From my personal experience i am of the opinion that there are many throughout the ranks of the church who are not "born again". For richer and for poorer i have been in the RCA all my life but i was not "born again" until my late 40s - i was as Nicodemus, i was not "born of water and the Spirit" (John 3:5).

Perhaps there is little Spirit to quench if many within the church are simply members and not "born again", and then the work of the church and worship becomes "labor."

Blessings ><>

I wonder if the Sleeping Congregation picture is keeping them away?

See if the " Blog Master" can delete the picture, and I'm sure many more people (especially the gals) will give their take on your subject.

KD

Brouwer was outspoken in his deep concern over those of us who structure things to quench the flow, let alone those of us who outright fear and even resist experiencing the presence of the Spirit.

He was also very concerned (as he mentions in a quote for next time) about folks who pump services up and pass off nonsense as if it were proof of God's presence.
I share Brouwer's (and your) concern. In fact, silliness and manufactured "enthusiasms" in worship are definitely topics for a future blog.

Meanwhile, I'll confess that my wife and I are huge fans of silent and contemplative worship as found in certain sorts of "Taizé" services. Also, I'm a big fan of both quiet mountain retreats and huge worship concerts. Personally, I like all kinds of worship, and I experience intimacy with God in a variety of ways. But I do not expect everyone to share my taste, and I certainly value the way others experience intimacy with God.

My goal in this particular blog was to challenge churches and those of us who are sliding in the direction of self-confessed empty worship experiences to pause and consider what we are doing... to wonder if there might more that could happen as we worship than simply to get through the liturgy and go home with our "duty" done for another week. Given the decline in attendance at so many RCA churches, this seems a worthy issue to raise.

It seems that if people were having authentic encounters with God in our Sunday services, they would want to come on Sunday, and they would want to bring their friends. Declines in Sunday attendance can be attributed to many factors, but lack of encounters with God should not be on the list or reason why people stay home... but I fear that it may in some cases.

While it is true that the Spirit speaks in both fire and whispers, it is also true that the prophetic dimension of God's discourse is often experienced as startling.

What a shame if our Sunday services are structured to preclude even the possibility of any "startling" encounters with God.

I close by quoting myself:

"Is it possible that some of us have set up our Sunday liturgies, our lifestyles --even our theologies-- in ways that defend and protect us against anything startling that the Holy Spirit might want to do?

Sure it's possible." --- Dave

From an article I'll post a link to at the end....

The trouble with “social justice” begins with the very meaning of the term.
Hayek points out that whole books and treatises have been written about social
justice without ever offering a definition of it. It is allowed to float in
the air as if everyone will recognize an instance of it when it appears. This
vagueness seems indispensable. The minute one begins to define social justice,
one runs into embarrassing intellectual difficulties. It becomes, most often,
a term of art whose operational meaning is, “We need a law against that.” In
other words, it becomes an instrument of ideological intimidation, for the purpose
of gaining the power of legal coercion.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/defining-social-justice-29

Mary's "central" role in so much Christian art, including Pentecost images, is partly due to the huge dramatic role she occupied in Medieval passion plays, esp. from John's gospel scenes at the cross. These powerful and beloved plays created a Christian "pop culture" (which Roman Catholic theology increasingly reinforced) wherein Mary served as an emotional and "nurturing" counterpoint and balance to all the heavy male roles.

Additionally, some argue that the Holy Spirit's essence leans toward the feminine through several attributes (such as "Healer," "Comforter," "Giver of new life," etc.) in such a way that in Pentecost scenes a centrally placed Mary helps visually state the presence of the third person of the Trinity.

Renaissance artists inherited the power of all the established Medieval Passion Play devices and icons, and exploited and manipulated the Mary figure as one of the most powerful of the lot. Add to this the iconography of "heaven" (so central in cathedral art) where Mary is identified in Revelation 12:2 with the Queen of Heaven, and then it makes sense why Mary gets so much attention in classical art.

Further, the Catholic church commissioned so many paintings, including overstated Countereformation works glorifying Mary in order to make the Reformers appear unsentimentally if not irreligiously rationalistic, that Catholic art more or less established the only "recognizable" images in the market.

Hence, when printers (even non-Catholic) started running woodcuts like the ones that I collect, they reached for familiar Catholic stock images to get the job done in the least number of strokes possible.

These early woodcuts continued to reinforce and deepen expectations for "accurate" representations of Jesus, Moses, angels, etc., as well as for all the most familiar Bible scenes and characters, including Mary.

Later Bible illustrators and religious artists had a choice: either build on the past, or make a statement through deviation. Most pre-20th century artists didn't have anything against Mary per se, so out of respect and commercial self interest, most continued to show her just the way folks expected to find her.

That's a partial answer.... dissertations have been written about this very issue!

Under the Mercy, Dave Cheadle

Eric, you gave us a question of praying for people after they have died. The elders of the church will pray for God's mercy and grace in the midst of the pain for those that die and are prepared for God to work the supernatural miracle of bringing someone back to life. We know that this is happening around the globe and will joyfully see it happen in our midst too. I have asked them to pray diligently for me if God chooses to work this miracle and uses me in the process. I pray that you would pray the same if you heard something tragic happened as well. I would hope that all would pray.

I also know though as I study scripture and prayer that David prayed for his son and when word came that he died, he stopped pleading before God. I'm not sure why this happened one time and another time Jesus calls Lazarus back from the grave. We are following the commands of Luke 24 and whatever Jesus did or whatever Jesus prayed for we will pray for as we are clothed in the power that He has given to us and we expect to see the Kingdom come in the community that we are in and hope it spreads throughout. God have mercy if we don't follow this order placed before us in scripture or if we don't pray for those that are sick or died.

I am very sympathetic with what David Cheadle wrote and believe also that S&Ws should be part and parcel of the church's ministry. It was very much a part of Jesus' ministry; so often in the Synoptics Jesus proclaims the Kingdom and then does a mighty deed as a visible proclamation. And this is carried on by the Apostles in the book of Acts. In fact, Acts is the continuation of Jesus" two-track ministry through the Apostles empowered by the Spirit. Pentecost is the transfer and empowering of Jesus' ministry of Word and Mighty Deed to the Apostles.

That brings me to my final point. Pentecost, which we celebrate this coming Sunday, is the heart of the matter. And the heart of Pentecost is the fullness of the Spirit which the ascended Christ gives to his people. Fullness of the Spirit comes first; then the signs and wonders. Fullness of the Spirit comes with repentance (emptying of the unholy) and asking to be filled with the holy.

Being filled with the Spirit is not a constant state. We need to be refilled daily which calls for daily repentance and seeking His fullness. Here's to a Spirit-filled Pentecost!

Gene Vander Well