Timaru Elim Church

Location: Elizabeth Street, Timaru (near City Centre)
Denomination: Elim Pentecostal Church
Website: www.elim.org.nz
Church Services: 10 am and 6 pm Sundays, 7 am weekdays prayer

Groups: Bible Study, youth

My own visit

Date: 20 March 2005

Service: 10 am Family Service

The building: Timaru Elim Church is right on the main road through Timaru, but also just down a cul-de-sac from historic Chalmers Church. The contrast is striking. Elim Church is clearly a modern building, designed to provide amenities to the congregation rather than copying European churches to achieve a reverent worship atmosphere.

It is a simple hall-like building, nevertheless with an elaborate entrance-way. It appears quite modern in its light colours. A large sign marks this building out as the Timaru Elim Church.

The décor: With its modern light pastel colour the auditorium looks very bright and trendy. Fashionable lights on one wall and on the ceiling increase this impression, though one or two show signs that they are not of the best quality. Two windows of tiled glass add to the ambience. A row of windows under the roof to one side admits more light. Flowers are placed along the platform at the front used by the worship team. The whole floor is covered by dark blue carpet with a modern grey pattern. Only the tired looking orange chairs may seem a bit out of place.

Smiling face at the door: Sure, and a handshake and introduction.

Start of service: People seemed to arrive quite late and there was lots of chatting until one of the worship leaders decided that it was time to get going and got the people rising. Soon the congregation was into singing songs and waving arms while some more stragglers arrived. After the first song we had a long break for notices.

Congregation (approx) 0-12: 10 ; 13-20: 5; 20-40: 25; 40-60: 20; 60+: 5

Liturgy: none there

Music: Worship songs throughout, some of them quite rhythmic. Generally they did not have very long texts, but had a reasonable length. Of course they were repeated often. A couple of times musicians went over into playing a few basic cords and words of the song were discarded so that the singers could voice their own melodies and words – often quite pious phrases. This then gave way to loud clapping and cheering as the music stopped.

The words were displayed on a screen at the front of the church by powerpoint. Often there was just a small time-lag between the words and where we were at in the song.

Instruments: keyboard, bass guitar, drums, 3 singers

Children’s Talk: None, the children went out after about 1 hour. Meanwhile they kept themselves entertained with Barbie and other adorable toys. Even the time-honoured tradition of studying the maps at the back of the Bible was continued among some of the geographically more curious kids.

Sermon:
-Length: over 35 minutes
-Method: The pastor preached with enthusiasm, humour and very freely. He had several jibes at which translation of the Bible should be used. He frequently thumped his Bible to give emphasis to what he said.
-Bible reading: Hebrews 11:1
-Content: Currently this church has a series of talks about faith. Let’s identify what the word is saying, not what we think it is saying. Last time we talked about how fear can hinder the action of faith.

Today’s topic is Faith in prayer-life. There is a good quote: “A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t”. We need to use the book and work it.

We have been taught wrong in the church for years: we have been taught a hope doctrine, not a faith doctrine. This also affects Pentecostal churches, where there often is a lot of preaching about hope, but they never get to the result or the answer. In the church we have a lot of sick Christians.

Faith is like a pregnancy that gives birth to something at the end. Faith is a process we need to keep going on with. If we go down the wrong track in our thinking about this we can become miserable people.

Hebrews 11:1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Moses did not enter into the land, but he believed in the promise.

Often if things get worse, there is contention in the spiritual realm and we need to persevere.

If we trust the word, we demand God to fulfil his promises. God you have written it, now do it!

There also is sometimes an inner knowing that God has spoken to you. Keep going with it! Find a scripture that will verify it.

An example from the preacher’s life: At a quiet time the need for a new car came into my spirit. I kept praying about it. I found the scriptures: God meets our every need. I also realized that we needed a new car for ministry. Within a short time we were asked whether our car was for sale and we sold it while still being able to use it. Then money came in from the world. We saw the Honda we wanted, but it was still too dear, but through bargaining I finally got it. This was a process, where we always had to go on to the next stage.
You’ve got to keep moving in this process.

Sometimes there’s a breakthrough, when faith is just so obvious and powerful. The gift of faith is great when it comes. You can just feel the miraculous.

Faith gets the job done now. We are meant to be a faith people. If there is doubt and unbelief in our hearts we cannot progress.

Old-time faith healers would say: “Do you believe?” The answer “I hope so” was not good enough. That answer leaves room for doubt, there’s no responsibility on the person. There has to be commitment and faith that something will be activated now. It may not be immediately obvious but once something is activated you just carry on believing and it will happen.

There’s lots of voices around us who want to tell us what the Word says. Don’t listen to them. Don’t listen to the theologians. Go back to the Word and find what it says.

Faith is trusting in God. Doubt and unbelief around us have to stop. You should be believing that God provides. We are in a growing process.

Other Highlights: After worship, some people just raised their voices with something they felt was important. The first woman quoted Revelations 3:20: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open, I will come in to you and sup with you. She then expounded: Open the door and give all to the Lord. There are people here today who need to give access to the LORD to those cold areas of their life.

Another person reminded the congregation that God is our helper.

The pastor spoke about the work of the Spirit: Let the Spirit move. It is challenging all of us. The Lord is preparing a people of the Spirit, is building a mighty spiritual army. We need the revelation of who we are before God.

Later a woman came forward to speak about mission: We are all missionaries. Those missionaries out there on the field are really encouraged by our messages and support.

Two guys from this church are going on a mission trip to Vanuatu. Christianity there is well established, but there is still witchcraft. Also western culture has more and more of an influence. Islam is beginning to make an impact. The people there are vulnerable.

We are to partner with these people.

The congregation was encouraged to pray for the two guys when showering, so that they had a certain routine to remember them. Generally this mission was also seen as a good opportunity to make contacts so that later on short-term missions could also be e stablished.

Before the sermon one woman shared a testimony: For some time I had terrible headaches and could not sleep. Last Sunday the minister prayed for me. I was so overcome with the Holy Spirit – I was in another world. I felt so amazing. I was young again – I am young again in the Spirit. The Lord took away my headache. It just went. I had loads and loads of healings, but you can come back to the Lord again and again.

The congregation accompanied this by clapping and excited shouts and hoots.

Wrap-up: Unfortunately I had to go after about 1hour and 45 minutes, before the sermon was finished.

After the service: I was not there. But before the service I spoke with a man for some time who told me a bit about the church here and we talked about the town of Timaru. He also assured me that there are plenty of nice single girls around.

Quality of morning tea: Sorry, I was not there to put it to the test.

Reflection: The sermon is quite problematic. Of course, we have to look at the words of the Bible, consider them carefully and not just rely on church tradition. But there’s a large hermeneutic process involved in this and theologians and other people can help us to see what the Bible says.

I just wonder whether the Bible gets well-used by reading it, or more by thumping on it and saying:"That's what I believe."

Let’s hope that the car-example was just a bit unfortunate. Of course God has to be involved in everything we do, and buying a car is not a light decision. But there’s the danger that God becomes a means in our life, a self-help advancement. Does God then touch us at the very basis of our life? Does he bring into question all our comfortable presumptions? God is not just the spiritual flavour in our otherwise commercialised world.

Otherwise the people there seemed to be really excited by God, really on fire for him and also ready to go out and do something, such as going on short-term mission.