Performance or Prophetic?

By Stephen Bennett:

Just trying to be cool and current can leave you wanting. The latest contemporary songs sound terrific. Your own nostalgic favorites can still enjoy the glory of yesteryear. Volume still stirs and pumps. The sweet and soft sounds, soothe and make us fly. Skill and excellence are important. Yet the end-time glory and the governing anointing and power of God still hovers and waits. What is He waiting for?

Over the last 15 years a new generation has immerged into an established contemporary church culture in the Body of Christ that now has its own sense of tradition and denominationalism. This young generation has nonetheless been blessed with the freedom and liberty of music expression that many had pioneered in the decades before the nineties. Yet in the current journey, incredible success, and now global marketing, the prophetic and governmental power of music and its end-time purposes, as we see in Scripture, is becoming lost on much of this generation in contemporary church culture. What is the Holy Spirit waiting for now?

Musicians and singers who are worshipping warriors, that understand, and carry the presence and glory of God through their intercession and worship. They are prophets of sound yet to fully emerge that will articulate heaven into earth. The Body of Christ is in what is termed an apostolic reformation where the fullness of God’s authority and power is to be unleashed in the Church and on the world - this includes through the music. There is a cost to carrying this level of authority. It requires intimacy with God, consecration and total death to self - in this rapidly accelerating busy world many do not have the time for this.

Spiritual Shifts
The Holy Spirit is stirring the Body of Christ to realize that He wants to bring great quantum shifts in the way ministry is released in everything to do with what church is, the market place, events etc. These are shifts in the lives of people, where they can be accelerated quickly from one point to the next in their lives. They change so significantly in a moment of time that they are never the same again – this is not just the hype of contemporary religious church, but the tangible reality of spiritual change by the power and glory of God manifesting in lives. This is all part of the ongoing end-time transition into the apostolic reformation of the Church that will be able to have major affect in cities and nations.

Elements that hold this back in Australia are complacency, church cultures that are more obsessed with themselves, easy look good lifestyle, measures of worldliness and success based on things, and spiritual structures that tend to shut down or control the revelatory prophetic and apostolic flow rather than release it.

A significant change will happen when the Body of Christ embraces and releases its artists, singers and musicians to function in the proper biblical way. There are many that you would know, who are either disenfranchised, in the wilderness because of ''church'', or are aware of what God is doing and are looking for where they ''fit'' now''. God is re-building the Tabernacle of David for the rest of mankind to seek the Lord (Amos 9:11, Acts 16:15); musicians and artists have a very significant role to play. It’s not just about ''the songs'', or getting the latest worship leader into church with a current promoted album (this is where we can miss it). But the significance of power is from a synergy of musicians working together in close Godly relationship, who are called within a prophetic paradigm of church, as in David’s Tabernacle. To affect a governmental shift in the spirit over the lives of people, and to decree change into the atmosph! ere for the church, their territories and nation (Psalm 149).

The most powerful moves of the Spirit can come in the spontaneous gaps or prophetic interruptions in songs that are led by the Spirit, this can release the profound ministry strategies the Lord has for that time or moment. This is part of what being a prophet musician is about, this is the call of the artist, musician, singer today - to carry governmental spiritual authority and bring heaven to earth, to open up the earth as it were. See the glory of God released in all power and authority - which is what was given to Jesus by the Father and consequently to us in Christ. Tradition – old or new - cannot do this.

Performance or Prophetic?
In the western world the songs performed in many church meetings are often just well crafted popular styled music: now they are often more predictable as we follow one another, easily marketed, entertaining, and consumer friendly, some are even just produced for the royalties they generate. We call great sales as success, and the music is celebrated. Much of it is of course exemplary, positive, and incredibly well produced, although some of it can fall short of the full impact it could have in the world of the spirit. Why? Because many musical artists lack prophetic and apostolic revelation, mainly because they are untaught or just not in a church paradigm that releases it.

If overly contrived popular style praise is the only music ever played in churches, it may be fun and edifying, but may rarely carry an apostolic breakthrough anointing that takes you to a place of glory and the quantum shifts in the spirit that can bring immense change. This is true, especially when there is a major over emphasis on performance, or keeping up a church image, or when the music presentation is often produced with a marketing motive, or just for media. At worst, when it is a sleek church showcase set to just impress man. The emphasis on image (which is quite prevalent today) creates a stage performance, where moving in time, clicking fingers, wearing exquisite robes, or trendy brand clothing, or colors, often overshadows the reasons why we are on a platform. The lyrics we sing may all sound good, however, we end up missing the point of our purpose.

In many church services the music has been reduced to a predictable 15 minute warm up before announcements and the preaching. People’s hearts are left hanging out for more. You feel suspended, not having arrived anywhere - before all the advertisements and in house news and media take over. This is not a healthy place to be in for worshippers. Over time people can be lulled into thinking that is all there is. Sunday morning can end up feeling like a rushed ‘snack’ – in and out in an hour and half, yet left wanting for more. This is not the way to treat God’s people, or presenting this as the only definitive modern way of Christ.

In our efforts to be contemporary, current, and popular, our sounds can easily become spiritually dull, although it all seems right. The dullness then gets on you because you are under that authority and influence, and music has huge covering power over people in a local church. Why does this happen? In our highly stimulated visual world, we have allowed image and performance, to sometimes usurp the more important consideration of a greater relationship and consecration to Jesus Christ and hunger for His presence. The end result is a form that denies the release of real governing power. It is in such a place where God may say, "take away from me the noise of your songs." Amos 5:23. If all we have is a controlled religion with no power – we may as well close the doors and go home and play with the children in the sunshine, it’s more fun.

Many styles and expressions of music are used and blessed by God. In right context they are all effective. Many Christian artists are called into the numerous areas of music as a witness for Christ. There are bands with vision to release the glory of God through various music genres in the world market. This trend is increasing, and is highly effective in reaching people who will never go near a church building - especially the younger generation. With the apostolic anointing, we should be invading our culture in all realms outside the walls of what we call churches. However, if we just try to stay only popular or trendy within established church, we may create a maintenance level of music that is safe and spiritually middle of the road. This can breed an entertained, spectator audience, who are hooked on meetings - when they should be a participating congregation who can be accelerated and matured through intimacy with the Lord that releases them to be the mi! ghty Army of God, that affects the world.

We can now ask the question why we don’t often see the spontaneous prophetic song, or the song of the Lord much anymore. This used to be normal in church especially in the eighties, and is modeled in the Tabernacle of David as a major part of the prophetic purposes of music. Performance or Prophetic? Many in the Church are hungry for the prophetic today, and deep is crying unto deep. Many churches are fearful of releasing the fullness of it because of past extremes or lack of understanding. But times are changing and the Lord wants to move rapidly and release His glory on the earth. It will take the Church to fully shift into apostolic and prophetic understanding for the end-times.

End-Time Advance
True advancement in the 21st Century must come from moving on with the Spirit of the Lord and living in His ways. Many of us have just thought about God, Church, and spiritual authority, in the various ways it has been handed down to us in our Christian traditions, or movements.

If we are to fully embrace the apostolic move in these days, we must change the way we think. The Prophet Isaiah said, ''on the throne of David…to order it and establish it'' (Isaiah 9:7). God is on the throne, so we must all be throne thinkers. In Christ we sit with Him ''in heavenly places far above all principalities and power'' (Ephesians 1:20-21). Throne thinking is governmental thinking - we think as God thinks (as Jesus did), and we do as God does. God promised David he would establish this in these days. "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn to my servant David: ''Your seed I will establish forever and build up your throne to all generations.'' " ''…I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David; His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me'' (Psalm 89:3-4, 35-36).

God is establishing and building up the throne of apostolic authority in the Church. It has endured through history and is flourishing now. We are in apostolic days, the majestic, glorious, royal authority of Christ will shine like the sun in the Church (Isaiah 60); the sun is hot, warm, and inviting. The Lord promised David. God has great zeal to establish His authority, government, and right order (Isaiah 9:7). The Hebrew language paints the picture of the Lord being red in the face, with an absolute righteous burning desire. This zeal for His temple was manifest in Jerusalem; it had ''eaten Him up'', moreover, Jesus violently cleared the temple on account of the merchandising ways of it’s religious ministers (John 2:15-17).

God does not tolerate anything against His Holy desire where His government is concerned. He wants to advance His glory now against all substitutes, false and futile. God is hot for this to happen. If the Church does not flow with God''s ways, we are warned by the Psalmist, ''He who instructs the nations shall He not correct…? The Lord knows the thoughts of man that they are futile'' (Psalm 94:10-11).

Man made ideas from the spirit of this age, the principles of the world, religious traditions, or simply just trying to be cool and contemporary, are just not enough anymore. They are futile in truly being able to reform and change nations. God is establishing apostolic and prophetic authority in the Body of Christ; we cannot resist it, even in our music. ‘He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches’ Revelation 3:6.