SPAW

I apologize in advance if this post is substandard. I stayed home from work sick today with a fever of 101.1 and I feel kind of wobbly now.

Last night I went to SPAW (Service of Praise and Worship) at the Assembly of God church in Harlan. The worship there was free and overflowing. The music was awesome. Marian Greer brings the Gospel alive in her songs. I am blessed to know her and my good friends at the First AOG.

There are a number of things I love about the way they run SPAW.

The structure of the service is quite emergent. Everyone contributes to the sharing. Different people stand up and read Scripture, give testimonials, sing songs, pray. It’s sharing the Word. It isn’t a top down system where the Pastor distributes the moral message for the week. It’s like a council of believers sharing their struggles, their victories and their passion for the Lord.

The altar is open and free for prayer and meditation. People come up, offering themselves to the Lord. Others will come and pray with you, building you up. We do this often at G-squared and on our trips, but to see it in a ‘big church' is refreshing. It’s not just us radical youth types.

The Worship blew me away. It is great to see folks who aren’t scared of the Holy Spirit. We sang and sang with hands in the air, weeping, bowing to pray, arms around each other, a Great Wind blowing where it wished. I crave that experience and I was feed, filled up. Too often I am the one pouring out. It’s nice to go and receive.

So on our return, a youth of mine commented about how great worship was there, how she wants that more often. I asked her what do we do? We don’t want to abandon the great things our church has to offer. Also, it wouldn’t take long before I missed elements of our worship. So what do we do? We must strive to merge the two. I want the great music, the charismatic praise, the free flowing worship, the open altar combined with my confession, my responsive reading, the reciting of the Creed. These things can come together to create a new Lutheranism (a Neo-Lutheranism if you will). I can see it now. The group arranged in a circle. All free to stand and share. Some giving testimonials, others reading from the Bible. And prayer, sweet prayer… with anointing of oil and laying on of hands and building each other up… all while sharing the ancient wisdom found in our church tradition.

This sort of thing is happening at churches like New Hope in West DM and perhaps Church of the Cross in Altoona. I hope our youth services reflect this. But I hope for a day when it is more than once a month, more than just for teens. I want to worship this way on a weekly basis. Perhaps the Lord will lead me to a place where this can unfold.