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Ichabod?
Posted by Tony Sisk in Church & Missions
I am going to step out on a limb here. I may get pushed off; if so, I hope you will bandage my wounds and be gentle with your rebukes.
There always seems to be a plethora of diagnoses for apparent symptoms when talking about why one church is exciting, growing, reaching, flourishing, (insert catchy present active participle here) and why another church is not. Some will decry the apparent solemnity of one assembly and say that assembly is not entertaining enough. If by “entertaining” you mean “significantly distracted with cultural ballyhoo” then we are agreed, that is a bad trend.
If the service is so solemn that you mean somnambulated, then we find ourselves in agreement once more. They seem to wear their dullness like a badge of honor (“If you sing it too fast, you lose the meaning…”), especially when they are trying to distance themselves from the “religious nuts” who get so emotional down the street (you know, those crazy Christians who close their eyes, raise their hands, and stuff). Perhaps indeed people (specifically men, so I am told) are becoming bored in church, an argument I hear quite often on various blogs. One church is entertaining her members to death; another church is sleepwalking her folks into oblivion.
Those who shout that the church must entertain the masses in order to be effective will disparage the “boring” church. The “boring” church will decry the “entertaining” church that they are watering down the message (whatever that message may be; oftentimes it isn’t the Gospel). Either way, whether the focus is on entertainment, something is profoundly missing. If a church is satisfied with being boring, something is profoundly missing.
Or should I say someone.
Allow me a brief personal anecdote. My family was at one time very good friends with a Mennonite family; sadly, job changes moved us away from one another. They are a beautiful family, being nearly identical to ours. Their church was having a song service and invited us to come. We did not know what to expect as we drove into the parking lot of the church that evening; however, they were expecting us.
A gentleman greeted us at the door as we were walking in. We were escorted to a pew in the small, unadorned church building. As we made ourselves comfortable, men, women, and children greeted us. Little ones introduced themselves to us; men heartily shook my hand; ladies warmly greeted my wife, commenting on the loveliness of my children. A young man, probably no more that eighteen, then opened the service and prayed a simple prayer honoring God.
Nearly everyone had an opportunity to sing in the service, yet one thing was noticeably absent. There was not a musical instrument anywhere. No piano. No organ. No guitar; only the sweet melody of unadulterated voice offering praise and thanksgiving unto God. I found myself during the service transported somewhere other than where I was. My wife was swept up into it as well; the children were transfixed on the aria of voices.
So what is my point? The service was neither overtly entertaining nor was it boring. However, the overwhelming sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit was palpable. From the moment we walked into the door until the after-service fellowship, the Spirit was there. And I think this is where we are missing the boat in our many arguments about “entertaining vs. boring”.
I know that this may be a loaded question and one that strikes at the very heart of the church where you serve the Lord; if the Holy Spirit showed up, would the assembly know it? It is to our shame that more often than not Christians attend worship services where the Holy Spirit simply is not present. If He were to show up, my fear is that we would not notice because our experience with the Spirit would dictate otherwise. Why do I say that?
Many Christians face what I am talking about Sunday by Sunday in their dead services or their dog-and-pony excuses for a live one. This is a tragedy of untold sorrow and incalculable blame. I think we all know that to confess that the Spirit is absent from our services is bad marketing so what do we do—we settle, and we do it without remorse. We settle for the emptiness and manufacture an environment that markets that the Spirit is there. And I believe we do it because we have not experienced the power of the Holy Spirit to such a degree that the entire assembly would recognize it, embrace it, and live it out.
My Mennonite friends know the Spirit; my fear is that we would have to introduce ourselves to Him if He came to the door, that is if Ichabod has not been written across it.
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You could get kicked out of the synagogue for this kind of thinking. The Pharisees will see to it. You can face that danger, or we can wait for the Spirit to come, hope that the introduction is made, and that he will be welcome to stay (and return each time we meet). God bless your type of thinking (and I hope, your type of praying).
Byron
Tony,
Of course, the Holy Spirit is present in every one of our worship services … assuming that there is at least one true Christ-follower there.
The problem is not the absence of the Holy Spirit. The problem, I believe, is one of the quenching of the Holy Spirit. He seeks to break through our barriers of pride, arrogance, and sin every single Sunday. It just seems that we tend to choose those things rather than allowing Him to move in our worship.
Like you, some of the most powerful, Spirit-filled times of worship I have ever experienced have been in a quiet, dark room with candles, soft music, and prayer. But I have also seen the Holy Spirit pour out on a very large, loud, boisterous group of teen-agers who had absolutely no trouble lifting their hands and singing loudly to the Lord. It was in that particular worship celebration that I first saw believers (teens, no less) literally lying on their face … in the floor … before God. No “dog and pony show,” just brokenness.
That, my friend, is what we are missing in so many of our worship gatherings. Pride and self-centeredness so fill the room that there is no place for the Holy Spirit. The quiet, “we’re too dignified to raise our hands or clap … those guitars and drums are of the devil” crowd are eaten up with it. Likewise, the “fire up the spotlight, I’m a superstar, isn’t my hair cool” crowd suffers from the same debilitating sickness … just in another extreme.
We must be careful not to paint our churches and worship encounters into two simple, easy-to-label crowds. It is a false dichotomy. The vast majority of our churches exist somewhere in the middle … somewhere between the extremes of “one step away from a funeral service” and “one step away from a Las Vegas show.”
At my church (as an example) we have the band, the drums, the screen. But our worship is simple. We pray, we sing four or five songs. We get loud and we become quiet before the Lord. We raise our hands (sometimes our drums stop playing and I turn around to see our drummer – Jeremiah – on his feet with his hands raised to the Lord … and that’s just fine with me
), we clap our hands, we smile and laugh. But we are certainly no dog and pony show. There are other times when we have hymns. Share testimonies. Have concentrated times of prayer. Right down the middle…
Anyhow … enough of my rambling. But I’ll say again, the Spirit is there in all of our churches (no matter the “style”) … we simply have to allow Him to have control. And control is not something that we Southern Baptists like to give up, is it?
I agree with Geoff when he said, “the Spirit is there…we simply have to allow Him to have control.”
What a powerful truth and statement! When we gather for worship, the setting is not the most important aspect. Whether there are robes or a praise team, organ or drums, stained-glass or storefront window are secondary, if they even rank that highly!
What matters most is Who is in control? If we answer that the Holy Spirit is in control, we have true worship of God.
May that always be our desire as Southern Baptists, as believers.
What Geoff said.
Les
But I’ll say again, the Spirit is there … we simply have to allow Him to have control.
And that does make the difference. I spent much of my Christian life in a small, independent Charismatic church where the minister of music was a talented (had been playing piano since he was 3) musician who had learned something about letting the Holy Spirit lead in leading worship. The latter was a lot more important than the former. I appreciate my time there, as it was definitely a place where you could learn something about throwing yourself into worshiping God.
The other half of that is what do you do when you move away from that kind of environment? The answer is that you learn to wholeheartedly throw yourself into worship no matter how conducive or ’spiritual’ the church environment seems. I was in a discussion awhile back about the quality (or lack thereof) of a worship time at a singles retreat, and someone commented that I seemed to be ‘really getting into it’ during that worship time. The truth was the worship leader was someone who strikes me as being too enamored of being the center of attention, and the music didn’t really impress me. Nevertheless, I had an opportunity to worship the Lord, and I threw myself into it as much as I could.
The issue of pride definitely enters into it, and what I’m about to say may not merely step on a few toes, it may mash some feet flat. John speaks of worldliness as being characterized by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking of worldliness as something we catch from ‘the world’. It’s not, it’s internal attitudes that characterize the way the world operates (with the result that sometimes our efforts to be ’separate from the world’ merely result in a separate worldliness). In light of that, you may have to consider that if you’re boastfully proud of being Southern Baptist, what you’re exibiting may be worldliness. Of course, the same goes for those boastfully proud of being Pentecostal/Charismatic, or even of having an emphasis on praise and worship (I’ve seen it).
In honor of my friend, the thespian Les Puryear’s participation in this thread, I share one of my favorite illustrations of this. It comes from a movie called Six Days, Seven Nights.
There is a scene in which Harrison Ford’s character, the cynical pilot who ferries passengers between South Pacific islands, is talking with Anne Heche’s character, the New York professional on vacation. He is making fun of the tourists, and says, “They come here looking for romance, expecting to find love, when they can’t find it anyplace else.”
“Maybe they will,” Heche’s character responds.
“It’s an island, babe,” the pilot retorts. “If you don’t bring it here, you won’t find it here.”
An imperfect illustration, to be sure, but it can nonetheless serve to remind us that a room full of people who do not experience a vibrant worship relationship with their Creator throughout the week cannot reasonably expect great times of corporate worship when they meet together.
Wes,
Amen, amen, amen!
Thank you everyone for your participation and input. I won’t respond to everyone individually, but to the overall tenor of the comments, as it seems that some have misjudged where I am firing.
It is not my point to “Ichabod” anyone or their church. I don’t want anyone to abandon their current assembly either. I find it really odd that we say we do not focus on the setting of worship–music, building, etc. and this is not the barometer that we gauge whether or not the Spirit is present; yet that is even what ladens many of these comments in this thread.
I agree wholeheartedly that what matters is who is in control; and that Person should be the Spirit. If I can make a simple point, isn’t the Spirit being quenched the same as His not being there?
I am not trying to oversimplify nor press a theological nuance, but it seems we get pretty reactionary when worship styles are addressed. To quench the Spirit is indeed to render His ministry in our midst ineffective, whether it be pride, arrogance, or a multitude of other sins. It might as well be as if He isn’t there. The church of entertainment and the somnambulant church will both grow stale if the Spirit isn’t there to guide them.
Evidently I did not make my point in the way I wanted to (and I do so apologize for that), but the church that God uses is the Spirit-led church. The church that lives in a spirit of openness to His leadership is the church that impacts eternity, whether a disco ball is hung from the ceiling or you sing from the Psalter.
tony,
are you talking about ichabod teroy? if you are, you’re right. he aint got nothing holy about him. he’s a fightin’, cussin’, woman chasin’, liquor drinkin’, low down, dirty, yella snake in the grass. i’ve known him and his kin fer a long time. they’re all alike.
david
After going back and re-reading your post, may I attempt a restatement of what I’m hearing? I may still miss what you’re trying to say, but there’s a possibility that what I’ll end up saying may be worth saying anyhow.
We tend to evaluate (or diagnose)the reasons that a church is effective (or not) in terms of external practices like worship style – e.g. traditional (boring) vs modern (entertaining). These are things we can figure out and implement in our own strength. We tend to further denigrate those who have chosen externals different from our own.
But the real key to effectiveness is the presence and the leading of the Holy Spirit. He may lead us into some of the same externals that we attribute effectiveness to, but He’s the key to effectiveness, not those externals.
Unfortunately, when what we’re running on is the externals, but not on the Spirit’s leading, instead of acknowledging our lack, we (for the sake of “effective marketing”, or because we prioritize “looking effective” instead of being effective, too often act as if we’re doing just fine. This can lead to us being so unfamiliar with following the leading of the Spirit that if he walked into our flesh-led worship services, we wouldn’t know how to respond.
Dr. Howard Hendricks used to say, “It is a sin to bore people with the Word.”
I take this from that statement. It is not our job to entertain people from the pulpit or the stage. It is our job to deliver God’s message to them.
However, the Word, rightly divided, is forceful, interesting, practical and powerful. It takes a preacher to make it boring.
My job is to deliver the Word without making it boring.