Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘charismatic’

Holy Spirit: Here and Not Here

Posted in Hillsong Ministry School, Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , on February 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Theology of the Holy Spirit is vast. Bigger than anything I could know or understand fully, but I can speak to my own experience and thereby, hopefully fulfill the essence of the Hillsong homework assignment.

The basics about the Holy Spirit are found in Acts 1:4-8 and Acts 2:1-13. The first passage carries the promise of Holy Spirit from Jesus Himself and the second passage describes the Holy Spirit’s appearance and “baptism” of the believers gathered there. We are told that the Holy Spirit is a gift and a source of power, and ultimately the resource for activities of believers from that day forth and forever. The first expression of that baptism was speaking in other tongues (not glossolalia at this point, but truly other languages). And why? To reach as many people as possible with the news: the Holy Spirit is here.

This anointing impassioned the believers with confidence to tell their story, to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, and the Presence of God’s Kingdom. The message was (and still is) that Jesus is who He says He was and that the sacrifice of the Messiah’s blood (our deliverer) was a restitution for the sins and separation of humankind from God – then and forever.

I Corinthians 12 (written by Paul) outlines a variety manifestations beginning with vs 4:

4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

And goes on to articulate gifts of wisdom, knowledge, healings, speaking in tongues, and so forth. At the end of the chapter, Paul lists some of the roles that can manifest by the Presence of the Holy Spirit operating freely in a believer. But then, in I Corinthians 13, the greatest gifts of the Holy Spirit are recounted: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.

But this teaching was not available to the early church, not until the Apostle Paul, a learned man, had his own Holy Spirit experience and filled the ultimate command of Christ to reach out beyond the borders of Judea and Israel. He was the one who trusted Jesus at his Word to reach to the ends of the earth, the ends of their civilization. Before that, they lived communally and lovingly, they surrendered to the way of nonviolence, they shared the teachings and stories they heard from Jesus (for it was wholly an oral tradition), and they opened their doors to seekers. They were also persecuted. But they persisted nonetheless.

My own encounter with the Holy Spirit began a month or two after my confession and surrender to Jesus. My “mentor,” a rather unlikely evangelist in my acting class, encouraged me to ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Back in the 70’s, that was the trend, with an expectation of miracles, particularly the gift of tongues (now called glossolalia). As a previous “new ager,” I was pretty much game for anything that smacked of “woo-woo.”

When I prayed, nothing happened for several days. No tongues, no nothin.’

One day, I came home to my apartment from school, and as I entered the door, I literally experienced a whoosh of air, as though someone had opened a skylight. I dropped my bags and my hands reached up (a gesture which I was not aware at the time was common among the charismatics and their worship). I cried with a kind of joy. And I wanted to sing and praise too. But I had no history of songs to God. The only song that came to mind was the one I learned one summer at a friend’s Vacation Bible School, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. . . ” I sang that song as I walked around my apartment for 45 minutes. Ecstatic. Drenched in the Holy Spirit.

Later, when I shared my experience with my friend, he immediately asked about Tongues, for that was his church tradition. No tongues, no baptism. I was a bit crushed but decided to press along without his opinion. I knew what I knew and I knew what I felt. I was on fire for my God and my faith in Christ and the Presence of the Holy Spirit.

Within a few days, I did have a language experience but not what anyone expected. My background is Latvian. I grew up in a Latvian home and it was spoken predominately by my parents until my father’s death when I was 9. After that, our family slowly drifted away from the Latvian community and I began losing my Latvian language. By the end of my twenties, I could barely hold a conversation. But one day, in the throes of my ecstatic prayer time, I began to pray fluidly and completely in Latvian. I engaged with God in the language of my human father (who never learned much English), and I experienced a healing and transfer of love from my lost father to my heavenly Father.

Like the early believers in Acts, I too was un-churched. I did not know what was normal or not. I simply told everyone I met my story. I was a most improbable convert and several of my classmates recognized my transformation as God’s alone and they too reached out to Christ anew.

That was more than 38 years ago. Who is the Holy Spirit for me now?

Over the years, I have experienced many physical manifestations from being “slain in the spirit,” to “prophecy” and “words of knowledge.” I have (and still do on occasion) speak in Tongues and I have prayed over/with people whose lives were changed. No healings as far as I know.

Today, the Holy Spirit is speaking to me more mystically than ever. I believe that Christianity is filled with paradox from turning the other cheek to going the extra mile. In the same way, I believe the Holy Spirit is within and without, here and not here. We cannot describe the Holy Spirit for that world is simply not us, not 3-D, not constrained by time or flesh. And for this reason, Holy Spirit is an intimate partner with our own personal spirit, able to direct, console, comfort, and teach. Holy Spirit can manifest physically — or not.

Holy Spirit is breath and no breath. Just as God is the great I AM, so IS the Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Be Alert!

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 24, 2010| 5 Comments »

Paul exhorts the Ephesian believers to pray and to pray often. This is nothing new. What strikes me today is his additional caution to “be alert.” For what? There must be potential danger in the prayers of the spirit, those deeper prayers, the ones that emanate from the union of Holy Spirit and true me.

Ephesians 6:18
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

I started my Christian journey way back in the seventies. This was the time of explosive faith when many believers began seeking the signs and wonders [Acts 2:43]. What started on Azusa Street in 1906 with ecstatic spiritual experiences and the birth of the pentecostal movement, found mainstream acceptance in the charismatic movement that crossed all denominational lines. In both cases, the most conspicuous sign was speaking in tongues, officially known as glossolalia.

No different than my other faith contemporaries, I was speaking in tongues like the rest of them. To speak in tongues for long periods is like chanting or meditating, it clears the mind and allows the spirit to roam freely within. There is a strong feeling of communion with God. I have nothing particularly negative to say about tongues except for some of the abuses that have come out of this phenomenon as well-meaning people have attempted to “interpret” or “translate” tongue messages proclaimed loudly in public [see I Corinthians 12:9-13]. I am less confident of an accurate interpretation that seems to always start the same way: “my children, my children . . . ” or something like. Anyway, how does one interpret things of the Spirit in our 3-D world? I think that’s tricky. But, that’s for another time to consider.

Here’s my point: I assumed this scripture reference to “pray in the spirit” meant we should pray in tongues (many people began referring to tongue speaking as “praying in the spirit,” a more accessible phrase for those who disdain tongues as authentic in any form). And yes, tongue speaking would be included in this exhortation. However, what about the second part of the admonition, “with all kinds of prayers and requests.” I take the word “all” to heart here and believe the Spirit is to under gird and author ALL prayers, whether they are written down, flashed in fear, supplicated petitions, or anything else.

A prayer without Spirit participation has no power and presents no danger to the “dark world.” [Ephesians 6:12] It is only when we engage the Holy Spirit and our own personal spirits in prayer that there is a need to “be alert.” This is where the true place of battle is raging, where the true enemy plays and where the evil of our world is birthed.

I’m thinking there is a particular call on believers who are living in relative comfort compared to the rest of the world. We cannot expect those who are faithful and yet starving and struggling for their daily unmet needs to enter into this type of warfare. We, the wealthy, who have warm homes, cars, food for holiday feasts, and designer clothes, have no excuse for standing on the sidelines of this kind of prayer. I have allowed my busy life to excuse me. This cannot continue.

I want to be “in the game” as they say in sports lingo. I want a reason in my life for Paul to warn me to “be alert” in prayer. (And I don’t mean staying awake.)

Today is the last day of my food fast. After eighteen days, I have also come to the end of the book of Ephesians and I see clearly my charge for this upcoming Advent season and beyond. I began this fast journey when I recognized for the first time how my words and behaviors were grieving the Holy Spirit. The solution is working together with the Spirit in prayer, from within, authentically radiating love and faith and God, supported by practicing the presence and breaking open the barriers that evil causes pain, suffering, and isolation in our world. Amen.

Read Full Post »

Puttin’ on the Brakes

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Can you imagine a time when everyone in a gathering was so fired up for God that they had to be admonished to “slow down,” to take turns, to be polite? Everything from music to words of knowledge to prophetic utterances were common place. What happened?

I Corinthians 14:26b, 33
When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. . . . For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.

I guess, in the “name of order,” habits developed. I’m trying to remember a saying about traditions. It’s something like, “the first time you do something, it’s a novelty, the second time you do it, it’s repetition, and the third time, it’s tradition, locked in stone.” How many families have traditions that got started accidentally? And once they’ve passed the “three times” mark, how do you stop them?

Church services are no different it seems. Repetition and tradition have ruled the roost for so long in church that it’s nearly impossible to envision a “new order.” Solomon knew, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” [Ecclesiastes 1:9]

When the Charismatics emerged in the 1970’s, they were determined to break the mold and get back to the old ways. They took the Corinthian verses about the manifestation of the gifts and church leaders encouraged their flocks to sing in the spirit, prophesy in the spirit, speak in tongues, interpret, etc. I know because I was there, singin’, dancin’, and prophesyin’. Those were exciting times. But then, things got a little out of hand. Bold people got carried away and it seemed like they had prophecies and tongues every week, every service, every opportunity. And more often than not, the utterances were relatively generic or downright anemic (not unlike newspaper astrology – fits for anyone). After awhile, even I started to cringe whenever I heard someone start in a loud voice, “My children, my children . . . ” Most of these prophetic statements were less than enlightening.

And so, after awhile, one by one, these wild services started putting on the brakes. Pastors had quiet conversations with the self-anointed prophets and tongue speakers and “in the name of order,” everyone settled down to a standard: praise songs, worship songs, a prophetic utterance or two (maybe a tongue and maybe an interpretation, but they all sounded the same), greeting one another, announcements, fund-raising (I mean, offering), more music, and then the sermon. I guess we were saving the best for last?

Eventually, the “wild” churches became equally traditional and tame as the very churches they tried to break away from.

I think this is one reason for the interest in the old forms like liturgy, praying the hours, celebrating the church calendar, weekly and daily communion, meditation, contemplation, labyrinth prayers, and so on. You want order? That’s well thought out order.

But, is it any better? There’s no better or worse to any of these traditions really.

Another trend is “house churches.” Of course, these have been popping up here and there for years, so it’s not really that new, but the popularity of home churches is gaining momentum. In some cases, it’s a push back from large churches, traditions, and the like. In other cases, they are an outgrowth of the “small group” movement where folks from bigger churches have discovered they can enter into more meaningful relationships in weekly meetings with fewer people. But I have a feeling, traditions and “order of worship” have developed in these settings as well.

So, what’s the answer? Don’t know.

I have some kind of an “ideal” in my mind. But it’s just that, a dream: church as koinonia, where people know each other, love each other, and care for each other. And flowing over koinonia, the vertical relationships with God who covers a multitude of sins and mistakes. And flowing out of koinonia is service together to help those who cannot help themselves. How big can koinonia get? I don’t know, but I doubt it’s much bigger than Jesus’s example of the twelve. Anything outside of that is just friendly fellowship.

One thing the Catholics did right was the parish concept: people worshiping together who live together. Koinonia is no different. We must be able to participate in one another’s lives.

I asked a friend the other day, “If disaster happened, where would you run?” He said, most people go home. But face it, the family unit is too small and isolated to face true disaster. And in many cases, family is dispersed as well. Can I run to my church? At this point, it’s 25 minutes away by car. My neighbors? I have lived on the same block for twelve years and although I can name six or seven families, that’s my limit. Would we turn to one another in the face of danger? Would a type of koinonia develop from need on our block? Would we approach disaster the same way without a shared faith?

Lots of questions today. Lots of dreaming.

Read Full Post »

Really Full or Ready to Empty?

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Acts 13:9-10a
Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, “You are a child of the devil…”

This incident happened on the initial leg of Paul’s first missionary journey in Cyprus. Apparently, it is on this journey that Saul changes his name to Paul, which historians surmise he did to be more accessible to the Greeks. And it is here that he and Barnabas encounter a sorcerer named Elymas who opposed them when they sought to speak to the proconsul that Elymas had been serving up until then.

But what is of greater interest to me is this phrase about Paul being “filled with the Holy Spirit.” As far as I can tell, this particular phrase, or ones similar to it, are only mentioned a dozen times in the New Testament. And yet, this is a phrase that many contemporary Christians (particularly Charismatics and Pentecostals) bandy about as a frequent experience marked with outward expressions like tongues, laughing, shaking, and the like. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying these expressions of the Spirit are not authentic, I’m just not sure they represent being “filled” as in filled to overflowing.

I think that true fullness would, by its very nature, pour out on others. Most of the “filled” examples in scripture are followed with a time of emptying by speaking and prophesying, literally speaking for God. Anything else is probably less than full. I just think we have diminished the impact of what it means to experience the Holy Spirit in this way.

I have used the phrase myself. But now, I think I have been merely touched by Holy Spirit. Whatever experience I had was just a breath of the Spirit compared to being filled. There is so much more. If a person is actually filled to overflowing, something happens… something changes. Power is exercised and by its very nature, it is according to the direction of God for the sake of another. Someone else is changed, not so much the person who is filled.

I am ashamed to say but I believe I have sought these “infillings” for myself and not for others at all. Oh, it sounds so pious, to seek the Holy Spirit and to go deeper into the things of God. But really, isn’t the whole point of my faith supposed to be to touch others?

So many traditional church folks are afraid of the “postmodern” movement because it is so inclusive and yet, there is one thing the emergents and postmoderns have over a lot of the other Christians… they “get” the “relationship” message. They are loving and serving others as a natural outpouring of their faith and their walk “in the way of Jesus.” They are living with and serving the poor and the unlovely. They are not trying to get more filled… they are trying to empty. They are pouring themselves out for others.

Clearly, I am still holding on too tightly to what I have. I am afraid to empty myself because I don’t really trust God to keep me filled. Forgive me.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Read Full Post »

Things of God Remain

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Acts 5:38-39
“Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men [the apostles] alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” [Gamaliel speaking]

There are really two messages here. One is for the believers, to trust that projects and plans, if truly within the will and anointing of our God, will remain. They will survive and even thrive. But if not, then it’s important to let go. There are plenty of good things to do. There are plenty of ideas. Move on.

Years ago, I had developed two shows that I toured to churches and para-church organizations. They were a labor of love but somehow, not of the right time. In that era, churches were not set up well for theatrical performances. Both of my pieces had to be adapted constantly in order to make them work in a traditional sanctuary setting. Just the idea of having theater lights was foreign to most church goers or to ask that everything be stripped from the altar area. Those who saw the shows, were moved by them, but it was an uphill battle to find churches willing to open their doors. In today’s more modern settings, my shows would have fit in perfectly. It was simply not the right fit and in the end, I retired them.

When I let go, it was hard. I felt I had failed and totally missed God. But, now, in hindsight, I think they achieved what they were meant to achieve. I learned so much from that process and my immersion in the scriptures during the research and preparation time has served me continually.

The second message of this story about Gamaliel and the Sanhedrin is critical for everyone. An anointed person or group cannot be stopped by “human” pressures or verbal attacks. An authentic faith and presence of God in a life is a bulwark and will prevail. Faith of this magnitude sustained people like Mother Teresa among India’s poor, Elie Wiesel in the concentration camps, Hudson Taylor in China, David Livingstone in Africa, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Billy Graham in the U.S., to name a few.

But this is also true for well-meaning Christians who try to silence the voices of others in the name of “protecting” the faith. The Sanhedrin also felt they were protecting Israel from heresy.

Currently, there is a movement rising up called Emergent Worship and post-modern thought … some are flaying against these trends. Most of the people who are involved with these movements are under the age of 45… they are of a generation that needs and wants to ask questions, to have their faith be an intrinsic part of their culture and their lives. Personally, I think it’s a good thing. This same kind of ground swell happened when the charismatics and Pentecostals started up 20 and 30 years ago in the face of great consternation. And yet, those movements have been integrated into many churches and church traditions.

My message is simple: be wise and remember Gamaliel’s advice: “…if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: