The “Body Life”
I titled this the “Body Life” to contrast it to the traditional
church or home meeting. Christians get fixated on meetings – the
where, when and how. They can see how the home meeting can be
intimate and participatory but can’t imagine how it would work
in a larger meeting.
I would not have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it for a
number of years – meetings with upwards of 200 or 300 people or
more in a large hall that was totally unscripted because the
Holy Spirit was in control. There was no “order of worship”.
Anyone could begin by a prayer, a song, a testimony. Very often
the Holy Spirit led us corporately in a single theme. Anyone was
free to participate at any time. There was no chaos. There was
order. The chairs were in a circle. There was no podium. There
were elders but they were not visible or obvious. If something
got off track, they would bring it back, but they were truly
there to facilitate rather than dominate. The spirit and
attitude everyone had was to follow the leading of the Holy
Spirit, to sense what to do when – whether to pick a song, read
from the Bible, pray, praise, testify or teach. Most understood
that they were there to glorify God and to share what the Lord
had done in our lives that week. The meetings were fresh and
often glorious.
This is not to say we didn’t have some bad meetings, people
sharing inappropriately, etc. but that’s what leadership is all
about. When someone goes off track or just plain “off the wall”,
the mature saints need to be sensitive to the Lord and bring it
back into the flow of the Spirit. This is not heavy handed or
dictatorial. The meeting is still in the hands of all the saints
who are free to share a hymn, a psalm, a testimony, pray, etc.
So what can the pastor do who wants to turn his church around
from the dead one man show to a living body? The pastor may tell
people, “okay, folks, I’m going to shut up for the next month.
I’m just here to encourage you.” Function follows form. Take
away the pulpit. Put the chairs in a circle. Begin to announce a
couple of weeks before hand the reason for the change and how it
will work, emphasizing the need for all to have fresh
experiences and light from the Lord to share. Encourage them to
be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit as to which song
to pick, when and what to share. Keep prayers and testimonies
“short, quick, real and fresh” (as we used to say). If someone
drones on for a while without much real to say, it will kill the
meeting and interrupt the Spirit’s flow.
Christians grow when they let the life of Jesus they have
experienced flow out to others. This can happen in large
meetings or small. It may take a little time and prodding to get
people used to the idea, but it can be done.
Most of these meetings fall flat on their face. Why? A "body
life" meeting is only as good as our walk with the Lord. If we
are living in the past, living off of experiences we had last
month or ten years ago, we are going to be in for a rude
awakening. It may sound trite to say that we need to "have a
fresh experience of Christ" daily, but it is true. Many people
can tell old "war stories" for hours on end, how the Lord did
this or that for them years ago. But what counts is what the
Lord did in my life today, this week - not last year or 30 years
ago. An interesting thing about a body life meeting is that
there is no place to hide. You are exposed. If your experience
is stale, your sharing will smell like a stale ash tray to you
and others the minute you open your mouth.
Why do we end up with big meetings and professional speakers? In
the traditional service, there is nothing to do, nothing to
prepare for. It takes the heat off. We can hide and don't have
to deal with our shallowness and lack of reality.
· Unless we can get to the point where we can be honest about
where we are spiritually...
· Unless we can get to the point where we can really touch the
Lord regularly in prayer and in the Word...
· Unless we get to the point where each and everyone of us can
have fresh daily experiences with the Lord, fresh revelation of
our own, rather than someone else's,
our meetings are bound to be pitiful because they reflect our
poor walk with the Lord.
This is foreign to the average Christian, because we are used to
being passively entertained. Just the thought of having to share
with others is scary to some. I know through years of experience
what works and what doesn't. The only way a person will move
from knowledge to reality is through the constant loving support
of a group of brothers and sisters he/she trusts and knows are
there to help rather than condemn. This kind of dynamic can only
be achieved in body life meetings. Saints need an opportunity to
participate meaningfully in each meeting. It’s the little things
- the things you are thankful for, how much the Lord means to
you, how He pulled off a little miracle at work, how He let you
share Him with someone. Once all the members of the body get
released, people finally get the idea.
There is no such thing as a bad meeting or blaming someone else.
The meeting depends on me. If the meeting is dead, it's because
I had no life to bring to it. What did I contribute? If someone
was obviously down and out, how did I help? What can I say? How
can I pray for them this week? The best part about an open
fellowship is there is no one to blame but me. That's why they
work - and don't work.
In a very real sense, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to
meet. God doesn't care about methods. He gives us very little
instruction on what to do and how to do it. The question is, is
the meeting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Are there
mature leaders who can sense the flow of the Spirit and move
with it? Now I am not talking in the sense of something
"extra-Biblical", voices, miracles, signs and wonders. I am
talking about the ability of a small group of people to let the
Spirit of God lead them in prayer, worship, song and
testimonies. One will find that there is often an unspoken or
unrecognized theme that the Spirit will lead in a meeting and
that everything will relate to it - without planning and without
an agenda. For example, the Lord may impress us this week with
his mercy so the songs, testimonies, scripture and prayer will
all relate to that theme.
Think of the Holy Spirit as the conductor of an orchestra and
each one of us is an instrument that He plays. He has worked in
our lives during the week, ministered to us through His word and
through experience, and now we bring that to the meeting and
offer it up to the Lord as a "sweet smelling sacrifice unto the
Lord." The meeting reflects the fresh moving and working of the
Lord in each of our lives.
The Place of Leadership
Leadership is there to sense the moving of the Lord - not to
carry out their planned order of business, not to follow an
outline or course of study, or even verses that were picked the
previous week. Leadership should be there to sense the move of
the Lord "real time" as they say in computer jargon. Our
relationship with the Lord should be living and powerful, not
programmed and planned.
If there is one main reason a small meeting won't work, it is
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