TOO MUCH PIZZA?!

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:” (Joel 2:28) (Acts 2:17)

In evangelical Christian circles and especially in Pentecostal and Charismatic circles, sometimes a lot is made of people’s dreams. Certainly God CAN and does speak through dreams as we learn in the Book of Daniel and in the “Joseph” account in Genesis, for instance. (Ever see, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”? It’s a take off on the Biblical story, but well worth seeing!) Some people DO make too much of dreams, however. It’s the same way with angels. The Bible teaches that angels CAN take human form and can communicate with humans, as on the television show “Touched by an Angel”. But I become very leery of people who’ll say, “Yeah, I talked to 4 angels last night, 3 yesterday, and as a matter of fact, 2 just flew by over that house!!” Yeah, RIGHT! Angels, CAN “visit” us, but I think those visits are probably pretty rare. In the same way, God DOES speak in dreams, and demons can “invade” people’s dreams, but such instances are also pretty rare. I’ve had maybe a handful of dreams in my life that I truly believe were supernatural and of God. MOST dreams are just products of our subconscious mind working as we sleep. My friend D.C.M. used to caution Christians who believed they frequently had dreams from God that they’d “probably eaten too much pizza before they went to bed”! I think in most instances, D.C.M. is probably right.

I had an interesting dream last night that caused me to do some reflecting when I woke up today. Was it a dream from God? Maybe, but I’m not ready to put that stamp on it yet. I agree with D.C.M. that 99% of all Christians' dreams come from stuff like, “too much pizza”. Ironically, I ate a late supper last night after I got home from the telephone answering service. Yes, it was pizza and I did eat too much! So, even if it was the pizza, the dream gave me some things to think about.

In this dream, Boston radio personality Howie Carr was making a special personal appearance at some sort of meeting or rally. The rally was being held on the lower level of an old stone Catholic church building. It was one of those Catholic churches that the Archdiocese had closed but where a group of the parishioners were refusing to leave and were keeping 24/7 “vigil” to keep the church open. Now, the Howie Carr rally had NOTHING to do with that. They had just rented the lower level of the facility for the rally. I had a great seat near the front. Howie Carr came in from an upper left front entrance of the room. He was at the head of a cluster of at least ten people, all big shots of one kind of another. Howie was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with both sleeves unbuttoned. When he came in, there was cheering and that sort of thing, and he smiled broadly and waved at the crowd.

Sometimes in my dreams, the scenes switch almost like in a movie or a television show. In the next scene, I was in the upper level of the church building looking at the baptistry area. I’ve very much admired the dedication of the Catholics who “keep vigil” and try to keep their facilities open in opposition to the Catholic hierarchy. I started thinking about this in the dream. Suddenly, I got a gut feeling that my admiration for them was wrong. It was as though God was telling me the people keeping the vigils were actually rebels and that I should not admire them. I felt sort of guilty that I HAD admired them, and I realized I’d never considered the other side of the issue.

As I then turned, there were a few people milling about. Among the people was a man I know very well who was stopped and having a pleasant conversation with another man that I don’t know. The guy I DO know is Sean Bowen. Sean is about my age and is the associate pastor of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship church in Hopkinton. The “Hopkinton Vineyard” as I usually call it is experiencing explosive growth in a rental facility. The Vineyard churches typically feature very contemporary worship music, an emphasis on spiritual gifts and Biblical teaching, and casual dress even among the clergy. Sean had a great job in the business world that he gave up a few years ago to go on the church staff. He’s a bright guy with a lot of energy, but he’s not pushy or anything like that. He’s also a very good musician. Sean was talking to the other guy about an outreach they were going to be involved in. He had gotten some great material from some Christian organization like Intervarsity or The Navigators (something like that) and they were going to be using that material as they did the evangelistic outreach into the community. I don’t know why Sean and his friend were at that Catholic church. Had they come to the Howie Carr rally? Were they just meeting there because it was in the neighborhood of where the outreach would be? This Catholic church, wherever it was, was NOT in Hopkinton or the suburbs. It was somewhere in the immediate Boston area. Perhaps the outreach was going to be in the city; I don’t know. Then, I woke up.

At first I thought, “Boy I really DID eat too much pizza. What a crazy dream!”
Upon reflection, however, I began comparing what Sean and his friend were planning verses the Catholics having the vigil to keep the building open. I realized that focusing too much on the building and the familiar was not a good idea. Many of those who hold the vigils will say things like, “I went to 9:30 mass here every Sunday for 33 years.” or “I was married in this building in 1968” or “I was baptized here and all my kids were baptized here”. Now, granted, in the Old Testament it DOES speak of “building altars” in places of great spiritual significance to us, but if we actually begin to WORSHIP those “altars” and make them the “be all and end all” then it’s NOT a good thing and these “altars” can actually become false gods.

In the case of Sean Bowen and his friend, their focus was not a place or a building. It was outreach, evangelism, and ministry to people. That building was perhaps a base to do their city outreach in, but nothing more than that. There’s nothing wrong with having church buildings. In fact, Pastor Jack Hayford of the Foursquare denomination says having church buildings is a very good idea because we need places in which to meet, worship God, and disciple people. We should certainly take care of church properties and be good stewards of them. But the property should never take the place of people and ministry.

After thinking about this, I thought that maybe the Howie Carr scene was just kind of an incidental thing in the dream that didn’t mean anything. But as I later thought about it, I realized that sometimes churches can get into making people into celebrities and can have the wrong focus. Granted, the Howie Carr meeting in the dream was not a religious event...they were just renting the facility. But maybe it DOES symbolize the problem of churches focusing on celebrities and “stars” and not upon God.

So, THAT was my dream last night?

Any comments?