Lately, I have been sensing the devil has been playing a game of truth or dare with the church.
When I was a young person, Sunday morning services were a place the sermon was the center of focus. Music and worship were also prominent, but not pre-eminent. The church of Christ has been transformed over the past 20 years by waves of “new truth” or “new revelation” styled movements. How different the landscape of Christianity looks from the time I first entered the faith 40 years earlier. The teachings I received centered around salvation and repentance, and a biblical discovery of who God is.
Today, the emphasis is all about praying to a God of “love,” and a God of “revival,” but nothing is mentioned about Jesus, salvation, repentance or the Great Commission.
Recently, I was asked to make a film for a “prophetic musician.” I have met many prophetic musicians, and I have been blessed by them. However, this particular musician has a twist. The musician plays a resonance bowl among other instruments. A resonance bowl is a crystal glass bowl, with a separate pistol, which when put in gentle contact with the edge of the bowl and moved around it in a circular motion, creates a harmonic resonance. The sound has been described to me as a new form of prophetic prayer and a kind of Holy Spirit vibration, if you will.
I was told this is on the cutting edge of prophetic ministry today, and I have the chance to make a film about something no one else has ever done. Wow. Sounds like a unique opportunity. Then once again that question came to mind—truth or dare?
There are people in my congregation who came to Christ out of Buddhism and New Age practices, and their reaction was one of alarm. One friend told me it’s a Buddhist singing bowl. The former Buddhist asked, “why would a prophetic musician bring an instrument designed to worship another deity into the church?” My friend’s question challenged me, so I went back to the prophetic ministry to get some clarity on a question which was growing weightier on my conscience.
Mark Andrew Job is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker. He has worked as a cinematographer, broadcast TV camera operator, film and television editor, documentary film maker and also a digital/multimedia technology journalist, with several published articles in Red Shark News Magazine in London, England. Mark lives where faith meets commercial film production, with a deep fascination for motion picture and digital cinema camera technology, and how Christian belief can impact a digital-savvy world.
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