As I write this blog, I'm on my way home from The Rage Factor. Rage Against the Machine's free gig in Finsbury Park, thrown in celebration of their Christmas number one over the X-Factor winner. For reasons that will hopefully become clear, being at "The Rage Factor" made me think a lot about how we gather as a church. I was surrounded by thousands of people passionately engaged with the experience, the music, the band and yes even the words. Yet looking around I knew that for most of the crowd, no matter how pained their expression, how liberated their dancing, that they didn't really believe in any of the things that Zach De La Rocha was preaching. I knew that when they got home and sobered up they would probably reminise on the expereince, their favourite songs and the feeling of being part of something bigger than themselves. Cherishing the illusion of the significance of their presence and their purchase.

Somehow it seems to have become credible to claim that you believe in something, based either on a purchase or, just as insidiuous on your level of emotional connection with a song or experience. It's so easy to say "they say jump and you say how high" but the important thing is not to jump. Easy to sing "Fill us up and send us out" but the important thing is, having been filled up and sent out, to acctually go! 

The level of genuine passion with which people engage with these sorts of mass experiences seems to disipate incredibly quickly. If you are in any doubt just catch the next Rage Against the Machine gig, you will find thousands of people who are passionately engaged in singing words that they prove with their lives mean nothing to them (I know enough committed anarchists to know that there weren't many in Finsbury Park Sunday night)!

Now before I get lots of angry emails, let me clear up what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that singing is meaningless or that corporate or sung worship is shallow. It can be significant. Rage were a significant band for me. They gave voice to a passion that I had struggled to articulate as a teenager; their lyrics developed my thinking and their music sustained and inspired passionate commitment.

Those moments are to be cherished, whether it was the first time you heard "Guerilla Radio" or "Worthy is the Lamb". These are moments from which we draw strength, courage and encouragement in the struggle. Sometimes a moment can change everything, a song, a book, a conversation, a worship set can be a vehicle which God uses to transform your mind and heart, marking a turning point on your journey. We can allow that moment to slip by if we neglect it, if we simply move on and wait for the next one. These moments are significant, the experiences are valuable, that is precisely why we must dwell on them. 

We must be careful to never get stuck at those pivotal moments else we will lose their momentum which they generate. The inertia which is overcome at that moment can so easily be wasted if you neglect to push. The hardest part is getting the thing to move, once it begins though, you can't rest up you have to keep pushing else it will roll to a halt and you will have to do battle with inertia yet again. 

The next time you encounter God powerfully as we gather on a Sunday, don't just wait for small group or LTG for the next hit. Take the moment home with you, remember it, struggle with it, challenge and interogate it, make life changing choices based on it. If you just wait for the next experience you end up like the 40 year old executive who still believes that he is passionate and radical because he bought a copy of "Killing in the Name" at Christmas and voted Liberal Democrat in the General Election! You will endure the same experience time after time and it will grow boring and dull because you weren't built for 'experiences' or encounters, you were built for a relationship with your creator that is as real on a Wednesday afternoon as it is on a Sunday night. The Christian mission is not to attend concerts and proclaim your passion there, but to head into the darkness and shine!

If you claim to be passionate, and you think that your experience on a Sunday proves your passion, you have failed to understand the meaning of the encounter. God is calling you into a lifetime of relationship and you are content swimming around the same tired "experiences". There is more, and your Sunday experiences will be insignificant unless you struggle with them on the other six days of the week.