People like a good mystery — a good thriller!. Perhaps a church service should be a mystery. Who will God speak through? What will He do? What gifts of the Spirit will flow through you?
Maybe God is like a golfer and wants to use all the clubs in His bag on Sunday morning — not just the 1 wood.
If all the balls go in the same direction, it’s hard to have a tennis match. If all the words go in one direction, it’s difficult to experience community. However, loving, interactive, heart-felt, mutual sharing soon flowers into community.
A string of Christmas lights with only one bulb burning would seem quite odd. A string of Christmas lights was designed for all the lights to shine, not just one. Perhaps God designed the church for all the believers to shine on Sunday morning, ministering to one another (see 1 Corinthians 14:26), not just for one believer to shine.
Perhaps church should move beyond mere religious learning to all of our hearts burning together with yearning for the living, resurrected Jesus Christ to be glorified! Maybe church is not just about religious things we need to know, but also about how we, as a body, flow together in the leading of the Spirit.
Whenever believers are permitted to get off the pew and participate, church becomes therapeutic. (Get it . . . thera-pew-tic?). God’s Light in ordinary believers will shine brightly if they are given the opportunity, in a loving, Spirit-filled environment, to show & tell what God has done for them.
Words spoken by a mere man are quickly forgotten [For example, do you remember anything about the last sermon that you heard?], but words spoken to you by the living, resurrected Jesus Christ will continually burn in your heart. Have you heard from Jesus lately?
I’m pierced and tattooed. My soul is pierced with love for the living, resurrected Jesus Christ and His name is tattooed on my heart.
