Today we worshipped at Life Church on our way out of Fort Myers, Florida. Beth, MC and I had gone to visit my mother in Florida this past week. We found this church among many options that came up on a Google search. We spent time filtering through the multitude of options and liked what we saw with Life Church.
This place spoke to us because of the words that their website used.
Charismatic.
Check.
Pentecostal.
Check.
Contemporary.
Check.
With the recent visits to mainline churches that stem from my spiritual lineage (read, Presbyterian), this felt like a unique opportunity to experience something different. It indeed proved to be just that - very different.
As is the wont of Pentecostal churches, this service ran for close to two hours. They had a great band that played music that Life Church composed. The message was mostly freeform, with the Pastor looking at his notes only occasionally during the nearly hour-long talk.
We went to the early service at 9 am. As we bought coffee and milled around the front lobby, we were greeted by a young guy named Caleb, young and personable. We talked for a while.
Then we were greeted by Jennifer, closer to our age and, again, super friendly.
As it turned out, Caleb and Jennifer are son and mother. Ryan and Jennifer Deaton [link] are the Lead Pastors of the church and Caleb is their son. Ryan and Jennifer also have two daughters, both of whom are involved with the life of the church.
It was such a neat thing to find out that there is a family that is at the helm of this church's leadership.
As you can see at the linked webpage, there are many other people on Life Church's staff in addition to the Deatons.
Then Beth and I chose our place in the auditorium (remember, it is not a "sanctuary" in a contemporary church). We watched the screens play the obligatory images and messages that are part of the pre-worship experience at contemporary churches.
Then the band came out and performed. We noted that a few of the songs that they performed were composed by Life Church. Really enjoyable. While we were not singing along to songs that we knew, these were very solid songs and we enjoyed the energy.
After the band finished, Delmar Gullet came on the stage to stoke the fire that had been lit by the band. He was great and energetic! I have a sense that he may originally be from another country. This church has a Portuguese translation of the second service, he may be associated with that.
Following Delmar, Pastor Ryan came onto the stage and proceeded to give a strong message about the importance of "having ears to hear." It was an energetic message around the importance of hearing, in both a literal and a spiritual sense.
Here's some of his delivery, which was done without looking at any notes:
One point that he made struck a special resonance with me. It was about the importance of not letting the context of your culture become the filter for your message. Culture is the context in which we hear God's voice. Despite this... it's important not to let a cultural context become the filter of what we hear from God.
Do our ears hear about oppression and division? Yes. Do our ears hear about racial strife? Of course. Do our ears hear about social injustice? All the time.
While these are rightly focus areas of Christians, it is important not to let those be the filters through which we approach the totality of faith.
At its most fundamental level, the gospel is being called to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, spirit and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself (Deuteronomy 6:4-7, Matthew 22:37-40, Mark 12:30-31 and Luke 10:27). When we start with our vertical alignment to God and then proceed to a focus on our horizontal relationships of loving others as yourself... the dark things cease to have a hold on us. This is true both individually and corporately.
Correcting social woes was not the reason that God joining us in corporeal form, nor why He died on a Cross and emptied The Grave for our redemption. Instead, those things happen(ed) to restore that which was broken in the original calamity at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Those things happen(ed) to provide a cure for the darkness which shrouds our hearts. These things happen(ed) to provide a way for Heaven and Earth - which were at the inception of The Garden the very same place - an avenue of re-coalescence.
Once the darkness of the human heart is addressed, the cultural woes of our times will also get addressed. Imagine a society filled with men and women whose heart-appetites have shifted into a new state, a state in which the broken things become mended and compassion rules the day.
I thought about the error of using cultural context as a filter for the gospel's message.
As I go through this journey, I do come across places that let the context of the culture become the content of their spiritual message. They may be said to follow a Yeshua who "...flipped tables as a way of combatting systemic racism."
No.
The Yeshua who flipped tables did so to correct the error of using the sacred as a means of exploiting other people. Not only is this a deeply profane thing to do... it is a two-fold violation of the dictate to love the Lord your God with all that you have and to love your neighbor.
From such violations come things like systemic racial oppression. Not the other way around.
There was much more that came through Pastor Ryan, but this was the point that made me go "hmmm."
The message ended.
The band came and cranked out another song.
Service finished thereafter.
As we left, the crowd for the second service was entering. It was a place filled with conversations, people catching up with one another... and a large number of wide smiles. This moment on the heels of a wonderful visit where my mother got to meet Beth and MC.... it made for a moment that lifted my soul.
Plus, the ecstatic nature of the worship was cathartic and just what we needed.
Thanks to Life Church for this experience.
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