81 :: UPPERROOM

Today we worshipped at UPPERROOM in Dallas, Texas. As this spiritual pivot has taken shape, we have worshipped in two different countries and now nine different states. UPPERROOM has been on the list for a long time. Our first exposure to UPPERROOM happened through a YouTube video that we first enjoyed many months ago, it is called Surrounded. 

Here is that video:

You can see that the video shows a very engaging form of worship. This video put on our hearts a desired to visit UPPERROOM. We made that trip to Dallas this weekend. 

We found an experience that did not disappoint.

If you want to watch the video of the whole more-than-two-hour service this morning, here it is. Beth and I are frequently visible between minutes 38:00 and 44:00, as we prayed at the front of the church.

We arrived about an hour in advance of the doors opening. There was already a line.

By the time the doors opened, there were hundreds of people waiting to go inside. The main auditorium acts as a prayer room during the week and is used for worship on Sunday. When the main auditorium filled up, people were sent to UPPERROOM's "overflow" auditorium. When the overflow also filled up, we understood that this is a very well-attended church. 

While waiting in line, we struck up conversation with the family behind us. Nate and Lauren moved to Texas from Sacramento. Their first child came earlier than his full term, but it was clear to us that he has grown into a healthy and vigorous little guy. He had such curious eyes.

When we asked what brought them to Texas from California, they said, "Obedience to where the Lord was leading us." So good.

Nate plays part time in the band at UPPERROOM.

Such fun meeting these folks.

Once we got inside the auditorium, we were greeted by a couple with UPPERROOM that noticed we were first time visitors. They were Daniel and Deborah, he was originally from Puerto Rico and she from Argentina. They were very friendly. We prayed with them and for them. They have been called to do mission work in Puerto Rico, and perhaps start a prayer room in San Juan. 

It was so meaningful to make contacts with people like these.

The worship began with music.

Once the music started, it went for more than one hour. That time was spent in prayer as the band played both a structured song with many periods of free-form interpretation and singing. Meaning, the band would play a song and then let the music wander out into musical and lyrical jams that were driven by The Spirit. Additionally, they blended multiple songs into each other, so we would notice that a transition between songs had taken place.

It was really quite powerful and moving. 

I was participating in this part of worship very intently, but I also took some snippets of the music in video form. 

Those are here:

This is my eightieth church, and at least twenty of them have been churches where the worship is defined by an expected direct encounter with the Holy Spirit. When I started this journey, I really didn't know that there was such a thing as a form of worship where those in attendance could expect to have such an encounter with the third person of the Godhead.

I simply didn't know that such a thing existed.

But such a thing is very Biblical. 

In Acts 2, the Apostles have an experience where things that looked like "tongues of fire" set upon their foreheads. Following this, they spoke to crowds in a way that each hearer understood the words in their own language - one form of what is called "speaking in tongues." The behavior of the Spirit-drenched Apostles also was seen by some in the crowd as appearing like a form of drunkenness.

There is vigorous and deep theological debate on the question of these gifts of the Holy Spirit being extant today or if they have ceased. There are those who say that the coalescence of various books into a unified Bible closed the manifestation of these spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is called the "cessationist" perspective. 

There are also those who believe that these same gifts are still in existence today and can be experienced in a very personal way. This is called the "continuationist" perspective

The first time I saw this form of Holy Spirit-energized worship was at Freedom House, the second church that I visited on this journey. 

My fourteenth church visit was to Morningstar Ministries, where such Holy Spirit worship was... let's just say it was at a whole different level than anything that I had seen before.

My seventeenth church visit was to Fire Church. I witnessed a manifestation of the Spirit in ways that had people dancing ecstatically, praying in tongues / prayer languages, as well as holy laughter. That experience certainly provided me with a great deal of fodder for personal and scriptural exploration. 

At Let Us Worship in New Orleans last November, I saw laughter cascade through a section of the crowd, then people fell out onto the ground as a woman laid hands on them. These individuals spoke tongues while prostrate on the ground for over an hour.

Our recent visit to Refuge Ranch left us with a mixture of feelings, but it was also a place in which I experienced being "slain in the Spirit," which was essentially being knocked over and losing bodily autonomy. 

And on and on... 

I keep seeing people in some churches experiencing a type of worship that was very much unlike anything I knew about. These experiences have altered my thinking in a fundamental way, and they have also certainly changed the way that I have encountered the triune Yahweh.

In this vein of worship that is infused with the direct presence of the Holy Spirit, Beth and I both agree that UPPERROOM was the most Spirit-filled worship that we have ever experienced. And at this point, that is saying something of true consequence.

UPPERROOM was a place in which we felt manifestations of the Spirit's presence in all of the ways that we have encountered before, although there were two differences this morning. 

First, there seemed to be more. More of everything. There was a palpable and powerful Presence at UPPERROOM with more impact and gravity than anything we have ever experienced.

Secondly, I am now more comfortable in such a setting. I believe that very much informs how profoundly I can be impacted by this particular form of worship. This form of worship comes very naturally to Beth. It has been more of a transition for me.

Eventually, the music died down and then it ceased.

Once the worship music stopped, Pastor Michael Miller gave the message. His message was about justification, sanctification and glorification. These three categories relate to the life of a believing person, each being a phase that leads to the subsequent phase. He also delivered the message using three words to bring together these three points - DONE, DO, ONE.

Justification is the freedom we can find in the death and resurrection of Yeshua, which is that which occurred in the past - that which has been DONE.

Sanctification is the ongoing process in which the Holy Spirit convicts us to a change of heart and mind, yielding a fundamental change of being. We can alter and become more Christ-like through the ongoing process of sanctification - which we and the Spirit mutually DO.

Glorification is the promise of the coming Kingdom, in which a new Heaven and a new Earth become unified. This is the longing that is experienced for the consummation of The Lamb (Yeshua) with His Bride the Church, which will happen through a baptism of the Earth in God's fire. During such an eschatological unfolding, which is now in the future, we will see that God will make all things new and ONE.

His message focused on the theology where we were saved by finished work of the Second Adam (DONE), we are changed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (DO) and ultimately will be claimed to a universal and final redemption through God pulling in everything into His Kingdom (ONE). 

Past, present, future.

All of the three facets of the message were also organized around a fun interplay between four letters. 

DONE

DO

   ONE

We also took communion as a community. This is a special thing that we wish we did more often.

In addition to all of the above, there were some things that happened that felt pretty unique.

When God is working, you can see it in the way that disparate things begin to pull tightly to each other. It can be a series of things that link to each other. 

Some of that certainly happened at UPPERROOM.

At the beginning of his message, Pastor Michael said that UPPERROOM was a place where we were living out the promise of the Bible verse that says - "For where two or three are gathered, there am I in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20). The name of this blog, which was the reason for us being in Texas.

The main singer on the stage at UPPERROOM was Eniola Abioye, someone we know very well for her recent work with Maverick City Music, including where she performed with Dante Bowe in the song Remember (the video is below). When we met Eniola after church, she told us that she is a graduate of Myers Park High School in Charlotte, Beth's daughter's school. A fellow Charlottean and we didn't even know!

Finally, and perhaps most significantly - there was a person doing prophetic painting up front during the worship, a common feature of churches like UPPERROOM. The painting that she made looked like this:

This had quite a resemblance to the picture where Beth and I went to Rainbow Mountain in Peru, we thought.

Once again, tell me if you see God at work in our lives by looking at this picture below.

However you answer that question is up to you, but as for us... we see God.

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Here are some other prophetic paintings that were in the lobby of UPPERROOM.

Eventually, we emerged from the service and stepped into a very warm Dallas day.

I waited for Beth outside for a few minutes. I walked up to a woman with a cane who was sitting on a bench waiting for her husband to pick her up. I greeted her and found that she was another extrovert. I learned that her father had been an evangelist who had been involved with an especially well-known Charlotte ministry that met a very public decline in the 1980's. She had spent much of her childhood in and around Charlotte, including at Heritage USA, which is now the site of Morningstar Ministries.

I said good bye to her and then Beth joined me outside.

Beth and I then met Remi, a woman who had come down from Chicago to visit UPPERROOM. A fellow spiritual sojourner, if you will.

Remi was born into a Palestinian family and spent her first years in Jordan as a refugee. We felt a deep connection to her. Remi's life is undergoing a radical transformation and she says she is on a journey to experience the Holy Spirit more directly. She said she definitely found it at UPPERROOM. We prayed with and for Remi, then said a warm good bye when our Uber arrived.

As we returned back to our hotel, we started a discussion that is helping us unpackage the significance and meaning of our visit to UPPERROOM. There's a great deal to discuss and we will do so for quite a while.

One thing that is very clear is that God is calling us to more and more of Him. 

This was such a profound visit to UPPERROOM! It was definitely one of the highlights on this journey. We thank God for it and are now excited for the next (and final) twenty church visits.

80 :: The CS Lewis Institute

This past weekend I spent time in Brevard, North Carolina with the CS Lewis Institute, where I am enrolled in the CSLI Fellows Program. The Fellows Program is a two-year course of study for people looking to deepen their knowledge base in theology and grow their capabilities in Christian apologetics. There are three of us in this year's cohort, as well as three instructors/mentors. 

The CS Lewis Institute is based around Washington, DC and states its core goal as such - "In the legacy of C. S. Lewis, we develop wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ who will articulate, defend, share, and live their faith in personal and public life." The Institute has a presence in seventeen locations. These include places as diverse as Belfast, Northern Ireland, Toronto, Canada, as well as a variety of American cities like Dallas, Chicago and Seattle. 

So, yes... I intend to harness whatever intellect I may have toward being the kind of man whose faith is defined by an ability to articulate, share, defend, and perhaps most importantly - live it out. We have a monthly course of study that is punctuated with multiple pieces of writing, including a Bible Study and a Response Paper to the monthly reading. In short, this is both enjoyable and a great chance to grow in my faith.

Michael, Lori and I are the Fellows, each of us in our Year One. Gary, his wife Patty and a previous student named Paul are the leadership tier. We spent time with the CSLI group from Greenville, SC. There were about twenty of us in attendance.

Ridge Haven is a beautiful setting that is related to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Most of the summer it acts as a summer camp. This was a very busy summer for the camp, as pent up demand from 2020 came into this summer. 

Here are some pics of Ridge Haven and our weekend:

We had the occasion to have lectures by Dr. D. Blair Smith [link], from Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte. This guy was fantastic. That there is such a rich intellectual tradition in RTS helps me to understand a place that I have lived close to for most of my life in Charlotte. Dr. Smith spoke across deep and compelling subjects on both Friday and Saturday. So good to have this type of content.

His roommate during seminary was a guy named Matt Miller, the head of an Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Greenville. Matt both lectured throughout the weekend and led us through a worship service on Sunday. He was also exceptional.

Matt led an interactive worship, much of it a discussion between those of us in attendance. We reflected on so many things and we reflected on the honor of worshipping together in a world where so many cannot do so in safety.

And... we sang Amazing Grace. While it was a very different type of worship than what we have become accustomed to at Freedom House, it was familiar and beautiful. Those lyrics are simply the greatest thing ever.

So much to be grateful for over this weekend.

One thing that we did as a Charlotte-only group was to share our testimonies. For the reader who may be less familiar with this idea of a testimony, it is a small speech which tells your story of finding redemption from Yeshua. It really helped us to get to know each other. Much of what was shared was very private, so I won't recount anything other than a couple details from my testimony. But I will say that I have definitively seen a theme throughout my time of hearing people's testimonies over the years, that being the theme of overcoming hardship, trials and even deep suffering. The details that people described about what they have gone through can be tough to hear, in that there really are some hardships that life can throw one's way. 

Since these were testimonies, they are by their very definition upbeat stories. Following Jesus is the proposition of being able to experience joy through everything (and that is a real thing), you can always count on a testimony ending on a high note.

I put together a series of pictures related to my testimony, they are below:

If you know me, many of these pictures explain themselves. Childhood, getting saved in the back of a station wagon during the summer of 1979 after a great experience at a camp in New Hampshire, losing my faith and becoming an atheist during college, rededicating my life at a Billy Graham Crusade in Charlotte, years with a family, divorce and rebuilding.... then a picture of a building, and a painting of a guy holding his hands up.... then meeting my lovely wife, Beth and how we wanted our covenant in marriage to be a witness to those who attended.

Everything makes sense, although the picture of the building and the guy with his hands up... What are those?

So, to explain what they are requires telling two stories.

Story 1 / A Graceful Location

In 2017, I was working for a well-known technology company out in Silicon Valley. It was a job I really enjoyed, and it was a job that I lost. My job went away. In the blink of an eye, I was not employed and I didn't have anything else lined up. I had never experienced anything like that before! 

As I walked out of my co-working facility after receiving the news that my role was going away, I bumped into my friend Nathan on Tryon Street. I told him what had just happened. 

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Actually.... actually, I feel really good," I said. I meant it.

I had a sense of peace that was rooted in something other than my own volition.

This was April.

Within a couple of hours I was getting ready to start thinking through how to get my next job. I was excited!

A still, small voice spoke to me.

"Don't. Just wait."

Now, it must be remembered that I was supporting multiple households. The financial outlay was considerable each month. And I had always gained such a sense of purpose and accomplishment from my work.

"No."

Hearing from God (no, none of this was actually auditory) is an unmistakable thing. You know what is happening. 

Since we were talking about God, I knew that it had to be obeyed. So, I waited. I did not search for a new role.

I went to Asia for a month and generally checked out of my life. I visited Israel, India, Sri Lanka. A simply amazing trip.

Then May passed.

June passed.

I was doing yoga multiple times a week, I procured a Mandarin tutor to learn a new language and I was lifting weights more than ever.

But I still had no income. No job.

"Wait." I kept getting the same guidance.

I was working out my body and my mind as never before. I read from a Bible devotional every day. 

July passed.

August passed.

September passed. 

I started doing math to figure out when I would run out of money and start hitting the seed corn in my retirement savings. 

"Well, it looks like I could make it into next year. This feels pretty tight, though. I need to find something soon..."

"Wait on Me."

It was clear that I needed to wait. 

I did.

In October, I was out early one morning walking a dog. It was half pitbull and half black lab. A great dog, but an aggressive one.

As I walked him, my dog lunged at another dog. I had to pull him back. I apologized to the other dog owner. Then I heard my name.

"Byl?"

"Oh, hey Jerry! Sorry, man. Didn't notice it was you. Sorry about the dog."

"All good, man. How are you doing?"

We talked for a while. At the end of the conversation I told him that I was available to do some consulting, if his firm had anything.

Just a passing comment, but he came through. Within a couple of weeks, I was consulting in Estero, Florida at Hertz, the car hire company.  Now, what is interesting is that I was able to be near my parents, who live only a few miles from the Hertz headquarters.

What happened as I worked for over a year in Florida was that my father's health declined rather rapidly. While I was there, he was placed into multiple nursing care facilities. The last facility that he went to (prior to the final at-home hospice phase) was named Life Care of Estero. When he moved into Life Care of Estero, I was also given a new seat within the Hertz headquarters. That seat in Hertz faced Life Care of Estero. I mean to say, my seat directly faced that facility.

God had called on me to wait and trust in Him for many months. At the end of that waiting, I found myself sitting at my seat and looking out the window across Tamiami Trail at the exact facility that held my declining father. The confluence of events was down to the level of detail that provided a precise chair as my father moved into a facility within sight of that same seat.

I sat there dumbfounded as I took in what had happened. 

Then I smiled and laughed. 

How good a God is it that we follow? How extravagant and lavish is God's love? God was working in every small detail of my life that year so that I could be paid to fly down weekly to a place where I was able to be present during my father's final months, and hopefully be a comfort to my mother during those times.

Had I insisted on my own autonomy and decision-making, I would have missed that opportunity.

If God can do that, there's really no reason I wouldn't trust Him with every aspect of my life. And now I do.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

Story 2 / Hands Up!

Background - Earlier in 2021, I was diagnosed with cancer. 

Upon receiving that news, I was rather concerned. I was on the cusp of starting a new life with Beth. Cancer is indeed a word that gets one's attention.

One night, Beth and I were praying. While we prayed, Beth reached over and grabbed my hands and lifted them high into the air above my head. When I asked later why she did that, she said, "I knew I was supposed to."

A few days later, my friend Brandon texted me this picture.

He said he was reading from the Book of Exodus and that he was given a word for me. He recounted how Moses lifted his hands during the battles between the Israelites and the Amalekites and how that helped turn the battle in favor of Israel. 

When Moses lowered his hands, the Amalekites started to win. 

Hands up, Israel.

Hands lowered, Amalekites.

At one point, Moses could no longer hold his hands up, so other Israeli leaders held them aloft for him.

Brandon gave me a word me that God wanted me to lift my hands in the process of fighting the cancer.

A few days after that, I was attending an event at Freedom House and found myself praying with two friends, Jessica and Desi. While we prayed, Desi grabbed my hands and lifted them up. She then asked me if I needed to forgive anyone in my life. 

That was the third time this had happened.

I realized that people were repeatedly getting divine words to lift my hands up. I was deeply moved by this. I think I cried for like forty-five minutes out in the parking lot after this third time. It was such a beautiful thing to see God communicating with me directly through disparate people. 

As a consequence, in the days leading up to my surgery, I would get up in the morning and get on my knees with my hands raised up. I think that was the posture that God was eliciting from me through all of this.

The surgery was a resounding success, by the way. I'm entirely free of cancer.

So I will bless You as long as I live; in Your name I will lift up my hands. Psalm 63:4

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What do these two stories tell?

In short, my testimony involves talking about those times where God's providence and direct involvement in my life was so clear and remarkable that it finally moved me to where I am now, which is a place where I am finally and completely redeemed at the foot of the Cross.

It also tells a story that is akin to the Wandering in the Wilderness of Exodus, in that it took forty years to arrive at the Promised Land.

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Overall, the weekend in Brevard with CSLI was meaningful, thought-provoking, fun, educational and it all happened in a beautiful setting.

That thing about having joy through all of life? This past weekend was about experiencing that joy in a discernible way. And for that, I am very grateful.

Amen.