TAMBOURINES ANYONE?

        Most of us have heard them. Those loud tambourine players that seem to insist on playing their "instrument" on every song during a worship service whether upbeat or slow. Most of the time they are off beat and many times the person beating it seems to want to hit it on every syllable of every word in the lyrics, regardless of tempo or type of song. More often than not, it becomes a horrible distraction rather than adding an additional element or depth to the worship music.

        My experience is, like any other instrument used during worship, it requires practice. You wouldn't put a guitar in the hands of a novice who's never held one before and expect him to play a flawless solo or hand a set of drumsticks over to a 3 year old and expect him to keep the right beat, so why do people think that anyone can pick up a tambourine and create a sweet sound with it? As a worship leader, one of my worst nightmares was to spend hours practicing with my team to put together a worship set that brings excellence and honor to God just to have someone pull a tambourine out of their bag and butcher the moment. I have at times, went through the seats and "collected" all the tambourines before anyone arrived at church and hid them to keep them out of the hands of the percussionist wannabes.

        I have seen a lot of things happen during a worship service that can "kill" the moving of the Spirit, but few things are more harmful than the tambourine player that refuses to stop banging away, especially during a slow song when things are supposed to be quiet and reverent. You get to that moment when you reach a crescendo and worship becomes deep and intimate and powerful and the Holy Spirit is about to be poured out, when all of a sudden; bang, bang, bang, bang the tambourine crashes and throws a wet blanket over the fire that was building and about to break out.

        Now don't get me wrong, I believe everything has a place, even the lowly tambourine. And I know for a fact that any instrument can be a distraction if it is played without regard to the direction of Holy Spirit's leading. I have seen drummers that think that a 4-4 timing and a 120 BPM tempo with lots of heavy crashing on the cymbals is appropriate for any song, but that is far from the truth. I do not believe that slow, passionate and humble times of heartfelt worship are the place for tambourines or any loud percussion instruments. There are however, plenty of times of upbeat, high praise that they are a welcome addition. I do believe however, that if you are going to play an instrument for God's glory, have enough care and respect that you take the time to come and practice with the worship team. That way it will help avoid anything that dishonors God, distracts fellow worshippers or delivers a death blow to an otherwise powerful time of intimacy with God.

        I'm not sure if you agree with my observations or not. I'd like to hear your feedback or funny (or not-so-funny) stories of how tambourines "shifted" the atmosphere of your worship service.

Until next time.....................Stan

Focus on The Presence

I’ve been reading a book by Bill Johnson entitled “Hosting The Presence”.  In it, it talks about how the children of Israel camped around the presence of God, while the modern church likes to camp around a sermon.  This got me to thinking.  God gave me a revelation about this that I want to share.  The presence of God was visible above the tent of meeting.  Inside the tent of meeting was the Ark of the Covenant.  Inside the Ark were three things; the tablets of the law, Aaron’s rod and a bowl of manna.  These three items represent three things that the modern church holds in great value; The Word of God, The Resurrection and God’s provision.  Notice however, that these things were hidden inside a box.  The children of Israel could not focus on these things because they were not visible to them.  What was visible however, was the manifest presence of God.  That was their focus.  It was the presence that they followed.  When the presence moved they moved. Today, many churches’ focus is on great teaching or evangelism or doctrines about provision, etc and they no longer view the Presence of God as their highest asset. It has been said that 95% of the early churches’ activities would have ceased if the Holy Spirit were removed from among them. However, the modern church could continue with 95% of their activities without the Holy Spirit’s presence, which sadly is the case in many churches today. The church of today has a wide variety of “visions” that range from “saving the lost” to “being a people of excellence” to “helping the hurting”, etc. The list goes on. What people need to realize is if we will focus on the Presence, all of these things will simply fall into place and become a by-product, if you will, of having a loving, amazing, all-powerful and extraordinary God in our midst. When you place a high value on the Presence, He brings with him the power to save the lost and heal the sick and set the oppressed free. His Presence brings us to a place of excellence, provides us with divine insight & revelation and gives us wisdom to understand His Word. In His Presence, heaven and earth become one and we get to enjoy the benefits of that heavenly realm here in our earthly realm. Worship is key to ushering in the Presence and is vital to the life of the church, but it should not be our focus. He is to be our one and only focus. He is the one we are there to honor and exalt and lift high. When we do that, He will come in and do more in a moment than we could have ever accomplished on our own in many years of ministry. We saw it a few weeks ago. During worship, as we sang about Him and His incredible love for us, His presence came in and a young man was saved as a result. I am fully persuaded that this is something that God wants to be the norm instead of the occasional “surprise”. In His presence, people will be saved and set free. Sicknesses will be healed, demons will flee, curses will be broken and strongholds will be destroyed.
Today, let’s focus on The One that can make a difference. Let’s ask Him for more of His presence in our lives and in our church. And when He comes, nothing, I repeat, NOTHING will ever be the same. Amen?

Until next time…………………….Stan

Gemstones from Heaven?

There has been a lot of talk (mostly controversial) in the past few years of gemstones appearing out of nowhere during church services and while people were praying. I, for one, have always been a skeptic, mostly because I had never seen such a thing before. I was sitting at my desk pondering on such things and prayed and said "Lord, if these things are true I want You to show me". That's when this "stone" that's pictured above just appeared out of thin air and landed on the linoleum floor next to where I was sitting. I even heard a distinct "clink" sound as it hit the ground. Mind you, I was completely alone when this happened, so no one was there that could have dropped this or "play a trick" on me.

OK, so now that most of you think I'm nuts, let me share a few things from God's word. If we read Revelation 21:19-20, it tells us "The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst” (NIV). Couldn't the same God that built heaven out of jewels and paved its streets with gold cause such things to appear to us, especially if we believe that heaven and all of its goodness is accessible to us IN THIS LIFE? In Isaiah 61:10, it says “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (NIV). Could it be that The Lord is getting ready to take His bride (the church) home and is preparing her by adorning her with jewels in these last days? I don’t have an answer. All I know is what I have seen with my own eyes and hold in my hand. It was an interesting encounter to say the least. It was definitely a “sign” that made me scratch my head and “wonder”.

That brings us to another point; the bible tells us that there were many "signs and wonders" performed by Jesus, His disciples and subsequently their followers and so on. Jesus even said that we would be able to do greater works than He did. What were the signs and wonders mentioned? For the most part, the bible is unclear as to what many of these signs and wonders were. We know that Jesus turned water into wine, caused a coin to appear out of nowhere in a fish’s mouth, multiplied a boys fish and bread to feed 5000 and walked on water. We read in the book of Acts of signs and wonders performed by the hands of the apostles. Heck, even Peter’s shadow had the ability to heal the sick and Paul’s handkerchief could heal sick folks and drive out demons. Talk about signs to make you wonder! The point I’m making is this: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD! Jesus said “Anything is possible if a person believes” (Mark 9:23 NLT). You now have a choice; you can choose to look at this picture and believe it (maybe God will send a similar manifestation of His goodness to you) or you can choose to think I have lost my mind and this is a bunch of crap in which case I absolutely guarantee you will never see anything like this for yourself.

I pray that God will shower you with His best. Hopefully that will include gemstones. If so, I’d like to hear about it.

Until next time, God bless........................Stan

 

The Fire Of Worship

“I have been a worship leader for nearly 30 years. Lately, I have been rethinking what true worship really means and the effect it has on our churches and cities. For too long, in the church, people have come to worship hoping to get a `feel good’ song that blesses them and feeds them without a thought of `is this touching the heart of God?’ The Bible tells us in John 4: 23-24 “But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” God is speaking to His people today telling us that He no longer wants us to be merely consumers, just coming to worship for what we can `get’ out of it.  He desperately wants to turn us from consumers into the consumed - those set on fire by the presence and power of His Holy Spirit.

God is calling the people in His kingdom to set themselves on fire in enthusiastic, Spirit-led worship. By doing so, the very atmosphere around us will be changed and people will be drawn to us and to the Lord. In the words of John Wesley, they will come to `watch us burn’. I want to share something I found on Wikipedia:

 "It has long been recognized that `fires create their own weather.’ That is, the heat and moisture created by the fire feed back into the atmosphere, creating intense winds that drive the fire behavior. The heat produced by the wildfire changes the temperature of the atmosphere and creates strong updrafts, which can change the direction of surface winds. The water vapor released by the fire changes the moisture balance of the atmosphere. The water vapor can be carried away, where the latent heat stored in the vapor is released through condensation."

 When forest fires burn, they can actually change the weather patterns around them. Looking at this from a spiritual perspective, when we determine that we are going to burn no matter what others think or how undignified it makes us appear the `strong updrafts’ that are produced will change the `surface winds’ in our cities. Things will begin to shift. Places that were once dry will become saturated in the outpouring of the presence of God condensing in the passionate heat of our worship. It's time to press in. It's time to be fire starters and atmosphere changers for the Kingdom. Amen? I hope this blesses and encourages you.”

~ Stan Carlock, Pastor - GLORY House

Set A Fire (+playlist)