the power of perspective

[HelenaZF]

I've always made my banners and flags big... and my flags get bigger all the time. I look at flags in particular as extensions of my body in worship and praise, and I want them to speak, and the bigger they are--the louder they can speak.



But I had an experience once that really spoke to me about how the scale of the banners and flags are critically important to their ability to impact the senses and the spirit. ZionFire was ministering at one of the big international worship conferences that started to become popular in the mid 80's. We were in a large church in Washington DC. It was mid afternoon, and the processional planned for the evening service was being rehearsed. As the music swelled, and the banners, dancers and flags moved and swirled around me, the anointing was incredibly powerful......the huge, ornate and glorious banners gave such a sense of awe to the heroic nature of the processional music. It was so strong, one could hardly stand.



The leaders decided to run the piece again. As the processionalists assembled, I went up to the balcony to watch from there. The music was just as stirring, the processionalists were just as intense and whole-hearted as they moved down the aisles...but something was different......the sense of awe and power was diminished. And the Lord reminded me of another experience....



A group from our church went together to a circus show that was presented in a large sports stadium. Our seats were way up on one of the highest levels. I remembered that we had watched the "high wire act" go on BELOW us. And I remember thinking that it wasn't nearly as impressive looking down on a high-wire act as it would have been looking up from below.



Part of the awe of pageantry and the conceptualization of kingdom things has to do with our grasp of the sense that God is bigger than we are, and His bigness is part of what inspires awe within us. So banners, being made in large enough dimensions to tower over us and dwarf us, are able to be part of that impartation of awe. Just as the height of the high wire act is what is thrilling about that skill, It is partly the very size of the banners that carries some of the anointing as they overshadow us. That was a revelation to me.



There are some churches with very limited verticle space, which handicaps banner makers in that area. But I always encourage people to make them as big as possible, because in this case, size really does matter. (No joke intended, but I guess I just made one. )