‘And A Little Child Shall Lead Them’

Mrs. Jean Sietzema-Dickson. Trowel & Sword. March 1992

 Preamble: How often do we stop and actually think about what we do in our worship services? Is attendance just a part of our weekly activities where we turn up, go through the same routine week after week and then go home again. Has it become a habit with which we have become comfortable but not really inspired? Do we have a sense of coming into the presence of Almighty God with thankfulness in our hearts for what He has done for us, and continues to do day after day? In this article Jean Sietsma-Dickson reflects on some of her own experiences in the worship service. To what extent are her experiences comparable to your own?

‘And A Little Child Shall Lead Them’

Scene1

Hands raised in the air, or clapping enthusiastically to the beat of the music, people crying in pain, people being prayed for. Was this a gathering of the Assemblies of God? No. Almost everybody there, belonged to one or another of the Reformed Churches of Australia. The setting was the Oasis (Mt.Evelyn, Victoria). I could hardly believe what I was experiencing! Was this the same denomination that I had joined almost thirty years ago where the most that people did in a church service was to sing lustily? They did not even know how to say ‘amen’ at the conclusion of a prayer. Here there were occasional interjections and a wholehearted ‘amen’ at the end.

***

Thirty years ago the Reformed Churches were small migrant groups who clung together fiercely. Church meetings could be rowdy affairs, as arguments reached their peak. A very different experience to the sedate Anglican meetings I had previously sat through. In some ways I found it exciting. But there were other ways in which I found Reformed worship unsatisfying.

For one thing there was no real quietness before the service started in which I could come into the presence of God and let my troubled, busy heart be stilled. People chattered all around me and, being a mimic, I gradually began to see the pre-service time as a chance to exchange greetings with my neighbour rather than take time out to prepare my heart, body and mind for worship of the Lord of heaven and earth.

Nowadays I have learned to seek that stillness elsewhere though I am still a (faithful) member of and worshipper in a Reformed church. To me, living in a world full of sound, quietness and stillness are essential ingredients of wholehearted worship.

In comparison Reformed worship generally is a busy business. The moment of silent prayer is rarely long enough to collect one’s wits, let alone focus one’s mind clearly on the majesty of the living God.

Who of us among Reformed families would come to the table at dinner time unwashed? And yet we think we can walk into the presence of God without a moment’s thought for confession! It is alright, we think, to leave that to the minister to lead us in the general prayer of confession. But who of us in that time really remembers the sins we have committed in the past week? I generally do not, and if I have confessed them along the way that is OK with God because He has then already put them in the rubbish basket. But there are times when we come to church burdened with unconfessed sins and if there is no stillness, no quiet, there is no time or space for God to speak to our hearts and draw us into the comfort of His presence so that we can make confession.

The reason that we so often live powerless, unsatisfying, unfulfilled lives is that we live in a perpetual state of guilt so that we believe ourselves unworthy to accept, appropriate and make use of the great blessings the Lord has in store for those who love Him. These blessings are never for ourselves alone but, like any biblical gift, are given for the building up of the body.

What was so good about the experience of worship that I mentioned at the beginning was that this was a time when there was time and space for full confession, for drawing closer to God, for being filled with His Spirit and His love. I came away feeling enriched, empowered for deeper service of God and my fellow human beings, believer or unbeliever. For the space of a few hours the barriers were down between us and God and between ourselves.

But my question is: What happens now? Can I maintain in my own life that sense of God’s nearness and love? Can I, by myself, find my way into the presence of the living God and go on worshipping Him and being filled by His Spirit? From past experience the answer is both yes and no. For a while I will remember this closeness, I will long for it and make time and space for it. But then, as in the parable, the cares and pleasures of the world will choke this new growth and I will find myself drifting away from that closeness, beginning to believe (again) that I can live for the Lord in my own strength.

Of course my mind knows this is not true. But my emotions can and do (sometimes) outweigh my thoughts. Not all of us have learned to let the Holy Spirit, rather than our minds, control our emotions. On the occasions when I have been willing to let the Spirit have control I have found that He can use my emotions like a musical instrument going up and down the scale in short sequence and enriching me in the process.

That was what happened last weekend. We sang our hearts out, we used our bodies to express our worship, we laughed together and we cared and cried for each other. And at the end we felt cleansed inside and out and invigorated. I believe that was the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst. And I am thankful for that.

At the same time there is a niggling little voice that says but what did you learn? I learned that Reformed people (some of them anyway) can let the barriers down. As we heard one speaker mention Revelation 3:20 my mind went back over thirty years to the night I was converted at a crusade in St.Paul’s Cathedral. I was reminded of what I had learned that night, that Jesus loved me and wanted a place in my heart. It was surprising that I did not fly out of the cathedral that night. I am sure my feet hardly touched the street as I danced my way home and lived the next few months in a state of euphoria. The trouble was that the euphoria did not last. When it went so did my erroneous assurance that I could constantly walk in the Spirit.

It was many years later, when I had already been a member of the Reformed churches for some years, that it dawned on me what had happened. I had given my heart to the Lord that night. And the Lord had blessed me and hung onto me. But there had been many hiccups on my journey. Much of this was because, although I had faith in Jesus as Saviour and had given Him my heart, I had not realised He also wanted to have control of my mind. I had not bowed to Him as the Lord of heaven and earth. Part of the trouble was also that I was woefully ignorant about the Christian faith, and there was so little real teaching in the churches I attended that when, after seven years as a Christian, I was offered a place for a year at a theological college in England I grasped this opportunity as if my salvation really depended on knowledge.

I have never regretted that year. For someone who had done a very practical diploma in Occupational Therapy it gave me an opportunity to rub shoulders with graduate teachers and ordained ministers of the churches (the college, though run on Anglican lines, was interdenominational). For the first time in my life I was forced to think, to really question what I believed and why. Some of my rather facile pietism dropped away and I was left with more knowledge but also with a pride in it that did me no good at all. On the other hand I did at least now have an idea of what God said in His Word though I still (because I was an evolutionist) reserved judgement on certain parts.

It was not until I had been sitting under Reformed preaching for several years (and how I soaked up that preaching with joy and thankfulness) that, through a book by Henry Morris, I was brought face to face with the fact that the Bible really was true. Then I began to grow because I started submitting my mind to the Word of God.

***

Scene 2

Reformed Church of Dandenong. Farewell to Harry Burggraaf. A far from traditional service, imaginatively planned by the Revd Martin de Graaf was an occasion for joyful worship. Slides and a shared reading gave us a new view of the wonder of creation. Prayer with laying on of hands was offered up to encourage Harry and Henny as they started a new phase of their lives.

An orchestra of people from different Reformed churches provided lively music and the farewell speeches were brief and entertaining. It is happening in various places around the Reformed churches that people are learning that worship can be offered in different ways.

***

Scene 3

Reformed Church of Box Hill. Annual Friendship Club service for participants and their families and friends. An atmosphere of expectancy and excitement among those present was picked up and expanded by Harry Burggraaf and Joanne van Wageningen. Simple choruses were sung. Short readings were given by members of the Doveton club. Short simple prayers were offered. The Box Hill group staged a Nativity scene while Luke’s gospel was read. Good use was made of the overhead projector to illustrate the brief address as well as to project words for singing. People clapped and sang, raised their hands in the air, made other movements to express what was being sung about. And I, freed from the normal restraint I feel in Box Hill, was able to worship with heart and soul and mind and body and to come away refreshed and recharged for service. I have a distinct impression that this was partly because those able-bodied people who attended did so because we care about those who are not able to gain much from our traditional style worship. We came not seeking something for ourselves but ready to participate for the sake of others. And the Lord blessed our openness and our giving.

Please do not misunderstand me. I love the lusty singing of traditional Reformed worship. I revel in the beauty of a choral Eucharist in an Anglican church, I enjoy Gregorian chant and find it stills my soul. I am uplifted by some of the new Roman Catholic music I have heard. I think worship should be God honouring and, where possible, aesthetically pleasing but I am sure that the Lord would rather have a service that is a little ragged at the edges than one that is stylistically perfect and cold.

Now let us go back to the beginning. In Genesis God commanded Adam to care for the creation and develop it. Adam and Eve needed to use their bodies, minds and hearts if they were to do this effectively. We all know they blew it. But we are still called to that same sort of service. We are called to go on exploring and developing the creation God set us in. And to do this we need to use minds and hearts and bodies in His service. Reformed Churches have always been strong on emphasising the mind, on feeding the mind. 

Sadly, it has too often been only the mind that was fed while the body and heart were badly undernourished.

We have spent years running away from Pentecostalism because we saw the abuses of it and we did not want ‘to be like them’; but I believe that in doing so we have missed a very important part of the gospel. I do not want to see the Reformed Churches reduced to mindlessness. I trust I have made that abundantly clear. What I do long to see is a combination of the vision of Abraham Kuyper (who after all took great account of the work of the Holy Spirit and could not have done what he did unless the Spirit was leading him) allied with the Pentecostal fervour of not only the Assemblies of God, but at least some branches of mainline churches. I was considerably impressed recently to find that Christian Heritage College in Brisbane, which has pipped us to the post in setting up a Christian teacher training course, is supported generously by a Pentecostal type church.

I pray for the time when we can learn to put aside the prejudices that have held us back from enjoying the full gifts of the Spirit in our churches. In fact I pray that the Spirit who descended at the first Pentecost will fill the Reformed Churches of Australia so that they may be enabled to perform the leading function I fully believed they were called to play when I first joined as a member. Let us remember Christ’s own words, ‘Unless you become like this little child you will not see the kingdom of heaven.’ We have just rejoiced again in the Saviour’s birth. May we follow the child that was born in Bethlehem joyfully into the 21st century.

Jean Sietzema-Dickson

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Comment from last week – I so enjoyed reading this article! When I found out about this book, years ago, Keith and I really liked it. Probably also because Keith was involved in the Resistance movement, and could identify with so many” happenings”in the book. That year we decided to buy all our children ( all eleven) a copy for their birthdays!
Keep up the good work, I do so appreciate it!