But I see a more pressing problem at the local church level at various levels. They do not seem to emphasize a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which Swedenborg had in spades (a childlike faith)– too much like a psychology class. For starters I suggest when the speakers use the word Lord they, say Lord Jesus and for Divine Influx, say Holy Spirit and so on. But real change needs to happen at the grass-roots level and be led by the Holy Spirit.

PRAYER AND WORSHIP VISION TO RENEW THE NEW CHURCH:
I suggest a grass-roots prayer and worship session in the evening at Bryn Athens be formed. All you need is about six or more core leaders who love the Lord Jesus (with term limits for them too). The format of this is important. It needs a flexible format, yet orderly, so the Holy Spirit can flow through the meeting.

Many years ago this started in a charismatic renewal of the Catholic Church, which was then ritualistic, formal, stiff, and clergy led. The prayer and worship format was that the core leaders would hold hands and pray alone for about 5 minutes before each worship session. Then there was the whole group praise session which consisted of everyone singing — musicians would help but not absolutely necessary. All the songs were Jesus-focused and this is extremely important. The worship singing is critical since it humbles the people and thus allows the Holy Spirit to move in power and touch hearts.

After this I believe there was short spontaneous individual praising by people and in this movement there were also (Pentecostal) gifts of the Spirit – (but this is not critical and the Lord may or may not want them – since they may not fit with a Swedenborgian movement).

One of the core leaders would then give a scripture reading and a 10 or 15 minute talk on it. Many of the teachings were how the Spirit works in our lives in a practical way — it was simple but profound (and really reflected Swedenborg’s religion and life principle). Then there was a general sharing at the end where people would volunteer how the Lord worked in their life that week or prayers that they needed. The meeting ended with a song. No money was directly involved.

Once the meeting became larger small groups used to meet at someone’s house for a mini-worship session and fellowship. The larger Spirit-led worship sessions multiplied and eventually spread over the entire country and the charismatic worship-type spirit would filter through to the Sunday services and at that time renewed the church – in this case it would be the Swedenborg churches which would in effect would become the Born-Again New Church. New house and local churches could also be a result of this.

Now with the knowledge of Swedenborg I would suggest that his teaching could or could not (depending how the service goes) be part of the talk about the scripture. My own vision on what would work is that it be limited to Swedenborg’s basic salvation doctrine of shunning sins (sanctification), fruit of sanctification (love of use or service, especially in our vocation and family), along at times with his basic afterlife theology since this beautifully completes the salvation picture. This would be enough to gently introduce new members or other Christians to Swedenborg and word would get out and they will come – for the Spirit would be very powerful because of the (Swedenborg’s) true salvation focus (regeneration).

Those interested could learn more about his more deeper teachings by reading his other books, which could be at a book table at the meeting or given at special seminars. We used to give life-in-the-spirit seminars to groups of new people — I could envision a similar seminar maybe on Swedenborg’s religion and life book. The point is though to keep it simple. More advanced seminars could be given for those interested but the prayers and worship session and initial seminar should remain simple.

Note:
The reason this movement was so powerful was because Catholics were taught as children the concept of sin and examination of conscience, although they wrongly went to a religious ritual (confession box and absolution) instead of going to the Lord. But charismatic Catholics went directly to the Lord for forgiveness and power to change as Swedenborg teaches – this allowed the Spirit to move powerfully among the Body of Christ.

One other thing is that there was much inner healing of people’s lives (hurts, depression, childhood wounds, past relationships) when they were prayed over or at a service itself. This was a prayer gift from the Lord that certain leaders were given.

What is missing in most is Love, geniune love for each other, to listen , to care, to understand.

All that god created gives, the sun, the moon, trees etc… look at all the oil in the ground just for us humans, look at what the trees do for us, suck in carbon-monoxide and give us oxygen in return, look at a fruit tree with more fruit than we can eat, only us humans live for ourselfs and that must change.

When we start to live for others and give from the giving source from within us then we will have found the purpose for living as a human.

Thanks for listening–rich

“I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
– Robert McCloskey

Very interesting stuff.