The “Body Life”

I would not have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it for a number of years – meetings with upwards of 200 or 300 people or more in a large hall that was totally unscripted because the Holy Spirit was in control. There was no “order of worship”. Anyone could begin by a prayer, a song, a testimony. Very often the Holy Spirit led us corporately in a single theme. Anyone was free to participate at any time. There was no chaos. There was order. The chairs were in a circle. There was no podium. There were elders but they were not visible or obvious. If something got off track, they would bring it back, but they were truly there to facilitate rather than dominate. The spirit and attitude everyone had was to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, to sense what to do when – whether to pick a song, read from the Bible, pray, praise, testify or teach. Most understood that they were there to glorify God and to share what the Lord had done in our lives that week. The meetings were fresh and often glorious.

This is not to say we didn’t have some bad meetings, people sharing inappropriately, etc. but that’s what leadership is all about. When someone goes off track or just plain “off the wall”, the mature saints need to be sensitive to the Lord and bring it back into the flow of the Spirit. This is not heavy handed or dictatorial. The meeting is still in the hands of all the saints who are free to share a hymn, a psalm, a testimony, pray, etc.

So what can the pastor do who wants to turn his church around from the dead one man show to a living body? The pastor may tell people, “okay, folks, I’m going to shut up for the next month. I’m just here to encourage you.” Function follows form. Take away the pulpit. Put the chairs in a circle. Begin to announce a couple of weeks before hand the reason for the change and how it will work, emphasizing the need for all to have fresh experiences and light from the Lord to share. Encourage them to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit as to which song to pick, when and what to share. Keep prayers and testimonies “short, quick, real and fresh” (as we used to say). If someone drones on for a while without much real to say, it will kill the meeting and interrupt the Spirit’s flow.

Christians grow when they let the life of Jesus they have experienced flow out to others. This can happen in large meetings or small. It may take a little time and prodding to get people used to the idea, but it can be done.

Most of these meetings fall flat on their face. Why? A "body life" meeting is only as good as our walk with the Lord. If we are living in the past, living off of experiences we had last month or ten years ago, we are going to be in for a rude awakening. It may sound trite to say that we need to "have a fresh experience of Christ" daily, but it is true. Many people can tell old "war stories" for hours on end, how the Lord did this or that for them years ago. But what counts is what the Lord did in my life today, this week - not last year or 30 years ago. An interesting thing about a body life meeting is that there is no place to hide. You are exposed. If your experience is stale, your sharing will smell like a stale ash tray to you and others the minute you open your mouth.

Why do we end up with big meetings and professional speakers? In the traditional service, there is nothing to do, nothing to prepare for. It takes the heat off. We can hide and don't have to deal with our shallowness and lack of reality.

· Unless we can get to the point where we can be honest about where we are spiritually...

· Unless we can get to the point where we can really touch the Lord regularly in prayer and in the Word...

· Unless we get to the point where each and everyone of us can have fresh daily experiences with the Lord, fresh revelation of our own, rather than someone else's,

our meetings are bound to be pitiful because they reflect our poor walk with the Lord.

This is foreign to the average Christian, because we are used to being passively entertained. Just the thought of having to share with others is scary to some. I know through years of experience what works and what doesn't. The only way a person will move from knowledge to reality is through the constant loving support of a group of brothers and sisters he/she trusts and knows are there to help rather than condemn. This kind of dynamic can only be achieved in body life meetings. Saints need an opportunity to participate meaningfully in each meeting. It’s the little things - the things you are thankful for, how much the Lord means to you, how He pulled off a little miracle at work, how He let you share Him with someone. Once all the members of the body get released, people finally get the idea.

There is no such thing as a bad meeting or blaming someone else. The meeting depends on me. If the meeting is dead, it's because I had no life to bring to it. What did I contribute? If someone was obviously down and out, how did I help? What can I say? How can I pray for them this week? The best part about an open fellowship is there is no one to blame but me. That's why they work - and don't work.

In a very real sense, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to meet. God doesn't care about methods. He gives us very little instruction on what to do and how to do it. The question is, is the meeting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Are there mature leaders who can sense the flow of the Spirit and move with it? Now I am not talking in the sense of something "extra-Biblical", voices, miracles, signs and wonders. I am talking about the ability of a small group of people to let the Spirit of God lead them in prayer, worship, song and testimonies. One will find that there is often an unspoken or unrecognized theme that the Spirit will lead in a meeting and that everything will relate to it - without planning and without an agenda. For example, the Lord may impress us this week with his mercy so the songs, testimonies, scripture and prayer will all relate to that theme.

Think of the Holy Spirit as the conductor of an orchestra and each one of us is an instrument that He plays. He has worked in our lives during the week, ministered to us through His word and through experience, and now we bring that to the meeting and offer it up to the Lord as a "sweet smelling sacrifice unto the Lord." The meeting reflects the fresh moving and working of the Lord in each of our lives.

The Place of Leadership

Leadership is there to sense the moving of the Lord - not to carry out their planned order of business, not to follow an outline or course of study, or even verses that were picked the previous week. Leadership should be there to sense the move of the Lord "real time" as they say in computer jargon. Our relationship with the Lord should be living and powerful, not programmed and planned.

If there is one main reason a small meeting won't work, it is

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