… and all we do for it is fill up a stadium for a worship concert and wave a bunch of glow sticks and lit cell phones around?
I’m going to write this while the experience is fresh, and strike while the iron is hot. I know I will disappoint many people by writing this, but please hear my heart and read my words as carefully as I tried to pen them. I’m not an arm chair critic and only vent to provoke to action–this is preaching to myself also, not just those reading in whatever nation you may be reading this from.
Last night I had the chance to attend a free concert put on in the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. My friend Roel who’s been becoming increasingly involved in the Firehouse, arranged a free car ride for me with his church’s youth group, and I got to meet several new people and enjoy myself.
I love Hillsong United, and though unfortunately I don’t own any of their CDs I would not hesitate to go to any free concert put on by them! In fact, it was an AWESOME night of worship and watching some 30, 000 people worship and lift their voices to God in a European nation’s main tourist destination such as this–otherwise known as the sin capital of Europe. I’m not downplaying this aspect of the vision in one single way.
I got emails from people ahead of time predicting this event to be “history making.” Come on–something commemorating 100 years of Pentecost–I felt like I’d be a fool to miss out on it. I know from watching how everyone else present benefited from it greatly that it was a powerful night for many…
…so then why did I leave feeling like the whole thing was a bit anti-climactic?
Again I’m not slamming the organizers, it’s difficult to put on a FREE event for such a large crowd of people, and with the 08.08.08 prayer day on the Malieveld, in the Hague coming up where we’re believing for 100,000 people to plan to attend it around their vacation, I could learn from this experience and these organizers about how to organize a large event…
But where was the fire we were commemorating?
All I saw was a bunch of glow sticks wrapped around thousands of wrists as many hands were lifted up in adoration of one true object of affection–Jesus Christ. I heard amazingly anointed worship and stylings I personally enjoy blaring through lots of loud speakers. Surely, I am grateful to have gone.
But where’s the fire…?
Are we just going to go back to the way we’re living our lives the way we were before we went, and then just be able to say we were there that night when we look back on it? Or is something ignited in our midst that we all are going to take back to our corners of this nation and spread it?
One hundred years ago, in Azusa street, in Whales, and the various places of the world where the spark of the new restoration of the power of the Holy Spirit was renewed, it spread around the world so that history was made and the face of the Church changed ever since. Peoples’ lives were changed, missing limbs grew back, some ministers mounted wheelchairs on the walls of their church to commemorate God healing peoples’ bodies so they didn’t need them anymore. If this move carried on for the last 100 years, then where’s the evidence of it? Shouldn’t we have at least what they had then, and have carried it forth further since? Is all we got to show for it a bunch of glow sticks–fake fire light?
Now don’t you cessationist evangelicals come along writing me that I’m vindicating your opinions and theology about how the Holy Spirit does or doesn’t work today. I’m not giving you fodder for your theology. I’m indicting all of us as a collective Body of Christ for our lack of power to our words–the lack of bite to go with our bark in our Gospel message, no matter your denominational persuasion or what Dr. so and so taught you in Bible college.
I saw a bunch of young people in this one group on the ground last night, and every time I looked at them, I watched them lay hands on one another and the one whose turn it was to be prayed over was just flopping around on the floor and shaking and then they’d take turns and pray for one another. I don’t know their stories before coming to that event–and I’m all for striking when the iron is hot. When the anointing is present, go ahead and operate in it while the grace is there to do so. But I couldn’t help but think 100 years of Pentecost and all we do is lay hands on ourselves. Watching this is watching the undirected power of a garden hose just flop around on the grass while it sprays in every direction until it’s picked up and directed at a flower garden or plant that needs watering. The point is not that water flows through the vessel-the hose, but that you direct it at something and bring life to it.
When I think of Christians just laying hands on each other constantly and imparting the life giving power of the Holy Spirit on one another, I think of children spraying each other with a garden hose in their parents’ backyard, while all the plants in the garden die from lack of nourishment. We have a dying generation all around us, and all we do is hose each other down with the life of the Holy Spirit and have fun. The fire of God and the power of the Holy Spirit isn’t meant for us to hose each other down–it’s meant to bring life and power to a sick and dying world all around us. You’ve got the power of God flowing through your veins? Good! But go hose some sick person down in the hospital and raise them up out of their sickbed, don’t just spray it at your friends for some good feelings.
Much of the charismatic hokus pokus that goes on in the Body of Christ is just selfish and directed inward instead of outward. The only way last night’s event will truly be an historical event is if we spread the fire from it, not just gather around it.
Let’s SPREAD the fire of God in our land!
