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A lot has been going through my mind since attending the worship conference.  It is interesting to look back at the notes that I took, and the things that I learned, and realize that the impact of the experience goes way beyond the sum total of all I learned there.  There was a very specific impartation there, which has put my mind to thinking in a different manner.  I feel that in the next month or two I will come to some new understanding on things, compared to how I see now, and that is why I am putting a date on this post title.  I believe the impact of that will be far-reaching, and want to reserve the right to return to that at any point!

I want to give links to the first two posts regarding the conference.  For some reason the Day 2 post had a pretty high readership, but either no one, or virtually no one, read the first post, or at least as far as I can tell.  There were some thoughts in the first post that were ground-breaking for me, so I wanted to share both links again, in case anyone missed the first one.

Worship Is Death

Today was day two of the worship conference.  We had some nice acoustic worship in the morning, with a more contemporary service this evening.  I have an eclectic selection of things to share tonight, but hopefully everything will tie together in the end!

Praise and worship has always, or at least always as long as I’ve been alive, played a prominent role in the average church service.  Some congregations still sing hymns only, some are into the latest and greatest new material, and others are somewhere in between.  No matter the genre of music played, I think there has been a general misunderstanding of the purpose and function of praise and worship in the church today.  Usually the music is seen as a prelude to the rest of the service, an introduction so to speak, maybe a means to prepare hearts to receive the message brought by the pastor.  Often times, in our time-pressed society, the music is limited to a specific time period, because “the show must go on”.  All of these views miss the true purpose of worship.

Why Do We Worship?

1. Worship is partially vertical, between us and God.  It is us ministering to God, and God ministering to us.  As a part of this point, I want to take a little rabbit trail.  One of the speakers today was a Rodney DuCroq.  Rodney, like the other speakers for the conference, has an extensive background in leading worship, and he spoke on the 4 Faces of Worship, based on Revelations 4:7.  He taught the following regarding the 4 Beasts, and the seasons of worship they represent:
   1. The Ox (or calf)  The ox was a beast of burden, so the ox represents labor.  This is labor intensive worship, for the purpose of accomplishing things in the spirit that need to be accomplished.  This often times deals with breaking hard ground, like plowing a field that has never been plowed.  The ox also represents sacrifice, as in a sacrifice of praise.  This goes back to what I wrote about yesterday, that worship often involves dying to self, to bring about obedience to Christ.  We subjugate our own desires to accomplish His.
   2. The Man – this represents God ministering to man, as well as man ministering to man.  God wants to minister to us, so in this respect worship is vertical.  Ephesians 5:26 describes Jesus sanctifying His bride, “by the washing of water with the word”.  We need to view worship as a two way street.  We bring praise and worship to Him, but He also uses the experience to speak things into the world, either into our personal lives, or to speak things into the world that He is wanting to do.
   3. The Eagle – The eagle has great sight.  He can see for great distances, and God wants us to have His sight, His vision, concerning where we are in His grand plan.
   4. The Lion – The lion seems to represent victory, a season of praise where the people of God are exuberant in their worship, celebrating the greatness of  God.
2. As stated above, we worship to minister to one another.  Usually in the church today, and this is true of my past worship experiences, we get into the worship service, and form our own little  ‘worship cocoon’.  We are totally focused on God, and see nothing of those around us.  God wants us to minister to one another  in our praise and worship.  Three verses bear this out.
   1. Ephesians 5:15-19 – speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, etc.
   2. Colossians 3:12-16 – teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, etc.

Why should we want to minister to one another?  Because each of us has a representation of Christ that is unique on the earth.  If I am only receiving the part of Christ that is in the worship team, I am missing out on the parts of Christ that are in the rest of the body.   We’ve discussed this issue extensively in the blogosphere as it pertains to our meetings at large, but I believe, as was shared at the conference, that this same principle applies in our worship as well.

3.  We should not be relying on the music team to lead all the worship.  In 1 Corinthians 14:26, each one had a psalm, a hymn or a spiritual song, etc.  We are all responsible to minister to one another.

4.  Worship and music are not synonymous.  Worship can be done in the context of music, but not all music represents true worship.  True worship should be an extension of a life that is lived continuously in worship of Him.

Finally, Douglas made the following point:  “”If your worship is not built into the greater context of God’s eternal purpose it lacks the ability to impact the earth.”  In other words, if we are not continually seeking to know His purposes on the earth, both seasonal and eternal, our worship will just be music sung in unison.  If we want to see our worship become truly powerful and life-changing, we must worship, again, in the context of His purposes.

So, in short form, we need to see our worship as a life-changing and world-changing interaction, between God and man, and between man and man.  It is an important ministry in and of itself, not just an intro to some other, more important thing.

Unfortunately, this is new enough information for me that I can’t provide the biblical references for all the points that were made.  If you have specific questions regarding this, please feel free to comment ad I’ll get more details.  There are probably important details I’ve left out, but if I think of other things I’ve left out or mis-stated I’ll post again later.

This weekend my wife and I are in Wichita, KS, attending a worship conference put on by my dear brother Douglas Weaver.  Tonight we had a good music/worship session, followed by some teaching by a brother named Ian Chellan (I am not sure I spelled his name right).  I thought he made some very good points, and I wanted to share them while they are still fresh in my mind.  (Part 2 on Faith will follow next week)

He talked about Genesis 22, where the word “worship” is used for the first time.

“Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”   Genesis 22:5

Worship here is associated with death.  In this case, Abraham’s act of worship was to obey God and sacrifice his son.  In this situation I see two points, which are really interconnected:

1. True worship brings about death in us, death to ourselves, death to our flesh.  Like Paul talked about dying daily, true worship is something we live in every day, and is part of our lifestyle.  More on this in a second.
2. Worship is obedience.  This is connected to #1, because obedience to God results in, or comes from, dying to ourselves.

Ian also stated something like the following (paraphrased by me):  “If singing a song brings you into the presence of the Lord, why are you out of His presence in the first place?”  What I take from this is that our lives are a continual process of worshipping Him.  He is worshipped in how we live, how we treat our families and those around us, and when we make decisions to resist temptation and do His will instead of our own.  Then, after having lived in that attitude and lifestyle of worship all the time, when we come together as a body we are expressing that worship in a unified voice.   So, true worship, in the form we have always seen it (where we sing before the Lord) is really an outflowing of what we are already doing the rest of the week.

Ian pointed out that our purpose as the body is not to bring about manifestations of the Spirit, or to experience being “in the presence of the Lord”.  Our purpose as the body is simple:  to be like Christ.  Multiple scriptures testify to this.  Ephesians 4:11-13, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 1 Corinthians 2:2, etc.  1 John also talks a lot about the central importance of Christ, and how we are to be like Him (see specifically 1 John 2:6).  The Lord has been stirring this in my heart lately, and Ian’s teaching further expounded and enforced this idea.

Finally, I came to better understand the ultimate purpose of God in the earth:  to bring glory to His name, and to proclaim His greatness to the principalities and powers of the air.

To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ,

and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things;

so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 3:8-10

So, as I now understand, our purpose on this earth is first to be like Christ.  Then, once like Christ, then what?  We are to live out on the earth the fulness of His victory over the enemy.  We are to carry out, on a spiritual plane, the battle in which the Kingdom of our God will supplant the kingdom of this world (notice that this removes all focus from nationalistic agendas, and only the Kingdom of God remains, as this victory is not being won on a political/natural level).  One other interesting point, along this line, is that our  victory on the spiritual plane may look like defeat in the natural realm.  Like someone so aptly said elsewhere, “we live in an upside down kingdom”.

OK, I lied.  One last thing.  Ian gave his definition of religion as follows (again, paraphrased):  religion is a move of God that has been dragged past its season”

Well, there will be more tomorrow.  I hope these words bless you as much as they blessed me.

The Lord has done a lot in the last 2 years to teach me about faith, a subject that is often times mis-taught, misunderstood and misapplied.  Having come from a Charismatic background, I had a lot to relearn about faith, although it is interesting how close the Charismatics are to having understanding, and yet how far away they are.  The importance of faith is apparent in scripture (Hebrews 11:6), and therefore I think it is an issue that we should understand.  I recently had a conversation with my sister, who is struggling to overcome her religious background as I have, and that conversation sparked me to share here what I have learned.

Faith as I Used to See It

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  Romans 10:17

This scripture was used ad nauseum in the churches I attended.  The idea was that, simply by reading the bible, your faith would increase.  Now, I am sure there was other teaching on faith, but the use of that scripture, to me, highlights the problems with the way Charismatics approach faith.  The problem was that faith was approached as an asset, to be sought after, as a means to getting other things.  In order to have healing you had to have faith.  In order to have prosperity you had to have faith.  Whatever things a person might want, faith was the key to getting what you wanted.  Now, it is true that faith is the key, as Hebrews mentions.  The problem lies in our priorities, in what we’ve made important.  As a churched Christian, I sought to be wise, I sought to be healed, I sought to be prosperous and I sought to be godly.  The problem with this is that I sought THESE THINGS, without seeking the giver of these things.  I now see that faith comes from a life lived in service to Christ, and grows as we mature, and as we begin to exercise our faith at some level.  If we are not seeking Him primarily the process will never advance.  Certainly reading the bible plays a part in this process, but reading the bible in and of itself will not increase faith.

The difference described above may seem trivial, but it is vital, as an improper understanding of faith can result in misapplication of that faith, and frustration when the things we stood for in faith don’t come to pass.  It also causes Christians to live in false restriction of thought and word, for fear of counteracting their faith.  I will give further explanation of these things below.

Case Scenario 1:

Shelly (name made up) has lived her whole life attending church.  She has taught sunday school, served on boards and otherwise been very active in her church.  She truly loves the Lord, and listens to lots of tapes on healing, faith, the end-times, etc.  She believes her faith is strong, and when she develops stomach symptoms she begins standing on her faith, believing that she is healed.  Shelly’s symptoms continue, and in fact worsen.  She develops severe pain, but still refuses to seek care.  When she does seek medical care there is concern expressed by her doctor that further testing is needed, but still she refuses to be evaluated, and continues to stand in her faith.  As time passes, her condition worsens.  She finally agrees to an evaluation, and a diagnosis of colon cancer is made.  Because of the delay in diagnosis, the cancer has now spread to her lymph nodes and liver, making her tumor inoperable.  She continues to stand in her faith, reading the bible regularly, listening to more tapes and discussing with friends what the bible says about healing.  She continues to worsen, eventually internally giving up on being healed, and entering into an abject depression, as she just can not understand why she wasn’t healed.  Eventually the cancer runs its course, and she passes on, to meet her Savior.

The story above is a variation of a true story, which was an object lesson for me in faith.  Some may disagree with the conclusions I have drawn, and I am more than happy to hear other people’s ideas.  Here are the problems I see with this scenario:

1. Shelly truly did love the Lord.  She was sincere in her fervent pursuit of her faith.  The problem was the model in which she lived, “the organized church”.  You see, Shelly did all the things that her upbringing told her she should do.  Unfortunately, she was misinformed.  She didn’t understand that participation in “church” does not bring maturity.  She never got to experience true community, and never knew that following Christ means much more than going to a building, reading the bible, praying and listening to teaching tapes.  Reading the bible, praying and listening to others teach are fine, but in and of themselves they don’t bring maturity, and therefore don’t increase faith.
2. Shelly fell into the trap of believing that, if she truly had faith, she didn’t need to, or shouldn’t, seek medical care.  She could not make contingency plans for the event that she wasn’t healed, because in her mind this would be countering the work of her faith and admitting defeat.  This also kept her from grieving with her family, and allowing her family to grieve and process with her.
3. Finally, she thought that faith could be “mustered up”, so to speak, to allow her to walk in the healing she had been promised.  She thought if she read enough scripture and listened to enough tapes she could increase her faith so she could stand and be healed.

I use this example with a certain amount of risk.  This person I am describing was near and dear to my heart, a close family member.  I do not say the above things to downgrade her, because she did the best she could with the misinformation she was fed about what it means to be a Christian.  She had a huge heart for people, and truly loved:  her family, her friends, her neighbors.  She was the last to give up hope in anyone, and the first to come to help in times of need.  Her story is a tragic example of the failure of “modern Christianity”.  I hope not to bring offense to my family, who will obviously recognize “Shelly” for who she really is (my attempt to change details of the story is probably stupid, I just felt better doing it that way, to keep it somewhat hypothetical?).

So, the crux of the post is this:  faith is an important part of our Christian walk, and faith is a bi-product of our Christian walk.  We use our faith to walk in Christ, and like a muscle, the more we use it the more it grows.  As a charismatic I felt condemned if I didn’t have enough faith.  Now I understand that there are things I will stand in faith for, but haven’t walked in Christ long enough to grow into that level of faith, and so I may not see the final manifestation of what I prayed for.  This is no cause for guilt or condemnation, it just is what it is.  The longer I walk the more I will grow in faith, and the greater works He can do in and through me.

OK, this is the end of part one.  Sorry its long.  In my next post I’ll discuss my current understanding of faith.

In my morning reading I came across a verse that really struck me, from 1 John 2:4-6:

The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;

5but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected By this we know that we are in Him:

6the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

via 1 John 2 – Passage Lookup – New American Standard Bible – BibleGateway.com.

Verse 6 is what especially caught my attention.  As a former charismatic, there was a lot of talk in my circles about “abiding in Christ”.  In fact, a local “church” has had a sign up for months that says “abide and abound”.  After reading the above passage, I can look back and realize that we had no idea what abiding in Him really meant.  We thought it meant some sort of cozy experience where he blesses us, but this is not it at all.  As John said, if we are abiding in Him we are walking as He did, humbly, loving all comers, doing ONLY the will of the Father, even unto death.  This is not what I envisioned as a young Charismatic, but it makes a lot of sense in the here and now, having been freed from religion.

I tried to post this by mobile last night, but it didn’t work.  I’ll do it again.

I haven’t had much time to blog lately, and wanted to get one short post in now.  I wanted to link to a post by Norma at “my church journey”.  There’s been discussion about evangelism, and I found Norma’s post (link following) to be a good reminder, that evangelism takes many forms.  For many of you this may be obvious, but for me it was an “a ha” kind of moment.

my church journey: “The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission” (John Dickson) : a review.

Second, I wanted to pose a question.  The question is spurred by my  previous post on evangelism.  In writing the post, I was trying to state what the alternative approach would be if we weren’t going to take the “escape hell” approach.  I was surprised how hard it was for me to identify in concrete thoughts what I would say, and this concerned me.  I have thought much about it since, and am comfortable with what I would say.  The question I pose is “if you are not going to evangelize using the “freedom from hell” message, what message or approach would you use (or do you use)?”  For me to find my answer I really had to evaluate, specifically and in concrete terms, what has Christ done for me?  Or what do I have in Christ that I wouldn’t have otherwise?  Answering this from my old thought processes is impossible, because I see now how much it costs us to follow Christ (everything), whereas before I preached how great life is when you are saved, not comprehending the selfless nature of a walk with God.  So, I wanted to get everyone’s feedback on this issue.  Again, this may be basic for all of you, but to me it seemed a relevant conversation.

One of my biggest pet peeves lately is the general lack of understanding in the body on what it means to be a man in the Kingdom.  I have seen multiple instances lately of men in the church, and often times in “the church”, doing things to further their own ambition or desires, to the detriment of, or at the expense of, their wives.  For example, some men place a lot of importance in their hobbies.  Whether it be golf, hunting or something else, the tendency is to make this activity a priority, without regard for its effect on the spouse.  No expense is spared, either in the way of time off from work or the expense of the actual activity, to allow the man his good time, but when it comes time for his wife to spend money scrapbooking, as an example, it is “just a stupid hobby” or a “waste of money”, and therefore is either restricted, not allowed, or allowed grudgingly.  This is just one simple example, but the fact of life is that men in America do not understand what it means to be a true Man of God.  While the purpose of this post is not to bash men, I think we need to examine this issue, so we understand our roles as husbands.  I imagine that the average reader of this blog already understands these things, but I felt like getting on my soap box.

I love Ephesians 5:25-30

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. ²⁸So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; ²⁹for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, ³⁰because we are members of His body.

I think we all understand the depth of the sacrifice of Christ.  He gave all He had, all He was, to redeem for Himself a radiant bride.  To this day He is patient with us, to see His bride brought to perfection.  Having said this, how many men in the church approach their relationships with their wives from this perspective?  I know I didn’t early on.  I remember when we were engaged, and working on the wedding list, I used to moan and complain about not wanting to work on wedding things all the time.  Or when my wife didn’t want to move into the master bedroom of our house when we moved until we had the room completely finished.   I didn’t understand, so I complained, every night.  Now, I didn’t complain too bitterly, but bitterly enough.  Even worse than these things there have been plenty of times where I got angry, because of my perception of being wronged, and complained internally that things just weren’t fair.  Over time, I have learned one simple thing:  this is my job.  I am responsible to lay down my life for my wife, to subjugate my wants and my needs in order to further her well-being, to support her as she walks her path with the Lord.  The end-result is the “Proverbs 31” wife, a woman that has reached the fulness of her potential in Christ.  Now, in a good relationship, the same process is going on in the wife.  She is submitting herself to her husband (with the end result that both are submitting themselves to each other), and supporting her husband, being patient when he doesn’t live up to the fulness of his husbandly responsibilities.  In reality this street is supposed to go both ways.  In the end, however, whether or not the wife is adequately considering her husband, the husband has the RESPONSIBILITY to consider his wife above himself.

1 Corinthians 11:3 says “³But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.”.  Paul later states in verse 7:  “For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.”  The intention of this post is not to discuss head coverings.  The part I want to emphasize is that the woman is the glory of man.  I take these verses in conjunction with Ephesians 5, and the picture I see is of the husband laying down his life for his wife, in order to foster her spiritual growth and development, with the end result being his radiant bride, who is his glory, as 1 Corinthians mentions.  Now I understand that in Ephesians 5:32 Paul states he is speaking of the mystery of Christ and the church.  This is the greater truth here.  But the correlation still holds between husband and wife.

Now, I fear that I risk offending some of my sisters in Christ with the above passages.  I think our society has grossly misunderstood the idea of “gender roles” in the bible, and has given the picture that the “female role” is something to be shunned, while encouraging women to strive to achieve to the male role.  This is a huge mis-service to women, and to the body.  I can not go into specifics of what the “gender roles” should be in the body, as I can’t claim to have full revelation on that issue.  This is not the purpose of this post.  My purpose here is to speak in generalities, that there are specific roles that men and women are supposed to fill in the body, and each is vitally important, and each sex is specifically made to carry out their respective roles.  Notice in 1 Corinthians 11:3 that “God is the head of Christ”.  Even Christ Himself willingly submits Himself to the headship of the father.  The point here is not to point a finger at our sisters in Christ, command them to submit and then dominate them.  The point is, again, that God intended each sex to fulfill certain roles, and expected Christ to fulfill His role (which he already has), and nowhere in this equation does a person’s worth or value even come into play.  The worth and value of each sex is inherent and unquestionable, and the value of each role is unquestionable.  Again, it is a simple matter of roles.  And again, I won’t go into those roles here!  I will say that each sex will find true fulfillment and freedom when fulfilling those roles.

Well, I fear that I’ve taken a bunny trail, and not even stated what I sat out to say in doing so.  I hope that I’ve made my point clear, and have not brought offense to anyone.

So I was working in the ER last night, and a young gentleman in his 20’s came in with abdominal pain.  We took care of his medical issue, and just before being discharged he says the following to the nurse:  “Do you mind if I tell you a short story?”  He then proceeds to witness to this nurse about what God means to him, and how this nurse can have this to.  I didn’t hear everything, but I heard mention of eternity and other traditional Christian verbage .  The nurse politely interacted, and talked about how he has been free from drugs for over 20 years, etc. etc., and the conversation goes on for several more minutes.  After the patient left, the nurse came back to the nurse’s station, shaking his head at the attempt to “convert” him.

Here’s my gripe.  This patient was well-intentioned.  He was polite during his stay, easy to get along with, and it did not surprise me to learn he was a Christian.  Even so, he can testify to this nurse all day long, but it MEANS NOTHING WITHOUT AN ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP, or at least some kind of connection that would cause this nurse to put stock in what this person said.  In my opinion, this type of “evangelism” is mis-guided on multiple levels.

1.  It is not done within the confines of an established relationship on some level.  It doesn’t matter to the unsaved what “Jesus has done for me” unless the unsaved has a reason to care what Jesus has done for me.

2.  We are not selling a get out of hell free card here.  I am really not interested, personally, in preaching Christ as a way to avoid eternal damnation.  I am much more interested in preaching Christ as the center of my life, the redeemer of my soul, the final sacrifice that makes me right with God, and brings me back into relationship with God.  I would rather testify to how He has changed my life, and how, through giving over my life to Him I am being transformed.  (As I sit here and write this I am amazed that it is difficult for me to describe the alternative that I’d rather testify to, as I thought that would be easy.  I’m not sure what that speaks to.)

3.  I am sure there are times when the Spirit leads us to, out of the blue, share the gospel with an unbeliever.  I don’t think such a witness will be fully random, but rather based on some sort of conversation had between the two people, or even a specific word given by the Lord, to be shared with the unbeliever.  Going back to #1, there just has to be a connection on some level, for the testimony to mean anything to the one being witnessed to.

I really don’t think that the attempt to witness to this individual was of any benefit, and if anything it may have been detrimental.  This nurse does not profess Christ.  He does profess God, and has a very native American flavor to his beliefs, but does not profess Christ.  He needs to see the gospel lived out in a very real way, not presented as a sales pitch, in a contrived manner.

So, I’ve said what I think.  What do you think?

This will probably be short, we’ll see what I have time for.  Its been busy in the ER all day, and I’m trying to get a bunch of charts signed off, so I guess priorities must take precedence!

We didn’t have bible study last night, so nothing to report.  Instead my wife and I ate Mexican and watched a taping of “The Next Food Network Star”.  Then we went to bed early.  Our 4 year old fell asleep in our bed, and there is nothing like your kid falling asleep next to you.  In fact, there is something magical about sleeping kids in general!

Best of…

I’ve not had much chance to read this week.  Here’s what I have come across:

I’ll start with my best of selections:

Meditating on the Law | The Ekklesia in Southern Maine.

Unity in My Terms | The Ekklesia in Southern Maine

subversive1: A PROFOUND MYSTERY.  I could really include 3-4 posts from Keith Giles in this list, but I’ll keep it to this one, and you can follow the link and read the rest for yourselves.