Various elements within the church are, however, striving for change. After years of introducing praise and worship music into the opening exercises of my Bible class, younger members (mid-40’s on down), are becoming increasingly familiar with choruses by Integrity, Maranatha Music, Don Moen, Ron Kenoly, Bob Fitts, and their like. Bradley, our worship leader and choir director has been "fighting the good fight" by bringing in more and more praise music into our worship services. This all has not come without the consequent "traditional vs. contemporary" battles waged in Christ’s church throughout this country. To put it succinctly, our people have grown found of their standing order of worship, three choruses of "Nearer My God To Thee," sixty minute services, and everyone staying put in their pews, "I’ll thank you very much!". Got the picture?

Meanwhile, back at the invitation time…

Prior to Sunday’s message, I had entered into a prayer covenant with eleven of our members. I asked them to pray for a movement of the Spirit within the hearts of our people. I was planning on taking a risk by opening up our usual invitation to the congregation as whole and making it a time of prayer and spiritual renewal; something that I can’t remember having seen since I began attending there over 24 years ago. We always ask for anyone interested in accepting Christ as Savior or transferring their membership to come forward. However, what we don’t encourage is the coming forward of those in need of prayer; those hurting; those seeking healing of body, mind, or spirit; and, namely, those desiring to public approach the Throne of Grace in the midst of the Body. My fears were repeatedly played out in my mind’s eye in a mental vignette that went something like this: My message builds to a dramatic crescendo. The Body is encouraged to come forward to exchange their "fragile faith" for the "hem-grabbing" version. The invitation chorus begins. And there I am, standing alone on the podium with 350 quizzical, blank stares looking back at me. Not a pretty picture. I wrestled the week before with dumping the whole idea, but the Spirit kept coming back to me asking what variety of faith I was evidencing, fragile or hem-grabbing? Point taken, Lord.

So the message ended, the call to rise up and approach the Living God was given, and the music began. Now at this point, Bradley and I were to lead the congregation in a new chorus ("Come As You Are") by singing it as a duet. I turned and walked up on the podium from the front of the sanctuary from where I had been speaking. The song began and I shut my eyes to concentrate on the words and to enter into prayer. I don’t recall just how long I remained in that state, but when I opened my eyes I was not prepared for what I saw: People surging down and packing every aisle of the sanctuary! The pews, save for a handful of people, were empty! Not only that, but they were weeping! Older members, younger members, middleagers clustering together in prayer groups; hugging, weeping, laughing, praising, singing! Tradition-oriented followers were standing should-to-shoulder with hand-clapping, contemporary-oriented brothers and sisters. Our proper evangelical-ordered congregation was having a very charismatic moment! Since my eyes were initially shut, my wife, who was the pianist, told me afterwards that as soon as the invitation was given and the song began, people shot out of their pews. It was as if a fire had been ignited underneath them, she relayed. Now I’ll have to admit that I had counted on a few of my good friends and fans to politely and quietly move to the front pew so my spiritual experiment wouldn’t look too ill conceived should no one make a move. What, in fact, happened was that my prayer partners who had agreed to come forward to pray with anyone venturesome enough to respond, couldn’t reach the front of the sanctuary. The press and mass of Believers crowding in ahead of them was too much! Alleluia! The moment kept unfolding. We were well beyond our mandatory 11:00 am ending time and folks just kept weeping, hugging, and praying at the front of the sanctuary. They didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want it end. God, I’m sure, is hoping it never will.

People eventually did begin to melt away and move toward the lobby. From the comments I heard, they were as amazed by their own uncharacteristic behavior as I was. Nothing was scripted. Nothing was rehearsed. Nothing was done out of politeness. Plain and simple, it was the movement of the Spirit that we had been praying for. Are we different now as a people of God? In many ways we look the same, act the same, and still go about our routines in similar ways. However, all of us, I pray, are changed and have learned something valuable.

For me, two things stand out: First, if you give the Holy Spirit free reign in Christ’s Church, amazing and wonderful things will happen. Things that will still surprise the most "churched," the most jaded, and the most routinized of Believers. Secondly, even the most conservative of the Faithful long to touch and to be touched by Spirit-filled encounters. I know that for a fact, for I witnessed men and women praying and weeping together that cannot bring themselves to clap or lift their hands even once during a praise chorus.