Some months ago I had the delightful experience of attending a worship service at the elegant Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. The service was nothing if it was not dignified. They had one of the most ornate worship bulletins I have seen. And there were many dignitaries there in positions of honor. But the striking thing about the service was the music. There were at least 50 members of the choir and they had a band of excellent musicians. And beginning early in the service and continuing throughout, the music helped bring the worshipers to a fever pitch. Our blood pressure went up and we began to clap and move our bodies. It was a very emotional experience for everyone. Even the reserved and prim among us began to feel rhythm moving within us. By the time of the sermon, it was easy to get emotionally involved in it.

In the emotion of clapping and shouting, we were experiencing God.

I used to live in Hodgenville, Kentucky. It is very near Gethsemane Monastery, and I used to visit there with the County Agent, who was a friend. At Gethsemane the monks do not speak. They are totally devoted to prayer and contemplation all day long. They spend hours on their knees. They are waked up in the middle of the night to pray. There are few body comforts: the rooms are kept at about 65 degrees and the food is very plain. It was at Gethsemane that Thomas Merton wrote his classic books on the value of contemplative life. And more and more Protestants have found retreats at Gethsemane helpful in shutting out the world and focusing on God in meditation and prayer. More and more people are seeking to develop the inner, spiritual life.

In the silence of meditation and prayer, they experience God.

At our sister Lindenwood Christian Church, in addition to their dignified, traditional service, they have Wide Open Worship, (WOW). The minister dresses casually in a short-sleeved shirt. His sermons are about five minutes long, and a number of graphics are projected on the large screen behind him. Like Mississippi Boulevard, music is the focus of the service. The band, with drums and keyboards, comes from playing on Beale street the night before. There are no hymnals; the music is projected on the big screen.

People who have rarely attended church before experience God in the worship.

These are three pathways to God. But there are other ways to experience God, as well. You see, our Christian faith is the response of our personalities to God, and all of us differ in the make-up of our personalities.

And listen, God does not try to fit us into any mold. Look at Jesus’ disciples: every one of them was different. There was strong, impetuous, emotional Peter. But there was also the thoughtful, contemplative Thomas. There was the effeminate, sensitive John. But there was also Simon the Zealot. A Zealot was an insurgent of that time.

Many people are troubled because their experience of God does not follow the right pattern -- at least the pattern which they have been led to believe is the right pattern. BUT THERE IS NO RIGHT PATTERN TO COME TO GOD. Perhaps you have had people come to your door to get you on the right path to God. More likely, your friends and fellow church members have told you how THEY have found God and implied that their way is the only way God can be found.

But, listen to our text: Jesus said that the first commandment is this: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." Perhaps this text will guide us in the variety of pathways to God.

The heart is the seat of emotion. We need to get emotional about our religious experience. What a blessing it is! -- to genuinely feel your religion. Emotion is a motivating power; it can get people moving. The word "enthusiasm comes from two Greek words, "en" and "Theos." Theos is the word for God. Enthusiasm is being filled with God.

But we have become so sophisticated, haven’t we? It is uncouth to get enthusiastic about your religion. I grew up in this tradition, and it is part of my personality. You just stay "cool" about your religious beliefs.

I still remember the first sermon I preached in my home church. I was still in college, but had been invited to preach on a visit back home. As I was preaching, Brother Irby said, "Amen!" Now Brother Irby had a deep bass voice, and when he said "amen" with his deep, booming voice, it sounded like a canon. I wasn’t accustomed to such emotional enthusiasm. I don’t remember what point I was making to warrant such a response, but I’ll assure you, I was so rattled that I didn’t make any more points.

Enthusiasm is one pathway to God and I have come to appreciate the contribution of those who are empowered by loving God with their hearts.

Second is the person who responds to God with the soul: "you shall love the Lord your God with all your soul." To me, this is the person who finds God through contemplation and prayer; the person who comes to God through the pathway of the soul is the person who spends time in solitude and quietness. The poet said,

When I am sore beset I seek some quiet place,

Some lonely room or barren, windswept hill,

I see again the smile upon God’s face.

I feel his presence fill me like the dawn

And hear once more his whispered, "Peace, be still,"

And know again the strength to do his will.

I turn to take my load and find it gone.

In recent years I have been trying to cultivate my spiritual life through meditation and contemplation. I have been trying to love God with all my soul.

A third pathway to God is through the intellect. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind." By reason of intellect, by study of the scriptures, you can find God. With your own mind you can understand the will of God. With your own mind you can come to know the steps to be taken to find salvation and hope. This was the first pathway that led me to God, and I celebrate it.

This idea of how one comes to God through understanding the Bible was one of the great contributions of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It still is. Our denomination was born in the times when the mourners bench theology prevailed. It was the Calvinistic belief that God chose whom He would to be saved. You could do nothing to effect your salvation except to pray that you were one of the chosen. And how did you know whether you were chosen or whether you were damned? By your "feelings." if you had an emotional response, that was God’s way of telling you that you had been chosen. Of course this resulted in a lot of emotional praying at the mourner’s bench that God had chosen you

Our Disciples fathers said, "Hey! God has given you the Bible. God has given you a mind. Use your mind to understand your Bible. There in the Bible you will find the way to salvation." When you find God with your mind, you don’t have to leave your brain at the door when you enter church.

The fourth pathway to God is through your own volitional nature -- your own determination. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength."

Our strength speaks of the physical energy with which we put our wills to work to carry out the will of God. This is the pathway of the practical person in religion. I suppose this is the pathway most frequently used by most of us.

Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." Just do it! You can always find this pathway -- it is always there for you.

Let me tell you what I mean. I get out of bed each morning at 6 o’clock. But it isn’t easy, to say the least. Occasionally, when something exciting is going to happen that day, my emotions will get me up -- perhaps even early. But this doesn’t work day after day. Sometimes I will use my reason and try to rationalize my getting out of bed. "Charles, if I just stay in bed fifteen more minutes, I can skip reading the paper." But when I bring into play my will, then I am in control of myself. I will get up. The way to get up is to get up.

So it is with your religious experience. Perhaps some of you are waiting for some kind of "emotional experience." Perhaps some of you have wanted God to visit you in your prayers and tell you what to do. Perhaps some of you are just troubled intellectually with some doctrinal matter.

Maybe its time for you to put your will to work. Maybe its time for you to just get up and start walking, even though you can see but one step ahead.

Now, here is the point of this sermon: There is no one single way by which we come to God. Every person must seek god through the filter of your own personality and temperament.

Those who come to God solely through their emotional experiences risk the danger of being volatile and erratic. That way there’s danger of singing "Praise the Lord" one minute and "It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life."

Those who come to the Lord solely by contemplation and reflection are in danger, too. Some people need to get up off their knees and pay the grocer. Some people spend so much of their spiritual energy in meditation that they no longer consider feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. There is the danger that when you go into your closet to pray you sill linger to go to sleep.

And there is such a great danger in making the intellectual pursuit of God a pleasure all its own. We all have known those people who think a matter through -- but never do anything about it. It is so easy to assume that if we know the Bible, we know God. One man I remember knew the Bible better than anyone else, but he was an atheist. The Bible can never save anyone; only God can do that!

Now, let me close the sermon by saying I have misled you. I said that, "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart," and that is NOT what Jesus said. I said "you shall love the Lord your God with all your soul," and that is not what he said. I said you shall love the Lord your God with all your mind," and that is NOT what Jesus said.

What Jesus said was, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength," -- AND THEN HE SAID "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."

Don’t let anyone tell you that they know the one, single pathway to God. Each of us must find the way of our own individuality. Each of us is to walk in the way that God has given us.