BibleScribbler

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Reflections from the Asbury Revival

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  • I looked around at such a huge crowd of people, and God loves them so much. I was moved at the thought of what a great number of people God has saved!
  • Romans 14 stuff. I don’t have to fix everyone or judge how everyone is doing. I had a hard time for a bit judging people that were there. This wasn’t about that at all. It was about attention on worshipping the Lord.
  • We were waiting out on the lawn, looking at the 4 hour line, and I said we should just start praying and worshipping right there. My daughter said “yeah, what are we waiting for?” and we all started singing. There were about 100 people on the lawn and many of them had hands raised and were singing or praying. But there were hundreds to thousands in the line waiting. Some of them were singing or praying, but nowhere close to the majority. The majority were just standing around and talking like they were in line for a movie. I don’t want to be too critical of them, but I am a little bit. If that whole crowd would have just gathered together instead of spreading out in a line on the sidewalk for a half mile, the whole place would have transformed! At one point I shouted “The louder you sing, the warmer you get!” because it was 21 degrees out there. One guy shouted “Hallelujah” from the lawn, but the line didn’t start singing.
  • If all of the men would have grouped together outside and worshipped and let the women and children inside, that would have changed everything. I saw old women waiting in line outside while young studs stood with their cell phones videoing inside the main room. C’mon guys!
  • It was really really good to have a dedicated 3-hour prayer and worship time. When you have a long time to do that, you pray and worship in a completely different way. You sing choruses more times over and over again if you aren’t rushing through a setlist. I bet we sang some choruses 15 times, and it was good. You got to a point where you really got to pray the words as you sang them.
  • Since the event was not time-specific, there was a very free come-and-go feel to it. We showed up and joined in on whatever song we wanted. You could stop and sit down and pray or use the bathroom or eat a snack and then join right back in. There was no sermon to get to or schedule. I’m curious how much this is critical to a revival type of event like this. Everyone knew it was just going to be an ongoing thing. Nobody was anxious to get to anything (except maybe the people freezing in line for the main room. I’m still curious about how cutting works in that line.)
  • I talked to a guy at the overflow church where we were. He said “Yeah, we’re not going to do this tomorrow, we’re going to have church. So we’ll have to block off parking so our people can come and we can have our church service.” That struck me as so weird. There is this amazing thing happening 5 blocks away, that 10,000 people are coming to (we met some from Atlanta!) and you’re going to kick them out so you can have your weekly church service? In a city of 6,000 people, with 13 churches (I counted), you are going to turn away pilgrims coming for this event so your congregation can do their weekly thing? I mean, I guess it is the Sunday before Lent, so that’s a big deal, right?
  • It was so good to have so many different songs and types of songs. The Body of Christ is diverse and we’re all coming from different cultures. I loved to sing some of those songs and I was able to participate and engage in a lot. Another group got up and led worship for a while and that wasn’t my style. BUT I could tell that they were certainly worshiping Jesus in the style most comfortable to them. That gave me a great opportunity to appreciate some other people pray differently for a while, and join in when I wanted. All worship music is about preference. It really is. Otherwise we’d all be singing only 1000 BC hebraic songs in Hebrew. I don’t think that’s necessary. It was great to sing different styles of worship songs.
  • Don’t let the spectators get you down. While we were in the overflow church, singing and praying, I could hear a murmur in the room. I stopped and looked around, and there were a lot of people just sitting and chatting. It was like they were watching a baseball game. At one point I did some instruction on intercessory prayer with my kids, so I was talking too, so I shouldn’t be quick to put down everyone in the room, but I doubt they were doing that. It didn’t seem like it. If you go to a place where people are doing a lot of praying and praising God, don’t get the popcorn and sit around and talk about it. Respect the place. Respect the tone in the room.
  • My kids commented that we’re really glad we went to this after watching the Chosen scenes with the crowds. It’s cool to see hundreds and hundreds of people displaced to go draw close to Jesus. It definitely had a feed the 5,000 feel to it. We were too cold, away from home, wanting to worship Jesus. That was awesome.

The People of God: A Praise Factory

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What if we considered ourselves a praise factory? What if the Church was a factory for God’s praise? When we praise God, we celebrate His person, presence, and actions. One Hebrew word for this is Halal, which means to shine and boast, all in one.

How do you like that? We are a factory for shining the boasts of God. Or maybe we are the shining boasts of God?

we were made to worship God together

How about that sentence: “Unity and Praise are constitutive?” As in part of what makes us Christians, what makes us the people of God, is our unity together as we praise the one true and living God?

This comment was great “Praise and worship is like we all bring our faith and dump it together in a pot.” That is the truth. When we come together to sing songs to God, or to pray and give Him glory, it makes a better thing than if we only did it by ourselves in isolation.

Wonder and Praise in Luke 1

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I love the way that twice, in the opening chapter of the Gospel of Luke, there is wonder and awe at God.

First from Zechariah,

Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is old as well.” (‭Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭18‬ NET)

Then from Mary,

Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I have not had sexual relations with a man?” (‭Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭34‬ NET)

The other neat thing that shows up three times is worship.

Elizabeth:

“This is what the Lord has done for me at the time when he has been gracious to me, to take away my disgrace among people.” (‭Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭25‬ NET)

Mary:

And Mary said, “My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has begun to rejoice in God my Savior, (‭Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭46-47‬ NET)

And finally Zechariah, since he lost his voice for most of this chapter,

Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because he has come to help and has redeemed his people. (‭Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭67-68‬ NET)

I just quoted the first few lines of each of their praises, but if you don’t know what to pray today, you can’t go wrong reading through Luke 1.