Recently one of the men in a prison where I do some of my work enquired if everything at the church was "OK as normal". I am always slightly uncomfortable about the word 'normal' being associated with church or anything else related to our journey with God. Visitors to our church sometimes ask if their experience with us is normal for a Congregational church. Is your experience on a Sunday normal?
In my first church my father served as an elder and for a while as Church Secretary. He had a dreadful habit when giving the weekly announcements (intimations for my Scottish readers) of saying, "There will be a meeting as usual this evening at 6.30 followed by the usual informal fellowship. Next Tuesday the usual Prayer Meeting. On Wednesday the Women's Fellowship as usual. On Thursday we will have the usual Bible Study" and so on. Always one to tease my dad, one Sunday as he walked forward to do his duty I invited the congregation to listen out for the word usual and cheer if he said it. He struggled through bravely to the end and managed not to say the usual word until he was about to step off the platform and realised he had omitted one item, which - of course - he announced as 'usual'! Loud cheers erupted from the congregation! Poor dad!
The point is I don't want my life to be normal, nor my ministry to be normal, nor my Sundays at church to be normal - unless the normal experience is never normal. Have you ever wondered what life was like for the disciples during the three years they were on the road with Jesus. The account in the gospels seems to suggest that any day anything could happen. They might find a crowd of people eager to hear Jesus or a group of hostile Pharisees. He brought peace where they expected riot and riot where they expected peace. They might find themselves sharing in a miracle to feed a hungry crowd, or seeing a lame man walk, a blind man see or even a dead girl brought to life. Things were hardly 'normal'. Going on Mark's account of the ministry of Jesus it was all very dynamic.
But even when the followers of Jesus were first sent out on their own their experience wasn't what most people would think of as 'normal'. "Even the demons are subject to us..", they said. And after the resurrection and ascension, going to a prayer meeting as normal a lame man was raised up and a near riot started. Prayer meetings don't seem normal from what we read. Being baptised with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost wasn't their normal experience. Feeling the premises shake as they prayed can hardly be described as normal. Hearing the person you were praying about and who was in prison knocking at your door - was that normal? Seeing 3,000 people come to Christ and be baptised in one day wasn't normal. Seeing a congregation suddenly receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit while still in the middle of a sermon is probably not what we see as normal on a Sunday.
But wait a moment! Perhaps that is what is normal, and what we experience is the abnormal. I have been fascinated with the concept of revival all my Christian life and wonder if revival is what should be our normal experience. Jesus promised, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within him." (John 7: 37-39). During the Pentecostal Revivals of the first half of the 20th Century ECW Boulton, a faithful minister, wrote:
In my first church my father served as an elder and for a while as Church Secretary. He had a dreadful habit when giving the weekly announcements (intimations for my Scottish readers) of saying, "There will be a meeting as usual this evening at 6.30 followed by the usual informal fellowship. Next Tuesday the usual Prayer Meeting. On Wednesday the Women's Fellowship as usual. On Thursday we will have the usual Bible Study" and so on. Always one to tease my dad, one Sunday as he walked forward to do his duty I invited the congregation to listen out for the word usual and cheer if he said it. He struggled through bravely to the end and managed not to say the usual word until he was about to step off the platform and realised he had omitted one item, which - of course - he announced as 'usual'! Loud cheers erupted from the congregation! Poor dad!
The point is I don't want my life to be normal, nor my ministry to be normal, nor my Sundays at church to be normal - unless the normal experience is never normal. Have you ever wondered what life was like for the disciples during the three years they were on the road with Jesus. The account in the gospels seems to suggest that any day anything could happen. They might find a crowd of people eager to hear Jesus or a group of hostile Pharisees. He brought peace where they expected riot and riot where they expected peace. They might find themselves sharing in a miracle to feed a hungry crowd, or seeing a lame man walk, a blind man see or even a dead girl brought to life. Things were hardly 'normal'. Going on Mark's account of the ministry of Jesus it was all very dynamic.
But even when the followers of Jesus were first sent out on their own their experience wasn't what most people would think of as 'normal'. "Even the demons are subject to us..", they said. And after the resurrection and ascension, going to a prayer meeting as normal a lame man was raised up and a near riot started. Prayer meetings don't seem normal from what we read. Being baptised with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost wasn't their normal experience. Feeling the premises shake as they prayed can hardly be described as normal. Hearing the person you were praying about and who was in prison knocking at your door - was that normal? Seeing 3,000 people come to Christ and be baptised in one day wasn't normal. Seeing a congregation suddenly receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit while still in the middle of a sermon is probably not what we see as normal on a Sunday.
But wait a moment! Perhaps that is what is normal, and what we experience is the abnormal. I have been fascinated with the concept of revival all my Christian life and wonder if revival is what should be our normal experience. Jesus promised, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within him." (John 7: 37-39). During the Pentecostal Revivals of the first half of the 20th Century ECW Boulton, a faithful minister, wrote:
"Rivers" is thy promise, this shall be our plea.
Less than this can never meet our cry for thee.
Tired of lukewarm service and the loss it brings,
We would live entirely for eternal things.
When with joy we follow in Christ's triumph train,
And our lives are flooded with the Latter Rain,
Then the world around us shall the impact feel
Of a Church with vision. fired with holy zeal.
It has been my privilege to experience some exceptional times when the Holy Spirit has moved and we have felt his presence so real that we could almost touch the Spirit. I have known profound moments of awe that have come upon a meeting. I have had times when I haven't been able to speak or do anything as God has come in power and men and women wept their way to the Saviour. Such occasions, that once seemed common, now seem almost only a memory. Why is that? Such occasions were profound life-changing experiences that were not the product of hype or human emotional manipulation.
As I look back to those days I recall that churches and individual Christians were much more prayerful than we are today. On one occasion I drove members of the team of which I was a part to take a Sunday School meeting. On arrival at least 30 minutes before the start of the meeting we found a large meeting room full of children earnestly praying for God to touch and change lives, to save the lost and heal the sick and bring honour to his name. Would you think that was normal?
Do you think it possible that we could return to a time when our normal church experience is ever wondering what God was going to do this week, when Christians are bursting to share their stories of divine intervention and blessing through the days of the past week? Just what kind of 'normal' do we desire? And is it that God cannot be bothered to move in our midst or is it we who have lost the desire and the willingness to seek him until he pours out a blessing on our lives, our churches and our service for him - a blessing too great for us to contain so that it keeps overflowing to others?
I am inclined to think that the prophetic word through Hosea needs to be heard by God's people in this land at this time.
"Sow righteousness for yourselves,
reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unploughed ground;
for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes
and showers his righteousness on you."
This begs the question as to whether we are willing to seek the Lord until he comes with showers of blessing.
When I was 17 I first caught my vision for revival. I asked my church minister, who was clearly evangelical unlike his predecessor, why he did not preach the gospel clearly. He told me that to do so could split the church. Together with some other teenagers we decided to do what we could. We started attending the weekly Church prayer meeting, we witnessed to our peers, and we started a Tuesday night prayer meeting for revival that sometimes continued well into the night. God transformed the life of that church. I certainly would not claim that this was entirely the result of the commitment and prayer of the Christian teenagers but I have no doubt that we were part of the story.
So, suppose that in order to see a profound move of God in rural Britain at this time it became necessary for there to be men and women with a passion for all that God could do among us, ad a willingness to sign up to seek the Lord until we feel the showers of blessing descending, would you be willing?
Please don't settle for normal if that is mediocrity. I would like a new normal where nothing is normal that does not include our total commitment to God's will and a deep sense of his presence in our lives and meetings impacting the world in which we live. May God grant us all a not-normal meeting next Sunday.
Monday 13th - Research into Rural Evangelism
Monday 13th - - a telephone conference for the Mission and Society Committee of the Congregational Federation.
Tuesday 14th - Gartree Prison.
Diary
Notes:
The responsiveness of the group from the
London Central Division of the Salvation Army last Monday was encouraging. Addressing the issue of the awful nature of
sexual abuse, how to prevent it and how to care for those who have been past
victims is not the most welcome of tasks but how essential it is.
Jean managed to join me at prison this week
as she adjusts to life after her husband died at Christmas time. The men were very supportive and worked well
on a Christian song that is new to them.
Video conference for Mission for Christ went well.
One of the trustees is in mid-west USA and took part with temperature
-30 degrres Centigrade!
Sunday 12th and 19th –
Yelvertoft Congregational Church
Monday 13th - - a telephone conference for the Mission and Society Committee of the Congregational Federation.
Tuesday 14th - Gartree Prison.
Thank you for your fellowship,
Barry
Barry
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You can also find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ruralbarry
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