A Hidden Healing, part one

A "Hidden Healing" Part One

By William T "Bill" Faris, MPC"
Reprinted from my “Gracelets” Newsletter

One of the most unforgettable healing experiences I ever witnessed happened without my knowing it - until it was revealed to me in a surprising interaction after the fact. I describe this healing event as a "hidden healing" in my book, How Healed Do You Want to Be?

On the day this hidden healing took place, I was in charge of hosting a conference of Christian singles at our church. About 100 of us
had come together to begin the first morning of the conference with a time of praise and worship. As the music swelled, I was soon
caught up in the atmosphere of music, devotion and celebration. There was liberty and joy in that room and, before long, it seemed
as if the line between heaven and earth had somehow blurred.

Suddenly, I was struck with an inspiration to try something I had never tried before. Between songs, I went to the microphone and
asked everyone in the room to please come to the front platform and stand on the steps that led up to the area where the band was
playing their instruments. In only a moment, we had moved from our seats "in the audience" to joining the band as a sort of ad hoc one hundred voice worship choir. We resumed with hearty praise as we sang to the Lord -- our "audience of One". It was awesome!

It wasn't long before I noticed a particularly wonderful female voice coming from somewhere nearby me. It was beautiful, strong
and striking indeed. "That voice needs to be on a microphone", I said to myself as I slipped over to quickly consult with the worship
leader. He pointed to the open mic and I returned to where I had been standing while the band continued playing and the voices
joined together on another song. I gently tapped the young woman with the outstanding voice on the shoulder and she turned to see
that it was me who wanted her attention. .

I pointed to the open mic and urged her to please sing into it. She looked a bit stunned at first. When I assured her that I was truly
urging her to go up and sing into the mic she made her way there and joined in with the band. As I expected, her rich voice added
even more to the beauty and power of that morning's experience.

After the morning session concluded, I was surprised to see the young lady singer making a bee line for me. "You'll never know
what this morning meant to me", she said. "Great", I replied in my best pastoral tone. "I'm glad to hear it.".

She looked at me again as tears filled up her eyes. "No, you don't understand.... A few years ago I was a worship leader in my church
back home. At the time I was married and had a family. But I made a huge mistake. I had an affair with a married man who led worship
at another church." She paused to regain her composure...

* * * * *

Charismatic Boons and Busts

In my last post, I observed that the Charismatic/Neo-Charismatic/Third Wave movement is now fifty years old. In this post, I step back (as someone with 40 years of my own charismatic history) to note some of the worthy and, uh, less worthy contributions so far.

Boon: A quantum leap in the theology of the Holy Spirit.
The onset of the charismatic movement has put an unprecedented focus on the Person and works of the Holy Spirit - especially among mainline evangelicals and Roman Catholic theologians, leaders and "lay people". The comparative dribble of Holy Spirit-focused theology that existed before the spread of the charismatic movement has turned into a tidal wave with some notably good contributions. For the most part, this has been a good thing. It's almost as if the Church finally got to really meet the One Jesus promised would be with them forever for the first time.

Bust: A quantum leap in bad theology of the Holy Spirit.
By "bad theology" I mean theology of the Spirit, His Person and His works that run the gammut from reactionary (cessasionist dispensationalism) to just plain silly (list far too long to include in this little blog). By "bad theology" I mean theology that is not grounded solidly in Scripture. By "bad theology" I mean theology that flippantlay exploits the Spirit, His gifts and His power instead of reverencing and honoring Him as God. By "bad theology" I mean theology that turns the Third Person of the Godhead into a Bartender. You get the idea...

Boon: The tremendous outburst of Spirit-empowered compassion ministry including everything from Teen Challenge to the practice of healing prayer as a staple in church life. One of the best legacies of both the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements has been the ongoing outwardly-focused emphasis on the hurting, the poor, the needy and the lost that is grounded in Jesus' own mission statement: "the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor..." in a manner similar to the way the modern missionary movement is grounded in Jesus' Great Commission.

Bust: Personality cults. This probably doesn't need a great deal of explanation if you have been around "charisma" for more than about ten minutes. John Wimber said it best: "I'm tired of hearing about THIS great man of God and THAT great man of God. I'm ready to hear about the Great God of Men!" Amen!

Boon: The emphasis on so-called "lay ministry" and marketplace/everyday place ministry. There is no denying that -- once the Spirit got loose among the so-called "lay people" -- their "leaders" had to play catch up! He (the Spirit) did not wait for church big shots to give Him permission to start falling on everyday people and empowering them with boldness, creativity and spiritual vitality (see Acts 10 for the first example of this phenomenon!).

Bust: The Prophetic Movement. I know this is controversial, but I think I've paid my dues to be able to comment on "the Prophets". While I maintain a firm conviction in the reality of prophetic gifts including prophecy, the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom, my evaluation of all this emphasis on "the prophets" and their endless emphasis on God's "next big thing" is pretty much a distraction from our timeless call to simply and consistently follow Jesus as His disciples -- proclaiming His word and doing His works until He returns. For me, the bottom line is this: if all this prophetic mania evaporated tomorrow would anyone who was consistently seeking to follow and obey Jesus really miss it?

Boon: Music -- especially worship music.

Bust: Music -- especially worship music.

I love to worship, privately and corporately. I love to get on my face, kneel before the Lord, close my eyes, lift my hands, weep, laugh, keep my mouth shut in reverant awe and open in it glorious praise. The legacy of charisma has been a wonderful outpouring of worship that has truly raised my appreciation for the greatness of God and His imminence when I open up my soul to Him in worship. That said, the notion of Spirit-inspired "worship" has also suffered a truckload of indignities, shallowness and downright foolishness that almost -- but not quite -- drown out the benefits and blessings of charismatic worship experiences for me.

My favorite illustration comes from a pastor who was sitting next to me in a large meeting where the "worship band" was cranking up the volume to uncomfortable levels in the name of ... well, I don't know why. This man turned to me, flustered, and spoke the following words: "Was there worship before electricity"?

Well spoken.

Since this is getting to be a pretty long post, I'll see what you all think of what I have commented on so far before continuing.

House Church Worship Art?

You know how it's become kind of trendy for churches to release visual artists to paint during the worship set these days? I believe it is tied to the notion that the spirit of worship is alive in the congregation and is presumably inspiring the artistic expressions of praise and devotion created by the painters and artists. Makes sense to me...

Well, last weekend at our house church, we experienced a different sort of worship art (you might say) while we were gathered together in the livning room lifting our hearts to the Lord. Right in our midst, the children were singing and praising God while quietly playing with their blocks on the floor (I like this about house church: that the kids are "in" with the grownups during worship -- as kids -- and not as mini-adults).

I had been leading worship on the guitar with my eyes closed. It was after the third song or so that I opened my eyes to see the image you are now viewing in the photo posted here. She was right at my feet and in the middle of our assembled group.

I instantly felt it was not only "worship art" of a different kind, but also a sort of prophetic word from the Lord to our small assembly. See what you think...