There is something else that I need to repent of. At the same time as my warning light was flipped that weekend I starting thinking over my walk with God and the 'Expression of Church' I am part of. I have been in church since I was born, and gave my life to the Lord as a young boy. As a family we regularly attended Church and my Mom and Dad walked lives really worthy of praise in the way they brought us up to love God. Despite this I remember hating being dragged to church each week. I had to sit and listening to hour long sermons week after week for the past years and years. I realised that apart from a couple years of rebellion, I have been listening to teaching and sermons week in and week out for 32 years. I have suddenly become incredibly bored! I LOVE HEARING GOD's WORD FOR 'NOW'. I love sitting under the teaching of someone who has waited on God for a Word , and then speaks something that is timeous and has impact... I love the freshness of God's Word when I directly see lives (mine included) changed by God's clear and specific Word for a church. And don't get me wrong, I realise the need to teach the basics. But I suddenly found myself spending an hour of sermon repenting for my boredom and judgemental heart and rebellion while I sat listening to 'lectures' rather than the Holy Spirit bring the Word to life. I had to repent, because my heart was rebellious The sermons felt like lectures, and I didn't sense them as God's Word for now to be honest they were simply Bible School lectures on Demons put into sermon format. I spent much of the service repenting of the rebellion in my heart. Then I really felt shattered by my sinful heart when 3 people recommitted their lives after the sermon… I prayed that God would forgive me for my heart, and that if I had to sit through a lifetime of sermons to see people come to know Jesus, so be it, even if I became bored. The gift of life was far more precious than my desire to be entertained. So I feel terrible that I would entertain such judgemental thoughts again.
Despite making a choice to repent, I kept being reminded of how I sat through hours of church services as a child. It was a recipe that was followed week in and week out. We had the procession with a Hymn, and then we read through and prayed through the same Liturgy week after week...stood up, kneeled down, stood up, sat down, repeated the Lord's prayer, and the Nicene Creed... and then sat for the sermon... I lasted 12 years before I asked my parents if I could move to a new church. This was during the 80's and God's Spirit was being poured out on South Africa. I joined a local youth group and with my family and my Minster's blessing I moved churches to a place where I sensed the Holy Spirit and the Life of God in the Church. I remember how I suddenly felt alive! I was filled with the Holy Spirit so powerfully I was floored and was unable to walk properly for hours afterwards. God's Spirit burned through my body like a flame or pins and needles. We left that town, but I remember walking into a Godless School as seeing God minster powerfully through 3 of us who were on 15 years old. We went from 3 people praying and fasting in the forests of Nelspruit over the weekends to 5 people who used to wake up in the mornings at go and pray over the school to God to large prayer groups that filled classrooms crying out to God for salvation for our school. I loved God, I knew God, I knew Holy Spirit, I had courageous faith. We would lay hands on the sick and see them healed. It seemed our faith was unstoppable.
I have to admit that I feel the same boredem now as what I did sitting in the little Church in my youth week after week after week. I sense emotionalism in worship, I see and sense that we have glorified worship and music production above God. I keep wanting to cry out what was in Matt Reddman's heart when I was 19 years old " When the music fades, and all is stripped away…"
I am NOT HAVING A GO AT A SPECIFIC CHURCH… please hear my heart. I have really struggling and battling with my expression of Church and the Expression of Church I am part of.
I feel like I am back in a service in Church in the town I grew up in where I am worshiping by following a liturgy that I have learnt off by heart, but that has lost its relevance and its power. Having said that, that church is now filled with life, and God is moving powerfully in that church and through that church in that town.
In 1998 when I was part of a missions organisation, I became so aware that the organisation I was part of was sick. The organisation had received incredible mandate from God during the Jesus movement of the 1960's. But then in 1998 it was still applying God's plan for 1969 and I sensed that God had moved on. Missions were never meant to be carried out by a central institution like the one I was part of. God intended the local church to reach out. But in the 60's there were thousands of hippie youth joining the church who needed discipling and needed outlet to share their faith worldwide… this organisation is now hurting more than helping. I have had to minister to at least three young people who have become deceived during their time working for that organisation, and was even asked by a family to go and try and convince a young 18 year girl to go home to her family after she ran away to this institution and rebelled against her family who love and honour and serve God. In London I had first hand experience of the Salvation Army. William Booth was sent by God to minister powerfully to the East End of London… these days they have huge administration buildings with Charity Stores, and are working as a 1st World Charity with massive overheads. They have lost their relevance. God has moved on… The salvation army in stuck in the past.
I feel as if I am stuck in an expression of Church globally, who follow a meaningless routine week in and week out, because it worked once... I give no freedom for the Holy Spirit to change lives... and when I do, I allow the same superstitious drivel I spoke of earlier. Sometimes someone will bring an awesome word that is straight from the heart of God. At other times I have heard the people share a prophecy or a Word, and sensed that the person feels the need to fill the silence with a random scripture that bears no real fruit in the life of the church. I really feel like I am sitting through a traditional church service looking out the window... counting the minutes till I can get out of the building and do real life with real people. I long for the time I was 15 years old. Holy Spirit was the air I breathed, ie I sensed God's presence with me tangibly and saw Him change my life and other's day in and out. I read Acts, believed that was how church was supposed to be, and we simply took it for granted and lived Acts. Now I am walking in superstition and manipulating people for the advancement of self, or simply in deception.
I experience the same thing in churches all over... we (I) have lost our (my) first love, and have settled for the same trap of the orthodox churches of trying to revert to Liturgy... to Church in a Box.
I cannot live in this desert anymore. Something needs to change. I AM FULLY AWARE MY LIFE HAS TO BE THE FIRST TO CHANGE. THE PROBLEM LIES WITH ME…NO ONE ELSE.
I want to hear God's voice as Moses did, I want to be part of the Church that Jesus started one in which there is love and genuine relationship. In my quiet time on Wednesday I realised that everything I do, needs to be out of 1. relationship with God, and 2. in relationship with others.
I am seeing a church who have a limited understanding of salvation. People who hold onto the 'baby Jesus lives in my heart' philosophy. In short, I don't think I can buy into the expression of the Church that I am now part of... I do not feel I can covenant myself to it.
I agree strongly with the view that we need to eat our vegetables at the same table we eat our dessert and meat… ie I realise that I cant just look to be entertained… and as part of a family it sometimes means sitting at the table eating broccoli because it is good for you. But I have to respond to my lack of peace and ask God… Am I in the right place? Do you want me to consider my options in terms of church? I need God to answer the concerns on my heart about the Expression of Church.
"Father, please forgive me for any pride or rebellion in my heart. Please will you correct and discipline me Lord. I really desire to be in your will, and not act according to my own will, but walk according to both your will and your purpose for me in the season you have me in now."
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