what I want to talk about this morning
is remarkable phenomenon that the people not only talk to God
but they learn to experience God is talking back
Many many Americans and many other people
are involved, as you may call, in a renewalist spirituality -
a kind of spirituality which they want to experience God
intimately, personally and interactive,
they want to reach out, touch the Divine here on earth
I want to find out how they did that.
I am anthropologist, my job is to immerse myself in
the world I come to study, and to keep observing
so that at some degree, I got a sense of what it take to
become a Native in that world.
Unlike Margret Mead & Rev. Gregory Bateson
were pictured here in Papua New Guinea.
I did this work in America.
I spent two years in the renewalist church in Chicago,
another two years in one of the Bay area.
I went to Sunday Morning services.
I was a member of House priaire.
I was in the prayer's circle.
I hang out with people.
I prayed with people.
I really want to know how their God became real to them.
So let me begin by asking,
who is the God in the church like this?
God is God, God is big, God is mighty, and holy and beyond.
God is also a person among people,
The Pastor in this kind of church want you to experience God
the way the earliest cycle of experience Jesus,
They walk with Jesus.
They eat with Jesus.
They talk with Jesus,
He was his friend,
These pastors will tell you that
You should put out a cup of coffee for God,
You should have a beer with God
Go for a walk with God, hang out.
Do the kind of thing with God
that you get do with anyone who you want to know as a person.
He cares about all the kinds of stuff in your life.
the little stuff, where you want to go in your summer vacation
what shirt you want to wear tomorrow morning.
you can talk to him about that.
So I wanted to know how people learn to interact with God
and how they felt God speaking back to them.
I knew they can learn the newcomers came to this church,
and they say things like:
"God talk to me."
and six months later they would say :
"I recognize God's voice the way I recognize my mum's voice on the phone . "
But I thought the church's teach
and some of thoughts you really think is yours,
They are really God's thoughts being given to you
and your job is to figure out who is the God.
and the way people did talk