There's this ‘thing' we refer to as the presence of God. I'm not sure if there is another way of labeling it or a more clever turn of phrase to correctly describe it. But then again I like the phrase the presence of God: that's exactly what it is. It does what it says on the tin.
It's when God is near, it's when God feels closer than the air in a steam room. It's when all this talk about ‘it' becomes talk about ‘Him'. And if we believe that God is not dead but alive, it is the most precious ‘commodity' we have.
When Jesus left earth to be with his father again he said that he would leave his ‘spirit' with us. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost, our comforter. It's the ‘spirit' that breathes life into the law. Now, laws are good but we know from the whole of human history that no one can keep them all. The law is just half the story - that's all it can only ever be. The ‘bestsellers' - the ones that have the whole story - always have the ‘spirit' imbedded in the plot.
It's in the presence of the living God that we are convicted of our sin. It is there that we realise how it's good to have boundaries, that it's good to stay out of trouble, that it's good to not pick the apple off the tree. It's when we make the choices to obey the law in the light of ‘his face' that we start to understand freedom.
I am enthralled by the story of Moses and the moment he heard the very voice of God coming from a burning bush. God always speaks in the most unusual of places and here was Moses taking his sandals off next to some tumbleweed that was on fire but not actually burning! [A complete aside: I wonder if I've ever appeared to be on fire but not been ‘on fire', so to speak.]
Anyhow, the thing that got Moses' attention was the very ‘presence' of God.
After realizing he was in the company of his maker he asked him a simple question.
"Who shall I say has sent me?"
"I AM WHO I AM", "I AM has sent me to you". Enough said.
In the last 20 years we have had a revolution in the way we present ourselves as church. When I was a kid I remember the first time I asked if we could have a drum kit in the evening service and whether I could play a ‘real' guitar, the kind you plugged into a Vox AC30. The organist, a very sweet lady, thought that everyone had gone to the ‘dark side', but to be fair to her she soldiered on believing that without her the sound would be ‘dull'.
Nowadays it is commonplace for there to be Coldplay sound-alike worship bands all across the world playing modern hymns on a Sunday morning. I love it, I celebrate it and I think God loves it too. I also think God loves the creativity. Skinny-fit jeans for socks and sandals, sculptured haircuts instead of comb-overs, tattoos for rainbow straps and ‘church news' on a video screen the width of Tower bridge.
I love it all.
But I sometimes get nervous. I worry that we don't need God anymore. We don't feel the need to take our shoes off.
Do we really miss him these days? After all our church meetings have become ‘perfect' now, we have learnt how to ‘do it', we have got the thing down at last.
And anyway, who needs God when we can sing ‘Historymaker' to make us feel good underneath the new lighting rig?
I am not a cynic, I am part of the problem.
We have led ourselves to believe that these things will attract the ‘non churched' or make Jesus ‘cool' again to a post modern secular society. I'm sorry if the ‘show' ever got in the way of the ‘nooma'. Humans want to be loved not impressed.
I am glad of the pioneering spirit that has taken church into a new century but we must never forget the most powerful thing we have, our distinctive, our joy our prize... the presence of God.
Let's not retreat into old nostalgic patterns but keep pushing the creative boundaries, but in it all let's know deep in our bellies that ‘apart from you, we are nothing'
We can have ‘everything' but nothing if we leave God at stage left. Even Wayne Rooney can't score from the bench. God wants to be involved, to breathe life into people, to heal cancers, to open blind eyes, to help someone out of debt or help them through the pain of betrayal.
He can take our ‘foolishness' and make it great. He can live in the chaos and bring truth. He can take an old lady on the organ and breathe life into her ageing fingers so that when she plays the peoples hearts break.
God is not impressed with excellence, but purity. God is bored with air-brushed worship and just delights in a sacrifice of praise. This means anyone can do it, everyone is included. All we have to do is invite God to the party and we will see a tsunami of his power flood the earth once more.
Believe me, we are not going back, we must go forward. When anyone asks who sent us, we can confidently reply, "I AM has sent me to you". This goes for the old geezer on the tambourine (yes he seems to get around!) or Chris Tomlin crooning in a stadium. Our trust is not in the sound system but in the voice of God. No longer the songs but the one who sings over us.
God can do amazing things when he's on the pitch, and you know what?
He never misses.
- Martin Smith from Delirious?
