Needed, A New Way to Meet #3: The Body of Christ: A New Way to Experience Church Life

Pentecostals, last year at our conference, someone was leading the singing and started what you call singing in the Spirit. I got up and said something about it; I was trying to moderate it to keep people from being scared out of their wits because, as I recall, it was the very first meeting. I know a lot of people were there wondering what kind of creature I was, and we were singing in the Spirit at the very first meeting. I just remarked that it’ll fit for some of you, some of us, such as myself; it’s not something I understand; it’s not part of my culture. Well, that’s all I said, but that’s not all I felt.

Do you realize that singing in the Spirit scares the wits out of everybody who is not Pentecostal? Absolutely; it troubles anyone without a Pentecostal background. There is a difference between background and culture, and if we understood that, we should express our culture but very little about our background; we would have had another week. It was a Pentecostal background, and it’s just great. I’m not fussing about it. I like to steal a lot of things from it, and do, but one of the things you do that scares the daylights out of us is singing in the spirit.

Now, if you were to stand up and say, ” Let us all make funny noises that sound like a Gregorian chant that had no particular words, with no rhyme or reason to them,” then that’s all right. Well, I can go on with that. I’ll start going…I don’t know exactly what you do. I can’t quite do it. It doesn’t sound like tongues. I don’t know what that is. I know what tongues are. I’ve had a lot of tongues talking around me, but I don’t know exactly what it is. I don’t know what it sounds like. It sounds like a Gregorian chant; I don’t doubt that that’s what it is, whether you know it or not. But it scares the wits out of the rest of us.

Now, there are things that Baptists do that reflect their background, and a Baptist ought to really try his best to be rid of that. Episcopalians are going to really have trouble because they have a European background, whether they realize that or not, in their worship, but in fact, there is an American culture. Any human being who walks into our meeting, and I’m speaking of the standard of a meeting, ought to feel perfectly relaxed from the beginning to the end. If you can grab hold of that, we will take our first step towards some of the things, some of the things we can do as Christians for a meeting.

Now, this is what I want to say to you. If you go to another nation and you don’t know what church meetings are like, do two things. Go to the birthday parties and go to their sports. Get in on some little, insignificant, not-too-complicated native ritual. Go to a birthday party among Americans, and you’ll get a big insight into what Americans are like. Go to their games and see what a robust people they are. A really robust people. I’m talking about things you and I aren’t even aware we do. The best way I can do this is to move this to another nation.

I’m going to tell my story about a church in Japan. I probably saw the only cultural Japanese natural expression of the church that’s ever existed in Japan. It’s all been Western. A group of about 20 to 25 kids had received help from the Chinese. Two of their brothers went to meetings in Taiwan. They came back home, taught it all, and practiced it.

Now, the Chinese didn’t practice what they heard; they just heard it. These people practiced it. They began writing songs to their own native tunes. Will you hear that, please? To their own native tunes. They sat on the floor using this part of their leg as their chair. It’s not a squat; I don’t know exactly what you call it. I don’t know if it’s got a name, when you sit down on your calves or your lower legs. And they didn’t say “amen”; they just nodded their heads. Everything about their meeting was totally pure Japanese.

We are one of the nations in this world that will touch one another. The British don’t touch one another, but for some reason, American Christians don’t touch one another nearly as much as you would think they would. The British don’t touch one another, but for some reason, American Christians don’t touch one another nearly as much as you would think they would. And that is, to me, very strange. Christians probably touch one another more than a lot of other people do, but we don’t touch one another enough. We could improve on that…a whole lot, huh? Not all of us do.

Now, I’ve got a rule to cover, and this is just the beginning. I don’t want any of you to start thinking that when I started this subject, this is all I’ve got to say about meetings. There are at least a thousand ways to meet, but I’m going to talk about singing for a moment. I don’t understand why, in the last ten years, we’ve almost totally sold out to the Psalms. Nor do I see anything in the singing of those psalms. I don’t see any edification in it. I don’t see any content in it. I don’t see anything in it. I don’t see anything in it whatsoever. …and Jacob shall arise, and Jacob shall arise….how, in the name of sanity and all the riches of Jesus Christ, do you sing about Jacob shall arise, hallelujah. What does it mean? …and Israel saw something or other, and they saw something else. Sometimes it didn’t even have the word praise in it—just words. Old Testament words put to some kind of music that I can never catch the melody to. It takes me a week to learn the thing, and I haven’t gotten anything.

I’m going to say one more thing here; I’m running down the present-day singing of songs. Oh, my land alive, Gene. Can you distinguish between fun and parties? Can you tell the difference between what appeals to your heart and what appeals to your foot? I am for fun in a meeting. Don’t misunderstand me; I am not conservative with this. You can dance in a meeting. That’s fine. I won’t be doing it with you because I’m a Baptist, and dancing is sin (laughter). And that’s just… You go ahead and do that, but there ought to be content and purpose in everything we do. This thing that we’ve been doing for the last 10 years, that singing of Psalms, is a total waste of time when there is so much glory and praise for Christ. At least rewrite the Psalms and what they meant and said about your Lord. Change the words and meaning and bring them to me; we’re the redeemed of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, I’m going to declare war on background. What is truly part of our culture? The old classical hymns are part of our culture. Is acid rock Christian music part of our culture?  The answer is it remains to be seen. In 30 years, people will be able to tell us whether it is. If it is, then I would say use it. I don’t want to say that(laughter); my wife and I will be dead. If it has really stuck and found a place in the Christian faith, fine; I don’t think it will. I find it appeals to neither my spirit nor my soul. It doesn’t even appeal to my body. It doesn’t appeal to my ears. I don’t know what that thing appeals to. I’m frightened about that. I think some of you may be thinking, “Gene is really, really conservative here about meetings.” I am not. Just wait. I am not, but I want to make a point here. I don’t see any reason to sing things that have no purpose, edification, or content.

Now let me tell you what, in this one man’s bull-headed opinion, is part of our culture. Do you know that “Amazing Grace” is set to a drunkard’s tune? That doesn’t offend you, does it? You knew that, and it is probably the greatest hymn of all time. Certainly, it has been honored more than any other hymn ever written. It still gives me goosebumps, and it came out of a tavern, a beer-drinking tavern song in Great Britain, but it was part of the culture, and somebody sat down there and put Christian words to it.