I appreciate that Neil’s approach is that of balance… So much weirdness happens in churches that veer too far one way or another.
At my high school, numbers of kids went to one or the other of two churches. The one I didn’t attend was, from what I gathered, very legalistic. Boy, did those kids know the Bible! But the downside was that there were so many rules…
We were pretty sure they were afraid to come visit our church. They didn’t know exactly what Spirit-filled meant, but it probably had something to do with rolling in the aisles and swinging from the chandeliers. We actually joked around with them about doing those things...
Our church was pretty balanced, but I’ve been in church meetings where the emotional hype is the point, not necessarily truth. I wondered if, after a while, it was hard to stay motivated/involved, or what would happen if the emotional pitch didn’t live up to expectations on a certain day.
The thing that strikes me is that God created us for both reason and emotion; to deny either is to be slightly incomplete. Sure, we may lean one way or the other – for example, I tend towards the side of the brain that doesn’t remember which is which – but there must be balance. My focus needs to be on God, and what He wants in my life, and in my church.
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