The sanctuary also appears smaller than expected on
first glance, though upon reflection it becomes obvious that the seating
capacity is quite large. Balconies and
gradations in the seating have given it a small, intimate feel, though the
congregation is, in fact, quite large. Twenty minutes prior to the beginning of
the service, Christian rock music blares from the speakers while a church logo
appears on a large screen behind the stage.
Two smaller screens to either side of the front scroll announcements
about various church functions, including a Valentine dance, a divorce care
group, a Toastmaster’s club, a Celebrate Recovery ministry, how to get the
church’s iPhone app, and other items.
As the time for the service arrives, the band and nine
singers spread out across the stage. A
man in the center of the stage, who turns out to be “Pastor Dave,” calls out,
“This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. He starts clapping, and the congregation
stands for what turns out to be a medley of three songs.
While the second of the three songs had some positive
gospel content, any messaging tended to be overwhelmed by the behavior of the
singers on stage. Pastor Dave bounced and hopped spasmodically during the songs
and said between the second and third songs that the praise team had been on a
retreat at Camp Freedom and that he was so moved that he needed to apologize in
advance for what he might do. The song
that followed promised that “everything changes when your kingdom comes.” While
that may be true, properly understood, neither the lyrics nor what came before
or after really provided any information about either what the Kingdom was or
what those changes might be expected to look like. Perhaps, Pastor Dave stops bouncing?
Following this music, Associate Pastor Stephen Hayes
came to the stage and explained his understanding of Jesus’ parable of the
mustard seed. Mr. Hayes offered that
this was about unity in faith. He contended that a unified body creates a
demand for God to move the mountain. This was followed by an offertory prayer,
the first prayer of the service.
After a video about a mission in India using
basketball to spread the gospel, the pastor, Mike Hayes, walked to the platform,
standing at a traditional podium that had been brought to center stage for his
use. He was dressed nicely, wearing slacks and an open collar gray shirt under
a sports coat. His presence and delivery were calm and confident, in stark
contrast to the rather manic music that preceded him.
Before launching into his sermon, he announced that he had a “public
declaration that I believe the Lord gave to me this week.” The declaration was
an announcement that he was asking God to provide $20 million for a mission
building presence in Washington, D.C. and Jerusalem. He wanted to have the funds to purchase a
church building that he said was within three blocks of the capitol in
Washington, as well as a high rise building in Jerusalem.
That announcement completed, he read his primary text
for the sermon that morning, I Samuel 16:7 – “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of
his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’” A large cartoon drawing of the confrontation
between David and Goliath appeared on the video screen behind him. As the text
that he read concerns the anointing of David as king by Samuel and has nothing
to do with Goliath, it came as a surprise that the pastor intended to apply
this text to the problem of killing our external giants. Nonetheless, the
pastor instructed the congregation that he had a new interpretation of the text
that they had not likely thought of before. It was hard to dispute him on that.
Nonetheless, the pastor proceeded to
state that these external giants could not be slain until after people had
defeated their internal giants. As a result, before delving into his text about
David, he took his congregation back to the story of Jacob wrestling with the
angel of the Lord, a story that he took as prescriptive of how Christians could
defeat those internal giants. He argued
that for that internal slaying to occur, it was necessary for a person to come
to a place where he has nothing left between him and God. In that circumstance,
it is incumbent upon the one struggling to refuse to let go of God until he is
changed. He declared, “Jesus came and offered himself up because he realized
that we can’t change ourselves much.” We need God in order to change.
Nonetheless, while we may need God to
change us, in Rev. Hayes paradigm, it is clearly the people who are in charge.
Thus, it is up to us to press the right buttons so that God’s grace is
released: “Humility, confession summons
grace.” Mr. Hayes explained that while grace is wonderful, it does us no good
if we don’t appropriate it.
Thus, having used Jacob’s life as a
sort of prescriptive Aesop’s fable, he then turned to that of David, saying
that he would show the congregation that the giant facing the believer isn’t
necessarily all that he appears. The true giant is truly beatable. This
statement was intended as the application of a study that suggested that
Goliath may have had a condition called acromegaly, which would have rendered him
physically fragile and nearly blind. Telling his congregation that “you were
born to be a giant killer” of enemies such as addiction, greed, and lust, he
then concluded that the lesson of the story of David and Goliath was that “your
strong vows summon God’s grace.”
At the close of the sermon, the
pastor gave the Aaronic blessing. People were invited to come forward and pray
with ministers at the front as the congregation departed through the rear, but
there was no distinct invitation.
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