If you’ve read my previous blog, I can start this one by saying, 'it was now the evening after the night before.'
I was midway through my theological studies. The Christmas recess was fast approaching, but I had an end of term exam before the inevitable parties. The exam was based on themes found in the Book of Isaiah. As I opened my Bible to the fortieth chapter, instead of revision, I started singing the words from the page.
Comfort, comfort My people,
You bring good news, You bring good news,
Who has measured the seas or held the dust of the earth?
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
For those who wait on the Lord will have their strength renewed.
This was unexpected – to say the least. This was new – for sure. With much hindsight I thought it was linked to me being a worship leader – but I wasn’t, not at that point. So, was this my initiation into becoming a ‘prophetic minstrel’? This being the only significant description we have in Scripture of those early tabernacle worship leaders, found in 1 Chronicles 25. Though it would be another five years before I started to understand the role of extempore praise and prophetic worship, and even discover that verse in 1 Chronicles 25:1, for myself.
The night before, when I had been slain in the Spirit, when I got to my feet, the team vicar, The Revd Barry Kissel, told me briefly, when he had laid hands on me, he felt like a plumber with a plunger, something shifted, and I crumpled to the floor under the alter rail. A blockage? A stronghold? A fear? Perhaps spiritual confusion? For months I’d been exploring different ways to have my traditional ‘quiet time’. Even though I was immersed in theological studies, my personal Bible reading habits had become dry. I longed to return to those simpler and more spiritual days of my teens. Now, twenty-four hours later, my Bible had become a songbook. It was as if I’d found my Bible’s volume control, the black text had gained sound. My Bible has never been the same since! Praise God!
I’d taught myself to play the guitar less than two years earlier. I knew some friendly chords. What? There are unfriendly ones? Yes! You try playing an E flat. My guitar was cheap, my fingers hurt, and barre chords were almost an impossibility. It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools, but let’s be honest, a crap guitar does no one any favours.
According to social media, Ludwig Beethoven once said,
“To play a wrong note is human, but to play without passion is unforgivable.”
It doesn’t matter who said it, it’s true, and even more significant in the realm of corporate worship. My worship leading developed over the coming years, I didn’t have a natural ear, surprise, surprise – read my previous blog. Nor did I have any confidence in keeping a consistent rhythm. But I knew I loved God, and with all my heart, spirit, and soul, I longed to draw close to Him and gaze upon His face. Hymns didn’t float my boat. Taking my lead from Revelation 4 & 5, I was drawn to simple and repetitive songs. Simple in construct, simple to remember, yet infinitely profound in content – which is why they need to be sung several times over and over again, to create space to ponder their truths. I love the simplicity of songs that allows me the headroom to engage with God. Too many wordy eighteenth or nineteenth century metaphors block my flow. It’s hard to stay ‘open’ and ‘in spirit and truth’ with so much human language to process. I could say more, a lot more! So, I wrote a book. I’m convinced much of our church-
based corporate worship is linked to learnt behaviour, traditions, and expectations. Authentic biblical praise rarely gets a look in, and worse still, many of us are ignorant of the dynamics of corporate praise and the (at least) seven Hebrew words God uses in the Bible, to help explain its breadth, purpose and value. Enough said, read the book, School of Praise.
Here's a sort of postscript, while we’re still on this topic. During the final months of my gap year of 1982-83 with Operation Mobilization (OM), I had to lead a small team in morning devotions including playing worship songs. With my language deficiencies (see my last posted blog) and my inability to speedily process information, I made a very early decision – to memorize songs. I knew reading words and chords from a page, then singing those words and playing the chords, whilst also trying to lead others would be a case of information overload for me. So, without any external help or advice, I started to memorize words and chord sequences. I soon became aware of some basic self-taught music theory, as certain chord patterns and chords repeated themselves. It was the Summer of 1983, I had no model of any contemporary worship leader, though a few live recordings of Keith Green were probably influencing my approach – Like Keith, I wanted to sing emotionally. I wanted to connect with the words in my spirit and soul. My playing was erratic, my voice inconsistent, but people seemed to appreciate my honesty over my musical flaws. For what feels like forty years I’ve been wanting people to get rid of their music stands, their photocopied chord sheets and nowadays – their digital tablets! How can you seriously lead others, or even genuinely engage with God, if an area of your mind is taken up with reading words and deciphering music? Who of us would go and watch live theatre, if the actors were standing around motionless, holding awkwardly sized folders of the script? Don’t reduce the privilege of worshipping the Living God to the studio dynamics of producing a radio play! Please, don’t.
At the close of 1984 in North London, I was between ‘seasons’, not that I knew at that time anything of God’s seasons and the ongoing developments within the Pentecostal-Charismatic churches. Two decades earlier, a Californian musician came to Christ, his name was, John Wimber. He asked a minister once on leaving a church service, “When do we get to do the stuff?”
“What stuff?” the minister replied.
“The stuff in the Bible, of course, the miracles and healings.”
Soon he was leading his own Bible studies, and eventually planted a church in Anaheim, which he called the Vineyard. Wimber was not a stereotypical Pentecostal. He dressed casually and was far more soft spoken when ministering. He was also a fervent reader, eager to learn and analyse both the Scriptures and historical theology (basically the study of stuff that had happened in centuries past and why).
John Wimber moved the emphasis of how we can understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the Gospels. His model was Jesus, not Paul’s corrective teaching to the divided Corinthians, or the unique event recorded in Acts 2. Wimber taught on the Kingdom of God, and saw Jesus (especially, since His baptism encounter) ministering under the unction of the same Spirit, that He promised we would receive later. The phrase third wave was coined, for the obvious chronological reason. Though in reality, the phrase was actually a Californian surfing term, linked to the experienced surfer waiting patiently and expectantly for that third (or next, or longer) wave that would lift them and carry them all the way into the beach. I’ll let you contemplate the spiritual metaphors – if any. Additional nerdy note for some, third wave is also an economical term, coined in 1980 (in California!) to describe civilizations next big thing. In broad terms, the first being agriculture, the second the industrial revolution, and now society was perched on the edge of an era which would be shaped by information technology. They weren’t wrong.
Wimber had heralded in a distinctive third wave of the charismata. Although some books and conferences used the term, it never quite stuck. Wimber was therefore just another Charismatic, though clearly not a classic Pentecostal. He didn’t see speaking in tongues as needed proof of the indwelling Spirit, and he theologically placed healing in the now and not yet of an inaugurated kingdom, rather than in the atonement (‘by His stripes you are healed’). This helped to understand why miracles could still happen today, but also, why not everyone got healed. This is referred to as, eschatological tension – the tension between the now and not yet of God’s present Kingdom. This theological position is often linked to the imagery in the closing verses of the Old Testament, with the sun of righteousness rising with healing in its wings, the breaking dawn declares a new day, the dark of night has undoubtedly gone, but the fullness of the sun has yet to fully appear.
Personally, I loved this Jesus focus and the accompanying Kingdom theology. I said earlier that I was in the midst of my theological studies at the then named, London Bible College, and the Kingdom of God loomed large in the syllabus. I had a remarkable charismatic New Testament lecturer, and some of the books on my module’s reading list, matched those suggested at Wimber’s Signs & Wonders conferences. In addition, corporate worship was changing. The demonstrative declaration songs that dominated the UK church were being influenced by Vineyard Music. Subtly, we were no longer singing about God, but singing to God. In simple terms, He is Lord, had become You are Lord. An intimacy had arrived, and slowly, a greater tangible understanding of the Holy Trinity was emerging through this intimacy in our new songs. As Paul tells us twice in his writings, it’s the Spirit within us that causes us to cry, ‘Abba Father’. This wave of intimacy in worship seemed to resonate with my earlier ‘Bible-singing’ experience, as already referenced in this article, my expectations for corporate worship had taken on some frustratingly different values – and again, it would be years before I fully understood the spiritual hunger God had imparted amid by relative ignorance. Such is His grace – Amen.
Sadly, back in 1977, my first major Pentecostal encounter had left me feeling manipulated – but not perturbed. I hungered for more. And ‘more’ was a new buzz word for this new season, ‘More love, more power, more of You in my life.’ My earlier and very personal charismatic experiences had led to me speaking in tongues and eventually sharing prophetic pictures with likeminded folk. But now, I was a card carrying Third Waver, a Charismatic with the appropriate Kingdom theology to support and explain my newly found spirituality.
I was happy. Though often perceived as, odd. I was clearly outnumbered within the mainstream of my colleagues – it wasn’t always easy. Which is why I fear for Charismata VI, but first, we need to navigate Charismata IV & V to help identify the journey some of us have been on and the danger along the way.
To Be Continued.
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