How to be an Anus in The Body of Christ without acting like an Arsehole

Now that I've got your attention...

This is something I have been working on for a while, and as with Three Year Old Crack Whores it isn't finished, but there is enough of it to post to gain feedback and opinion. I am actually hoping to expand this into a book, with lots more research of course; and perhaps a new title before submitting it to the resource table at Hillsong. Enjoy, or endure: but leave a comment either way.

I shall continue to add to this as more is written.

It must be possible to be an intercessor without being a pillock. To be an “anus” in the body of Christ without being an arsehole.

It is the vital organs of the body which are the hidden ones. We all know about the concept that Jesus only has the Church through which to act on Earth now, that since his ascension to heaven in 33AD it is we who are “his hands and feet”. We want to be the hands and feet of Christ, to be his eyes and ears, to be his mouth. We want to declare the things of God, to be a voice and a mouthpiece and an amplifier of the Word of The Lord in our day, in our generation.

But it is possible to live without a mouth. It is possible to live without hands, feet, arms, legs, eyes, ears. Okay it isn’t desirable, a man without eyes may be alive, but he’s still blind; but what of the man without kidneys? What of the man with no stomach, or no liver. Such a person cannot live.

My understanding of each of Hillsong and of Intercession in their manifestations in my hearing indicate that each doesn’t sit comfortably with the other. The “Warrior” caste (Christian K’shatria) cannot understand how a church can be as big and as effective as Hillsong without a troop of dedicated “slayers” marching around the building seven times with banners and drums and scripted prayers. Hillsong views all this sort of activity as weird, and unscriptural, (or at least unproven by scripture).

Intercession has many forms, not all of them prayer, and not all of the prayer forms of intercession are “prophetic” or “warfare”. The best description I heard of intercession was “we pray everyday prayers for everyday people”. This was said to me as I began to establish a more “frontal” prayer ministry in Australia as part of my local church – I think it’s true that prayer must be “everyday”, but that doesn’t exclude it from having power.

Similarly at Hillsong Church London I have seen my church not pray for stuff that we can handle ourselves. Not that we are excluding God or doing it “by might, by power, by our own spirit”, but simply that we are acting as “the Church” and doing what God has already told us to do. (Don’t pray for the cold and hungry man at the doorstep; give him a blanket and a cup of tea yourself!) This I have seen as everyday activity for (and by) everyday people: a form of intercession that carries the highest glory to God as it “stands in the gap” and “meets the need” of those who are gappy and needy. God gets the glory because the Church is seen to be doing something, and we get the excitement of being at the chalk-face where God is teaching us how to be like His son.

I have also seen Hillsong Church London pray for the needs of its people, and see those needs met. Needs for visas, accommodation, finance, employment, family “back home”: things that are “everyday” needs for our local church which is made up of young citizens of the Commonwealth on OE. We also pray for the blessing of businesses, for health. And we offer praise and thanksgiving too. Everyday prayers for everyday people: extraordinary people being used by God, but everyday people nonetheless.

So, do these two expressions of twenty-first century Christianity need to be reconciled? In Christ they are, he is big enough as Lord of all to handle diversity within the unity of his Church. But is there common ground, things that can be shared between these groups of faithful believers who want to reach their cities, nations, continents for the Cause of Christ? I believe there is. So, what do we have in common?

1. The Cause of Christ. All forms of “prayer for others” are ultimately without meaning if they do not lead towards the salvation of the lost and the bringing of glory to God. We pray for healings, for leave to remain in the United Kingdom, for blessing upon the workplace so that, ultimately, God is given opportunity to act in the life of an individual to transform him/her into the likeness of His son. What gain a man should he inherit the whole world yet lose his soul?

2. The foundation upon Scripture. Much of what was being revealed to prophetic intercessors in the latter half of the twentieth century came beside scripture: God demonstrating His quality of “yesterday, today, forever the same”. If it isn’t Biblical, it isn’t Christian. (It may be religious, it may even be helpful, but it isn’t Jesus.)

3. Transformation into the likeness of Jesus. A connector between the Cause of Christ and the witness of the revealed Word of God is the testimony of the gospels. “What did Jesus do” gives us an indication of what we should do: allowing for the fact that as the Body of Christ we represent him on Earth today, yet recognising that none of us individually (nor any of us corporately) is actually the Messiah of God. Christ’s greatest act of intercession was upon the Cross at Calvary, we cannot repeat this act neither as an individual Christian nor as the universal Church. Being transformed into the likeness of Christ is not necessarily about doing what he did, but about being as he was. It’s more about “for this purpose” Isaiah 61:1-3 and Philippians 2:5ff than “WWJD: I’m gonna touch some lepers today.”

4. The witness of Church History. Intercession was not invented in the 1960s any more than the power of the Holy Spirit was. Christians have been praying for each other in the mode of Jesus since the first century, and have been writing about it ever since. Paul asks for and offers prayers for the Church. Martin Luther wrote on prayer, as did John Wesley and John Calvin. Andrew Murray wrote a century ago, in South Africa, of the things people are writing about today. Edward Irving and E.M. Bounds wrote at the same time.