Sunday
We went to a charismatic church in Manchester on Sunday. It was good worship, but missed the gospel (like most of the other churches we've been to). Whereas the evangelicals say to obey "because God says so", the charismatics give a great motivational speech for obeying - because God said so. But neither are very good at pointing to the cross as any motivation or empowerment to obey. In the end, it's still legalism - and sad to see.
On a very positive note, a couple was joining the church that day and being interviewed up front. During the course of the interview, I recognized his name and profile as a man that I had been e-mailing for a year now - but our busy schedules had kept us from getting together. Last I knew, he was the pastor of a Baptist church and the former head of Youth For Christ in the UK. He's also on the board of a number of youth outreach ventures in the UK. We managed to connect after the service, and plan to actually get together in the near future. God is good.
posted by Alan @ 5/30/2006 12:27:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
But I'm thinking ... perhaps the Charismatics would be more open to the message of sanctification by grace than the conservative reformed types tend to be?
Have you any experience/successes on that front?
In the States that certainly was my experience. And I am attempting to find that out here...
It was interesting to hear you say that it was "good worship, but missed the gospel." I understand what you mean because that it is sort of the way we have all come to define some aspect of a Sunday service. Our modern definitions have given rise to the unfortunate need for "Worship and Praise teams,", as if we worship when they are on the platform. Of course, no matter what we do, within or outside any kind of service, if we miss the gospel we do not really worship God.
Do we seek to obey God? Not so much, and when we do it is usually motivated by efforts to: gain victory over sin, or to avoid God's displeasure, or to submit to the sovereign rule of the omnipotent Creator or just to avoid the disdainful look of the obeyers around us. I agree with you that every one of these attempts is prideful legalism, and futile both in effort and result.
Perhaps this is not all such bad news. Perhaps only the recognition of the futility of Christian self-improvement and legalism can lead us back to Paul's dilemma, and it's love and grace solution. "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" Thank God that I do not have to get cleaned up, or even clean up my act, to get out of this dilemma. Thank God that I can't. "Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Warren,
I agree with what you said. Though what I meant was that the sermon missed the gospel. The rest of the worship time was ok. Poor sermons make it difficult to worship, since your focus is on "you" and all the things you need to be doing...not on Christ and the beauty of what he has done. Fortunately, most songs seem to capture this fairly well. So no matter how clueless a "praise band" might be, the gospel is usually there and my heart can engage with the beauties it reminds me of (though somtimes in spite of the band - not because of them).
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