Separation isn't always sheep and goats

I spent a wild weekend  in a place where the soil is good, should be good, yet yields little from new seed.  Its' hardness comes from wild fire even though there is something like a layer of magma hiding just below the surface, building quietly for a release that they will be ready for when they finally allow it to rise, but the won't be ready for the force of it as it has been squeezed down for so long, and the release point will quite likely be squeezed down like a bent garden hose.
There is a level of desire that hasn't quite overcome their need for "decent and in order"...
That's really the rub.  "Decent and in order"...
I have a story and I have a scripture.

Scritpure first-
I heard this preached  by Mike Pilavachi one time on my way to a worship weekend on the Colville Nations land in Eastern Washington. The following scriptural text

Solomon Anointed King
21On the next day they made sacrifices to the LORD and offered burnt offerings to the LORD, 1,000 bulls, 1,000 rams and 1,000 lambs, with their drink offerings and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel. 22So they ate and drank that day before the LORD with great gladness. And they made Solomon the son of David king a second time, and they anointed him as ruler for the LORD and Zadok as priest.…

was used to illustrate this concept we have of "decent and in order" is much more strict than God's.
Imagine the cacophony of 1000 bulls, Rams and male Lambs as they were being led to slaughter- each aware of what was happening to the animal in front of it, the blood, the smell of entrails and excrement, that's 3,000 animals slain in the space of a day. 
Add to that the "drinking with gladness" which you likely can't convince yourself didn't have at leaast an element of "buzz" to it. For these actions to be taken within what we consider the parameters of decent and in order to be the nation would have had to be sedated.

Now my story-
It was my first time at one of those drunk churches where people were laughing and I had no understanding of what was going on except that it was a "move of God".
The man in the front was taking an offering (a forty five minute offering, but I won't address that here) and every time he said the words "contrary winds" the place exploded with laughter.
He was preaching on Jesus in the boat and stilling the tempest. 
Things would quiet down and then again he would mention contrary winds, and by quiet down I mean had just gotten quiet enough that I began to hear the speaker, I said "GOD!! What EVER happened to DECENT and in ORDER!??!"
And He calmly replied, "Do you remember when you were a child and you wondered what it would be like to sit in my throne room where thousands of prayers arose before me in a hundred languages all the time? Welcome to the throne room."
"You see, your view of decent and in order looks nothing like mine."
And so I have remembered that every time I wanted to judge someone else's expression, He reminds me. Decent and in order doesn't rule out dancing naked before Him...  or mooing in worship.

Worship is NOT the Opening Act

                      Worship is coming is going to be so intimate that people will begin to understand the emotion David felt when he danced out of his britches as the ark of the covenant ws carried into his city.
Up to now there have been many reasons why we don't worship to this depth and it's a shame.   We
I once heard some guys on the radio speaking about the plight of worship music and it not meeting the standards of Bach or Mozart- beautiful and from a different era.  Just as the melodies of Handel caused the king to rise from his throne during the Messiah, creating a tradition observed today,  are time specific and culturally relevant within their era, we have the same mandate to be culturally relevant today, in this day of country, rock and rap.  Each has it's place.
The opening of the gates of heaven in this day and age, the revelation of what the Kingdom of heaven of heaven being at hand actually means-
This was David's vision.  This was the revelation that made him unaware as his clothing fell from him in worship, the realization that he could look in to the very eyes of the lover of his soul.
He wrote psalms that exposed that he had been to Golgotha and seen the Christ hanging from the cross.  He had revelation that spoke to his soul about the depths of the sacrifice he was witnessing while he danced,
it's no wonder he didn't know where his clothes had abandoned him having drunk fully of that revelation...
And it seems to me that this- this is what the church needs.  This is the worship that bids the Father to come in His fullness.
But our program requires that we sing three songs and take an offering. greet one another with a holy kiss. Take our eyes from where they have rested and find your check book and after all that effort, "move along" as if the day's agenda didn't have time to stop and hungrily sit at the table set before us.
The feast, as it were, that sits laying open before us.
A time when we could learn from one another how to sup, how to soak, how to linger in the abiding open heaven that has been reached. How to look into the eyes of the Beloved who, in turn, seeks our gaze.
It won't be long now until worship will carry us headlong into a stupor that requires us to give up our sensibilities and be lost to love.
It is here, when we look at one another through the eyes of a dove, soft and without guile, that we will begin to learn what the promise, "they will know that we are Christians by our love, one for another" means, what it looks like and we will become so addicted that others will be curious.
Those who have known us to be sour and judgemental.
get so caught up in form and, for some reason, dignity, that we can't seem to get past the fear that there is a judgement from a peer or participant that matters.  There is not!
The day is coming.  bring a hankie, a pillow and a blanket, and prepare to occupy the Kingdom.

Last night I was on this new fangledy thing called periscope and I ran across a girl who was crying and said that she and her friend were tired of trying to go out and have a good time- that somehow, some rejection had removed any hope of a good life that she had hoped for... She went on to describe horrible things that she was wishing upon herself.
This generation carries survivors guilt for making it out of the womb. This generation is looking for hope far beyond the things I looked forward to as a child.
As a culture, it's possible that they may experience all of their firsts (you know what I mean) in a single night.
They need the hope of a family.
They need the hope of success, but not the success they expect, their hopes are about achieving end game goals in microwave timing.
Give them room and teach them how to set goals. Teach them to cook on a stove, in an oven. Bless them with time...

It Was Supposed to be the Perfect Crime

When I was a kid my friends mom made the best peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I have ever had.  I haven't tried them all (and I still have hopes of recreating the experience).
Anyway, we would be hanging out in the basement and I would get a hanker (That's right... sometimes I hanker) for a couple of cookies.
The jar was a ceramic horned owl. I still remember stealthily climbing the stairs, sliding my fingers stealthily between the horns and wrapping my two outside fingers around them, lifting the lid soundlessly only to hear Florence yell "You boys get out of that cookie jar!"
I was caught. EVERY TIME.  Caught.But Florence never said that she didn't want me coming over any more. Would still call us up for dinner.
If this widowed mom of three could put up with my thievery (only place thievery ever happened)
And then fro the pulpit I hear that God can't look upon sin.
One of two things has to be true, now. This thieving isn't sin, OR I have lost my salvation.
The only rational conclusion that you can come to, if God can't look upon sin, if that is what makes Him holy then when He comes into my heart to live He must keep a bag packed by the door so that He can get out before the stench of sin permeates my body when I reach for those cookies, reacting like some form of  gama radiation and causing Him to hulk out and kill me right there.
Or maybe Habbakuk was being all poetical and saying that he was amazed that someone from such a vast reality could take notice on him.
The love of the Father for His creation is IMMENSE. It is elegant and vast and neither to be hoarded nor dismissed. Love Him with all that is in you and you can't imagine the results- give it a try, I dare you

be a voice not an echo

As I have grown older, I have suffered some loss of hearing due to headphone use, extraneous noise at work, being in a band... And my job working with older folks who have loss of hearing has taught me that using hearing aids can cause sounds to be confused and imaginary. You hear stories and on TV see stories where someone is lost in a canyon and can't be found because the echoes are coming from many directions, muffled and decaying over time. Muffled and decaying over time... They shorten and little or no meaning but just being noise after a while.
The church is like that. Jesus said, "You believe the scripture says (this), but I'm telling you it means (this)." What He was saying is, "You heard the words and you believe that you have heard them correctly, but you are only hearing echoes of what was meant when they were said."
"The words you are following once had life but they have bounced around the walls of history and their meaning is now distorted beyond recognition" Consider that each denomination is a canyon and the echo has moved up and down that canyon and suffered decay, and each generation repeats it but leaves out the who or the why and the words begin to be powerless...
I did not say that they are powerless- they have the power of conviction because people still heed them despite not being sure how or why to fulfill the directive.
 Get the revelation. Who was being instructed and what was their circumstance.
One of my favorite stories didn't happen in my family, but it happened in a family during preparation for a holiday feast.
Marilyn (we'll call her) was getting ready to bake the ham for the family's Easter feast and she had a daughter about to be wed so she was teaching her to cook the feast and the daughter (called Emma, today) was paying close attention and asking questions-
"Momma, why did you cut the end of the ham off before you put it in the pan?"
"I don't know, exactly, it's what my Momma always did, it's how I learned to do it. I'll call your Grandma and ask her."
So Marylin called her mother and asked, "Momma, I'm teaching Emma how to cook the Easter feast and we have begun to wonder why did we always cut the end off of the ham before we cooked it?" Grandma said, "Because my pan was too small"
This is an illustration of how mindless traditions get started. It could have been an illustration of hearing a noise made by the wind in the canyon and following it because one ascribed hope and meaning to it and began following it blindly into who knows what.
My point is be the voice. Get the revelation of the thing. Don't follow because you hear from someone in authority because if you aren't in relationship with the author there is no checking back with them about the purpose.
Be in relationship with the man who had the revelation and you can ask for clarification or BE the man who had the revelation and you own it because it was a gift to you and your
Father gives good gifts

One of the things that I have noticed through the years is that the established tribe wants to keep what they have and they don’t look favorably on anything that might upset their apple cart. The missionary has for centuries tried to make people become who the missionary is, for fear of being led astray by the traditions of the missioned peoples. They have been fearful enough to forbid drums, vocal styles, even meeting locations for fear of demonic intervention, rather than “taking on all comers”. I will speak of the native American, but with the caveat that they aren’t the only aboriginal peoples who feel this way. The path of reconciliation is well worn and bears little fruit. The modern church researchers have begun to recognize that people groups have sounds associated with both them and the ground that they inhabit. The Aborigine in Australia incorporates the sounds of their surroundings into the music of the didgeridoo. The Hawaiian dances in expression of the sea that gives them sustenance. The Native American calls out thanks to the animals that share the land and life with them. The Native American actually has a Trinitarian god who manifested in the earth because he was too great for man to comprehend as a spirit being… Sound familiar just a little bit? Their complaint is that the modern church (since it’s arrival) has judged them simple heathens and turned back their honest expressions of worship. The drum, the flute, their dance has all been judged as an expression of a baser faith which includes animism and reverence of dark spirits (all of which can be discovered to some degree in our church today. We MUST accept their identity in it’s full expression, which includes tobacco, sage and cedar which mirror elements of the jewish worship with what is indigenous to the region. All are used as incense. Their use of the drums communicates Gods heartbeat and they consider each time their foot touches the ground to be a prayer, especially when they are wearing a “jingle dress” which adds the texture of a tambourine to their dance. The sound of breath filling the air around the flute so easily represents the breath of the Holy Spirit being breathed over a group of people, and yet people have feared these exhortations, these expressions of the spirit and in the Spirit may have been used for a dark purpose or by the unordained and therefore insulting to the deity who, in fact, said, (New International Version) Mt 28:15&16 He (Jesus) said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Rev 5:9 And they sang a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.” Rev7:9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. He receives them. Who are we to be so bold and so proud as to “protect” Him from them. It is a lie that God cannot look on sin. A lie, pure and simple. Jesus was not abandoned by His Father on the cross, He was fully man in that moment, experiencing death crying out as any man would. Adam is proof and did what man has done ever since, until that moment on the cross. God came looking for Him. In His ability to shut off His omniscience so that Adam could hide from Him in His shame? I believe that He wanted Adam to come out and trust the friend that he had always walked with in the cool of the afternoon. Enough with the rabbits, Jesus is certain to redeem every tribe and tongue, and every means eery just like all means all. There is no “skiming the till”, He will get everything that He has paid for. All of it.

Drum

In 1998 just outside of Belfast Ireland there was a revival, and in the midst of it I fell in love. I had been involved in music for my whole life, but there was an expression that I had never really heard that was featured, that of the drums. The drums were playing as one of the speakers commissioned me as a warrior, and as I fell to the floor, I opened my heart and asked God for the drums, and He gave them to me. I didn’t have any idea what that was going to mean, only that I would have a new weapon in my little arsenal. I went out and bought an Irish bodhran (boe-run) and began to fiddle with it and eventually got the sounds out of it, now to get the rhythms out. The challenge was to playing in 4/4 time when it is built to play in 6/8, but the ingenuity of someone who plays intuitively an overcome pretty much anything. Having been a musician most of my life I had certain sensibilities to overcome, and there was a bit of a struggle; including the pastor not feelin’ it, so to speak. In those times you hope for an intervention. Someone who has the vote of confidence from those whom you see yourselves under and someone who has you respect as well. Enter Georgian Banov of a band called Silverwind back in the 1970’s. And he had his eye on my drum… that I was having trouble playing in 4/4 time. He asked if he could play and then should me how to play within the worship setting. He handed it back to me and I was set free. Before long it was congas, djembe, quika, ocean drum- each has a sound, a voice to speak into the atmosphere and change things. So that was me, breaking loose. Then on line I ran across a group called Psalm Drummers. Powerful concept, drum intercession. Founded by Teryl Bryant, a studio musician from London. He put together a drum circle that as held at Penn State that had over 400 drummers participating made up of Christian drummers from across the nations that chartered local psalm drummer groups. I never belonged to one of them, but I saw the strength in the concept. I have played since that time, breaking through brass heavens and hearts and minds.