James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Prior to Jesus giving me faith in October 2020, I was ALL up in the new age. I classified myself as a Law of Attraction Atheist. I was like a lot of people who grew up in a Christian society, I was rebelling, even though I knew Jesus was real. He had answer many prayers to my liking. He had rescued me from some bad situations, but I was still mad at him because I thought He wanted to control me. That was going to ruin my fun and steal my freedom. Was I ever WRONG!
During that time in the new age, I did a LOT of work around emotional language development, emotional honesty, emotional volunerabilty and other practices that gave me the language, structure and confidence to be able to verbally express and process my emotions. As a side note, I’ll say that if you know an Angry man, probably, at least this was true for me, a lot of his anger stems from lacking the language to express his experience and to be validated in it. Its BEYOND frustrating. There is something magical about being validated in your experience. People who have not experienced that, I feel sorry for. Because it is wonderful, it is healing.
That is what James 5:16 is talking about. The Church has a mandate, YES a mandate, to provide a safe space for people to experience FREEDOM through the confession of sin and the consequenses of it on them and others. It doesn’t have to only be about what the individual did, it can also be about the impact on the victim. However, there is nothing more freeing than being able to express your reality as ugly and evil as it might be and to be told you are forgiven and loved and have it valid that you experienced or did that. Underneath every crime, there is an unvalidated person trying to hide. When that happens, it can come out sideways in a seriously damaging and even life ending ways.
The Christian church LOVES the idea of forgiveness, but, IMHO, avoids healing, unless they are off the deep end with the supernatural. Healing requires vulnerability and a capacity, usually requiring training and education, to hear anything without judgement or fixing. The new age world does this 1000 times better than the church does. When Jesus gave me faith, it was supernatural and it was pretty dissorienting. I then had to process 50 years of my life had been lived completely LOST. When I went to the church to try and find that safe space to talk about it, mostly I didn’t find it. As I got to know the church, it became apparent to me, that it is avoided and on purpose. It certainly is not given specific structure or time.
It is my conjecture that there is a HUGE HEAPING MOUNTAIN of healing that has been left on the table. Healing that would change the world, if the church would get real about what healing vs. forgiveness actually is. They are two seperate things. This is a letter I wrote to my church to suggest a structure for healing. It was met with a no thanks and we are not going to do that. They will know we are Christians by how we love one another. John 13:35-36. There is a lot of room for improvement! Enjoy my letter to my church about the Band Meeting!
Background
In the modern church, talking about how our walks with Jesus are occurring, struggles, victories, confessing sin is almost a dead art. I am ok, you are ok seems to be standard fair. If you are asked, are you ok? Do you feel there is genuine interest to hear an answer that is not, yeah everything is great?!?!
Mostly the modern church has turned into performance-based worship and either topical or expository teaching that is largely personality driven. The space to delve into our lives in response to these teachings is usually left to the individual in isolation. James 5:16 tells us that following Jesus, healing and the process of sanctification is a team sport.
The mantra of the modern Evangelical church seems to be, learn about the bible and/or what the bibles says about an issue, but keep the personal impacts both derogatory and victorious to yourself. If you need to have an open, honest, safe, and real conversation about something, then mostly, one is referred to “counseling” ministries. Again, more isolation. The priesthood of the believer has been outsourced and it is time to bring it back home, to our own hearts and our own ministries to those around us. It should be a standard part of the education of what it means to follow Jesus.
I assert we have returned to a yoke of slavery discussed in Galatians 5:1 – It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
The work of Christ is about FREEDOM. Freedom is bringing that which is in the dark, into the light. What that looks like on the court is confession and sharing with a heaping dose of self-awareness, emotional capacity, language, and integrity. Hiding sin and/or shame with no safe space to confess and seek prayer, looks like returning to a yoke of slavery. When a believer is set FREE, that is cause for CELEBRATION! We should want a Celebration of FREEDOM for our Jesus family siblings more than anything. We should also question the I am okay you’re okay mentality. It is a façade by which the truth of people’s lives are mostly hidden.
It could be said that the structure of the modern evangelical church is a structure of hiding, while acting like everything is ok. It is the exception that someone stands up, tells one on themselves and self-promotes being FOUND OUT outside of a pastoral care situation. If they do, it’s an interruption. Everyone is a sinner, not being found out is a problem. Being found out should be a VICTORY in Christ!
In community, if someone confesses and receives prayer, forgiveness and the peace that surpasses all understanding there are usually things to do. If they harmed others asking forgiveness with them. If they damaged the community, with the community. Mostly, it is swept under the rug and ignored out of what probably is communal fear. A sad indictment of the body of Christ and a sad witness to what we believe the power of Jesus does and can do, but it does keep the I’m ok your ok standard in place.
The confession of sin can be messy, however James 5:16 is a formula. Corporate Confession + Prayer = Healing. It is one of the most direct statements in the Bible. It is a promise! Is Jesus big enough to fulfill on that promise even if it is messy? 100% YES! A mountain of healing is on the table because Evangelicals have become afraid to get real with each other and seemingly have removed intentional spaces by which to spur on James 5:16.
The way that has been accomplished is through Bible study. Studying the Bible is never a bad thing, but it is not an intentionally created space by which believers can be known, discuss and process their relationship with Jesus, experience the confession of sin, the gift of forgiveness, the cleansing of the holy spirit, sibling prayer and ultimately healing. That INTENTIONAL space mostly does not exist. More Bible studies are not the answer. If they were, James 5:16 would already be evident.
The acquisition of Bible knowledge is not getting real about what is going on in your life. When initially practiced, it might take considerable time and the development of language and structure by which to process, share and confess. In many ways, we are starting at ground zero. We have become so remedial at this practice as the body of Christ, it warrants an elevated level of guidance and structure to bring it back into the fold. It is not happening organically at Bible studies.
The Man Box
What have been the impacts of suppressing James 5:16? I assert it impacts men more.
Men are more than lust machines. That simplification of men is offensive. I believe that there is ignorance running the show when distinguishing between attraction and lust. Attraction is not lust. It certainly is the first step, but another step towards lust is a decision we all have. Lust is indicative of the thoughts of a person. It is the hidden shameful thoughts that create the desire and want. Attraction without the need to possess, lust, is 100% possible. It is a developed skill. I fully believe that Jesus felt attraction, but it did not supersede his compassion or commitment to the soul of the person. He never lusted.
It is completely possible to be attracted to someone and not cross the line into lust. That means viewing them as a child of God and a fellow human who needs the love of Jesus in their life. As a man who before becoming a follower of Jesus spent years inside strip clubs, chasing women and fulfilling every sexual fantasy I could, I can experientially say, it is 100% empty. It is a hotbed of lost and hurt people. There is nothing over there accept people who need Jesus. As Ecclesiastes says, it is The Futility of All Endeavor.
It was not until I did the work of developing my emotional capacity and language, that beautiful women turned into people. I now can be with any woman, no matter how attracted I am to her, without the thoughts in my mind being about carnal things. I can be with a beautiful woman as a fellow human. A skill which astounds men. I gained that capacity before becoming a follower of Jesus. Beauty is full of people, hurting people, who Jesus loves just as much as he loves me.
Men feel shame for attraction which is sad. Or they do not have the distinction between attraction and lust, which are NOT the same thing. God invented attraction for a reason. However, since it is NEVER discussed how would a man ever know that is possible? According to the church, every man is a lust machine. Let’s be fair, 99.9% seems to be the accepted number. So, there is a remanent of men who possess the ability to not let lust run their mind. But the message is, that you probably are not one of them.
The focus on lust with men, seems a self-fulfilling prophecy. If lust is the only socially acceptable way for a man to confess something, then where are the conversations about pride, sloth, greed, money, being a man of God in the workplace, being a good father, being a good husband, being a good single person and many other facets of our daily lives exist? Mostly, they do not exist around a context of confession. It seems, you are a porn addict, or everything is rosy. And we wonder why infidelity is rampant and why clergy can at any moment hit the porn addict button to tap out of the ministry. I assert, because the lack of emotional training of men in the church creates a hiding place for the darkness. That is mostly done through ignoring James 5:16.
Men are not off/on switches and women are thirty-two channel sound boards. A woman is from man, we have every capacity she has, because we are the root of her creation. Men are emotional. To say they are not is a lie. A disservice to God’s creation.
One only need to study David, a man after God’s own heart, to realize that a poet, song writer, worship leader, psalmist, warrior and shepherd is who God choose to promote. David wrote most of the psalms. A MAN was used to create the love language of man to God. David was more than a lust machine and lust was one of his biggest failures. I am not saying lust is not dangerous, it is, but having it be all that a man can be, is a remedial viewpoint of God’s creation.
David danced naked when the Ark of the Covenant was brought back to Jerusalem. Image a modern celebration where men shed their cloths and danced in praise to God. It could happen because under that suppressed surface, those emotions exist. Denying them is missing being all that God means a man to be. Men only need a forum by which to understand their emotions, to give them language, to understand that they are more than lust machines.
The Band meeting is a time-proven structure for implementing James 5:16 in an intentional, real, and practical way where any facet of life can be taken to the throne and placed on the altar hand in hand with siblings in the faith. It is a practical place for people to process what it means to follow Jesus. What does it look like in our lives when the rubber meets the road?
Why did I highlight this about men? Because women naturally live out James 5:16 more easily than men. This happens because they are culturally trained, that having emotional language and capacity is acceptable, while for men, it is not. When a man possesses these skills, other men mock him as feminized. When in fact, the reason women have those types of emotions, is because they came from the rib of a man. I wonder what Jesus thinks about all that?
History of the Band Meeting
The band meeting was created by John Wesley in the 1700s. John Wesley was an Anglican at that time and saw that an intentional structure for living out James 5:16 did not exist in the Anglican church. Sound familiar? John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church considered the 3rd largest Christian denomination on the planet. Fundamentally, the Methodist church, which has mostly lost this practice, but is seeing some revival in it, is built on the foundation of the band meeting.
What is a Band Meeting?
The band meeting is an intentionally created space for the express purpose of living out James 5:16 that is same-sex and no more than 6 people, 4 is best with a developed leader, who also is a participant. In practice, at least 15 minutes of time should be given to each member of the group. In the early days or in certain situations, more time may be required. Age does not matter, but can be utilized to form groups as long as a seasoned leader is in the mix. Disparate ages are beneficial as they naturally provide wisdom to the group for those who are younger and exemplify that sanctification never ends until we shed this mortal coil.
Each member in the band, they are asked several questions during their time. The number of questions is time dependent, it might only be one question. Many times in bands, how is your soul, prayers and requests is good enough. They answer those questions, the group then prays for them and then the next participant goes. Repeat until everyone has had a turn. Simple!
When a band is formed, every person as witnessed by the group must explicitly and individually give their word to the following at the first meeting or when a new member joins the band. Call it a right of initiation. If any individual is unwilling to make these promises to the group, they should not be allowed in the band.
- Do you promise to keep everything shared confidential?
- Do you promise to never use anything shared to harm anyone?
- Do you promise to be open and honest with the group about your own life?
- Do you promise to not try to fix anything for anyone when they share?
- If you feel you have something for them and want to share it, you can approach them outside the meeting and make a request to share what you see. If they are not interested, that is respected and not held against them.
- Do you promise not to dominate the conversation?
- Do you promise to respect everyone’s time during the meeting?
- Do you promise to do the work to develop what might be lacking to gain the language and insight to uncover previously undistinguished obstacles, sin, emotional capacity, and false identity?
- Do you promise to immediately restore your integrity with any of these rules should you break them with the group?
- If you break a rule and it causes harm, do you promise to clean up the mess you made to the satisfaction of the person it hurt?
- Will you abide by the leaders coaching, navigation and monitoring of these rules?
What are the questions asked in a band meeting? The fundamental question of every band meeting is, how is it with your soul? Great Question! This is a nonexclusive list of other well-known band meeting questions.
- How is it with your soul?
- Where have you been walking in the flesh vs the spirit?
- What scripture is currently challenging you and why?
- What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?
- What are you struggling with?
- What temptations have you met with?
- How were you delivered?
- Who are you sharing the Gospel with?
- Who have you shared the Gospel with?
- What have you thought, said, or done, of which you think it might be sin?
- Do you desire to keep something secret?
- If yes, will you tell the secret or just acknowledge that you have a secret.
- Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
- Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
- Do I confidentially pass onto another what was told to me in confidence? Can I be trusted?
- Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
- Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
- Did the Bible live in me today?
- Do I give the Bible time to speak to me every day?
- Am I enjoying prayer?
- What am I praying for?
- Do I pray about the money I spend?
- Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
- Do I disobey God in anything?
- Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
- Am I defeated in any part of my life?
- Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
- How do I spend my spare time?
- Am I proud?
- Am I slothful?
- Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisee who despised the publican? Do I think I am better than others?
- Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold resentment toward or disregard?
- If so, what am I going to do about it?
- Do I grumble and complain constantly?
- Is Christ real to me?
- Am I rejoicing always?
- Am I praying without ceasing?
- Am I thankful in any circumstance?
Assuming James 5:16 is happening within a Bible study where the point of the space is to understand scripture is not individuals talking about their lives. If the Christian life is a team sport, if James 5:16 is true, healing is available to all on the other side of confession and prayer. Does that not require the church, the priesthood of believers, to create an intentional space to live that out? I say yes, and my prayer is that by reading this, your response will be YES and AMEN!
Sharing Ground Rules
A time of sharing is time-sensitive. Especially when everyone needs to share. Sometimes, especially in difficult circumstances and trying times, someone might need to extra time to vent, which is cathartic, but we want to be sensitive to not take so much time that others are left out of their turn to share. These are tried and true sharing ground rules that are used across many groups.
- 100% Confidentiality, what is said here, stays here.
- Land the Plane
- The point of sharing is to convey an experience, an emotion, a win, a fail, not necessarily the details. When sharing, and this takes practice, how can we say what we need to say most expeditiously and with as few details as possible?
- In High School, a good and funny friend taught me about “Shaggy Dog” stories. A shaggy dog story is a story that goes on and on and on and on about how shaggy a dog is. After someone is about 5 minutes into the shaggy dog story, they are like, is there a point to this story? No, there isn’t, the gage is, how long can I get you to listen to me talk about how shaggy my dog is. Sometimes you might hear it said way, as they were spewing a stream of consciousness. It was a funny joke at the time, but when adulting it can sometimes be exhausting and borderline disrespectful of someone’s time. It doesn’t take much to get to the core of what you want/need to share and again, we all get better at this with practice.
- Assume if someone is here in this group, they are FOR you. We want to create a safe space for people to share, so don’t feel like you are being judged or have to be perfect at it and there is beauty in succinctness. I have found, as I become less enamored with the details and more able to share my experience, the details deflate. Which is kind of amazing!
- NO Fixing
- When people share, they are sharing to be accepted and validated. They are being vulnerable, maybe the most vulnerable they have ever been. They do not need a fix. If you think about it, presenting a fix for a situation distracts from the experience of sharing it and can be invalidating.
- Fix’s can have great intentions, but they miss the point of the sharing. A fix redirects everyone away from being with the share. The point of sharing is to be heard, not to find a fix.
- Sometimes the best thing to do is to rest in the life stew and just be with it. If you have a burning desire and see an opening to help, after the group is the time to request permission to offer that.
- Fixing can also become a distracting time sink taking away from others’ time to share.
- No fixing can be hard, especially for people who love to encourage. People who are encouragers see someone who is hurting and want to give them a metaphorical hug. That is all well and good, but during group sharing, it’s just about being in the space of whatever is being shared, not trying to fix it.
If you are interested in becoming part of a band meeting, drop me a line!