Look Closer!

I want to be careful how I say or write this but it’s been on my heart lately as I hear and/or read preachers preaching about revival.

Every time I hear one say they are praying for revival I say, "look around. It's happening! Just maybe not in the way you like/think. But it's happening. A generation is indeed rising up. Look closer." 

Please, hear me out! I grew in a Baptist Church! I love my home church—KFBC for life! My years spent there were life changing and the discipleship that I received there has followed me all the way through my twenties!

But I have set foot in some churches over the last few years and heard preachers talking about all the things wrong with church what they think it “entertainment drive” or “not holy” or “being worldly to reach the world” and it hurts my heart.

Sometimes I wish I could take their hand and say would stop looking at all the things you THINK are wrong and look around! There is a generation of believers rising up! If you are not seeing it you’re not in the right place!

NO CHURCH gets it 100% right--but we can come preeeety close! But if the Word of God is beings preached, if people are coming to salvation through Jesus, being baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit then what is there to argue about!?

We are missing the point! The point is NOT the “type or music” or where there are “words on the screens” or “read from a hymnal.” God’s in all of it—you can’t tell he isn’t!

I’ll be honest! When I hear someone tell me that some churches feel like a “concert” then my response is usually that means you had fun, and it was load! I typically enjoy concerts. Some say it to mean it’s all about being entertained—but I’ve been to some churches were they get up there are to me personally when I am sitting down and you are singing that it a concert and you entertaining me—not when I’m engaged and being lead in a worship song!

The message is the same—the methods have to change! The last TWO NIGHTS I have heard the Gospel preached! Did we maybe do some fun and crazy things to get students to come—sure—but the what they walk out with is so much more!

I guess I just wish some people (not all) but some could look past the light, music, smoke, and at times craziness and see the mission and ministry beneath it!

One style of worship is not right and the other is wrong—if that’s what you’re preaching you need to stop! All you are doing is creating division where there doesn’t need to be any. That’s not even the point! Jesus didn’t die so we could argue over music preferences.

If you like southern Gospel—GREAT! I don’t. I prefer a good Hillsong, Kari Jobe, Jesus Culture, Passion, or Elevation Worship Album.

I like loud music and being able to sing at the top of my lungs, I don’t want to read out of book, and I don’t want to sit at any point during worshiping through music---I want to feel free to jump and clap and raise my hands without someone thinking I’m weird! It’s all done in reverence and out of love and joy!

If you don’t like all that “loud music” that’s okay. But don’t stand up and say that those of us who have churches that are “like that” are not preaching the truth of the Gospel—because that’s not true!

I agree—there are some out there that do “fit the bill” and are just about the numbers. But don’t put all churches that don’t “do church” in the more traditional way ” watered down.

Just like I don’t put all Baptist churches in one box—the two that I’ve had the joy of being a member of have been amazing and PRAISE THE LORD are nothing like what some people have shared with me. Some people have some read horror stories when it comes to church and for that I am sorry!

That’s what I mean by we are missing the point, I think.

My prayer is that we’ll get back to what it’s all about: reaching the lost, baptizing the saved and raising up and sending out!

If that is happening: If people are coming from death to life, being baptized, being offered community and discipleship in the Word of God and being prepared to be sent out into the Word to be City on a Hill—then I’m not sure we have anything to argue about!