• Bottled Water

    October 12, 2008

    I visited RE:VIVE church yesterday - they are an off-shoot from the Lilydale Seventh Day Adventist Church - and I must say that I was quite pleasantly surprised and impressed! The service was pretty much like any other contemporary worship service, except it was lead by younger folk (20’s) - and the atmosphere was VERY relaxed with folk getting up and grabbing drinks before coming back to their seats. Comfy lounges as well as comfortable chairs were available and all in all it was not a “slick” service but one that was definitely more heart-felt and spirit lead!

    But it is not the worship that impressed me! The sermon was by a fellow called Luke - still need to find his name out - who was down from the Central Coast of NSW to talk. His talk was on the Living Water - the Holy Spirit - and what it means to be filled with the Living Waters. Luke then said that he had been drinking bottled Living Water for the past 32 years! To explain Luke’s background helps now; he is a Seventh Day Adventist minister who used to work at a Seventh Day Adventist School and had grown up the child of Seventh Day Adventists. So the claim that he had been drinking bottled Living Water for 32 years was very well understood by most of those assembled who knew Luke.

    His analogy of bottled water was that we tend to bottle the Living Water with our denominational requirements - if you do this - fill in whatever denominational man-made requirements your church has - then you will be saved, oh, an accept Jesus. Whereas the Living Water is freely given to us when we accept Jesus! Freely!  By limiting and controlling the Living Water (who can do that you say - well we - man certainly try!) we then doubt much of what the Holy Spirit is here for.

    I will admit, and if you have read some of the previous posts you will know, that I have grown up in the non-denominational church of Christ. If you need to know more about them Google it - but suffice to say that they bottle the Living Water - doubt even, that the Holy Spirit does anything apart from indwell in us and reveal things in scripture, oh, and intercede in prayer. But that’s it - there is no scope to believe that God could do more. Bottled Water. This was challenging to my upbringing and is something that I am really wrestling with. Especially in light of reading “Pagan Christianity” and “Reimagining Church” by Frank Viola.

    But what was even more challenging was what living your life as one where the Living Water flows freely looks like! Hmmm, more thoughts on this as I process them and also find out some more abotu Luke and see if I can get a hold of his power point.

    PS: Had to play Revival in Belfast while writing this - felt right!

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