Needed: A New Way to Meet #1: History of Church Meetings – Why Do We Meet This Way?

Now, our concept, whether we are in the organized church or we’re meeting in homes, of the Christian meeting is to sing songs, pray a little bit, and if we are outside the organized church meeting, we might even share a little bit, and then we’re going to have a message. Now, that’s in a home, and that’s in a building. I’m standing up on my hind legs, and I’m telling you it’s all foolishness—every bit of it. The entire concept needs to be ripped down totally, absolutely, from the bottom to the top.

Now, today, we have the following kinds of churches. I’m going to try to go through them right quickly. The churches in Europe are state churches. Name them really quickly, please. See if you can do it. Anglican. Lutheran. Presbyterian. I think that’s about it, isn’t it? Okay, hang on. Episcopal is the way Americans spell English. Alright, deader than a doorknob. Presbyterians, frontal lobe. Lutherans, tradition. Catholics and Episcopalians, you know the old saying, Episcopalian is a Catholic who failed Latin. We have the independent churches, the free churches that have more or less mimicked them in their Sunday morning worship service. Then you have the parachurch organizations, who are very loose in their singing and very enjoyable, and then you have us outside the organized church.

Before we get into them, I want to bring you two kinds of churches you may not be aware of. I have named them. One is the Super Church. The Super Church. Hot dog. I’m going to name the other one right quick: the Glory Church. The Super Church and the Glory Church. I want to be a member of the Super Church and the Glory Church; that’s where I really want to put my membership. You go in and sit down and…a friend of mine said that you’ve got everything the Christian faith can give you and everything the world can give you, all in one place. We are teetering on the brink of a whole new age for evangelical Christianity. God alone knows where it will lead us, but we are in the midst of a revolution.

One of the great women singers of our day came to Portland, Maine, the other day. I was out of town. My wife was there. The auditorium is filled with thousands of expectant Christians. The curtain throws open, and the entire stage fills with smoke. Lightning and thunder and fire, and a great chorus breaks out. In a short crescendo, a spotlight comes on, and in the midst of the fog emerges this nationally famous young lady, and she begins singing, and the crowd goes wild.

Now, that’s what the super church will give you. A choir that sings like you can’t believe. They have drums and bugles, and they have trumpets, and they’ve got all this stuff. On top of that, they have a great chorus, and they have got music from every instrument on the earth. And good night…a little organ over here, a piano over here, maybe three or four pianos, four or five organs. Who knows what else they got? They’ve got puppets behind you, and they’ve got it all in stereo, and lights are turning on and off. They’ve got it on television. They’ve got it on the radio. They’ve got it coming to you in stereo. Boy, it is exciting, folks. You’ve been there, haven’t you? It’s wonderful. And you say, I’m going to join along with these other 55,000 people that church has.

I tell you, my mouth waters, and at the same time I get sick at heart. How are we ever going to compete with that? The super church. The glory church is like the super church. It’s just smaller…and we all want to go join. In fact, I would give you a word of advice. Join the blooming thing. This is the place where you come in, and everybody is free, and everything is informal, and there are hundreds of people there. There’s the pianist and, again, the organ, and there are singing choruses, and everybody is lifting their hands and praising God, and maybe there’s even sharing, and it is all so loose and informal. It’s glory. Glory. Glory. It just has a little problem: come back two years later, and by Henry, they are sitting there doing the same thing. Just like the Methodists and the Baptists do, only their congregation is now half that size.

Someone told me about a super church in Southern California. I don’t know if this is true. He said every two years that congregation is totally new. It’s a complete turnover. Can anybody verify that observation from your own experience? You can? Yes. Definitely. I’ve been in contact with two Glory churches for the past five years; that’s my observation. We can take that singing and that glory for just so long.

I want to say something to the glory churches and the super churches: I don’t care what you do or how glorious it is; it eventually gets boring. It becomes a ritual, and brother, one day you’ll have the same problems as the rest of us. You can listen to those bands and those drums just so long, and the people sit there, and they get just as tired as a woman Catholic does going through the Hocus Pocus on Sunday morning in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. And the musicians get tired, too; the musicians get tired of it.

I’m going to say a kind word here to the musicians. Musicians, are you listening to me? It was the tradition, I hope you are hearing me, all of you, of the Roman Catholic Church to take right-brained people and give them a job painting their cathedrals. Now, do you know what a right-brained person is? They are someone who is not fit for this world. They cannot make an honest day’s living at anything practical; a dreamer. Hey, listen, don’t laugh too hard, I’m right-brained. I may not be, but I definitely tend that way.

Have you ever tried to hire an artist to do something for you, like printing or something? Oh, here he is. Oh, yes, I can do that. Oh, I have very little to do right now. Yes, it’s a slow period. I’ll be happy to get it to you in two weeks. Two weeks later, who are you? Oh, I’m so sad; I’ve slowed down. In fact, I am skiing in the Alps. That’s where I’m slowing down, and you come back three weeks later, and four weeks later, and a month later, two months later, three months later, look, I’m thinking about it… They used to turn church buildings over to these people. They’d give them a roof or a door or a ceiling or a wall and say, there, have fun, and they would pay them.

You want to know the name of some of those people: Michelangelo. Right-brain painter. That man couldn’t have gotten a job doing anything if it hadn’t been for the fact that the Catholic Church had most of the money in the Western world. Did you know that at one time the Roman Catholic Church owned 60% of Europe? Its land, 60% of Europe’s land, most of its wealth was in its churches and in its government houses, and everybody else was starving. All right, so today the super churches give these right-brained musicians… a place to sing and to play instruments.

Now listen, those people would be out there…forgive me, hey, I’m being extreme here, this is not a fair statement, but those people would be playing in a rock band if they hadn’t gotten hired in that church building. Oh, but they got converted. Great, they got converted. They don’t have to bring that stuff inside. They don’t have to bring that stuff to me. The matrix always wins out. The atmosphere around you wins out. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is seeing a convulsion in its worship and in its music, and it is the world. It’s all those right-brained musicians who got converted, and they’re coming in, and we’re so glad that whole acid rock band got saved and they’re down at our church now doing wonderful things. They will get tired of doing it, and they will go away, and we will never hear from them again. And this is kind of where we are right now.