THE SPIRIT IN WORSHIP

Last night, as I was thinking through our Worship Creative Planning Team's agenda for this afternoon's meeting, the Lord kept impressing upon my heart-- more like reminding me of a very fruitful conversation I had with Tim Hughes over lunch a couple of months ago on the importance of the Holy Spirit in our worship. My mind kept racing back to that moment over and over. At 1:15 in the morning, I felt led to walk to my study table and turn on my laptop to specifically read Tim's Blog (which I have not visited in more than a week now. I began reading his July 10 post where he talks about the same issue- the Spirit in worship. Immediately, I sensed that when I open the meeting this afternoon, I should talk about this as part of the opening devotional.

Tim writes,

On 21 August 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' painting was stolen from the Louvre in France. The Louvre was immediately closed down for an entire week as a mass operation swung into action to hunt down the missing masterpiece. When the museum was finally reopened, thousands of people queued up to see the blank wall space, where the Mona Lisa once hung.

It seems crazy that so many people would pay to essentially see nothing. I guess this can be like our church services without the Holy Spirit. We get caught up with the external things - the songs, the sound, the lighting, how the band look, how people are responding. The danger is we judge a successful time of worship by how great the band played and how intense the experience was. All of this can happen without the Holy Spirit.

We mustn't let that happen...It's a challenge to remember that we must keep getting desperate to see God's Spirit at work. To be surrendered to His lead and obedient to His call. To be passionate in prayer and willing to take risks. Only then will we see true breakthrough in the worshipping life of our churches.



A. W. Tozer once said, “If God took His Holy Spirit out of this world, what the church is doing would go right on and nobody would know the difference.”

On a similar thread, WA Criswell said, "There are many things we do in our churches that does not have the Holy Spirit in it."

Worship is the active response to God the Father through the Son. The worshiper stands in a personal relation of son-ship to God on the basis of adoption in Christ. Praise, prayer, preaching, the celebration of ordinances, confession, and giving are all Christ-centered actions. The focus of the church's worship on the exalted Christ through the Spirit gives new depth to our walk as Spirit-filled disciples. The worship of God through the Son is in and by the Holy Spirit. Fitting and acceptable worship can only be offered by and through the enabling ministry of the Holy Spirit.

ON BOUNDARIES AND BEING TETHERED

As an exchange student, I was jogging one of the many country roads around the university with another guy from the exchange program who was a self-described hedonist and freethinker. we've had a number of conversations together, and everytime I tried to share my faith with Him he never failed to scoff the message I presented. He tells me that I am so bound to my religion, and that I should be freed from my narrow-mindedness.

A pastor-friend of mine is getting married - tie the knot as they say, on Sunday. He's doing a countdown to the day he will be tethered on his facebook page.

On a similar thread, last Sunday, Pastor Luis preached on having secure foundations. He mentioned how we should determine the to keep ourselves anchored on/tied to God and His Word.

Everyone knows that boundaries are necessary.

We are most free when we are like a kite.

Now think about a kite. When is a kite most free?

When it is separated from all restraints or when it’s tethered?

John Newton, slave trader turned repentant pastor, author of the hymn Amazing Grace, once authored a poem called “The Kite” or “Pride Must Have a Fall.” In that poem the kite wishes that it would be free from all restraints so that it could really soar. Here’s one verse from the poem:

Were I but free, I’d take a flight

and pierce the clouds beyond their sight

But, ah, like a prisoner bound

My string confines me near the ground.[1]

As the poem goes on, the kite ultimately gets free of its restraint. But is it able to soar? No, it crashes into the sea.

When we buck all God’s restrain, we do not become free, we become subject to cultural, emotional, philosophical captivity.[2]

Not very long ago, I was sitting comfortably in a couch at the church's lobby when a woman who was waiting for her younger daughter sat across me. After some casual "hellos" I asked about her older daughter. There was a huge sigh before she opened her mouth to speak. "I'm afraid she's lost...and it all started when she got into showbiz...She has accepted daring roles. She thinks she's free but she really isn't." "Ma'am," I told her "she'll come crawling back one of these days realizing that she's bound and needs to be freed."

Let’s affirm that God really does have our best interest at stake when He lays before us His parameters...Whenever we violate those boundaries we do not become free. We begin to plunge in lifestyles that are self-destructive spiritually and physically.[3]

Boundaries are meant to help us remain free. Ironic as that sounds, it's true!

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1 A Larger Wisdom "The Kite" by John Newton, Dr. Ronald Scates HPPC Dallas July 6, 2008

2 ibid

3 ibid

on worship, gooseberries and great expectations

WORSHIP. Planning service has always been part of my ministry role description as my major concentration together with worship leading. From as long as three months ago, I have prayed for a dedicated team that could help me plan out worship services, and as expected, the Lord directed me towards the people He's wants to be part of the team.

With the approval and support of the Core Staff or the Pastoral Leadership team to which I belong, I started meeting with the team and I can never lea ve out is the fact that it is the Lord who discernibly superintends our meetings. Anyone who is close to me knows that I hate long meetings. I've always believed that meetings should be brief so there'd be more time to spend doing things for which meetings are convened. But meeting with this team is different. I love how the Lord allows the team to see together what the He wants us to do and address.

Each year, when GCF issues a congregational survey to feel the pulse of the church, the worship ministry is always indicated as the top reason why people keep coming. We have amazing music, heart-felt worship singing, and great expository preaching.

In our three initial meetings, we concluded that: a) our church must grow in our experience of worship, b) we need to look at and address the things we do in our worship gatherings that may not be helpful in deepening our worship life, c) we must help the worship volunteers to be led in a deeper walk.

The execution of the first service we planned and prayed for took place last Sunday. It was amazing! The seamless flow of worship- from beginning to end was totally a work of the Spirit. We prayed that the Lord would allow us to feel the pulse of the church concerning the direction we're headed towards, and He did through the affirmation of the leadership and congregants. The Spirit is leading us to the direction He wishes for us to pursue.

ON BRIDGES AND GOOSEBERRIES. Love takes root. I’ve seen this happen with my own eyes. I have even felt it sprout in my own life.

Tonight, I was talking to a guy experiencing a bad case of the third wheel.

It began like so many false starts- being a simple pontiff- you know, a bridge-builder for another boy to a girl. He was a gooseberry- you know, 'gooseberry' is also slang for a third person accompanying (ie tagging along with) a couple on a date. The two he was bridging and acting gooseberry for eventually fell in love. But he too grew in love with the girl in the process. Now, he couldn't help but remain silent and be resilient.

What's a gooseberry to do? He was living in his perfect little bubble then a friend asks him for help. So he did.

(Okay, this isn't my gooseberry friend)

GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

As humans, we constantly look for something or someone in which to place hope. The response of our spouse. The fruit of our ministry. The guy or girl we have our eye on. The potential of a son or daughter. The success of a business venture or educational pursuit. Hoping in people and circumstances is inevitable. The problem is, each of these things can crumble, leaving disillusionment in its wake. For the believer, though, the disappearance of these things does not signal the end of hope.[1]

Back to relationships (since I know that's why you're reading this). For many reasons — most of them outside our control — potential relationships will fizzle. Sometimes we receive solace when we later see why the relationship would not have worked anyway. Other times we're left to wonder about what could have been. Either way, "hope deferred makes the heart sick" (Proverbs 13:12).

The process is something like emotional whiplash. Over the course of weeks or months, a certain dream seems within reach, and then, suddenly, we're exactly where we started. It's depressing.

So what's the cure to such heartsickness? Whom or what is my object? Scripture never instructs us to hope in anything but the Lord and His Salvation (Titus 2:13). All other hopes are encompassed within that one, fantastic hope. Anything that happens in my life should be purposed to glorify God and reveal that hope to others.

And when I understand the hope of my salvation, I will recognize anew the power and faithfulness of the One who oversees my life. If He is faithful to redeem my sinful soul through His Son's blood, He can be trusted in the other areas as well. [2]

In fact, God rewards those who hope in Him. Lamentations 3:25 says: "The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him." And the Psalmist declares: "No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame" (Psalm 25:3). That is refreshing truth. God will never say, "You were wrong about My feelings for you." His promise is sure.

The next time I have a great conversation or connecting moment with a guy who seems perfect for me, I will hope. God created me that way. But this year I want to set my dreams even more firmly within His care. I want to make Him the object, my Savior and God who never fails. [3]



______________________________

1 Suzanne Hadley "Object of My Affection" Copyright 2008 Focus on the Family.

2 ibid

3 ibid

OUT OF FRAGMENTS

This may sound crude, but I woke up this morning with a real nasty brain fart. I woke up at 7AM, and for some weird reason, I went back to sleep. Finally waking up at 9, I read, my Bible, prayed and checked my email- totally forgetting that I had a meeting scheduled at 10. Good thing I remembered about the meeting early enough for me to prepare- 9:20. In the shower, I was praying that God would send a cab right at my building's doorstep before I make it down to the lobby. It was an inter-church coordination meeting, and as representative of the host church, I can not- should not be late.

The moment I stepped out of my condo building, lo and behold, a cab was waiting right up front. I told the driver that he was an answer to prayer. He mentioned to me that as he was driving down Annapolis Street when he felt a nudge to drive down Eisenhower hoping he'd get to pick up a passenger by chance. That made me smile. It was God who nodged him, providing an answer to my desperate prayer. I was in church 10 minutes before 10! That was about the quickest I've ever made it to church- still arriving the earliest!

The meeting went pretty well. But more than just meeting to plan an inter-church young adult convergence/conference, deepening fraternal relationships are being forged in ways that only Spirit of God could cause~ more like a fulfillment of Christ's prayer in the book of John "that they may be one as We are one." There may be some disagreements in terms of ideas, but there is a general sense of unity. I love how the Lord works. The big picture of Spirit-formed unity is fast becoming clearly emblazoned in my head as it is in tangible terms within the small group of young adult leaders/pastors/lay people- two Baptists, a girl who grew up Methodist, two young men from the Alliance church, one Christian Reformed.

One of the guys I met with was reading M. Scott Peck's best-selling mid-80’s book entitled, The Different Drum, a personal and impassioned call to re-awaken profound commitment to building and sustaining strong bonds of human community, in which Peck wrote, “In and through community lies the salvation of the world.”[1]

I've met a number of people who attribute the disunity of evangelical Christians for their non-belief.

Though now perhaps sounding a bit dated and inclined towards dramatic hyperbole, Peck addressed something that was much on people’s minds in those days – a felt sense of personal fragmentation and isolation and a general lack of communal commitment to the common good, to things that were larger than individualistic self-indulgence.[2]

The generation preceding mine was hungover from the self-expression and self-absorption of the 60’s and 70’s, beleaguered by the nuclear threat of the Cold War, intractable racism, wanton greed, and broken cities, not to mention broken families, people were longing for reconnection, for belonging to something larger than their own whim – they wanted authentic relationships that were healthy, wholesome and generative.[3]

Creating authentic community is a driving concept for our cultural moment. Of course, in a very real sense, this has always been the case, if not expressed in the same way across the generations. Human beings have always striven to make sense of how individual identity corresponds to the collective – to family, tribe and nation- and denomination.

mosaics are a wonderful example of fragmented pieces coming together

and making a beautiful picture.

Well you can see how this longing for authentic community relates to our call as the Body of Christ to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind' - this is the great and foremost commandment, and there is a second like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God, self, neighbor. All relationship, all the time. Were I to say today that most of humanity’s intractable problems starting in our individual lives and running through our families, city, nation and world were problems related to broken community, I’m guessing I would find near unanimous agreement. [4]

Our unity is based on the essentials of our faith, and we won't let non-essentials get in the way. We hold our minds and hearts and hands open to our own astonishing diversity that represents an even larger diversity. We are the beneficiaries of all these excellent things openness. Community isn’t something that happens to us; it is instead something that emerges almost mystically as our intentions and energies blend with others for the purposes of loving God, self and neighbor. [5] This is a crucially important concept to grab hold of. Indeed, having been called together by Jesus Christ, our hope, we could say, “In and through community lies the salvation of the world.”

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1 M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987, p. 17

2 Stephen Bauman, Building Community, June 8, 2008 Christ Church NYC

3 ibid

4 ibid

5 ibid

SURRENDERING LOVE TO FATE

In an attempt to go back in history to study the worship/liturgical life of Christianity in review and preparation for a course I will be teaching in Bible college next semester, I stumbled upon a little group of French Protestants simply known as the Huguenots.

I'm pretty sure that that name is unfamiliar in every way for a number of my readers. I first learned about the Huguenots as a freshman in Trinity University, when I enjoyed a hobby called bookworming.

Not very long ago I was reading a story by the Rev. Gerald Mann, founding pastor of Riverbend Church Austin, Texas. Gerald Mann was invited to be a keynote speaker at a fundraiser sponsored by the Catholic Church. When he stood to speak, he opened his talk by saying, "I'm glad to be part of raising money for a Catholic project eventhough I'm Southern Baptist." Laughter broke. He went on to say, "I find this a privilege because I never thought this could happen to someone like me. You see, my great-grandmother's last name was Foy. She was French. She never met her grandfather- her father's father. She belonged to the last batch of Huguenots who left France to North America- her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were killed by Catholics." There was sheer silence, according to Rev. Mann. After the meeting, the Bishop approached him and ask for forgiveness on behalf of the Catholic church.

Frank Puaux suggests, that the name Huguenot is a clever pun on the old French word for a covenanter (a signatory to a contract). While others suggest that the name huguenote would be roughly equivalent to little Hugos, or those who want Hugo, a respected French king.

In reaction to the growing Huguenot influence in France, and the increasing instances of Protestant zeal, Catholic violence against them grew, at the same time that concessions and edicts of toleration became more liberal. In what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 24 August – 17 September 1572, Catholics killed thousands of Huguenots in Paris. Similar massacres took place in other towns in the weeks following, with death toll estimates again ranging wildly to as high as 110,000. An amnesty granted in 1573 pardoned the perpetrators.

What captured my attention in all this is a painting. Yes, you read it right, a painting by Millais titled, A Huguenot and his Catholic lover on the eve of St. Bartholomew's day.



When one takes a closer look at the painting, one will notice the sheer mixture of emotions on the faces of the couple- a sense of anticipation for their meeting; a sense of fear and insecurity- that they were spending their last night together; there is a look on their faces that seems to communicate that their religions are at war against each other and there is no way they can stop it- one of them will inevitably be killed by the sword the next day, and thus they say "goodbye" and surrender their love to fate.

The painting is so moving that part of me wishes to name these lovers and write a book, a short story, or something in memory of people whose lives and love have been caught in religious wars.

I want to name the man, Etienne, the woman, Sandrine. The painting is inspiring enough to compose something, thus I will write their story during my free time, hopefully.