Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday. How did you celebrate that fact? Or did you even know it was Pentecost Sunday?
We read about the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. Let me just quote one verse: “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:4 NRSV Bible
Read a story about “the motionless man: The sign on the stage proclaimed, “The Motionless Man: Make Him Laugh. Win $100.” The temptation was irresistible. For three hours boys and girls, men and women performed every antic and told every joke they could dream up. But Bill Fuqua, the Motionless Man, stood perfectly still. “
Luis Palau in his book Healthy Habits for Spiritual Growth, tells about Fuqua, the Guinness Book of World Records champion at doing nothing. Fuqua, says Palau, appears so motionless during his routines at shopping malls and amusement parks that he’s sometimes mistaken for a mannequin.
Fuqua discovered his unique talent at the age of 14 while standing motionless in front of a Christmas tree as a joke. A woman touched him and exclaimed, “Oh, I thought it was a real person.”
Doing nothing is really impossible - even for the Motionless Man. Fuqua attributes his feigned paralysis to hyper-elastic skin, an extremely low pulse rate, and intense concentration. He may not laugh at your jokes, but he readily admits that he still has to breathe and blink - occasionally.
When I read about Bill Fuqua, the Motionless Man, I think about so many churches. So many congregations have mastered the art of doing nothing. It would seem that they are simply going through the motions, nothing more.
We read about the church on the Day of Pentecost - the flames of fire, the sound of a mighty wind, the strange excitement that catches the attention of passers by. It was a church that was on fire. This fire, fueled by the power of the Holy Spirit, not only attracted people, but many people came to the Lord as a result. Sadly, this does not describe many churches of today.
The reason is that the fire of Holy Spirit is lacking. Very much like Fuqua, the Motionless Man, the expert at doing nothing, many people in churches have become very good at doing nothing but going through the motions. It is because of this that the Church has largely become irrelevant to the world today. There is no fire that attracts people to the church.
We who believe in Jesus Christ and make up the Church need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need the “fire” of the Holy Spirit. We need to seek God and ask Him to fill our lives, and to fill our churches with this fire.
It is only when we are full of this fire and allow it to spread, and light the world around us, will the church again become relevant, but more so, attractive, to people around us.
The hymn writer wrote: “Lord send the fire just now, and baptize all of us.”
That is my prayer, for me, for the people of my church, and the people of the other churches in Clearwater. Is it yours? Will you allow God to fill you with His Spirit, and His fire?
– Dan Daase, New Life Assembly Church