Supernaturally Natural: Rethink The Way We, The Church, Worships Corporately – Part X
from Supernaturally Natural: Chapter 15 manuscript by Anthony Bachman
(Second Section)
Stretching our mindset: Maybe we should look at the world through the Jewish, “lamad”, mindset rather than the Western Culture mindset, the experiential way rather than the intellectual.
How did I get introduced to the lamad method?
Several years ago I came across Mark Verkler’s teaching on how to listen to God. He also wrote a book on how to allow the Holy Spirit to “teach” in small groups, which I highly recommend. He wanted his small groups to “experience” God, to “experience” the lesson being taught by and through the Holy Spirit. His premise is that the Holy Sprit is the teacher, not man, and any believer can be his pupil and get spiritual insight, not just the “professionals”.
In short, he suggests one person read a passage of scripture while the rest of the group with closed eyes “listens” allowing the Holy Spirit to accent parts of the passage He deems important to that individual’s life. When the scripture reading is complete, the groups should try to see, or picture, the lesson. Virkler proposes that one needs to “stop”, “look”, and “listen” to the scripture and allow the Holy Spirit to bring it to life into your own “personal experience”.
Basically the Logos Word is being transformed into the Rhema Word, or the experienced living Word. Rather than “preaching” on the text, or “teaching” on the text, or “expounding” on the text, or doing an “exegesis” on the text, Virkler suggests that the Holy Spirit be allowed to teach, to initiate, to activate. After a period of silence, he would let individuals in the class share what they have learned.
Because of different individuals seeing different points of view, the lesson became enriched; principles never noticed before by the group, no matter how minute, became real, alive, and personal. The sharing brought more insight into the passage than one person could give. The class then left with the urgency to “experience” the text, the passage, the Word in their daily lives throughout the week. To me this was a different mindset toward the standard, study and lecture approach that I had been taught and practiced in church and in my profession. Upon trying this lamad approach, I found it to be more effective, far more invigorating, and far more alive than any academic lesson that I ever attempted to teach. Following Markl Virkler’s instruction, I did not teach, only reading the passage; I allowed the Holy Spirit to teach.
In the natural if I had taught, the class only gets my perspective from only my experience. That is what usually happens with sermons on Sunday mornings. We get only the “preacher’s” perspective on the interpretation of the material, which is highly tainted with dogma and doctrine of the sect to which he belongs. If we get ourselves out of the picture and allow the Holy Spirit to be the teacher, then in the supernatural the class will be taught even richer truths allowing richer ministry between the saints to each other. Hearts will be touched; the hearts will be changed; and who knows, it will probably effect how we intellectually look at things. Our intellectual theology, study of God, may be trashed by our experiential theology, the living study of God, because we have “experienced” who God is, His nature, His character, His personality, His being by entering into His Presence. When the heart changes, we holistically change too.
To the mindset that only a paid professional who has spent years of intellectual study earning various degrees has the inside insight into God is totally wrong. Any New Testament priest who has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior has access into His Presence through the Holy Sprit to gain “godly” or “god-like” insight into his Logos Word and Rhema Word. Can any believer give the Sunday morning message? Sure, in fact the whole “priesthood” can and should! This new mindset would revolutionize Sunday morning worship if we allowed the Holy Spirit to not only orchestrate the “order of worship” but also be allowed to “teach” to the priesthood.