Dear friends, 

So how do we respond to the vision of the throne in Revelation 4? In the last chapter I promised to tell a story that relates well to this. It is a story my friend, and academic colleague, Chloe Lynch says:

‘makes me smile every time I replay it in my memory.  I am ‘there’ again, worshipping without reserve, the tears of joy pouring down my face as I gazed upon the Lord and, at the same time, upon this [theological college] community so beloved to me who were encountering God by his Spirit.’

It was a ‘holy, forever’ moment. A meal, not a morsel; a retreat, not a quick rest. An experience that left those in the room with a very real sense of heaven’s worship.

This is an account I wrote up the following day. Each time I have shared it publicly something incredible happens for someone. I’ve seen rooms of people push really deep into prayer and worship, individuals respond to the gospel and/or a call to mission, and the admissions officer at London School of Theology recently told me one of the new students had joined the college just because she’d heard me tell this story somewhere. 

Have a look and let me know what you think: 

Yesterday something extraordinary happened among the students at a Bible School in Northfields, London: ‘LST’, a place to ‘Love, Serve, Train’ for Christian Ministry, the ‘London School of Theology’, which became for a glorious afternoon a Community of Prayer. 

The morning had begun with routine. A half empty chapel at 11:05, some joining in online, some away. Some humble notices from a doctor turned theology student, some seemingly routine worship songs, a talk which emphasised unity and repenting of cliques/leaving anyone left out, and a marvelling at the cross followed by a low key communion and a semi-reluctant response with participants deciding to stand, or not stand, or slip away by 12:30. 

But gradually something happened. Already there had been people in the worship response slot pushing on in worship. Already there had been a build up to Easter in people’s recent memories and a chance recharge away from college routine. Already you could hear people praying in tongues during worship songs, trying to catch the wave of God’s Spirit that some find they can do during sung worship, and (as AW Tozer more eloquently explained it), join in with the worship already being directed by the Spirit. 

But then into the microphone came one of the singers expressing her inner longing for the Lord. Not through one of the routine songs. But eyes closed, knelt down, unassumingly and humbly refusing to not press deeper into that sanctuary of God she began to sing. ‘Let all the other names fade away, until there’s only One, until there’s only One.’ The band and remaining worshippers began to respond. About 25 or so in the room kept going. 

I slipped out to retrieve my books and laptop as I had a prearranged meeting for 12:45 and was due to give a lecture on Mastering Ceremonies at 2pm to the Pastoral Leadership cohort, (one of whom was currently singing on the stage). While out of the room I had a blessed encounter with another student who needed to apologise for some late work, but actually needed some encouragement and a steer for her writing. Five minutes later I was back in the room and could see the momentum building. My 12:45 was in the room and at 1pm came to ask, ‘do we get coffee or stay here?’ ‘It’s obvious isn’t it? We stay.’ She was a well established lecturer at the college, a longstanding member of faculty responsible for the first semester of the course I teach on. She had seen a few moves of God like this in the chapel over the past 15 years or so, lasting for an hour or more, and like me was keen to ride it out and see if the students and some staff in the room would push on deeper in worship. She returned to prayer. I watched on from the sides and waited to see what God would do. 

By 1:30 the worship had been going on for 90 minutes after the sermon was over. I had clocked each 30 minute breakthrough and was amazed to see the seamless transitions going on between staff/students on the stage as students increasingly took responsibility for worshipping and moved effortlessly off the stage/platform passing microphones, instruments and even drumming responsibilities to each other. One chorus echoing John the Baptist’s ‘I must become less, he must become more’ seemed really poignant as simple lines and stanzas were repeated over and over again amidst an array of unrehearsed choruses. 

Around then a permission giving invitation to leave was given by one of the worshippers in the congregation who was most caught up in prayer. ‘God’s presence is everywhere and goes everywhere so please don’t feel you need to stay any longer, there’s no judgement for leaving, but for me I just want to be here because it’s fun.’  She was revealing in God’s love, a first year in college I’d met a couple of times when teaching on the New Wine DY course last year. There was no way she was leaving anytime soon. Nor was anyone else. It was a sweet moment. 

Another student from my class shared a beautifully broken testimony about how she hadn’t wanted to be there today, was distracted with work, going through the motions being in chapel but now God was in her, with her and for her and working through her. 

All the while the worship team humbly deferring to each other and an open mic that mixed long bible readings 1 Cor 15, Ezekeil 43, Isaiah 42 among others with meditating on God’s precepts and considering God’s ways. 

Just before 2pm I went to class and told the one student there that we were in the chapel and left a note for any late arrivals to join us. They were going to learn more in the half an hour of this overflow than they might experience than the first half an hour of my lecture (although the Eugene Peterson material on pastoring was very good). Half an hour went by and by. By 3pm the overflow worship was 3 hours in, the whole service nearly 4 hours in. It felt like these students had sat in the presence of Jesus for the duration of his exaltation on the cross and that something significant had been won in the spiritual realms by their tarrying with him there for that length of time. A member of staff had come and closed an outside door to keep the noise in the chapel, and then some minutes later came and opened it again realising they wanted the Spirit at work in that worship to spread around the corridors and courtyard from this precious time. An intercessor in the room shared her guttural conviction that God wanted a purity of process in the college and that any meetings about the life of the college would only seek to glorify Him. 

A longstanding college member had shared her agony early on that these moments had come and gone over the past decade or more, with soft close worship often extending an hour or more for a few weeks at a time, but an underbelly of issues remaining in the college. Perhaps issues the preacher was referring to from 1 Corinthians where divisions could grow as believers rallied around position and people and profile, not uniting humbly around the crucified Christ. The 35 or so people now in the room were then led into a place of gentle but thorough repentance, and putting on the whole armour of God before, gently and firmly, any elemental forces that might have held the college to ransom, or spiritual bodies, or ‘princes and principalities’ were bound and banished and the Jude 9 statement was made that Archangel Michael said to the devil when contending about the body of Moses, ‘the Lord rebuke you’. 

Ground zero had been reached. 

So far this was all very familiar to me from worship around the world, where it is more than usual for services to carry on for hours, often surfing the waves of the Spirit, sometimes replicating the form in passionate devotion. But from here on it felt like we began to push through to the lower hills of spiritual experience available to saints who set out to climb the mountain of the Lord. A reading from 2 Kings 13: 14-19 invited a heartfelt response to ‘strike the arrows 5 or 6 times’ and there was a sense that this was a group prepared to push on and do that (read it if you don’t know the story). 

The worship continued for another 50 minutes before the original worship leader got up to say that he wanted to carry this presence of God out into his work life and he had work to do, but others could stay, and he’d be back if it was still going on tomorrow. There was a freedom to come or go. But God wasn’t finished with those there yet. Two more things would happen in the next hour… one a releasing of a grace and ability to intercede and secondly a desire to carry this out. So when at 4.40pm another former DY student who had joined us on a SOMA mission to Ireland discerned it was time to finish, it took several minutes to allow God to have the final word through various people with a range of testimonies of what God had done. One visitor gave a helpful charge to the college to value the time in the community. He was a student at a University bereft from Christian fellowship and he could see what they had here was amazing. Another explained how God had placed her as a watchman on the door throughout the meeting and she could see that He was doing things, and binding what needed binding, loosing what needed loosing. 

I left slowly, buzzing with an energy from the Lord despite not having eaten anything that day, and gave the unsuspecting vicar who rang me on the way home a blast of joy as he asked me ‘how are you today…’ 

For me the overflow continues, the commissioning to go out – love, serve, train – was apt and godly and the breakthroughs in the spiritual realm clear and expected to last, if as a community the college will press ‘further in and further on’ with God. 

As a last word it has long been my contention that theology and bible colleges are some of the most contested spiritual places on the planet. It should not be. The collective spiritual authority of faculty and students far outweighs the guile of the enemy. But they are high profile enemy targets. We can be fickle, weak, distracted, prayer less and self-absorbed. Sometimes even self-motivated, ambitious and proud. All of this offers the ‘princes and principalities’ our Ephesians 6 ‘battle is against’ a chance for a foothold.

The antidote is humility, prayer, obedience, worship and seeking first the Kingdom and living for the praise of His Glorious grace. 

Yesterday was a step, a very big step I’d say, in the direction of the cross of Jesus. A spiritual treasure to be treasured and built upon. 

—————-

18 months later, Dr Chloe Lynch writes: 

This testimony makes me smile every time I replay it in my memory.  I am ‘there’ again, worshipping without reserve, the tears of joy pouring down my face as I gazed upon the Lord and, at the same time, upon this community so beloved to me who were encountering God by his Spirit.  And yet referencing this story the other week in my Preaching class gave me a shock.  It made me realise that nearly no one in that room had been there in the chapel that day.  For the story is already eighteen months old.  And, in a theological college, that means there’s really only one cohort of undergraduate students who even remember it.  My heart ached as I reflected on how much we need these moments to become a movement.  More than anything, I long that we could live consciously in this continuity of divine overflow: moments of deepest encounter with the Lord flooding over into ministry.  Oh, Lord, may it be so!

If you have enjoyed this post why not think about studying at LST or another great college near to you?

Read More in this Series

The Lamb Wins Whole Series Catch Up : Introduction: Chp 1: Hope is Here | Chp 2: First, Love: Ephesus | Chp 3: Fear Not: Smyrna | Chp 4: I Know: Pergamum | Chp 5: Tolerate This: Thyatira | Chp 6: Wake Up: Sardis | Chp 7: Hold On: Philadelphia | Chp 8: Knock, Knock: Laodecia | Chp 9: What Must Soon Take Place

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