Where did the Holiness Movement Go To?

Face it.  Regular church is made in man's image.  Regular church is made for regular people: their needs and their religion.

Now would a mature saint such as myself fit in that?  I have no spiritual lack and no religion for He is truly my all in all. There is little else that I care to discuss besides those things that would help a fellow human being come closer to Him. Truly!!!

I broke a rut and visited a local pentecostal church today. Well, here was the well-meaning order of events:
  • Perfunctory and half-hearted devotional singing: 10 minutes
  • Dedication of a new baby with relatives in attendance:  10 minutes.
  • Announcements: 15 minutes
  • Sad lukewarm testimonials of muddling through rather than overcoming and diligence in faith: 10 minutes
  • Offering:  10 minutes.
  • Smooth and inoffensive preaching of comfort without challenge:  45 minutes
  • Laying "empty hands upon empty heads" with little expectation of results. They get what they expect.
  • Chatting in the lobby about sports and the weather.

That seems to be the general pattern, but where does He fit in this? And where do I fit? Just where would there be an opportunity for a hungry soul to find more of Him?

My favourite activity if I am well is worshipping and praying by the hour.  What would interest such as myself go to that church? Ideally, it would be to very seriously magnify Him together with others so that the glory clouds would come down amongst us.  It would also be to help others into their next step in faith towards Him. The trouble is that neither of these activities find a place in such a church!!  Nor is this a proper environment for these; instead separate specialized “Seeker's Meetings” are needed where only those serious souls who wish to advance in grace are invited and only those within His Rest dare teach! So, if I was led to attend, it would be to secretly hide "outside the Camp" and move the Lord's hand on their behalf.

So why did the Holiness Movement fail?

If you examine the early sawdust trail meetings, in "Pioneers Days of The Holiness Movement in the Southwest", they are privately sponsored, soaked in strong and relentless prayer, have signs following daily and let regular churches take care of regular religious needs.  They were not there to establish a regular church, but to establish hearts in Him. Period. When there was no more demand for that, they moved on, either to charitable work, or to preaching elsewhere.  They were mostly evangelists rather than pastors.

In Church in The Wilderness we see that the Holiness Movement was smothered to death by “church as usual”. The separate seeker's meetings were folded into the main “church as usual”.....  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Not only that, but throughout the latter part of the Great Awakening, Wesley's sage advice was routinely ignored:

Q. In what manner should we preach sanctification?

A. Scarce at all to those who are not pressing forward: To those who are, always by way of promise; always drawing, rather than driving."

They customarily preached holiness strongly and sometimes with "hellfire" preaching to the whole congregations. That meant preachers were often shoving advanced preaching down the throats of babes who were just not ready yet. Can you think of a better way to turn folks right off holiness -even if the teaching is excellent and subject matter is important?

As time went on, the crowds dwindled and ever fewer entered His Rest.  No wonder!!!

Today there are denominations that faithfully still hold these beliefs, but very few indeed enter in.  But the church socials remain as popular as ever...

Earnest Seeker