Just a brief rant to say, we really need to stop using this expression.
I don’t know how many times lately I have heard people speak of their Sunday service and use this expression to describe how ‘totally awesome’ it was – another overused term… Come on people…
I think while we all know its theological nonsense, at another level we seem to believe it. If we feel the music is especially inspirational, or the sermon a real cracker, or if people are getting healed etc etc then we are convinced that God was definitely present.
If the singing is lame, the sermon puts you to sleep and there is no drama whatsoever then has God really not turned up?
I think my biggest issue with the phrase is that it removes the responsibility from us to be engaged and focused and puts it on God to create some fireworks. It also suggests that some churches have found the key to ‘making God dance’.
Personally… I think God turns up every week. (Its kinda hard not to when you’re God.)
Some days we notice him. Some days we give him more space to move. Some days he just does stuff irrespective of us. But he’s there – whether he likes it or not…
I hear ya brother, but ya probably won’t like my thoughts.
I think the problem is the performance aspect of modern worship meetings. God is not in the performance, He is in our hearts. It is when we interact with each other that God is revealed. The early church didn’t have an order of worship, instead it had a meal together.
Blessings,
Byron
Exactly! Boy do I get tired of those phrases and that mind set too! Totally on the same page. Ok back to work 🙂
I couldn’t agree with you more. Well done and well written.
Along those lines, it bugs me when people pray at church for God to “fill this place.” Like he has a choice…
I think your just getting old and grumpy. 🙂
In defence of those who may use that phrase….
I wonder how the early disciples would have described the Acts 2 scene to friends who were not there?
I cant get over the sense that Gods Spirit (Ruach) is the breath of God. How He is described is so often in fluid terms.
I believe that there is sometimes a real sense of Gods presence, sometimes there is not. And that can be in a church meeting…or when I am praying down at the beach.
You can’t manufacture God…I think we both say a big amen to that.
But yet…somehow, in a mysterious fashion, it appears to me that there are times when “God turns up” and other times when its dry.
And as for asking God to ‘fill this place” why not? ‘Be filled with the Holy Spirit” I dont find anything wrong with asking God to make us aware of His presence, and everything right. I don’t want a dry emotionless and passionless Christianity. I want to engage with God with mind, body and soul….
Yeah… Maybe I am just a grump 🙂
Actually I take the point that God does make himself known some days more than others. I was actually reacting to a more flippant usage of the term that more or less implied that God turned up like a celebrity to wow the crowd.
Having re-read my original post (thru tired weary eyes after a day in the sun)I still think there is stuff to be concerned about in our expressions, but then maybe that’s just me… 🙂