So as the temperature rises both in the heat of the summer and in the passion I have for changing something about church - I always begin to think about the Spirit and how it makes my life - or our lives as Christian - different. At Pentecost this year, I talked about each of us being like a kernel of corn - hard and pretty tough; but when we get heated up by the Spirit of God in us we can pop open and become not only something very good and a source of nutrition to others but in doing so we become vulnerable. It is that vulnerability that keeps us from truly letting the Spirit fire us up, especially in our white-European churches.
Lately we have been having a visitor from Jamaica worship with us. In a discussion about the differences of worship services, I told him that we are the "frozen chosen" a term often used to describe the many "mainline" churches in which proper white folks sit together silently praying or offering a loud pre-written prayers. We don't do much outside the "order" of things and God forbid we ask people to stand and move around - heck most of us even pass out communion in mini-glasses that resemble shots and cubes of bread. This is how we "do" worship and there is Holy and Sacred within this frozen and motionless service. For many of us, this is the only time during our busy and chaotic week that we have time to just breath and just be with God. There is a spiritual flare to the stillness and there is a sense of Holy in the quiet and there is a wonderful sense of comfort in the fact that we aren't taken out of our zone of vulnerability - our kernel although popped into popcorn through the heat of the Spirit doesn't have to worry about being broken. We don't have to worry about opening ourselves up to each other for we are all there for a different purpose - to worship our God in our private and yet collective way. For us our connectional church is one based on private understandings and private faith. And there is nothing wrong with this.
Except that those who are searching, those who are seeking to feel the Spirit in their lives want something MORE. People are claiming to be "spiritual and not religious" because at the end of the day to many people what happens in "religion" isn't real because they don't feel it.
People want to FEEL the power of the Spirit moving, and they want to experience God as Abraham experienced God - they want to walk along side the Holy, feeling the Holy's presence and they want to converse with the Holy. The want to feel the Divine Spirit like the Prophets of Old giving them messages and helping them see the light. People want the heat of the Spirit to truly transform them from a kernel to a piece of popcorn and to LIVE into that popcorn...to let their vulnerability be seen by others and to have that help create community.
For community doesn't happen when we keep our lives private or when we protect ourselves from pain. Community happens when we open ourselves up to each other - excepting help and excepting prayers. Excepting love and loving those around us. Community happens when we let ourselves me a popped corn in a huge bowl resting on the frailness of the corn below us, knowing that together we are uplifting and strengthening each other.
Somehow, we have lost this sense of the Spirit - perhaps in our desire to protect ourselves. Perhaps over time as the church has burnt bridges or caused hurt, we have silently gone to private worship. Maybe perhaps out of trying to control the Spirit we have lost understanding that the Spirit can't be controlled. For those who are seeking God anew, they understand this, they are looking forward to finding a place that they can let their Spirit go and feel empowered by the Holy around them. They are seeking a church home in which each person acknowledges their vulnerability and yet at the same time uplifts what they can do with the Spirit of God heating up their souls.
The good news? Not only is that there are churches burning with the Spirit out there but there are plenty of people whose Spirit is on fire - both within and outside the bounds of the "Church." There is a lot of movement of this wonderful heat and there is plenty of popcorn looking for a community for support. Let us help each other, let us find each other and let us uplift each other. Excepting each other vulnerabilities only to love each other and spread the will of God.
