Hillsong has been given over to the world.

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I would disagree deeply with this, Oscarr. The Holy Spirit is God. And yes, Christ did found One Church, on Peter. Our prayer can be that someday, all faithful, humble, true Christians can be One.

Well, we could go into a side-issue debate on whether the church was founded on Peter or not. It seems to me that Jesus referred to Peter as a stone, (Petros) but He said that the church was built on "this Rock", (Petra) meaning Himself (Matthew 16:18). Psalm 61 says, "Lead me to the Rock which is higher than I"; the Rock here is referring to God, also using Petra (not Petros) in the Septuagint Greek. Psalm 62:2 and Psalm 89:26 refer to God as "the rock of my salvation".

 

[anna ~ grace]

Well, we could go into a side-issue debate on whether the church was founded on Peter or not. It seems to me that Jesus referred to Peter as a stone, (Petros) but He said that the church was built on "this Rock", (Petra) meaning Himself (Matthew 16:18). Psalm 61 says, "Lead me to the Rock which is higher than I"; the Rock here is referring to God, also using Petra (not Petros) in the Septuagint Greek. Psalm 62:2 and Psalm 89:26 refer to God as "the rock of my salvation".

Well, you can't both reference the proper masculine given name form of a noun and the noun that it derives from without using two distinct words with the same root in Greek.

Just saying. Also kind of odd that Christ chose to essentially name Simon Bar Jonah after Himself.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Well, you can't both reference the proper masculine given name form of a noun and the noun that it derives from without using two distinct words with the same root in Greek.

Just saying. Also kind of odd that Christ chose to essentially name Simon Bar Jonah after Himself.

It is a thread that runs right through the Bible, that God is the rock of our salvation. It is therefore consistent that Jesus is also our rock, and the rock on which the Christian church is based. What Jesus actually said to Peter in response to Peter saying, "You are the Christ; the Son of the Living God", was "Peter, you are a stone, and upon this Rock (the revelation that Christ is the Son of the Living God) is the church based.

It is absurd that Jesus would transfer the headship of the church from Himself to a mere human being. All human beings, including Peter, were and are just poor sinners and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is all in all.

Maybe your church is based on a human being, and that Peter is the rock of your salvation, instead of Christ, so that you are worshiping a human-based and led church, but my Head is Christ and no one else.

 

[SinoBen]

As in other posts I have made concerning the modern trend in worship music tending to be more soulish than spiritual, I saw a lot of that in the video. The comment by the singer that "the presence of God is here among us" tended more toward sensory pleasant feelings as evidence of the presence of God, but I would rather think that the pleasant emotional group dynamics are induced by the emotional nature of the music. This is very similar to New Age, and brings me to suspect that Hillsong music, if this is an example of its type of music, is actually influenced by New Age ideas that concentrate on self - the way I feel about God, rather than worship to God for what He has done for us.

This type of music with its repetitious phrasing and lyrics and emotional style along with people standing with their hands up and eyes closed, swaying to the music, can induce a state of semi-conscious meditation similar to transcendental meditation where the person goes into an altered spiritual state.

The same altered state can be induced by a combination of repetitious chanting type of music with repeated phrases and mind altering drugs to induce a type of pleasant semi consciousness where the conscious mind no longer is in contact with reality.

My goodness i also have seen time crunch ...routine service structures. When the Spirit comes upon you...you want more songs or message but it seems they are so set in their strict schedule which stifles the HS.

I think we need to be careful not to ascribe to the enemy what is rightly God's. We ought not to allow the enemy to hijack us with his falsehoods (I'm thinking of TM, Eastern religions etc). We are wired with both left and right brain, the logical side will tend to restrict the flow of the Holy Spirit and to inspiration, so control that. We Christians ought to be free to mediate... our minds are not emptied, but instead focused on Jesus, yet if we begin to self analyse constantly, we will not be able nor free to discern spiritually. OK you're right that's pretty awkward explanation.

In terms of songs & worship session, I have come to realise that it is not how much time you have or how "routine" it is, but rather how prepared you are personally (worship is not just 20 minutes or even 1 hour before the sermon as you know). If you come with the right attitude, you can worship and praise immediately and meaningfully. This morning in between song 3 and 4 the worship leader led us in a short free worship, then move on with a powerful praise song at the end. No one at the front led in tongues (they don't have to), but I prayed and sang in tongues. Hey... there's time. I know if I had not prepared myself properly, to come with the right heart, this would seem to be routine.

This morning at Hillsong, we are reminded of Ps. Brian's declaration for revival. The preaching this morning by another pastor was a call to revival. Basically, return to worship, return to the Word (and holiness), and return to witness (scriptures were from Ezra, Nehemiah, Ester etc). The call was for people to come and pray and be desperate for Jesus, and for revival. Desperation was described as the platform for God to move. Yeah there's more, but I'm not going to type out the sermon here, only that the preacher asked us to read history of revivals and learn from it.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I think we need to be careful not to ascribe to the enemy what is rightly God's. We ought not to allow the enemy to hijack us with his falsehoods (I'm thinking of TM, Eastern religions etc). We are wired with both left and right brain, the logical side will tend to restrict the flow of the Holy Spirit and to inspiration, so control that. We Christians ought to be free to mediate... our minds are not emptied, but instead focused on Jesus, yet if we begin to self analyse constantly, we will not be able nor free to discern spiritually. OK you're right that's pretty awkward explanation.

I tend to agree in that if we spend too much time being introspective, we lose sight of Christ. The fact is that once we are born again we lost sight of ourselves because our own lives are now hid with Christ in God. Christ has become our life, therefore, we forget about ourselves and trust in Christ that we have right standing with God. Those who worry about their own spiritual state are not exercising faith and trust in Christ. The genuine convert to Christ is now totally concerned with the unsaved souls around him and concentrates on doing what he can to present Christ to them as he is led by the Holy Spirit to do so. The genuine convert knows that everything is settled between Him and God so he can leave his own spiritual state with Christ, and get on with working with the Holy Spirit to see lost souls saved. He lets God take care of his sanctification and his walk in the Spirit and he seeks now to know the mind of the Holy Spirit as to how he should work in the world to provide a way for the Holy Spirit to use him to reach lost souls for Christ and to empower him to share the gospel in a way that will win them to Christ.

In terms of songs & worship session, I have come to realise that it is not how much time you have or how "routine" it is, but rather how prepared you are personally (worship is not just 20 minutes or even 1 hour before the sermon as you know). If you come with the right attitude, you can worship and praise immediately and meaningfully. This morning in between song 3 and 4 the worship leader led us in a short free worship, then move on with a powerful praise song at the end. No one at the front led in tongues (they don't have to), but I prayed and sang in tongues. Hey... there's time. I know if I had not prepared myself properly, to come with the right heart, this would seem to be routine.

I believe that the preparation should be made well before you come to the public service. I am getting away from public expressions of worship because I don't see them in the New Testament. There is only one set of teaching in Paul's letters about how one conducts oneself in a public service and that is in 1 Corinthians 14. He makes mention of everyone coming together with a psalm, a hymn, a revelation, a word of encouragement, but he does not mention having a time of "worship" to prepare for the sermon.

I know that the Scripture talks about living up holy hands to worship the Lord, but this can happen in private, not necessarily in public. Jesus warned about the danger of allowing your spirituality to be seen of men, because if they praise you for it, that is all the reward you are going to get. So, I will sing the songs, but I won't make any public expression of worship to the Lord because my worship is a private thing between the Lord and me, and when there is no one else to impress, I can shout, laugh, leap, and yell "Yahoo!" as much as I like if the occasion warrants it.

When I have had personal fellowship with God before going to the service, then, when I enter the service, I am full of the Holy Spirit and I bring the atmosphere in with me. I don't have to work up an atmosphere because it is already there, with me, along with all the others who have come into the service, already prepared and full of the Spirit. In a real sense, the people who are full of the Spirit in a service are the atmosphere, and there needs no further preparation for the Holy Spirit to move and influence the service the way He wants.

[quote}This morning at Hillsong, we are reminded of Ps. Brian's declaration for revival. The preaching this morning by another pastor was a call to revival. Basically, return to worship, return to the Word (and holiness), and return to witness (scriptures were from Ezra, Nehemiah, Ester etc). The call was for people to come and pray and be desperate for Jesus, and for revival. Desperation was described as the platform for God to move. Yeah there's more, but I'm not going to type out the sermon here, only that the preacher asked us to read history of revivals and learn from it.[/QUOTE]
True revival does not happen just in church services. It happens in the personal lives and hearts of believers. It involves living a holy life, having personal fellowship with God, being filled with the Spirit, and having a genuine concern for lost souls to the degree that one will pray for every person whom he knows is on the way to hell. Revival is not a "Sunday" thing where people come to church all prayed up and spiritual, and then live the other six days as if revival was just a religious concept that one thought about just on Sundays at church.

We know that revival is happening when lost souls start coming to Christ through our witness, either in our personal encounters, or through the preaching of the gospel at church. If people think that they are revived when they are all religious, worshipful, happy/clappy, and holy, but no souls are being saved in the services, then they are sadly mistaken. You can have the most "spiritual" church in town with the soundest doctrines, giving the appearances that the church is "at the cutting edge of what God is doing", but if no souls are being saved to Christ, then your church is merely a holy "club", and not a revived church.

Here is the example of a revived church: In the early part of the 20th Century, there was a church in Korea where the Holy Spirit fell on it, and all the people who lived in the streets around it for several blocks turned to Christ.

A church that does not continually win souls for Christ is just a religious club and not a gospel church, no matter how large it is, or how good a reputation it has.