A Two Way Conversation
I just got back from North America. I was there for nearly four weeks doing all sorts of things from work to play and everything in between.
It was big
And hot
Over four days worth of shows, we drove 34 hours. If you did that in the UK you’d have a gig in Glasgow, followed by Plymouth, followed by Edinburgh, followed by Brighton. That’d be silly.
But things are different in America. The distances, the language, the food – as my son kept pointing out, “they don’t have marmite!” I discovered cider in the USA is cloudy apple juice, the pavement is what you can drive on and tea is drunk ice cold (yuch).
We do, according to the politicians, have a special relationship. That’s good. I have friends and family there so a special relationship is a bonus. And a relationship requires a two way conversation which is easy when you speak the same language and challenging when you don’t. And language goes beyond words.
I played at a couple of churches while I was there. Big churches of around the three thousand people mark on a Sunday morning. I’d seen parody’s of a mega church before. The band, the lights, the young trendy guy with subtle tattoos and a pierced ear welcoming people, the immaculate pastor with the sporty car in the car park – I thought the parody’s were over the top. They weren’t, that’s how it was.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong here, just that what I was seeing didn’t register with my experience of what church was. The language in the sermon was good, some pretty radical stuff. When I spoke about materialism, selling what you have and taking up the cross, praying for terrorists and people that persecute you, it was all received as if it was the best thing they ever heard.
But here’s the thing. Our worship, our preaching, our evangelism, our making friends – it’s not done with words. It’s not done with our campaigns, concerts, radio shows, diaries, gigs or services. It’s done with what we do with our everyday lives.
God lives everyday for us and any relationship requires interaction between two or more people. So a relationship with God means we live back to Him. God blesses us, we bless Him back. Ever argue with God? Why not, He can handle it.
I don’t go much on the songs the church is singing at the moment. They’re a bit one way. There’s this phrase that gets banded about sometimes – Prophetic Worship. people find it hard to get their heads around what that means sometimes. Have a listen to Matt Maher singing Christ Is Risen. That’s a two way conversation - prophetic worship.
