| "What shall we say, then brother? When you come together, everyone has a
hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.
All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church..."
"Two or three of the prophets should speak, and the others should weigh
carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting
down, the speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that
everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of the prophets are
subject to the control of the prophets. For God is not a God of disorder,
but of peace.
1 Corinthians 14:26..32
"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to eeee
whether they are from God .... This is how you can recognise the Spirit of
God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh
is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from
God..."
1 John 4:1..3
The force of these verses is that the instruction offered does not originate
in the mind of the person speaking; he is offering what he believes is
received from the LORD. The rest of the congregation - particularly those who
are also able to respond to the LORD in this way - can feed on the word given,
and the Holy Spirit in the each individual will respond - positively or
negatively - to the message. Any slight check in the *devotional* (which
should not be without the element of active, personal participation and
involvement) is therefore an indication of interruption of the Spirit. That
check should never go beyond a certain level without the speaker being
superseded by another. We do not echo the speaker's words mindlessly; we
savour them as truth, offered up afresh from our own hearts. Where our hearts
find something indigestible, we have to wrap it in extra protective
prayer...;-}
Worship in the fellowhsip is to be a dynamic communication with the LORD.
There are advantages and disadvantages in both familiarity and unfamiliarity.
This is why even the extempore instructions of 1 Corinthians 14 stress that
there must be order. Neither form is to be stressed to the exclusion of the
other.
God bless
Andrew
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| I'm one of the lay leaders of an Anglican church. We use set forms of
service for many services, but not all. In any case, the set service
is a framework on which we can then hang whatever the pastor/leader
feels God wants included. This can be open prayer just as well as
prayers from the Prayer Book, prayers extemporised on the spot as well
as prayers prepared in advance. As music leader I have to accept doing
extra verses of songs and hymns, or even adding a piece at 10 seconds'
notice - what is right in the service is not always what we thought out
beforehand. Prophecy, words of knowledge and so on have to be included -
after all, they're biblical, and as Anglicans we stand or fall on
Biblical truth!
The set service is what we make of it: a suffocating straitjacket, or
a framework from which the worship can take off to glorify our risen
Lord.
Richard.
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