At a small gathering where Karen and I were asked to lead singing, the Holy Spirit began to move through Karen and another woman in a beautiful spontaneous spiritual song. Paul wrote about spiritual songs in Ephesians 5:19. While they were yet singing, a man stood up and began to shout out a prayer of thanks for a Christian politician who had recently been elected. Oblivious to the Spirit’s moving, the man continued to pray over the top of the singers who began to heave as the Spirit song given through them, was interrupted. Had the man not read Paul who wrote to the Ephesians and Thessalonians:

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God and Do not quench the Spirit.

What beautiful message might the Holy Spirit have had for our gathering, had the man not run off the Holy Spirit by his selfish and long-winded prayer?

Many are the times we have experienced such an interruption when believers gather together and the Holy Spirit is grieved and quenched by someone with an agenda. In fact, I can’t say for certain that I have ever been part of a larger assembly where that did NOT happen. Neither can I say for certain that I have never been the one to grieve and quench the Holy Spirit with my own selfish agenda.

Why is it so difficult to flow freely with the Holy Spirit during a gathering of believers? Certainly Karen and I experience it often during our times of fellowship at home, or with a friend over coffee. When Karen returns from a time of breaking bread and fellowship with her sister, she often beams with the Holy Spirit. Occasionally we’ve experienced such free-flowing fellowship in groups of 5 or 6; but never in a larger group.

About that, the Holy Spirit prompted me to read James chapter 3, in particular verse 16 which says:

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

Albert Barnes commentary on that scripture contrasts the jealousy and selfish ambition with the spirit of peace which should prevail in our assemblies and he goes on to cite a poignant lyric from an old hymn:

The Spirit, like a peaceful dove,
Flies from the realms of noise and strife.**

These seem to go a long way toward explaining the Spiritual convulsions that Karen and I witnessed during our brief foray back into a traditional liturgical church the fall of 2014. When we visited them 6 months before moving to the community, the church followed the leading of the Holy Spirit, simply and beautifully, in an atmosphere of love and compassion. Unknown to us, during the 6 months it took us to sell our house, pack and move, the church was overtaken in a power struggle. The board hired a new pastor who arrived the same Sunday we did and began grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit, habitually. It was that which moved us to leave just 8 months after we arrived. Frankly, I’m surprised we remained there for that long. The Spiritual upheaval was heart rending.

Within weeks of leaving, our relationship and marriage home was once again ruled by the Spirit of peace as we walked together in the light and freedom of His Truth (1 John 1:7). It seems like overnight that our conversation returned to talking about the Lord, sharing our experiences and the daily bread the Lord gives to each of us who ask Him. No longer is our Christ-centered marriage relationship hijacked with stressful conversations about “the church this … the board that…”.

Though deeply upsetting, the experience taught me valuable lessons wherein I marvel at how it is when we cease to strive and rest in the peace of the Holy Spirit, there is a conspicuous absence of all things “churchy”. Conversely, being thrust into the center of man’s religious kingdom building, our peace is lost, overcome by agitation of the Spirit. The jealousy and selfish ambition inherent in man’s pastor-dominated traditional church, gives birth to disorder and vile practices which for us, always stirs up the gifts of discernment and prophecy in rebuke of man’s traditional church.

The difference between sweet fellowship with the Holy Spirit in a small group, compared with the jealousy and selfish ambition that runs off the Holy Spirit in larger groups where men often rise up to seize control of the gathering, has me wondering whether Jesus was in fact encouraging believers to meet in smaller groups, when He said:

“For where two or three are being gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20). Personally, I like the Apostolic Bible for that scripture, because it uniquely uses the phrase “being gathered” and places Christ “in the midst” of the assembly He has gathered. That view is consistent with another promise Christ made “I will gather all men unto Myself”. Conversely, when men initiate the gathering and once assembled demand of Christ “we’ve gathered in your name so now you have to show up”, is that not the very thing James warned us about? Man attempting to exercise authority over Christ? How profane. One needs only read Revelation 3:20 to see what happens when Jesus shows up to a gathering initiated by men who are driven by jealousy and selfish ambition.

Certainly “two or three” is very specific, as is the phrase “in my name”, which means to be caught up by Jesus in the very person, character, authority and anointing of Jesus. Perhaps the inference is that in a smaller groups, it is Jesus who shares through those who gather, whereas in a larger groups, men begin to clamber for supremacy whereupon Jesus finds He “can’t get a word in edgewise” and His Spirit is grieved and ultimately quenched. Or as it is in Revelation 3:20, Jesus is shut out of the church altogether.

In my observation, a small group of friends is better able to “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10), than a large group of strangers. Or perhaps small groups are intended as training in sensitivity and restraint to prepare us for assembling in larger groups. Certainly it was about sensitivity and restraint that Paul wrote to the believers at Corinth:

What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14 verses 26-33)

I hope someday to experience the free flow of the Holy Spirit in larger groups, the way Karen and I have in smaller ones. But perhaps for us, the Lord is reserving the experience for when we go home to be with Him, when the flesh can no longer disrupt the sweet fellowship of the Holy Spirit.