those gathered within our walls on a given Sunday morning. Those “walls” keep us warm in a temperate zone. Believe it or not, those beautiful walls have been our cheapest option for meeting as a group and then broadcasting online.
Our Local Community (Sanctuary Denver)
Sanctuary Denver, I am so very grateful for you! You come second on this list because you are the foundation. The fact that we worship together here is the foundation for worship in all these other places. I know that many of you who sometimes show up
here also worship with us online, either on Sunday or later in the week.I know that many of you who sometimes show up here also worship with us online, either on Sunday or later in the week. And I’m so grateful that you do. I’m also grateful that you stay connected personally in a variety of ways. But I’m even more grateful when you show up in person on Sunday mornings. I realize that community is a challenge when we are spread out across the metro area, but when we worship together, in person, I think we more fully manifest that witness that reaches people like David in the Ukraine, and we are more likely to experience the life of the age to come here and now.
And, for me, it’s much more fun to preach... and pray, sing, worship, and goof around afterward. Sixteen years ago, when we started the Sanctuary, some shared with me that they thought I should do something like a para-church ministry—write, speak around, and give messages to a camera. I didn’t know if I could do that, didn’t want to do that, and, more importantly, believed that God didn’t want me to do that. He wanted a particular church, not just a “download” of information, and not another denomination, but the faithful witness of a group of people that believed together and infected his Church at large with the Gospel of his Relentless Love. I think that is what we are.
This past year, our new staff (Brett, John, Anthony) have felt like a miracle to me—just what God provided at just the right time. And I’m always grateful for Angie, Dee Dee, Glen, Mike, Sasha, and all those who serve as volunteers, board members, and even temporary employees. They all work to connect us in-person and online, but at the end of the day, community is always a personal decision to lose your “fig leaves” and expose your vulnerable heart to another in the hope of loving and being loved. In 2024 I hope that you might give your finances but, more than finances, I hope that you would find a few other Sanctuarians and give your heart. Some of you are doing so in groups organized by us.
Some of you are doing so up in the foothills now that we no longer hold a weekly service in Evergreen. Some of you are doing this in ways that I don’t know about or see—and I don’t have to. Just “Thank You” for trusting God’s Grace and offering yourself to another in this body.
I once saw a cartoon of hundreds of people sitting in a sanctuary, each with a thought bubble directly overhead: “I’m so lonely.” May you pop some of those thought bubbles in 2024. And if you have ideas for how we can help you pop them, would you let me, John, or Brett know?
Our Hopes and Our Needs.
I recently shared with Susan that I was struggling with writing this letter. I hate writing “giving letters.” I suppose it makes me feel vulnerable (needy), potentially abominable (possibly telling people to do what God may not want them to do), and a little embarrassed (the backside of pride). Well, she walked into my office and said, “I just heard: ‘Ask for what you need. Only the proud man starves when a banquet is set before him.” That sounds like God, doesn’t it—no details and just cryptic enough to make me search my own heart and seek some guidance.
What I (we?) need:
If we are to keep operating as we have, we need people willing to give financially. And many of you are. Every year a great deal of our giving comes in at the end of the year, and if it doesn’t this year, we have to consider some painful cuts—I hate the thought of cutting anything or anyone. So, would you ask the Lord what he might be calling you to give? I need God to tell you what he’d like you to give. His voice is Truth and Love and in him, there is no condemnation.
And if we are to be a “faithful witness” that is also a church, we need some of us to give ourselves to each other – in worship, classes, small groups, conversations (If you’d like help in understanding how that might look, would you email John?) And would you all ask the Lord if there are new ways in which he’d like you to connect? I need him to build his church with us—his living stones.
What I (we?) hope:
God has informed me that I can be “wanton,” and I am to “want for nothing” for he is my shepherd. I think that means trusting that God will always provide what we need. And so, if we do “need” more money and connection and this thing we call “The Sanctuary,” God will lead us to give it, provide it, and be it. I’m not to be “wanton,” and yet he’s also informed me that I’m tempted to lose hope and that I must never do so. And so, I’d just like to share a few hopes. . . I feel silly because I’m proud.
I hope that no one would feel like they “have to” come to worship because we all “want to” come and worship our Lord together because we see that he’s actually good. And I hope that many others would want to worship with us because they see that we actually like worshipping—everything we do can be worship.
I hope that we would provide for our staff financially and provide more hours for staffing. I don’t know how exactly these hours would be distributed, but Brett, for instance, is doing what we had several people doing in the past. I hope that we would more fully utilize our website and internet connections, provide a youth program, organize, and direct our institution, transcribe manuscripts, produce all our communications, play the drums, and not put it all on Brett. Currently, Brett and I are full-time employees. All others are part-time even if they give all their time.
I hope that I would one day have the time and resources to write a third book titled “The Tree in the Middle of the Garden.” I don’t know if that time is near or far, but I do believe that we are to be a “faithful witness” to the wonder of that tree that is also called the cross. The first two books in that series from Genesis are written. Together with the third, I think they provide a paradigm, or Gestalt, shift that harmonizes Scripture and glorifies God in a wonderful new way that is also the old way: We are now being made in the image of God, the Bride, and Body of the Adam, and God accomplishes this miracle at the tree in the Garden at the edge of time and eternity planted in the sanctuary of your soul.
I hope that we can be a tipping point, a catalyst, and a vehicle for a reformation and revival grounded in the ancient Truth that is always new: God is Love and Love does not fail, for his Word accomplishes that for which he was sent.
His Word is not named Me-sus, or We-sus, but Jesus, “God is Salvation.” And so, I hope in him, that by the power of His Spirit, he would use us to transform the minds of those who have called themselves “Christians,” and give hope to a world that has been convinced that if there is a God, he hates them, does not want to save them, or cannot save them, and so God is not worthy of our trust.
I hope that, in us and as us, our Lord will crush the head of the ancient liar, destroy the works of the evil one, and allow us to manifest the joy of those who have lost themselves and found themselves in him and are forever worshiping. . . Sometimes I feel silly talking like this, for I do not have the aptitude for this, and a small church like ours does not have the strength. But God has used people far “dumberer” than me and far weaker than us to offer, and literally become, his banquet of Grace. I feel silly, for I’m confessing that I’m proud. So, I’m repenting, and I’m asking you to hope.
I hope that we can more fully and joyfully be what we already are: a faithful witness. I can’t thank you enough for wanting to do this with me, and us, and Jesus. In Scripture (Revelation 1:5) he calls himself, “The Faithful Witness.”
So, Wow. . . and Ouch.
Sometimes this can be hard—just look at the hands and feet of Jesus—but it is always the Good . . . and the Life; it is His Body joined together under one Head and animated by Love.
Much Love,
Peter