Hello Silence My Old Friend

I love the Church.  The Church is The Lord's precious, sacred gift to the Earth. When we think of Church, we naturally envision a building where believers gather for worship and prayer, a sermon, and hopefully Communion.  But is that what Jesus envisioned?

I grew up in the Catholic Church, and no matter how gingerly I compensated for gravity as I lowered myself to sit, I could still hear the unavoidable creaks and croaks of the dark, worn pews. I remember playing endlessly with the spring-loaded hat hooks affixed to the bench backs and still wince at the thought of Gran-gran's stink eye when my thumb slipped off the button and the hammer strike echoed through the sanctuary.

I always looked forward to lowering the kneeler at the appropriate few times each mass, providing another chance to break the silence of my "Be quiet!" chamber.  Sometimes, I would eek a smirk and slam it down a few extra times to add to the synchronized chorus of heavy wooden feet punching the tile floor. 

I was an altar boy for a few years when I was a little older.  I remember the anticipation of ringing the Communion hand chimes when the priest held up the wafer and, later, the cup.  I always jangled them a little longer than necessary, sometimes getting the clerical stink eye.

Looking back, I realize my most memorable moments as a child in Church were making noise or releasing sound to disrupt the quiet.  Perhaps I liked breaking the rules, but I think it may have been a deeper, more innate urge than that.  Maybe I wasn't designed to be a quieted spectator in the House of the Lord?

When you gather, each one has a song, has a lesson, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation.  Let all these things be done for the strengthening of the Church.

~ I Corinthians 14:26

Each one.  The first idea of the Church, or ecclesia, was participatory.  It was a Spirit-led symphony of everyone playing their unique part of the score, producing heaven's orchestral movement.  Alas, the centuries have rendered many churches down to an onlooker's event.  As my Pastor would say back in the day;

The ministers minister, and the congregation congregates.

~ Rev. Terry Fullam

Fast-forward to today's rollicking contemporary church services, and I could shake those bells, slam the kneelers, and snap the hat hooks as loudly as I like—no one would hear it. The juiced-up sound boards and amped-up speakers ensure rolling thunder throughout the room and within the ribcage. 

The rare moments of silence are so short-lived I have begun to count to myself: "One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three . . ." I can't remember the last time I reached four.

In many churches, exquisite effort and expense are spent on executing the externalities of the church experience —an experience meant to stir the senses for the Presence of God. Even the prophet Elijah mistook the Presence for strong winds, breaking rocks, earthquakes, and fire. But he quickly learned that the Lord was not in the wind, quake, or fire. His voice was small, and it was still.

For God alone, my soul waits in silence.

~ Psalm 62:1

Growing up, I dreaded the solemnity and quiet of Church. Now that I'm grown up, I want it back. 

Jenga Skylines and Gasoline Puddles

While this brief reflection on church life is from my heart, I sat down tonight to write from a far greater weight: Christian leaders and ministries are collapsing around us like Jenga towers.  Though one block is always the trigger, the compromised position of the adjoining blocks produces the controlled demolition of the structure.

In 2021, I wrote about my miraculous four days at the International House of Prayer.  Because of sexual immoralities, the ensuing coverups, and persistent resistance to repentance, Mike Bickel, IHOP University, and Forerunner Church are no more.

Chris Reed was the delivery mechanism for my most mind-blowing miracle on that trip. He next planted himself in the center of the Bickel debacle and is currently suffering the consequences of an immoral relationship with a student at Morningstar. (I met with Chris when I began to doubt my miraculous encounter. I appreciated our conversation; we prayed for each other, and the rest will remain private.)

We used to bring our family to New York City for Hillsong conferences and services.  In hindsight, I now know that Pastor Carl Lentz was actively cheating on his wife while I watched him preach.

Steve Lawson, Tony Evans, Bill Hybels, Ravi Zacharias, Rick Joyner, and Matt Chandler are memorable names—but remembered for the wrong reasons. I just watched the two-part documentary on David Platt and the woke takeover of McLean Bible Church in DC. If you want to see decimation in the wake of woke theology and dark money, pop some corn and click play.

The teachings of Robert Morris were a mainstay in our home for years.  But after the facts of his pedophilia case were made public, he dropped out of sight quicker than if his headjack was yanked in The Matrix.

This brings us to the TV station we watched Robert on and the highest-profile scandal of the year: DayStar. Even though the story is fresh and the predictable posturing has begun, the facts are unthinkable as it involves a five-year-old little girl, and it bears all of the hallmarks of one more tower about to topple.

As we pull the lens back, the commonalities between these scandals are startling. It is as if the playwrights in Gehenna have run out of ideas and are releasing the Pastor's Moral Failure redux again and again.

Why sexual perversion, infidelity, and abuse are so prevalent among Christian leaders is a profoundly troubling matter in itself, particularly when the Holy Spirit not only convicts us of our sin but animates us with every strength and self-control necessary to resist the devil’s script. The only reasonable assumption is that these pathological offenders have quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit long ago.

An institution may recover from a leader's failure. An institution will rarely survive the coverup.  Attempting to cover up sexual sin in the Church is like trying to hide a puddle of gasoline by kicking hot embers on it.

Tinnitus of the Heart

Back to the quiet.  Western Evangelicalism has long jettisoned the early Church's solemnity, contemplativeness, and personal asceticism. I recently attended a Greek Orthodox funeral, and as soon as I walked through the ornate doors, the architecture lifted my gaze toward heaven.  There was a calming sense of reverence and a feeling that I had left one world and entered another.  

In a word, I felt transcendence.

I rejoice that the New Testament sanctuary is the yielded human heart. Still, I also confess that solemn, contemplative, and transcendent are not the markers of our strip mall concert halls with rack-mounted lighting and huffing smoke machines.

Don't hear me wrong; I love the Church and being in the assembly of God's people.  But I do wonder if these sexually broken leaders had long lost their connection with the still, small voice in their interior world because of the ceaseless white noise in their exterior world.  

A muscle-car worship band can disrupt the contemplative, and the absence of four Mississippi can chase away the solemness.  But I wonder:  Was the fatal sound that drowned out the siren of the Holy Spirit's voice deep inside these broken Pastor's hearts the deafening crackle of applause?

This begs the question: Have we lost the quiet because we love the loud?  Or do we love the loud to avoid the quiet?

The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the Earth keep silence before Him.

~ Habakuk 2:20