This one started with my friend Gareth. I was in a prayer meeting last Sunday when he, almost out of nowhere, just smiled and said...
"Let's be thermostats, not thermometers."
I was taken aback, almost immediately. That's a brilliant phrase! I'd heard it before I think, but it suddenly struck me how that idea relates completely back to who we are as worshippers. Don't be a thermometer; be a thermostat.
So I spent a little time thinking about it, expanding it and trying to work out what it means...
A thermometer (I reasoned to myself) tells you what the temperature is; a thermostat regulates it. A little bit of liquid mercury in a thermometer expands when it's hot and pushes its way up a tube, but a heating system uses a switch to monitor how hot it is, and makes an intelligent choice about what to do about it.
We have a choice to reflect what happens around us, like emotional reflectors.. or to change it and make a difference. Let's be thermostats!
So here come my three tips on...
How to be a Thermostat
1. Set Your Temperature
As a thermostat, you get to decide what spiritual temperature you want to operate at. You might not be there yet, and it's possible that you feel like you've got a long way to go, but you can still aim for that target.
The same is true for us on Sunday mornings - some weeks I turn up feeling cold, unresponsive to God and not very ready. It takes a while to warm up, and sometimes I don't know whether I do. I need to remember that I'm designed to operate at a much higher temperature.
What's more, we can't lead anybody anywhere we haven't been ourselves. So my Handy Hint for Setting Your Temperature is simply to spend time in the Secret Place with God. Practise what that feels like; develop a culture of intimacy in your own life, through personal worship, Bible-reading, prayer-times (I go to the woods) or whatever floats your boat. I reckon that's the fastest way to discover your temperature and start aiming for it.
Even better, you'll find yourself living warmer wherever you go too - at work, school, college, wherever!
If you don't believe me, keep your eyes open the next time you're in a prayer meeting and look out for people who are setting the temperature. You'll see them and hear them, I promise. Ask yourself what impact it has on you.
2. Don't stop Til You Get There
The great thing about a thermostat is that it isn't content until it's reached its sweet-spot. There's a lot in the Bible about persevering, pressing through all kinds of difficulties until you get where you're called to be - "Don't give in, don't give up," seems to be the message.
Sometimes in worship, there are all sorts of things that work together to bring our temperature down - PA not working, stress over music, perhaps an intro that goes wrong or a look from someone that's a bit uncomfortable.
Don't reflect the emotional temperature around you, press on through and don't give up! You don't have to live in the atmosphere when you carry your own with you.
3. Don't Let Anybody Touch That Dial
When I was a kid, it seemed like my Dad had a sort of inbuilt detector for the thermostat. If my Mum turned it up, even half of one degree, he seemed to know about it almost immediately and would turn it down again. As kids, the very last thing we were allowed to do was to touch the sacred dial.
Here's the thing then: neither should you let anybody move the dial of your thermostat! Be like my Dad and protect it! Your temperature is your temperature, and you don't need to compare yourself to anybody around you.
If we, as team are doing our job properly, we should be encouraging each other to live at our spiritual temperatures, and particularly in worship times! Don't be influenced by anyone's idea of what you should be or which temperature you should live at; be free to be you, and be free to be the best that you can be.
- Stay plugged into the presence
- Keep going when you don't feel like it
- Don't let anyone else's mood or attitude affect yours
Be a thermostat, not a thermometer!
