Crisis In
Worship
Part 3
I just received
an email that there is going to be some kind of "prophetic open heavens
conference". It is really funny to me that you can plan that. I remember
during revival, Steve Hill always made fun of churches that had signs out
in front of it that said, "Revival - This Friday and Saturday Night".
He always said that you can't plan a revival, and that it is not real revival.
How in the world can you plan a "prophetic open heaven", and sell
tickets to it.
I went to the
website that the email instructed me too and checked it out. It is amazing,
with everything they are telling people that is going to go on, we should all
go there and we would never have to go to another meeting again. Heaven would
open, God's glory would fill the earth, the end might
as well come right along with Jesus Himself. In the video clip promoting it,
the guy said it was going to be a "blast" and that we were to
"get ready to be launched into an open heaven" and that "they
were going to release the Glory of God around the world". What in the
world does that mean? It really sounds important. How can you plan that and
sell tickets to it? Or is it presumption built around marketing and hype? If I
really believed that all that would happen there, I might be willing to pay the
$60 to get in. One of the other drawing points was that there was going to be
"prophetic cutting edge worship", now that
sounds familiar.
It is funny how
history repeats itself. When I got saved out of the hippie/drug/music culture
of the late 1960's in 1971, contemporary music was just taking hold in a lot of
the charismatic churches that we were involved with. We sang lots of chorus's,
and hymns and also songs that people in the church had written. Most of
these were scriptures that had been put to music, and it was good stuff. I
remember, we had a very talented group of musicians
that led the time of singing and praise. I am talking about some professional
type musicians here. We all used to set up over in the front right corner of
the building that we were meeting in and sit in chairs. It was VFW hall that we
rented 2 or 3 days a week. If someone
wanted to sit in with the musicians, they were allowed to. Most of it was all
acoustic anyways, so if someone new missed a chord, it was no big deal. We
didn't have a person designated as a "worship leader", that thought
never entered our minds. We did have someone work the overhead and we kind of
went thru a songlist that we had preplanned. Every now and then someone from
the congregation would ask if we could do a certain song, and we did. And we sang, it was sweet.
I remember that
one of the pastors, we had 4 that were all equal, came in with a tape of a
place he had been to where people were singing freely in the Spirit. On the
tape, all of the sudden one guy would sing out above the others and it was kind
of prophetic. Prophetic in the sense that the person singing out was
proclaiming great things about God, it was really sweet. We started to nurture
that in our praise and singing, and every now and then certain ones in the
congregation would be led by the Spirit and they would sing out. The praise
and adoration was so sweet that we began to be invited to other meetings
and churches where there was an openness to the
Spirit. So we would invite the whole church to come along because it was our
little fellowship that had nurtured this thing, not just the musicians, and
like I said, the concept of a "worship leader" was unheard of.
It is amazing
how in the actual presence of the Lord and the sweetness thereof, that
"little foxes" can creep in. Our time of praise and adoration had
become so sweet that we started to get the attitude that we were "cutting
edge", seriously! We were advanced beyond the other fellowships and
churches that we were close too. We became proud of the fact that we were
really good at what we had nurtured. That is where it all changed. Very slowly,
an attitude of pride came into our midst and we didn't even see it. The singing
and adoration that we had nurtured now moved more toward an outward sound, away
from the sweet presence of the Lord that we felt. Sure there was still a
feeling, a mood, that we were able to create, but it became more of an outward
thing, based on sound, mood and skill. Now all of the sudden we couldn't have a
guy playing that was going to miss a chord. It might mess things up. Also, it
seemed that we always had the same guy or girl, who would do the singing out
because they were able to show off their good voices. What had started as a
pure expression to the Lord now became something of pride and grand standing.
The humility that we once had was now gone, but we were still
"cutting edge". I was guilty of it over 30 years ago, and now it
is happening again.
The lack of
humility these days to me is staggering. The fact that they
call it a "prophetic open heavens conference" and that
they call their worship "prophetic cutting edge worship", causes
me to disqualify it as something that is valid. It is a means to an
end, and unfortunately that end is in large part, money. When God pours out His
glory on the earth, it is not so someone can promote it and make a lot of money
selling CD's, tapes and DVD's. What they are doing stands opposed to Christ and
His humility. Shame on us if we don't start speaking out
against these things.
What have we
been called to, those of us who have been revived and revolutionized? If it is
to fall into the same old traps, then we have not been revived at all. If the
same old system of moneymaking and lack of humility remain, we have not been
revolutionized. May God grant us true humility and give us courage to speak.