Allowing the Holy Spirit to Control Your Meeting (Walters)
Allowing the Holy Spirit to Control Your Meeting
by David Walters
I remember being at a church years ago when I was trying to help them with their worship. I suggested to the worship team that they sing the songs which the Holy Spirit tells them, rather than songs from a rehearsed list. They said it was impossible to do that as they had to have the music, because they couldn’t sing songs for which they didn’t have the music.
To me it was kinda like a preacher saying that he can only preach from a printed sermon, or he must have his notes, otherwise he is unable to minister. What ever happened to spontaneity? What ever happened to being Spirit led and God being in control?
I believe that we should not hold church services, but have church meetings. When churches have an order of service or a printed program then that may be the religious way, but not the Bible way. If you were to attend a church service and start up a song, share a vision, a prophecy, a testimony, or a word of exaltation, you would more than likely be told to sit down, because you would be out of order. The justification scripture would be, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” (1.Cor.14:40 KJV)
But God’s order is different from man’s order and God’s ways are different from man’s ways even man’s religious ways. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” ( Isa 55:9 KJV). If you want everything in so much order I suggest you find a suitable graveyard!
When Jesus was approached by Nicodemas he was told that he must be born again. When Nicodemas questioned how, Jesus told him that he needed to be born again of water and the spirit. Then Jesus said the following, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) In other words True Christians are supposed to be like the wind, unpredictable.
Our lives should be an adventure where we don’t ever quite know what the Lord has in store for us. We are not supposed to have everything and every minute mapped out. We can be living in a rut, but a rut is a shallow grave, and nothing ever changes.
So when we come together corporately, our gatherings, or meetings, should also be unpredictable, like the wind. “What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation.” 1.Cor.14:26. Every time we gather together the Lord has a purpose, a theme, a message for His people. We gather together as a Body primarily for worship, exhortation, celebration and revelation. Teaching with line upon line and precept upon precept, is really for the special Apostolic teaching meetings.
Everything should flow like a piece of music. A symphony, a melody theme, flows through with variations, but at the end everyone recognizes the melody, the theme, the message. It’s come through the songs that are brought by the Spirit, the visions shared, the prophecies, and tongues given, the message preached. They all connect. No one is unsure what God is saying, even the children and youth understand it, because they also participate. Not all the songs come from the worship teams and not all the songs or worship is done at one time. A song may come, followed by a prophecy. Then another song, followed by a vision. Then perhaps a testimony, with another song. They all connect so that at the end the pastor sums up what the Lord is telling and showing the Body for that week.
Every week God has things to say to His people. We no longer suffer canned services, canned preaching, or canned worship. It becomes exciting. Miracles begin to happen, signs and wonders are present, people are ministering and activated. They are no longer passive, just observing, but involved and activated. We are now having a God meeting, rather than a good meeting.
Years ago, when we had these kinds of meetings in England, an Anglican Curate, (which is an associate minister), visited us. After the meeting was over, He said to me,”What a wonderful meeting that was, everything just fitted together so well. You must have rehearsed for days.” “No I said, we didn’t know what was going to happen; we just followed the leading of the Holy Spirit.” “That was amazing.” he said, “I can hardly believe it.”
The local Body became so mature that the Saints would only respond to what the Lord was saying or doing. If someone got up and started a song which was not what they felt the Lord was saying, they didn’t participate or respond and after a couple of verses sung, the song would fade away. If we felt the presence of God wasn’t really there, we would close the meeting and acknowledge that we missed God. We would have a coffee.
That did not happen often, but we were so hungry to meet with God, and not just have a meeting, even a good meeting. Many churches can organize good meetings, but good can become the enemy of God, because we can become content with “good” and miss the anointing.
One of the greatest needs in the church today, is to teach and show people how to be Spirit led. Even many pastors need to learn how to be Spirit led and be delivered from the fear of losing control. They need to trust the Holy Spirit’s leading and presence in the church meetings. The worship leaders need to learn how to be Spirit led, and stop trying to be in control. If elders, pastors, leaders and worship leaders, keep controlling the meetings and the people, they will never enjoy the real power and presence of the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ will never mature. Where you allow life to flow, there will be messes. If you don’t want messes, keep organized, keep everyone in order, then you will have sterile meetings. “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much revenue {comes} by the strength of the ox.” (Prov.14:4)
A young evangelist who traveled with me was in one of our meetings on a Sunday morning. The meeting was packed and there were many visitors. Sometime during the meeting he stood up and said, “The Lord has shown me that there are six people here that are involved in immorality and if you don’t stand up right away, I will stand in front of you until you do. One by one, six people stood up for prayer and deliverance.” “And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last; and great fear came over all who heard of it.” (Acts 5:5)
Young teenagers used to say, “We can go to our Evangelical church and mess about at the back and go out in the parking lot in the dark and fool around, but when we come to your meetings we are scared because be know our sins will probably be exposed.
In another meeting of a church there was a visiting pastor who arrived with some of his congregation because he heard of the remarkable moving of the Spirit.
During the meeting there was a call for baptism and a number of his congregation went forward to be baptized. He was confused and finally prayed, “Lord I don’t know about this baptism. If You want me to be baptized you need to write it on the wall, only I need see it, but write it on the wall.”
There was a cross painted on the wall of the church with a scroll around the cross which said “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” The pastor said, “Lord write it on the wall, like the cross.” Immediately a little old lady in the back of the church stood up and prophesied, “Why do you say to God, write it on the wall, when He has already written on the tables of your heart?” I think you can imagine his response! He ran to get baptized.
When this revival was happening, I took my Dad and Mother to the meeting at this church. She was a little Catholic lady and was very apprehensive, because she had never been to a Holy Spirit led Body ministry meeting. I discovered that there was a German Roman Catholic priest in the meeting. He was a professor of comparative religion. He had been to many different kinds of strange meetings including séances. I said to her, “Mom keep and eye on the Catholic Priest. If he likes the meeting then you will know its OK with God.”
The meeting started with worship, dancing, words of knowledge, and visions, coming forth, when suddenly the priest stood up and let out a blood curdling scream and run down the isle, fell on his back and slid along the floor knocking chairs in every direction. My mother stood up and said, “They are killing the priest!” “They are killing the priest!” and she ran out of the church and ran down the road with me following, trying to stop her.
Eventually I was able to calm her down and took her back to where she was staying which was a house next to the church. I couldn’t persuade her to come back to that meeting or any others that weekend for love or money.
About twenty minutes later I went back into the meeting to see the priest climbing out of the baptism tank dripping wet, speaking in tongues, prophesying, and praying for the sick, and everybody was still worshiping. Talk about being “seeker friendly.”
Eventually my mom did enjoy coming to the meetings and accepted the Lord. My Dad loved that meeting and he really was a faithful member of our fellowship after he found Jesus as his Messiah in his sleep. He was Jewish.
David Walters davidmwalters@mindspring.com
Unless otherwised noted, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundationk, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. Used by permission.