There has been a good hearted move in recent years to make church more accessible to non-christians. The principle is a good thing. We do it ourselves by having breakfast and newspapers before Sunday worship, and making the service itself easy to understand. Paul the apostle talks about this principal; Jesus spoke in the cultural language of whoever He was addressing. However one of the unfortunate things that has happened in the church is that we have dumbed down and sometimes hidden the supernatural stuff. Now there are rules in scripture for sharing prophecy, tongues etc in a gathering, and also some boundaries that we have to set to protect people. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’ve observed is that ministry is often ushered to the side, worship cut short (when the people are clearly engaging with God), manifestations, whether Holy Spirit or demonic can be seen as embarrassing and quickly suppressed, rather than explained and dealt with. Sometimes I’ve seen God’s presence really strong in a gathering and the people just want to engage but the “programme” is put first.
Now this is often done with a genuine heart to make it more comfortable for non-Christians, in case they think we’re weird. Here’s some news folks, they already KNOW that we’re weird. In fact just across the street from my house is a leisure complex with a theatre. Later in the summer there is a spiritual medium coming to perform. I know it will sell out just as all those kinds of meeting do. He’ll charge each person about £15 for the show, and his stuff doesn’t even come from God. We have it for free, and much more powerfully, yet we dumb it down and hide it. The world is hungry for the supernatural! Jesus saw an issue or a situation and usually solved it supernaturally, or showed His compassion supernaturally. He even saw fit to create some wine at a wedding where the guests had already drunk the rest of it. Now “where’s the fruit” in that?? I think God is just generous and extravagant and always acts through love. Often our intentions are good but we miss the point. We need the balance I spoke about previously and we need to embrace the supernatural an make it as common in our walk as everything else. And if God decides our services are boring and wants to mess things up, who are we to say no?
Depending on what day it is, an observer could describe my theological standing with equal accuracy as, conservative evangelical, charismatic, liberal, fundamentalist, alternative or old-fashioned. I like to think of that as balance. On my iPod I have tons of podcasts, from a diverse range of teachers and commentators. Just last night on the way to work, I listened to Todd Bentley followed by Tony Campolo. Both of these guys are at opposite ends of the theological spectrum and both get criticized for what they teach. I like some of what both of them are about, but disagree with them both on some points too. However I can get blessed by both of them. The diversity gives me balance. I like the faith and “out of the box” thinking of Bentley but also the social gospel and down to earth academic approach of Campolo. Likewise I love the laid back authenticity of the Vineyard, but love the ceremony and beauty of a catholic mass.
Its all about balance! Besides, it’s not healthy just to eat chocolate ice cream all the time, you need strawberry too.
I’ve been catching some of the recent Todd Bentley healing meetings on God TV over the past couple of weeks. What really shocked me was my cynical reaction to it all. This was especially compounded when I thought back to the Vineyard meetings of 15, 20 years ago, where this stuff happened every week (even locally, never mind conferences). Regardless of what we think of the style or method, people are getting healed, saved and blessed. For whatever reason, in our movement, as time went on, these kind of genuinely powerful outpourings became less and less. Perhaps we just got used to it? No, I don’t think so. I think it was because the Lord needed to teach us to be Outward Focussed before He’d release it to such a degree again. If we are just soaking for meeting after meeting, but not taking it into the marketplace, feeding the poor, comforting the widow and passing on the blessing then its pointless. That said we need to remain hungry for this stuff, its what Wimber called, “Power Evangelism”. The gospel is spread with both the Word & the Works, its all the Kingdom of God.
Sometimes I think we try to be cool and relevant (when we’re really not), instead of just being real and ourselves. We should never dumb down the supernatural, or write it off with our cynicism. Likewise, when God pours it out, we should be running out of the doors to give it away. It was never just for us, we get to give away!
I would dare to say that across the world, most people aren’t doing the job they dreamed of when they were kids. Often insecurity, bitterness and resentment comes from feeling hopeless and out of place. God made all of us for a specific purpose and we all have a role in the Kingdom. We are all sons and daughters of the King. During the run up to Easter, my encouragement is to ask God what you are for, and then go do it. In the Vineyard one of our principles is that “everyone gets to play”, gifting needs to be used, and no matter how insignificant you may feel, you have gifting, most people just don’t know what that is.
Something we humans like to do is complicate stuff, and its one of my bugbears. I like simple music, simple explanations and getting to the point. When I’ve taught guitar I’ve made a point of showing the student what they need to know and with the simplest terminology and application. In the church of the 20th & 21st centuries, we’ve taken a tradition and with each successive generation, complicated it. As, in the west we live in a world dominated by corporations (I type this on a an Apple wearing clothes from Gap), so the church has become corporate. To a degree this is necessary, we need to be organised so that people know where we are, who are and what we are. But now our churches and movements are brands with trademarks, our wording is carefully chosen, as if advertising the latest laptop and our pastors are expected to be as much a CEO as a spiritual leader. Now being someone with a love for language and good design I understand why we need to communicate effectively, but when, for example we write our worship music to fit a “sound” that sells, or spend more on advertising than blessing people (ie. the poor), writing book after book on methodology or the latest social theory, rather than just “doing the stuff”, something is wrong. We expect our leaders to have the business skills of Richard Branson whilst trying to live and minister like Jesus. We have become consumers rather than co-combatants. With pressure like that no wonder many leaders burn out. To be honest it’s my opinion that the world needs more CEO pastors like it needs a hole in the head. What touches people is authentic, real spirituality, humility and a love of justice. As David Carr said recently at the UK Vineyard leader’s conference, it’s God’s job to build the church, not ours, we just have to preach the Gospel and demonstrate the Kingdom.
Just wanted to post this as its got some great truth in it from an unlikely source. Also if you think about what is being said, and look at the character of the great ordinary men and women of the bible, David, Moses, Paul, Abraham, Elijah et, you’ll see this principle in their lives. Yes folks…God speaks through popular culture too.
From the excellent feel good movie, Evan Almighty:
God, lets the principal character, Evan, into the secret of how we can change the world, it’ll happen “One act of random kindess at a time.”
That’s why its important, just to get out of our houses and out to bless whoever we meet, wherever we are. No matter how small, or seemingly insignificant, it all adds up. If the local church is meant to be the hope of the world, those of us in it have a part to play, using whatever God has put in our hands. All the little, gestures contribute to the bigger picture. That’s how we change the world!
Here’s a great video for you to enjoy, you can see what some friends of ours in New York are up to with their evening service. It’s also a great example of thinking differently about church.
Welcome to the first post of my new blog. I haven’t blogged for well over a year now, so I thought I’d better start up again. The focus of this blog will be the journey that we are having in the context of Colchester Vineyard, an emerging shoot of a church, that we have been leading since May 2007.The idea is that you can see what we are up to, what conversations we are having and where God is leading us. It will be a conversation like any other, some parts you will agree with, others not. You can comment, praise, critique or otherwise on my posts, just play nice.So, what’s occurring just now? Well, we have our 4th Sunday gathering this coming Sunday (10th Feb), at St Ann’s Centre in Colchester. Everyone is invited to join us for breakfast from 10.30, worship from 11am. This is really a chance to throw open the doors of our small community. In this day and age we sometimes have to think and operate differently to how we did things 20 years ago. There has to be an emphasis on community, relationship and being real in order to provide something that is authentic and useful. Although not completely “seeker sensitive”, to use a christianese phrase, we like to think that we are doing our best to remove the hurdles and obstacles that stop people meeting with God and joining in with His community. In fact it could be best summed up by saying that we are trying to create the kind of church that we would actually like to go to. Seems to be working so far
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