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.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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.