A Bit of Background

How did I get here?

Surely most people who are ’seeking church’ put up with the church where they’re currently worshiping and quietly look around for somewhere better.That’s what I used to think. Then I was overtaken by ‘events’.

If you’d asked me five years ago what sort of church I would like to be part of, I could have written you a good, well thought out list. I had been brought up in a steady, traditional, frequently boring church and to be honest I doubted that it would ever change.

In the meantime I plodded on, trying to make a difference. Against all odds. A member of a kind of ‘club’. We had all the usual activities and meetings. Meetings for ladies, mother and toddler groups, craft clubs, youth groups. You can probably do the list.

Then, miraculously, it started to change around me. After being without a minister for a few years, the church ‘called’ a man even younger than me to be our pastor. He was clear-minded, witty, musically talented and ready to shake things up. And I was right there with him. We changed the music overnight and I was in the band, we changed the children’s ministry and I was there too, we bought a projector and a big screen and I launched myself into producing videos and building the AV system. When it was decided that the pews should go, I was there with a hammer.

And all the groups and meetings stopped. That was what dead churches did. We were alive.

As you can imagine, throughout this time a lot of people weren’t happy. A lot of people left the church. But they were ‘religious’ types who had no idea what a lively church should be like. We were better off without them. Some were old friend, some were members of my family. But God was blessing our church and if they couldn’t deal with it, well that was their hard luck.

New people arrived. Dissatisfied with their own churches, they came to where it was all happening. Some for a few weeks, some for a little longer. We shouted from the rooftops about what God was doing at our church. Well, we had a website. We tended not to go out much, or mingle with other Christians. Our pastor said we needed to get our own house in order first.

When some of the old people who’d decided to worship elsewhere (or nowhere) died, well, funerals weren’t really ‘our thing’ so if the deceased had asked for their funeral in ‘their church’, our pastor pointed out that it wasn’t ‘their church’. ‘Let the dead bury the dead’.

But it made sense to me. We had work to do, a Kingdom to build. There was no time for traditions and religiosity and the old ways. This was a radical transformation and I was right at the heart of it.

Soon we were moving beyond anything I could have imagined. One amazing Sunday I witnessed my friends and family lying flat on their backs on the floor of the church. This was a move of the Holy Spirit and soon I would be on the floor too, laughing uncontrollably and convinced that I had caught the fire.

Yes, I’d read about the Toronto Blessing and had been extremely wary of ‘that sort of thing’, but the people who were critical of it hadn’t experienced it. They knew ‘about God’ but they didn’t have what I had. I knew God. I started reading the Bible more fervently than I’d done for years. Words would leap from the page. I told all my friends about what was happening at my church and – of course – they thought I was mad.

Now that the Holy Spirit was on the move, the music, the building, the people were all of one mind, I waited for what our pastor had promised. Revival. More than a promise in fact. Our pastor had invited a number of visiting speakers to our church. Mostly from North America and mostly slightly whacky, but lovely people. They had brought us prophecies. “This building will be filled to bursting with hundreds of God’s people by the end of this year”. “There will be a revival in this town just like in 1904″ and “This church will be known as a place of healing”. People like Darrel Stott were welcomed to our church and when spots of light started appearing on photographs we were told that angels were dancing in our building. I wasn’t resisting ‘it’, I wanted ‘it’, I prayed for ‘it’.

For a while, it was good. We were getting ready to go out and change the world. Except that we didn’t.

Week after week, we did the same things. Our pastor would tell us how we were right and everyone else was wrong, there’d be anecdotes about how bad our old churches used to be, more stories about how the Holy Spirit had turned people into quivering wrecks. Then a long, drawn out session where people would come forward to stand at the front for prayer. I would provide the musical accompaniment and one by one they would fall gently to floor, aided by ‘catchers’ who would ensure they didn’t come to any harm. After a while they/we would get up and come back a week later to do it all again. Those who sat firmly in their seats would be prayed for anyway and their cards would be marked. In private conversations they would be described as ‘not with us’.

And after a few months of this. It started to get just a little bit boring. How could this be? The manifest power of Almighty God, boring?

To this day I wonder whether I could still be there now, falling over week after week, pitying those in other churches who were going through their lifeless religious motions while we enjoyed being ‘in the river’. Instead, something happened to give me a little shake and ultimately lead to me seeing things a whole lot clearer.

I could write a great deal about the circumstances that led to me leaving the church, but the details don’t matter for now. Those who know me will have their own ideas about what happened, and I’m happy to discuss it privately. For now, let’s just say it was a ‘falling out’.

So why am I writing this now?

We are two years on from the point where prophecied revival should have happened. And where is it? The church filled with hundreds of believers? The river of revival flowing out from the church and washing down the whole valley?

None of these things have happened. Why?

Some of the people who I worshiped with, who heard the same ‘prophetic words’ and looked forward to the same revival are still part of that church. I hope they are asking the same question.

As I slowly came to my senses I read more than just the ’sound-bite’ verses we had been given. I read whole chapters of the Bible. Whole books. I also read some church history, especially 20th century American church history, and realised that what happened in my church had happened in many others, usually with the same effect. Some people go, some people arrive, but basically nothing much changes. Elsewhere on my blog I have written about some of the more worrying aspects of the type of teaching I received from my former pastor, but the bottom line is far more mundane:

It got boring.

The church I was once a part of – the ‘alive’ church – is no more visible or vibrant or relevant to the needs of its town than any of the other churches in the area. The people of my town need Jesus, but they’re no more likely to hear it from my former church than from any of the other ‘lifeless’ congregations.

Sometimes you have to step back and take a good long look at what you’re doing. I’m grateful for the jolt that caused me to stop and think. Because when you’re on the inside it can be hard to see the truth.

To those who left my church while I stood by and did and said nothing – I am truly sorry.

To those who are still there, or anywhere like it I have one simple message. Think about what you’re being taught. If promises from the ‘mouth of God’ don’t come to pass – what possible explanation could there be? God wants us to ask Him difficult questions but are your leaders as happy to be called to account?