Personal Revolution, Part 1

I wrote a little comment on Greg M's Facebook wall the other day that I've been thinking about a lot. I'm using it as the jumping off point for a series of reflections on my own spiritual life over the past 10 to 15 years. We were discussing our past association with Living Water Christian Fellowship in Boone. Here's what I wrote:

"When I think of leaving LWCF, I think of Kennedy's assassination.
Right after that event there was massive confusion and grief, but now it's history to be studied and learned from. It's been 11 years for us next month since we left LWCF and the statute of limitations re. discussing our leaving has expired...

Like you, I've made peace with the past. I really treasure my time at LWCF and the great friends we made there. 98% of the experience was positive. I miss those days a lot sometimes and, again like you, can admit that those days helped make me who I am today. Thank God for Watauga Christian Center/Living Water. Just what we needed and where we needed to be from 1988 to 1998."

This post led me to pull out an old cassette tape of Melody and I (along with our Saturday Night Worship Team) leading worship in the Summer of 1995. I've posted a 10 minute excerpt below. The picture above is of the Saturday Night Worship team. The audio was recorded in an inside-the-building service.

Facebook readers will have to go to my blog - All My Fountains - to hear the audio. You can find the link under my profile picture.

It is, to me, representative of the climactic point of our time at Living Water.

Just over two years later we would leave in what to me, like Kennedy's assasination, was a time of massive confusion and grief. I know that sounds overly dramatic, but it hurt bad. This audio, though, is of the sweet, exciting, high point for me there.

Melody had just returned from a month-long missions trip to Poland. I had spent much of the time she was away pouring out prayer for revival in our church - late nights at the church building praying over every chair, every instrument, every person who came to mind. Standing on the stage in the dark, singing to the Lord...

Revival.

I used to study the famous revivals of church history: The Welsh Revival, The Great Awakening, The Second Great Awakening. I also followed with great interest any reports of apparent moves of the Spirit in our time, particularly the Toronto Blessing revival. I was so very hungry for that experience in our own fellowship at LWCF. More on that in later posts.

Two brief final comments:

First, I was startled and suprised as I listened to this audio after all these years. It reminded me of hearing a tape of 18-year old me singing a song I wrote for Melody. That audio featured me with a higher, thinner voice and I thought, "is that me?"
This audio of me leading worship in '95 brought the same question: "is that me?" - but this time it was because of the energy and the intensity of my leading, my singing and my shouts to the congregation during the worship. I'm so far removed from that intensity now when I play and sing in various places. I'm a different person in many ways.

Second, I thought of how I was ultimately disappointed. The revival I imagined never really happened, though we definitely had a taste of it.

I wanted revival, but the Lord brought me into and is still taking me through a personal revolution. That's what I want to talk about in upcoming posts.

So listen to me from 1995 and join me over the next little while as I reflect on what was, examine what is, and look forward to what may be. I hope you will add your own thoughts to these posts as well.



"Shout To The Lord/Go Tell It On The Mountain/Let Your Glory Fall",
Living Water Christian Fellowship, August, 1995:

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