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My heart still has to be kindled by God’s Holy Spirit but it is more than emotion. I pray yours is as well.

Amen. Love is not a feeling, but a commitment. A commitment to serve God with all of our being, and trusting Him to give us the strength and endurance to do so. It can be very easy to get caught in the moment when being with a crowd, and you can easily get emotionally charged. I had a friend last night who was trying to get me to consider going to a conference that would take place next year, and they stated, “Best worship session, speakers are awesome! You’ll get pumped up for God!” And I thought, “I can get “pumped up” for God right in my own home by dwelling in His Word, and fellowshipping with Him!” I think a lot of Christians use conferences/concerts to ‘renew’ or get emotionally high in their faith, yet when they leave, their “passion” is gone. 2 Peter 1:3-10 says, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.
I think a key word here is diligence, and many don’t know exactly what that means or have forgotten. It certainly is not defined by emotions or going someplace to get your passion. 

 

There is another danger to conferences—God judges us according to what we know. Romans 2:12 gives some hint of this:

For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;

Conferences can be great. They can also be death traps for people who can not handle what they already know to do (or not do). Matthew 11:20-24:

Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

Doing things from emotion is a horrible idea. Instead we should learn to quietly live as we ought (with the help of the Holy Spirit) and let our emotions fall in line.

And I know exactly what you mean about getting “pumped up” right in your own home. There was a time when I would read the Bible to help me fall asleep. Now I have a hard time sleeping after reading the Bible or any other stories of God’s saints. We really have an exciting God.

Having grown up on Moody Science videos, Little House on the Prairie books, and classical hymns, I can’t relate real well to any of this. But I still find it quite fascinating. Listening to the live version of Mighty to Save by Michael W. Smith creeps me out, as does They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love by Jars of Clay. They sound like cult chants. I’ve also noticed this about traditional churches with the congregation responses.

However, I’m not opposed to going to conferences where they’ll “pump you up” with the gospel (concerts are iffy, since it tends to be emotional). I tend to see it as more of an encouraging tool. Sure, I could be just as excited about Christ and my faith without it, but what does it hurt? (Unless you are making the decision to believe in Christ while on an emotional high. This is why I don’t care for altar calls. Other important decisions probably shouldn’t be made at this time either.)

Perhaps I’m just more familiar with the good ol’ Baptist stay-in-your-seat-and-shout-“Amen-brother!”. :D

I don’t necessarily have problems with conferences either. It’s the commitments that they get out of people on an emotional high that aren’t followed through on that I take issue with. We need to teach people how to live their lives that way all the time, which is a different matter entirely.

Alter calls are a relatively new invention that were created for the massive tent revivals. I don’t know they are necessarily bad but the alter is not the only place salvation can take place either. As I dig deeper, it shocks me that we have 2-5 minute alter calls and say that someone is saved after them. In times past, men (or women) prayed with the person seeking Salvation until God’s Holy Spirit confirmed to that person that he (or she) was saved. At times it took an hour or more. Starting a relationship takes time.

At my own church, we have “audience responses” (in a sense) and some are specifically given in the Bible (Joshua 24:21, I Kings 1:39, I Chronicles 16:36). The most common for us is that we will read a Psalm where our pastor reads one verse and then the congregation reads the next.

Being a part of a crowd does have an effect. My worry is that churches are learning how to manipulate this without hardly anybody understanding why or how it works, and then they cater to it.

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