I grew up in a reformed charismatic church.  I pastor a reformed charismatic church.  I’ve seen some crazy things.  A lot of what I see here, I can completely relate to and affirm.  Laying on of hands, speaking on tongues, joy in worship, etc.  I get it, and I see Biblical precedent for it as well.

But the Hokey Pokey?  It’s hard to know what to say, isn’t it?

I want to always leave room for God to do things that blow my mind.  The last thing anyone wants to do is condemn something that God does.  God is by definition supernatural.  Everything he does is other-worldly.

However, I don’t see how this exalts Jesus.  I don’t see how this makes God more glorious to us.  In other words, I don’t see worship.  It’s not worship, but it’s being called worship.  This is my problem.

This would be really cool if the band was doing it to loosen people up, get them physically engaged, and send a message that laughter and fun are Godly things.  But that isn’t what’s happening.  They are doing this song because they believe it “brings the anointing”.  They believe that doing this specific song will cause God to move upon them in special way.

I think those of us from the charismatic tradition need to beware of superstitious paganism dressed up in Jesus clothes.  We need to be careful that we do not think that if we pray a certain way, sing the right song, or use the right spiritual gift that it will manipulate God into doing anything.  It won’t.  Faith is what pleases God.

When the Holy Spirit breathes on his people he doesn’t do it because the worship leader played the right song and there were the correct number of 20-somethings wearing graphic tees in the crowd.  He breathes upon his people because He loves them and Jesus has made a way.

There are other things that could be said about this.  Chime in.

Authenticity.

Boiled down to it’s root, authenticity is about truthfullness.  It’s about not concealing reality behind a veil of mystery and false piety.  It’s about letting the seams show a little as if to say, “this was made by human beings, not by a machine.”  It’s about celebrating the risk over the result to the point of being willing to celebrate failure as a true sign of a big risk that has been courageously taken.  This is not something we traditionally do well.

The church growth and seeker sensitive movement has produced mixed results.  Churches have certainly grown, which I believe is almost always a good thing.  However, I think we’re all in danger of placing pragmatism and professionalism in a place of greater importance than Spirit-led, Christ-centered authenticity.

Here’s the thing:  our culture values authenticity over spit-polish any day.  I think we are about to see a wave of reactions against the auto-tuned, over produced, over sold, over hyped mainstream music and film industry.  I think people are sick of the trite and begging for the real.  And isn’t this something Jesus-followers should be experts in?  We of all people should get the fact that we are all broken, that the greatness in mankind is only an imperfect image of a perfect God.  Aren’t we the ones that get to “boast in our weakness”?

Several months ago during our Sunday morning worship set a mistake was made.  Our guitarist (who rarely makes mistakes on his instrument) began the song in the wrong key.  It was awful and impossible to ignore.  Most people would have made an adjustment and tried to stumble forward acting like it had never happened.  But, instead of doing that he stopped playing, waved at the congregation and said something like “Thanks very much, everyone!  That was me over here.”  It was a beautiful moment.

What was beautiful about it was that a sigh of relief went through the room as if to say, “Oh, thank God.  We can make mistakes here and it’s ok.”

I find that in most churches the opposite is true.  Performance mistakes are highly criticized and covered up.  Sermons are memorized, worship is auto-tuned, every moment choreographed.  No mistakes.

But “no mistakes” isn’t realistic for most of us and we need to see that reflected in our churches.

I believe that at some point every leader, and every local church is faced with a decision.  They will have to make a choice between becoming more excellent and polished or becoming more authentic and real.  At some point, one will directly compete with the other.

Again, this doesn’t mean that we can say excellence doesn’t matter because it really, really does.  It just isn’t the ultimate value because in the end it’s authenticity that will connect with people.

Incidentally, this gives the small church (with a small budget, and few people resources) some hope.  You can overcome a LOT of in-excellence with extra doses of authenticity.  If you don’t have a good worship band, or your building is old, or your preaching is boring, you can overcome a lot of those things by hammering authenticity and relationships.

People will say, “Yeah his preaching isn’t that great but he’s so REAL.” or “The music isn’t that great, but there is so much love and acceptance there that I can’t help but go back every week.”  When people say those kinds of things they are making value statements.  They are saying that excellence is important to them, but what really matters MOST to them is authenticity.  Authenticity doesn’t require money.  It doesn’t require a lot of people.  All it requires is grace, which is the one thing the Church has in great supply no matter how small.

What was peculiar to me was what happened at the end.  The set ended, the lights went out, the band mostly left the stage, and a large group of men came up on the stage.  It was a choir made up of about 15 or so men from a local Teen Challenge camp.  In case you don’t know, Teen Challenge is a Christ-centered drug rehab program begun by David Wilkerson many years ago.  This choir was primarily made up of men who are former drug addicts.

They sang one song.  I don’t remember the song.  I do remember the worship. And that one song, sung by those broken men, blew me away.  Spiritually speaking, there is a peculiar “sound” to the worship that comes from people who know what it means to be broken.  People who have a deep sense of the magnitude of the debt that was paid for them.  It’s the sound of worship that is not self-seeking, self-exalting or self-aware.  It is Christ-seeking, Christ-exalting, and Christ-aware.  It’s raw and it’s real.

This moment today took me back to the days when I was volunteering years ago in a similar ministry in Britain.  I remember the first time I worshiped while standing in the middle of a crowd of broken men singing to Jesus at the top of their lungs.  It sounded different than any worship I had heard up until that moment and my concept of what worship is changed right there.

I knew right in that moment that the quality of worship for me would never again be measured by what it looks like, how competent it seems, how bold or strong it is, or how loud it is sung (if sung at all).

I spoke to a young man this week who worships much the same way, only he’s quiet and often overlooked by the competent people.  I felt inspired by God to tell him,

“You may think your life and worship is like the squeaking of a church mouse, but in heaven it is like the roaring of a lion.”

I don’t hear the “lion’s roar” often enough.  Either it’s not there like it should be, or I’m not listening. I think the Church needs to make room for the squeaking church mice, and the broken ones.  I think if we don’t, we will soon forget what unsynthesized and unsanitized worship sounds like.

Obviously, this is not coming from anywhere close to a Biblical world view. However, I think the application here is obvious.

I loved what she said at the end about the performer who “transcends” in the moment as though there is something (Someone…) divine being displayed through that person. My opinion: Art for the Christian ultimately is about uncovering the image of God in us, and then displaying it in such a way that God is glorified and the artist is all but unnoticed. The artist (Christian or otherwise) feels angst when he/she gets confused about who gets glory.

I would love to hear your reactions in the comments.

Next year we’ll get a proper video camera out there, but this will give you a taste.

I’m just so proud of our band that I wanted to share the love.  Thanks to Jessica Cotten and the band for pulling it together on such short notice and managing to be yourselves up there.

Rock on. Love you guys.

Link to Video