Tags
anointing, charismania, charismatic, Holy Spirit, prophetic movement, teachings, worship-as-in-music
One of the toughest struggles I have had in my journey out of the prophetic movement has had to do with music. In my CLB’s, music was a big part of every service. It was used to ‘create an atmosphere’ which in all reality is no different from setting a mood. It’s done in movies all the time. Try watching some scary or sappy part of a movie with no music in the background. You’ll see just how much it affects your perception of the scene.
But in the charismaniac setting, mood is elevated to mean something so much more. It is almost as if the music is the Spirit Himself, it is held in such high regard and ascribed so much power. The music, we were told, has the ability to usher in the presence of God. I even remember someone selling a recording of some complex chord (no doubt in a minor key) that was supposed to be so ‘anointed’ it would cause God to ‘show up.’
If that’s the way it works, why didn’t Jesus ask for musicians to play while he was prophesying so it could be more worshipful, more dramatic, better understood, or help Him hear from God? Better yet, why didn’t he teach the 5000 how to soak while music played? No, he taught, with spoken words, now available to us for our benefit, centuries later. Apparently Jesus needed no background mood music. He taught beside wells, among fields, along the roadside, in the synagogues, across the table, in houses, and in gardens. He prayed with his friends, all alone, with joy, and with weeping.
Actually, there isn’t any mention of Jesus doing anything musical at all, except for a little hymn singing in Matt 26:30. It seems an incidental comment, as if singing was just a NORMAL part of the passover (which it was). BTW if they sang the Hallel, meaning Psalms 113-118, that would have been THEE most prophetic song ever sung in all the history of man, yet it gets a short little aside in scripture. No mention of anyone soaking in it.
Doesn’t that seem a little strange if music is so critical to knowing God? Doesn’t that seem a little odd if the right string of chords has the power to usher in God Himself? Why didn’t Paul or James or Peter (or anybody) instruct the churches on how to use music to usher in the presence of God?
Why? Because music has no magical, supernatural, uber-anointed role in the Kingdom of God. Music is just, well, music. It can be used to proclaim the glories of God, or lament about your ex, wallow in self pity, or expound upon the virtues of sports cars.
The real ‘power’ of music has to do with its affect on us humans, not on how it provokes/causes/forces God to do anything. It surely increases the emotional impact of a moment, but we must be careful to not equate that with the dealings of the Holy Spirit.
The lyrics of a song are not more or less ‘anointed,’ they simply cause our minds to think about specific things. If the lyrics are all about how Susie broke your heart back in high school, I can guarantee you’ll be remembering some high school events. If the lyrics are a giant pity party of how misunderstood the singer is, you’ll probably feel all pitiful and misunderstood.
If the words tell of how Jesus suffered and died to purchase your redemption, and you are in fact, redeemed; very likely joy and gratitude to your Savior will well up in your soul.
There is probably a physiological impact of music on our brains that we don’t completely understand, and there may be some of this phenomena going on in ‘soaking’ or ‘harp and bowl’ sessions now so popular in charismatic circles. It is definitely something to be aware of, but for the most part I think the major issue has to do with ascribing an importance and a spirituality to music that is not warranted.
Just let it be what it is. Jesus’ blood would still be able to save if another note of music was never played. God will call people unto Himself even if another note of music is never heard. You would still be able to read and understand scripture even if every musical instrument vanished. The Holy Spirit would still be able to lead, guide, and teach you if another chord was never struck.
the untangling 
So true, thanks for the great post. I was involved in a soaking group, however when we started we did a lot of sharing and teaching, I can remember one Easter we spoke about the blood of Jesus and what it did for us and it was great and you could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit as He ministered to us while we were sharing and studying the Word. We had communion and to be honest it probably was one of the most enjoyable days I have ever experienced, everything was simple and no funny stuff until one of the members said that we should soak now and turned up the volume and put Red Red Wine from UB40 of all songs on, because it is all about the “wine”. Needless to say all the joy left. They listened to about 20 songs to try and “press in” again, and in all honesty, some of the people performing “soak” music sound as if someone is torturing them rather than meeting God in a quiet place, but it is always about the music and getting “drunk”, feathers, gold dust, gemstones and seeing angels around every corner. Our great God showed me the errors and I stopped attending the meetings.
Red Red Wine? Ugh! One would have to turn one’s brain to OFF to think the message of that song is in anyway remotely related to the Spirit of God. Hearing that after pondering what the blood of Jesus has done for us would be like mental whiplash. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Glad you got outta there.
There is a difference between meditating on what the Lord has done for us, Who He is, and our response to that (the first half of your described meeting) versus self-indulgent, forced experiences (the latter part).
There is a difference between letting the truth soak in to our hearts and minds (including the intellect) resulting in a renewed mind and strengthened obedience versus self indulgent (again, because I think that’s a big part of it) passive ‘soaking’ to loud music while we let any crazy thought flying through our heads be elevated to the words of God.
The anointing breaks the yolk. For some reason, there’s a teaching making the rounds which has had people believing that “anointing” is something they can “work up”. You cannot do anything to force the Holy Spirit to do anything outside of God’s will. And I don’t care HOW you feel when you leave the service, but those feelings are nothing but the flesh-man rearing his ugly head.
Anytime you place equal or more importance on “experience” than on God’s written/spoken word, you have stepped outside the boundaries of godly worship. Great post.
It often helps me to turn some of these ideas up side down and see if they survive the test. When I look at the life of say, Paul, I see very few reports of mountain top experiences. Yes, those times happen, but they were never drummed up, and the bulk of Paul’s life was a hard walk by faith. I wonder if those who spend so much time and energy looking for a ‘soak’ ‘high’ and ‘drunk’ experience will be without the ability to survive hardship or real persecution. I wonder if it isn’t a strategy of the enemy to produce weak Christians who do not know how to stand in the face of persecution when it comes. They will wonder where God ‘went’ because they cannot feel Him.
I think of that parable when people are trying to get into heaven and the Lord stops them and says not so fast. They will exclaim all the marvelous things that they did for him and yet he will look at them square in the eye and tell them, “depart for me- I never knew you”. There’s a lot of people that are doing a lot of soaking that are going to be very, very surprised when they find out it was Jesus from the bible they were communing with during all that soaking.
THANK YOU for posting this! It’s like music to my ears. 😉 No, seriously, I have been having issues with this whole soaking thing for quite some time. I have never participated in it, but have a friend who goes to a church that does. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it makes me wonder if they are really inviting in the presence of God or some other presence. I know that I just don’t feel right about it at all. I don’t know how to approach her about this, but hopefully, I can use your post to do so.
Thanks again.
Nina, I hope she will listen and be discerning. It never hurts to take a moment and step back to test a practice. The question we should ask ourselves when a certain practice (fad) is being pushed, is; “Did Jesus or the apostles of the New Testament ever teach this, endorse this, practice this, or instruct the churches on how to do this?” If they did not, we are wise to take a good hard look at it. At the very least demote it from the level of being “Kingdom Culture” “Anointed” “Prophetic” “Pick your buzz word”
I wonder how much “anointing” would be present if someone just got up and read the bible? Oh wait!! I know! The gospel is the power of God unto salvation! It is the seed that actually saves men’s souls (as opposed to a seed of money). Faith for salvation comes from hearing the gospel!
They should try it sometime – people might actually get saved and radically changed 🙂
Me thinks our human nature likes the easy way, Javanut. It’s easier to listen to someone playing pleasant music than to be challenged to deal with the ramifications of the gospel in our lives. And yes, nowhere in scripture are we commanded to go play music. We are commanded to preach the gospel.
Again, I’m not saying music cannot be a valid way to express our understanding of the gospel, our worship of God, or even to convey some aspects of the gospel to others. I’m just saying it cannot be equated to preaching the gospel with clear teaching and instruction. It certainly cannot be elevated to equality with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Music is not a special doorway to God, it’s just a natural avenue of human expression.
I read an article a while back based on the fact that in all of the book of Acts not one note was played, yet the book gives an amazing account of the workings of the Holy Spirit not read in any other. God does not need music to help Him out.
Great article, my friend.
A common thread, I think, in the reasons why I/we were easily caught up in the latest way to “experience God” “encounter God” ” have “intimacy with God” is because we could DO something to make it happen. We could say to ourselves -and others, “Oh, I spent an hour on the carpet, soaking, and I got this awesome word from God”
It plays to our human nature’s need to be in control. It plays into our pride. It seems like these kinds of practices are inundated with lots of ‘sharing’ about how we all had such awesome and amazing things happen. Lot’s of bragging, basically. In my experience this lead to a sort of one-upmanship that left us vulnerable to the next big ‘thing.’
I mean, really, who would go around jabbering about witnessing the death of Ananias? If I had seen that, I’d be afraid to whisper what I had seen. I would be in fear of the Lord. I would wonder if I should speak of it; His holiness displayed in power beyond reproach.
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Being a musician, I know this. I had a lot of trouble with the whole ‘prophetic’ thing, and now I don’t go to church at all. It seems as if every single group I was involved with in the past in our area had jumped on the ‘Bethel bandwagon.’ I think very highly of their musicianship, but I encouraged a friend of mine who is having their music studio work on his album not to go, due to their very questionable practices. He, of course, being newly ordained, did not listen to me. I now believe God has put him in place so he can help lead people out of the mess, but it will be difficult because he first has to get disentangled.
But, there really are no churches here for me to attend. I was very visibly involved and know a lot of the key players in a lot of them, and I could never go back there.
Dave, I know it can be hard to find a local church. Many here and on other blogs have expressed the same frustration. And many of us have lost a lot of friends when we left charismania. Do you have even one genuine brother in the Lord with whom you can fellowship? In my case just two dear friends (not including my husband) was the extent of my fellowship for quite some time. (Kept me from falling into ‘woe is me’ mode.)
As far as your friend; I truly pray God gives him discernment and wisdom. It might be rather difficult to separate himself if they are helping him with his music- I mean when we feel beholden, it complicates the issue.
God be with you.
Hope you are worshiping God with your music even if you are not in a band or in some kind of “official” capacity. Don’t leave that part of your relationship with him dormant (speaking as a sister in the Lord who made that mistake).
Saw your comment, Dave, and remembered going thru the SAME thing.
I too was formerly a church musician from a charismatic church but had gotten out. Dave, do what I did. Pray God will lead you to where He wants you to be. (I realize you’re doing that already.) I wanted to let you know, however, that it took a long time (years) but The Lord did eventually bring me to a place where I once again experienced that excitement of growing in Him (beyond my home Bible study).
At my current church now, 1st service is accapella and 2nd service has instruments. Well I’d been asked to help out with the music during 2nd service so I went to a couple of sets. Problem: I was really having trouble with a couple of the songs, so I Googled the music to see if I could get the manuscript. (We do 99% of the songs by ear.). Guess what! The music I was having difficulty learning was either from Bethel or by Misty Edwards (IHOP)! Long story short, I told the music leader I wasn’t going to be doing keyboards. Note: My church leaders are also aware of corrections needed in the music.
No church is perfect but God does want us worshiping with other believers.
(Hebrews 10:25). If you see something amiss, speak up. Maybe it will turn out that God had you (wherever) to BE that Berean — warning others who were about to be trapped. Seems like people just love “something for nothing” anymore and don’t want to dig in to scriptures to make sure what they’re hearing is actually right! (Acts 17:11)
I’m praying for you, brother.
how come I can’t print this stuff out so I can give a copy to friends Really good stuff I read it over and over
I’m not sure why you can’t print it. You can try highlighting then copy and paste into a word document.