Does God Show Up?

"God just seemed to show up." I have heard this phrase numerous times this past week and have used it myself in the past. It is most often used to describe the unexpected awareness we have of the presence of God in corporate worship. In the midst of prayer, singing, a message, a prayer station or what have you, you as a person or a community as a whole become acutely aware of the presence and immanence of God. As worship choreographers you then begin to wonder if there was anything you did to facilitate God showing up. This awareness can be joyful and ecstatic causing us to celebrate or overwhelming and dreadful bringing us to our knees. But does God show up? Can God be absent and then arrive? Isn't God always present even when we do not have any particular response to a corporate gathering of worship? Does God show up or is it rather that we for whatever reason are willing and able to hear and respond?

Let me ask it another way. Are the thin places that the Celts talk about, God breaking in to time and space or are they when and where WE become of the ever-present presence of God that is constantly among us and permeates every nook and cranny of the world he made?

Howard Thurman in talking about the role of spiritual exercises in the life of the follower of Jesus says, they "build an immunity against the confusion and distractions of environment... they do not guarantee that the Spirit will be encountered but they do prepare the way of response to his movement.” Communal and personal practices help prepare us to be expectant to see and hear God. I don't think God shows up. I think God is always present and longing to communicate to us through the Holy Spirit, the word, culture, nature, or another person. Whether in the corporate gathering of worship; or in the cubicle at work; or in the encounter of a panhandler on the street; or the brilliant orange sunset sky - God is present, active and speaking.

The question is are we looking, expecting and even searching for divine encounters in our normal everyday life.

“Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.” (Romans 12:1-2, the Message)

Sea spray

Thanks to Maggi Dawn whose blog I stole this quote from.

The author C. S. Lewis once wrote that there is all the difference in the world between reading a map of the coastline and feeling the spray of the ocean upon your face. People come to church, he said, not to be taught to read maps [about God], but to feel the spray.

Thanks to my community the Open Door who helps me feel the sea spray upon my face every day.

reverence

I want to spend the next few weeks bloggin’ some thoughts on the values of the Open Door as we prepare to transition to a new neighborhood, a new friendship with the Union Project and a new gathering space. These values are in no particular order for any particular reason, they are just there.

Reverence: We recognize God as Creator, Savior, and Sustainer. We value God’s purposes, plans and perspectives first and foremost. Our highest priority is to give honor and glory to God in all we do. We are compelled to pray, worship, and pursue God in our daily lives and as a church community.

When we started the Open Door two years ago we said that if we stopped doing two things we should just quit. The first of those two things is revering, honoring and worshiping God. The most important thing in life is to honor God in everything we do (Col. 3:17). The first question in the Westminster Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of humanity?” The traditional answer is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” John Piper changes one word, “to glorify God while enjoying him forever.” He calls this Christian Hedonism. The task of bringing honor and glory to God in all we do is not some kind of Puritanical pietistic drudgery but rather it is living life in complete alignment with the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. When we seek to align and surrender our values, priorities, lifestyle, heart and mind with Gods we enjoy Him and life is experienced to the full (John10:10). The whole of life is worship unto God. Therefore we seek to revere God as we play, shop, study, pray, eat, sing, create, compete, work, study, rest, converse, run, build, and on and on. We do not see a dualism between the sacred and the secular. All of life either can be worship unto God. We either bend the knee to the Creator or something created. All people every where worship. We are inherently religious beings. So in order to help us remember that we gather together regularly to honor God through a variety of expressions. The worship gathering for us is a communal practice to remind one another that our chief goal is glorify God while enjoying him forever. Practicing reverence reminds us to engage the beauty of God and “to forget ourselves in remembering God” (NT Wright). As the PCUSA Directory of Worship states, “In worship the people of God acknowledge God present in the world and in their lives. As they respond to God’s claim and redemptive action in Jesus Christ, believers are transformed and renewed. In worship the faithful offer themselves to God and are equipped for God’s service in the world.” We regularly practice revering God as a community in order to become the sent people he longs for us to be. For true reverence, honor and worship of God always leads and propels us into mission.

next up friendship