THE HOLY SPIRIT OR FORMALISM

“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy.”

This is Paul’s prayer for the church and everyone in it. It is primarily written for the Colossians, but it is applicable to any member of any Christian church. This Scripture gives focus to our prayers, and sums up everything we want to receive from God – personally and as part of the church. God will move in our church when He has been able to move in us. The church is not just the building and the environment. These are merely the shell that encases the church. The church is also not the services or the ceremonies that take place within it. These are the vehicles by which Christians are enabled to worship and serve God. The church, therefore, is made up of the people who come to worship God in the services, and work in the organisation.

We view the church in two ways – personal and collective. The Holy Spirit moves on each individual member who has an influence on the collective gathering. The collective move of the Spirit is expressed in 1 Corinthians 14: “If anyone has a hymn”, etc[1]. For the collective group to function in the Spirit effectively, each individual person must be moved by the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as a passive member in a collective group which is moving in the Spirit. In reality, there are many passive members in our congregations who do nothing to contribute to the service except just by being there. This is one reason why our church services fall so far short of the demonstration of the working of the Holy Spirit that Paul had as standard when he preached; and what he wanted to see when he next was to visit the Corinthian church.

The style of services where people sit passively, as in a theatre while one person performs at the front, is not supported in the New Testament. The New Testament supports the involvement of many individual participants in the spiritual worship, ie: contributing songs, words of encouragement and instruction, prophecies, etc. The New Testament does not support services made up of three hymns and a sermon. As long as we keep to that format, we cannot guarantee that the Holy Spirit is participating with us in our services.

Many potential ministries in the church are blocked and made ineffective by the formalism that is in our services. What we have is one person doing all the ministry when the Holy Spirit may be wanting to use others in the congregation as well. This might mean that the person ministering at the front might be ministering in the flesh instead of in the Spirit, merely because he or she is not the person chosen by the Spirit to minister at that particular time in the service.

A lot of prayers for services fall to the ground because in spite of us praying that the Holy Spirit will move, we prevent Him from doing what we ask for by programming the services according to what we think should happen – based on our formula for the content of the service. Usually the formula has been set in place through the way the church has traditionally conducted its Sunday services since the church in general tended towards formalisation in the second century AD. It is interesting to note that the supernatural operations of the Holy Spirit died out at roughly the same time, suggesting that there is a correlation between the church becoming formalised and the supernatural operations of the Holy Spirit disappearing from the church meetings.

Because we are not aware that the Holy Spirit may have chosen people in the congregation to contribute, we carry on with our set formula that leave these people sitting passively in the pews instead of contributing that particular song, word of encouragement or prophecy that might set up a wonderful environment for the Holy Spirit to do a deep work in the hearts of people in the service.

It is no wonder that our churches are declining when the majority of members are not getting their spiritual needs met in our services. It is also no wonder that the Holy Spirit is not adding people to our churches when He is not allowed to have His free way. He knows best how to meet the needs of people and where there is an environment where He can do what He wants, He will direct people there. The main reason why many traditional churches, even some “Spirit-filled” churches, are declining is that they have programmed the Holy Spirit out of their services. As a result, the Holy Spirit is directing people elsewhere – where their spiritual needs will be met.

We pray that God will move in our community, half expecting that the move will happen in our church. In fact, He is moving in our community. He is moving with groups of believers who are open to Him and allowing Him to have His way in their services.

Here is a scenario: A person is going through a clinical depression and needs an encouraging word from the Holy Spirit. There are two churches available to the person for that to happen. A traditional church with a formalised service, and a small group meeting in a local school hall where every member is encouraged to seek God for a word of instruction, exposition of Scripture, a song, or a prophecy, so that the Holy Spirit is able to move spontaneously in the meeting. To which church will the Holy Spirit send the needy person? He will most likely bypass the formalised service and choose the small group meeting because there is a much higher likelihood that someone will be obedient to the Spirit and will give that needed word of encouragement to the person that may be the key to release the person from the depression.

So it seems that some Christian groups have discovered what it means to allow the Holy Spirit to move freely and effectively among their members and it seems that these are the groups that are blessed with spiritually hungry people joining them. There are other Christian groups that seem to have the attitude that they can have their formalism and have the Holy Spirit working in their services as usual. They are puzzled when there is no increase of numbers and vitality in their services, and why people go elsewhere to get their spiritual needs met. Often they blame the minister for the lack of fruitfulness, when it is the structure of their services and the formalism that has arisen out of their church tradition.

This is where Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1:9-11 becomes relevant. What we will do is to “unpack” these verses to see if there is a reason why some Christian groups are prospering and other groups are languishing and declining.

Paul’s prayer is that the Colossian fellowship will maintain the standard where the Holy Spirit can work effectively with them. In his prayer are the components of what should be present in the hearts of a group of believers in a Christian fellowship to enable them to have the confidence that the Holy Spirit is supporting their efforts.

“That you may be filled with the knowledge of His will”. If the Holy Spirit is going to work with our church group, we need to not only know what God’s will is in general, but we need to be filled with the knowledge of it. This means that we know it and are completely committed to it in exclusion to everything else, even if the alternative is good and could be appropriate in itself. There are two components with the knowledge of God’s will that the Holy Spirit gives us: Wisdom – ie: the ability to use the knowledge we have so it bears the best fruit. This links with Ephesians 1:17 where Paul prays that God would give the Ephesian Christians a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. This wisdom is not born out of human reason. It comes from above (James 3:17). Therefore, we must seek God for it. Without this wisdom we are considered spiritually unwise (Ephesians 5:17), even if we possess the best skills in human learning and understanding.

The other component is spiritual understanding. This also links with Ephesians 1:17 and James 3:17 and also Ephesians 5:17. Therefore, the understanding of the will of God is not something that we can gain by natural book learning, academic training, or human reasoning, but it must come by revelation from the Spirit of God. It is the same revelation that opened Peter’s understanding that Jesus is the Son of God (Matthew 16:15-16).

But this revelation does not come automatically. We must seek for it (Isaiah 55:6). Also we must make seeking the Lord our first priority (Matthew 6:33). God will reveal His secrets with those who put Him first (Psalm 25:14). Those who put the traditions of their church before the will of God will never discover the secrets that God wants to reveal to us (Mark 7:13).

What is the purpose of knowing the will of God, having wisdom and spiritual understanding? It is that we walk worthy of the Lord. (Colossians 1:10-11, Ephesians 4:1-16, 1Thessalonians 2:12). This is what makes us fruitful in the work that we are doing.

In this day when people are thinking and talking about church growth, it seems that people are concentrating on larger numbers and size of the physical organisation with better finances; but this in effect is making the tree larger with more branches and leaves, when it should be bearing the fruit it is designed for. What Paul’s prayer is looking at is fruitfulness. If a tree is expected to bear fruit, it doesn’t matter how big the tree grows, it will still be chopped down if it doesn’t bear fruit. If you plant an apple tree in your back yard, you expect it to start producing apples in due season. If it doesn’t bear the apples, then you would chop it out and replace it with a tree that will give you apples. This is the same with churches. Many people view church growth in terms of numbers of members; but this does not mean that the church is fruitful. It is just that the church has got big and fat.

Spiritual fruitfulness consists in souls being saved, Christians being strengthened in their faith, ministries being established, and needs being met. A church may be adding members to it but if those members are passive “pew-sitters” then fruit is not being produced. The church can be the most attractive looking church in town, but if souls are not being saved and discipled in it, then it is a fruitless tree, worth only for chopping down. What this means is that the church buildings can be taken away from that group and given to another that will bear the type of fruit that God expects. In every city we have churches that have become monuments to failure to do God’s will. They are fruitless trees of no value to God. Connected with that, we see church buildings in every town and city that are no longer being used for Christian worship. They have been sold to other organisations which have used them as conference centres, coffee houses, and other activities found in normal communities.

Somewhere along the line, a healthy Christian church has moved away from the will of God and has fallen into decline. This decline has either been very slow over a number of years, or has been rapid. The leadership either did not know what was happening, or they refused to give up their old traditional ways in a changing society when the Holy Spirit wanted to move among them in a fresh way. They did not perceive that the Holy Spirit was no longer with them, and people with needs were going elsewhere. As the congregation aged and died off, the church become more and more of a chaplaincy service for the survivors. At last, it was no longer viable for it to continue and it finally closed its doors.

Sadly this is happening with many traditional churches around us. The glory of God has departed because the leaders no longer know what the will of God is for them. They are depending on their traditions and formalised style of worship. So, fruitfulness is directly linked with knowing the will of God. James Henry Thornwell[2] says “the will of God is the highest formal ground of obligation, and when that will is known to us, nothing can be added to make the duty more perfect”[3]. He goes on to say, “The whole issue resolves itself into a question of authority. The case is simply, which shall be the supreme, the will of man or the will of God? The whole doctrine of sin and holiness in their last determinations is found precisely here” [4]. From that, it can be safely pointed out that fruitfulness and spiritual growth in churches can also be found “precisely here”. Along with knowing the will of God, we need wisdom to apply it to the programme of the church, also having the spiritual understanding of how the Holy Spirit is wanting to move in the services. This wisdom is freely available to us for personal and collective use (James 1:5). All we have to do is to ask God for it and then be obedient to the prompting of the Spirit as He communicates with us.

An example of a church in decline because of ignoring the guidance of the Spirit would be seen in the following:

A traditional church is maintaining a formalised, programmed, order of service at its Sunday morning services. This type of service, made up of three hymns, Scripture reading, and sermon, has been in place since the church was founded many years before. In the days when people normally went to church on Sunday, the church was full and carried out successful programmes. Then society changed and people stopped automatically attending church, perhaps because of the introduction of Sunday sports and extended working hours in the weekends. There are two things that the church leaders can do in response to these changes:

(1) They can seek God afresh to find His will which will provide answers and wisdom and will enable

them to amend the style of services and programmes to bring the church “up to date” with what the

(2) They can “box on” regardless, holding fast to their traditional services and hoping that God will

intervene in some way. They pray every Sunday morning for God to “bless the service and the ministry

of the Word this morning”. What they want is for God to apply His supernatural power to the existing

But what if the Holy Spirit has recognised the changes in society and is wanting to introduce new ways of worshipping and ministry? Here are some of the things the Spirit may be wanting to do:

1. Find ways of outreaching into the community instead of passively waiting for people to come to

2. Upgrade the worship services, including the music to make it more relevant to the current

3. Change the format of the services from a “one man band” type to one where a wider range of

4. Rediscover what the Bible says about God’s resources and how to use them in the church meetings.

Paul knew how important his prayer in Colossians 1 was to the church in general. He was having to work very hard with some churches to make sure that they were operating within the will of God. We can see that clearly in his letters to the Corinthian and Galatian churches, where things were not going the way he believed the Holy Spirit wanted to lead them. In the Corinthian church it was a matter of how their services were conducted and members not walking worthy of their Christian testimony. In the Galatian church it was more of problems of doctrine where “false apostles” had arrived teaching them that they must be circumcised and observe the Mosaic Law in order to be saved. So it was important to him that leaders of Christian churches knew and were committed to the will of God and were open to the leading of the Holy Spirit so that there were no blockages or hindrances to fellowships bearing fruit for the Lord.

He believed that it was vitally important for believers to walk worthy of the Lord, and to please God in everything they did, personally and collectively. He knew that the will of God was (and still is) inseparately linked with the Word of God (Romans 10:17)[5], and that faith is believing in, being obedient to, and acting on the Word of God. He knew and taught that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

All these things are links in a chain, and when one link is broken, the whole chain fails. So, in summary, we see the principles of a healthy spiritual relationship with God, both for the individual believer and a church congregation. Here are the main points:

1. We need to have a comprehensive and accurate knowledge of the will of God for us and our

2. We need to have the wisdom that comes from God which must take priority over natural

3. We need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, so that we have spiritual understanding of the issues that

4. Through these we can know that we are walking worthy of the Lord in what we are doing in the

6. That we are bearing fruit through our good works that will last for eternity.

8. And that we, individually and collectively, are growing in strength according to God’s mighty power

Although what follows is an important principle that exemplifies what is expressed in the main article, I did not wish to distract readers from the general points. It is placed here to provide a specific example of what the Word of God says in relation to the way worship services should be conducted in our churches. This is based on 1 Corinthians 14:26:

“What shall we say then brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church” (NIV)[6].

This is an express command of God about what should happen when Christians meet together. Note that the last sentence of the verse says that these must be done for the strengthening of the church. This command from Paul is just the same as if Jesus commanded it Himself, because Paul is speaking from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, showing the Corinthians how the Holy Spirit wants to work with them in their church meetings and services.

Most of our churches, in the way services are conducted, are ignoring the instruction in this verse. Even the churches that say they are Spirit-filled and Full Gospel are doing it. The New Testament does not support the style of service where there is a person on a raised platform at the front of the church performing to a passive “audience” as is commonly practised in our churches. Is it any surprise then, that there is little sign of the powerful, supernatural working of the Holy Spirit in those fellowships? It seems that everything has to be funnelled through the minister or pastor who is leading the meeting, with little or no opportunity for anyone else to have a meaningful input into the service. Are these ministers then dictating to the Holy Spirit that He can only move through them, or those whom he authorises? They may not have that conscious intention, but in effect, this is what they are doing by the way they are conducting the church services. It is then no wonder that the Holy Spirit avoids those services and meetings. He is blocked from fulfilling the ministry that He wants to do.

It is therefore no surprise that some of the most meaningful work of the Holy spirit has been done in small, informal groups where each member of the group is free to share what the Spirit gives them. This is because the informal house groups are leading the way to being obedient to the Word of God about how fellowship meetings should be conducted. So then, expecting the Holy Spirit to “bless” the traditional meetings is more of presumption than faith, because they are wanting God to bless disobedience; something which the Holy Spirit will never do. Jesus put it clearly when He said, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say? (Luke 6:46). Many traditional churches maintain that they are under the leadership of Christ and yet if they are disobeying direct commands of the Lord in the way they run their services, they may be putting their church tradition before the Word of God.

It is no wonder that in most areas, the church is weak and powerless to make significant inroads into what the devil is doing in our society. Paul, in his prayer in Colossians 1, links being obedient to the will of God with being strengthened with His mighty power. Obedience to the will of God is joined to compliance with the Word of God. This means that when a person or a church works contrary to God’s Word, they lose their strength in the Lord because they are no longer linked to God’s mighty power, just as Sampson was disobedient in allowing his hair to be cut and therefore lost his mighty strength to enable him to avoid capture by the Philistines.[7] Sampson did not realise that his strength had gone and he got up to do what he normally did to escape the Philistines, but his protection had vanished and he was easily captured. In the same way, when churches have departed from the Word of God, they lose their spiritual strength and then wonder why their efforts to bear fruit fail time after time. There are ministers and congregations who have lost their churches and are still wondering why, because they have not realised that they departed from the instructions given to them by the Holy Spirit through the guidance of the New Testament about how their churches should be run.

There is therefore a definite purpose in the way the services should be run according to 1 Corinthians 14:26. It is to strengthen the church. This is the only way to make the church strong. This is why Paul says so clearly that these things must be done for the strengthening of the church. I have come to believe that this is a key to why we are not seeing the miracles and healings that were commonplace in the first years of the early church. As the church became formalised, possible factors being the invasion of heresies and contrary doctrines attacking the church and the self-elevation of pastors who assumed leadership and dominated the running of services, the freedom of the Holy Spirit’s ministry waned.

There are certain functions of the Holy Spirit that will only operate when the Spirit is in full control of proceedings. When a service becomes programmed and formalised, the spontaneity of the Spirit is blocked and He cannot perform those functions. As soon as that happens, the supernatural vanishes. No more people are healed or delivered from demons. Tongues, interpretation and true prophecy dry up. Sermons become ear-tickling homilies that may be interesting to listen to and contributes to natural religious knowledge, but do not work to increase true knowledge of God or spiritual growth. The natural becomes dominant and services are made up of singing, reading, and preaching. The “pastor” assumes full control because everyone else has become passive. Why? Without the moving of the Spirit they have nothing to do!

I don’t want to leave you without an antidote. The way back to faith is to rediscover what the Word of God says about God’s will for you in your personal spiritual life; and then once you have got that sorted out, then the Word will tell you how your church should be functioning if it is to function in the Holy Spirit. Then you can pray Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1:9-11, and ask the Lord for wisdom about how you can apply your discoveries to encouraging others in your church and challenging the leadership to conform themselves to the Word of God in how the services should be running.

The Holy Spirit knows how to run a church service better than we can [8]; therefore it is more useful and productive to put our trust in Him and let Him have his way!!

[1] See Appendix

[2] Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Academy, South Carolina during the 1870s.

[3] Collected Writings, 1875, Banner of Truth Trust, 1974, Vol 1, page 276.

[4] Page 277. Thornwell also makes the point that the issue of whether the will of man or the will of God is followed stems right back to Adam in the Garden of Eden. He says that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in itself a minor component. It was more of whether Adam was going to trust God, and that he was going to comply with God’s will without having to have everything explained to him, because God is God and His Word can be taken at face value and be trusted for what it is: the Word of God. As we can see, the issue of how we worship God in church is whether we are going to worship Him according to His will as the Holy Spirit directs, or whether we set up our own format and programme the way we think it should happen according to our natural reasoning. It seems that many churches are following the example of Adam’s disobedience instead of the obedience of Jesus, who said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34).

[5] “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

[6] The word “must” does not appear in all versions of Scripture, and most references concentrate on the need for the edifying of believers in a meeting. Most commentaries deal with the way spiritual gifts are used in a meeting rather than the structure of the meeting itself, which is quite consistent with the context of the chapter; but the way that traditional services and meetings are programmed there is little opportunity to use the gifts anyway, so the need to restructure Christian meetings to accommodate the free use of the gifts of the Spirit and for a wider range of congregation members to participate in the spiritual flow of the meeting is still very appropriate.

[7] The story is found in Judges chapters 13 to 16.

[8] Quoted from a statement by Rodney Francis, founder and director of the Gospel Faith Messenger Ministry at an equipping meeting at Hamilton, New Zealand, 20 April 2010.