You know you are facing spiritual change and theology renewal when something or someone happened over your life or with your life that makes you rethink and relive a moment or happening. This is my understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in my life.
This is the story:
We have this homeless guy in our church/community that comes and worship every Sunday and he in all his homelessness smell, look, words and manners worships and praise God in the way he thinks/feels and understands as true. His name Andy.(fake name for now) Andy comes and sits in the back rows of the church when it starts. He keeps to himself and doesn’t really make any scene or disturbance when he is in the building. He greets you at the door and will remember your name. He looks the part of a homeless from the worn-out cloths to the smell to the hair to the everything. What is funny is he just goes on as if none sees him. Oh and do peoples face and reactions show me that they notice and experience him.
Before a service starts I like to hang out in the back of the church just for a few seconds. Its funny how people see and respond to homelessness.
Now this is where the service starts, the band will begin to sing and everyone joins by standing and so does Andy. Andy loves music; he has a great way of living himself into the music. He would normally, out of pure response, walk towards the music aka the front and worship there. Now Andy is not a shy guy or all for himself person when the music moves him to worship. He is really expressive and loud in his actions. He really expresses his singing in movement and action. If the words of the song say: “we bow down” Andy bows down. When the music says “and we lift up our hands” Andy lift up his hands, but more than that. He really sings and lives out the emotion and word in dance and reaction towards the music.
My repentance:
At first I had my eye on him, with the idea of “what the hell are you doing”. In my head I’ll say, “Get back in your seat”, “what are the people thinking now” …
I am part of the elders in the church so I started to think of the reactions and the “managing” of people after the service. Then to worsen the idea, I even started to think how do I control this? How do I get this guy in his seat and how do I explain to him no not that way but like this.
This is when my world crashed down.
A homeless guy smashed my worship theology. My idea of authentic worship and praise got destroyed. The still small voice of the Holy Spirit said gently to my soul. If you don’t understand or know his revelation don’t judge the worship.
First reaction: What?
Second reaction: Please repeat that?
Then it came again: “If you don’t understand or know his revelation don’t judge the worship.”
Then between the singing and the preacher taking over I decided to let it slide until I got the words right. Still thinking I got it wrong. When I got home I went to bed and had a bad night sleep. The next morning in my car to work (a hours drive), I started to ask God what He meant and to give me revelation and wisdom to understand.
This is how it went: well in my own words, not the way the Holy Spirit told it to me, He was way to gentle and loving.
“You need to change your idea/theology of worship to understand and worship Me in spirit and truth.” He continued, “The body express merely the way the spirit and truth in you is reacting to the song (worship) or revelation in you”. “Stop thinking that you are doing it in authentic and humble way, don’t see it as a thing of doing but a thing of reaction/response.” The person as is only responds in true worship when he/she is doing it out of revelation. Like a supporter during a sports game. He/she reacts with the revelation of they are the best team, I want them to win, I believe they are the team to win, I trust they are giving there best … and he/she’s worship is by massive responds in support (cheering, singing and going wild in the stands when scoring) and buying support gear and you get the picture.
Is this the way we support or respond towards God in worship and praise? Do we go wild, jump and yell… when we are there in the stand (seat of the church)? Do we buy support gear and do we put up flags and banners, do we blow on our vuvuzellas and do we rejoice in His goal scoring (His miracles His wonders His greatness)?
My own answer to this was NO NO NO … reaction when I realized my crazy idea of worship. God I need to change. Not touched by words or ideas but changed. Touched and changed.
This is when I understood the revelation part of the Holy Spirits words to me. We will react to something when we understand or give value to something we see as worthy enough to receive it. Plainly put, we will bow down to the Queen of UK because we understand and give her the value of being honored. If we truly make the effort to understand/get to know/ learn … the value and Kingship/Lordship of God we will approach His throne differently. We would also jump up and down because we rejoice in our salvation. We would bow down and go as low as possible because we understand His righteousness. We will tell everyone about His greatness because we want to share our complete satisfaction in Him. We will irritate our friends, family and people with the things He has done and is doing. Like any guy so in love with his girl/car/sport … can’t stop seeking things about it and cant stop sharing his new understanding or gathered information. This guy always brings it to the party, the work … When he stops talking about it, it’s when he lost the girl, crashes the car or his team lost.
That’s the great thing, God never leaves us, He never crashes down on us, stops working or He will never loose. He stays the same, just as the first time you met Him, He is just that and more. Like the revelation we got about his greatness when Louie Giglio shared his universe story (indescribable), like the Barbarian Way talk Erwin McManus gave to Willow Church, like…. we all have moments in time we met God through a revelation and I can truly say it 99% of the time breaks out into song of worship and praise. We as human have the natural urge to respond in worship to something we perceive as greater than us or the moment of it. When a new truth is grasped it is all we want to talk about (worship) and all we want to know more about. Like I downloaded stars and galaxies and read information like a mad man after I heard Louie Giglio’s talk for the first time.
Where is this going, well the Spirit then convicted me … you need revelation or refreshing up of old ones for my worship to be real and in spirit and truth. This drove me back to the only place I knew I could do this. My secret place, my behind closed door my place of alone time with God. I started to unpack, dust off and clean out. I went back on my knees the real way and asked for new and fresh revelations. I read my bible with new eyes and new understanding. … Worship or my idea of it is changing and I get use to the crowd (church), as I get to know the team I’m supporting (God in Trinity) and as I get excited when He scores.
My only problem concern is that people walk into church begin to sing and then sit and listen to a preacher. When we receive a revelation we don’t have time to respond to it and we need to do it in the car on our way home. Can we change the way we do church? Lets first hear form God and lets first receive revelation and get excited about the word we get then lets respond to it with great worship and rejoice, for we do it out of response to greatness. Maybe I’m in wrong so please correct me. I lacked in giving scripture, this is purely how I felt like saying it. Will search for scripture if you are unsure of my approach. I just have a feeling, understanding that it makes sense.
What do you think?
Johan Wentzel 