"What can I say about the emptiness and freedom into whose door I entered for that half-minute, which was enough for a lifetime, because it was a new life altogether?" - Merton (see last post)
I'm reading Revolution by George Barna. I highly recommend it, even though I'm only halfway through. If you don't know who he is he is well known for his research especially in the arena of the church and Christians. Findings of his work studying the 77 million American adults who are "churched, born-again Christians" published in Revolution show this:
* The biweekly attendance at worship services is, by the believers' own admission, generally the only time they worship God.
* Eight out of ten believers do not feel they have entered into the presence of god, or experienced a connection with Him, during the worship service.
*Half of all believers say they do not feel they have entered into the presence of God or experienced a genuine connection with Him during the past year.
WOW! How sad is that? I can't imagine. If we're honest we'll admit that our experience of the presence of God waxes and wanes. But a year? Actually I can imagine, because I have been there. I've spent years of my Christian life outside of God's plan and outside of his church, but I found myself there in part because I wasn't finding God in church. A couple of posts ago I wrote about spiritually significant events which altered the course of my life and noted the Vineyard as one of my top 5. I believe the success of the Vineyard movement as a whole has been largely due to their commitment to helping people enter God's presence and experience intimacy with him. "Come Holy Spirit." I've heard countless stories of people saying "It just felt different when I came here."
We can't lose this. We can't! We have to be committed to helping people enter God's presence and understand how to do that not only for an hour on the weekend, but in their day to day. If Barna's findings are true, the church isn't doing too well at this, and the majority of Christians might not even know what this means.
But I come back to Merton's quote. "What can I say about the emptiness and freedom into whose door I entered for that half-minute, which was enough for a lifetime, because it was a new life altogether?" 30 seconds! 30 seconds in the presence of God changed him. I've recently been "reminded" that experiencing God's presence is a non-negotiable for me. I'm dead without it. My leadership and His use of me in his work is absolutely nothing without it.
Come Holy Spirit. Invade our lives. Don't let us lose our awareness that you are always present. Help us help others enter your presence and be changed.
3 comments:
yes, come Holy Spirit...
beyond certain logistical stresses :), i'd say this issue is probably presenting me with my biggest challenge as a worship leader, how do we create an atmosphere where people can encounter God's presence (and is it my job to 'manufacture' that?) and how do we communicate the need to experience His presence away from the larger gatherings, and how do we help people figure out how to do that... at the end of the day, i think that's the more significant challenge and where i need to focus my energy. though other distractions are so tempting. :)
Or we can look at church as a place to empower Revolutionaries to go reach their world. I hope that Barna's book does not cause us to be grasping at people, desperate to keep their spiritual attention...
I think the more you guys try to move towards the launch, the more you will be opposed. This opposition will come by way of boredom, apathy, infighting, fatigue, temptation etc. but he will build his church on the rock of the revelation of whom he is, and the gates of hell will not overcome, but they will surely try. However, hold on to that revelation. That is your secret weapon, and there is noting that can overcome that. The battle belongs to him too. Look not to yourselves but him working through you.
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