Something Serious for a Change

My friend Jeff has been blogging for the past several months. I read Jeff's blog religiously (haha...it can't all be serious with me writing it), because a) he's my friend, b) he's a good writer, c) he often makes some great points, d) it's interesting to see where this journey is taking him, and e) I figure if I read his, then he'll read mine and that will raise my visitor count. :)

A couple of Jeff's recent posts, this one and this one, have been in reference to the "Lakeland Revival". In case you haven't heard, you can read a summary article from Wikipedia (a reknown source for information) here.

The long and short is this: there are ongoing "revival" services at a particular church. Many said it was a modern-day move of God. Many were critical. Hundreds of thousands came to visit. Many claimed to be miraculously healed. Now, the leader of the "revival" has had to step down due to marital difficulties. Lots of people have strong opinions regarding this.

Me? It just makes me sad. Not just the leader stepping down, but the whole thing in general.

What I see is lots of money, lots of effort, and lots of time all thrown toward an event. I am sure that most, if not all, of the people involved were sincere. The same could probably be said for the people that attended. I would LOVE to see a huge revival/move of God sweep the nation and the world, but I just don't see it looking like what I've seen during this and other "moves". In my experience (and I have experienced two of the major ones in recent years), these "moves" always seems to be inward focused on the church.

A while back, Jeff tagged me as part of a syncro-blog, to write "A Manifesto for Church". My manifesto was simple. "Love God, love your neighbor." Like I said, simple, right?

For some reason, we struggle to do that. It seems to come out more like "Love church, love your congregation". We end up "doing" church instead of being "the church". I know that I am not by any means the first person to say that, but it just gets driven home more and more. We love a revival. We love the excitement of it. Jeff actually blogged about something similar today.

William D' Artega wrote a book called Quenching the Holy Spirit, and in it he talks about Phariseeism, and how it always tries to rear its ugly head. He basic premise is that "revivals" tend to progress through these stages:

1. God moves.
2. We think it's cool.
3. We try to reproduce it in our own power.
4. God quits moving the way He was.
5. We keep doing it anyway.
   

Subconsciously we think, "Okay, service was great today. Especially when we did this, this, and this." So, the next time in, we do this, this and this again, hoping for the same results. Sometimes I think that the problem is that the congregation also saw what happened when we did this, this, and this, so they've now learned the appropriate response. Before you know it, what was "fresh fire" has become going through the motions.

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Well, enough of this complaining. Believe it or not, I am not down on the local church, or the church in general. I attend a local church. I love it. The pastor is great. The people are great. We strive to reach beyond the walls of our "church". Is it perfect? No. Do we still have to resist the tendency to become liturgical and religious, despite the fact that we are a very laid-back, non-traditional church? Yes. Do we do stupid stuff? Yes. Do we get right sometimes, too? Absolutely!

Now, am I a part of the "emergent church"? Probably. Am I part of the institution? Yes...and at the same time! Do I have all the answers? Of course not! I don't even have most of the answers!

But I know this: I want to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love my neighbor as myself. So, there you have it.