86 :: Maverick City Music

 

Last night, we went to see Maverick City Music here in Charlotte.

Wait, a concert on this blog?

This was most definitely a form of worship, as the concert was a place that was definitively lit up with worship. It was great, and it was huge!

This blog is named in reference to Matthew 18:20 where Yeshua says that He will be in the midst of any place "...where two or three are gathered in My name."  This concert had more than ten thousand people, all of whom were gathered in His name, making it by far our largest worship event thus far.

In the event that you are not familiar with Maverick City Music, they are from Atlanta and produce very powerful Christian praise music. They sometimes perform with Upper Room and Elevation Worship, both of which are churches that we have visited as part of this journey.

Here are some videos of Maverick City's music. Definitely watch them, they are fantastic performances. 

As you watch these videos, you'll notice a few things. You'll likely notice what high quality music this is. Beautiful compositions!

You can also see that this is not just music - it is also all about corporate worship. 

Finally, you pick up that it is a form of music that mostly stems from the black American tradition, while definitely integrating characteristics of other musical styles and formats. 

As far as what specific form of worship we're talking about with Maverick City Music, it could best be described as slightly beyond enthusiastic evangelicalism and just over the edge of charismatic worship. 

What do I mean by that?

As an example of the charismatic dimension, in one video Beth and I watched, we witnessed Chandler Moore speaking in a prayer language. 

There have also been times when the music is blended with prophetic speech and words of wisdom and knowledge. For example, in the Yes and Amen video the singer says, "If you say my sister will be delivered from depression, I trust what you say..." Such specific things would qualify as words of knowledge.

In terms of ecstatically evangelical worship style, it is easy to see people in Maverick City Music performances go into a state of praise that is either exhibited by enthusiastically praising God (Make it Right) or moving rhythmically in a state of calm and joy-filled praise (Yes and Amen).

With so much exposure to this music in recent months, we were excited to see Maverick City Music in person!

The performance was spectacular. We can't say enough about how good the concert was.

But this blog post won't be an elaboration of what a great concert/worship event this was.

It will be the question of unity within the Body of Christ.

The concert-going crowd was a big part of what was special about the event. Maverick City Music is a great mixture of people from different backgrounds with white, black and Hispanic singers. 

So were the attendees to the concert.

As such, it is a glimpse of the coming church. 

And it is also a picture of Heaven. 

The divisions we experience here on Earth arise from our collective fallen nature. Whenever people from different backgrounds ("different" in an earthly sense) choose to worship God together, we are participating in an early glimpse of the coming time when people of all nations will be on bended knee together confessing the name of Yeshua (Philippians 2:10-11).

In reality, our world is weary and sick from its division. The convulsions of American society in the last two years have driven that point home as nothing else before. In other ways, we can acknowledge that this is a story as old as time itself. 

So, what do we do with our division and weariness?

I am at the point where I believe that the world has no useful answers to bring to this important question of division. Our secular pursuits of "social justice" are hollow endeavors, a path that leads nowhere. Instead of mere social justice, the path to fullness and healing can only be found at the foot of The Cross.

There is a theological construct that has really impacted our thinking. It is the continuum of justification, sanctification and glorification. 

Justification is the initiation by which one acknowledges one's nature and then seeks newness through the finished work of Yeshua. In this first step in the continuum, one is exposed to divine justice while simultaneously being delivered fully from the consequences of that same divine justice. 

Sanctification is what follows justification. This is the process whereby a redeemed self is clarified and made sacred over a process of learning, praying. loving and suffering. In summary, sanctification is the process whereby the dross is burned off of your life (Proverbs 25:4). 

Glorification is the final step in the continuum, in which the believer moves out of our temporal existence and into eternity. At the End of All Things, believers can expect to reclaim fully their purpose for being, which is to live in community with God and enjoying Him forever. 

Justification, sanctification and glorification also happen at the corporate level.

Why do I bring this up? Because the church itself has lost sight of its role of speaking truth into a fearful, weary and sick world. It is divided and ineffective in expanding The Kingdom. 

The more quickly that the model of division can start to decay and go away (and this is happening right now!), the better. Churches that are all white or all black or all Hispanic have been the dominant model in much of Charlotte for decades. Only a few weeks ago, I even attended a Catholic church that was for one specific Indian ethnicity, Keralites.

Narrow and specific, each such kind of church.

Maverick City Music is helping bring together communities that have long sat in division from one another while proclaiming a common identity as the Body of Christ. How far does that coalescence of communities go? Just look ay Maverick City Music itself. They have a strong singer who is from a Keralite family. Her name is Maryanne "MJ" George.  

Here is a picture of MJ George singing with Maverick City Music:

Black, white, brown and even Keralite, Maverick City Music is the microcosm of the coming church, one in which all peoples will gather together.

We have visited many churches that are intact in their current siloes, yet Maverick City has given us a glimpse of the gathering of the world's tribes in the name of Jehovah Nissi (God is Our Banner). Maverick City Music helps us see what life can look like beyond our worship-siloes.

It is gratifying to see that our divisions within the Body of Christ are starting to disappear. That this change can come slowly is doubtless. The urgency of our timeline is a certainty (maranatha!). And that none of this coalescence can be fostered under the banner of secular "diversity and inclusion" is beyond contention.

May we continue to grow into each other as the Body of Christ.

Great concert at Maverick City Music!

85 :: FireHouse at Upper Room Chapel

 

This evening, we worshipped at Upper Room Chapel in Fort Mill, South Carolina. This location is an interesting place, as it is in a part of Fort Mill that is especially spiritually active. This location is close to Antioch Church, as well as MorningStar Ministries, both of which are featured on this blog.

Upper Room is a replica of the upper room in which Yeshua's disciples stayed around the time of His crucifixion and resurrection. It was built as part of Heritage USA, which was a massive theme park of the disgraced PTL Ministry, which declined in well-publicized circumstances in the 1980s.

Beth and I first heard of Upper Room from someone we talked to at another church's worship event that we had attended. The woman with whom we were speaking described it as a place with great anointing.

We visited it the next day. Here are some pictures of that visit...

Pretty unusual place. Nice. Deserted. A bit antiquated.

We listened to some music, prayed for a while, took communion and then walked around the place for a bit. It did have the layout of an ancient Mediterranean structure. There were also multiple individual rooms along the edge of the building, we assumed those would be used for individual prayer. We found a number of pamphlets on a table within Upper Room, including the pamphlet you see above from FireHouse, a ministry that meets at Upper Room on Thursdays. 

We went Thursday to see what FireHouse was all about.

The visit to FireHouse was the smallest worship we have ever done with other people. There were five of us. We were with Jasmine, April and Burt. Jasmine's mother is the Pastor of FireHouse, she was out of town, so Jasmine covered the worship event.

When we walked in April was reading some Scripture, then Jasmine spoke for a few minutes in the form of a brief sermon.

Jasmine looks very young but in her sermon, she mentioned that she was done with college, so she is likely in her young twenties.

Her sermon mentioned a vision she had had, you can hear her talking about it. Her vision involved a bent tree that was releasing some of its leaves. She interpreted that to mean that she was being invited to look at the seasons of life and how best to move through them as a believer.

She mentioned that life has seasons, some of which are part of the Kingdom, some of which can be under the control of the Enemy. But the themes that infuse both kinds can be much like each other. First, you can move from one season of life to another season of life by demarcating these phases through a period of repentance. To repent for things that have occurred in your past is important in and of itself, but it is also a part of letting those things go that are behind you.

Here is a summary of the points that she made:

1. What did I learn in my prior season? What was my lesson?

2. Pray out the old season and ask God to seal all the lessons in the blood of Jesus. What’s supposed to be for my next season and what is supposed to be hidden?

3. End the year in a season of repentance. Repentance propels revival.

4. A transition needs to be Spirit-led ….but remember to consecrate yourself. Jericho. Flesh of the old cannot go with you. 

5. Different seasons can be under the banner of God and others under the banner of the Enemy.

6. Psalm 90 verse 12 - So, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Ask the Holy Spirit what that season was meant to teach you.

7. Release any pain and disappointment from the prior season. Start anew.

She had a great amount of wisdom to share. We were grateful. And when she prayed, she mentioned that worship was when "two or three are gathered." That is happening often throughout this project, which always makes us smile.

Beth made the observation that while we appear to be very different from each other, the five of us were Brothers and Sisters in Christ and we were seeking His face together on a cold Thursday evening. 

We stayed around for a bit and the five of us talked, we spent some time learning about FireHouse and what they do. We also compared notes on churches that are on fire in the US and got a recommendation that likely means that we are going out to Arizona in coming months.

This was the smallest worship that we have experienced, other than the two blog posts where just the two of us were present. 

Thanks to FireHouse, good visit.