Sunday, February 8, 2009

How Can We Be Pentecostal Without Freaking People Out?

By Jon Jennings
A few years back an unchurched couple attended one of our services. Worship went great – high energy, God centered and passionate, then our guest speaker spent the entire morning dealing with ridding the church of the Spirit of Jezebel. A “deliverance” time followed where many came forward and were “slain in the spirit.” The service was loaded with Pentecostal language and expression, nothing I hadn’t seen before but this time I saw it through the eyes of someone else. The couple was scared to death and never returned to our church even after we attempted follow up. It was like a sucker punch to my gut because somewhere the message of the gospel was clouded by Pentecostal culture.

A true paradox exists: How do we become a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led church without freaking people out? Is this possible? I believe it is, but we must center all we do on the great commission rather than having Holy Ghost services that touch the initiated but do little to bridge gaps and bring people far from God to salvation.

Several years ago I read a book from Willow Creek titled “Becoming a Contagious Church” which illustrated the gaps that exist between the unregenerate (unsaved, lost, unchurched, far from God... whatever description you choose to use) and God. The author described the cultural chasm that exists and has to be bridged before individuals will become open to hearing the message of the gospel. In our nation, secular culture has truly helped shape the worldview of this generation. When (according to this worldview) truth is relative and any lifestyle is acceptable, the Christian church faces the daunting challenge of proclaiming Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life amid this popular outlook. Like it or not, we (the church) have become just another face in the crowd in the American psyche – persona non-grata – just one very intolerant way of expressing first-amendment religious liberty.

I contend that Pentecostal culture is yet another cultural chasm that we have created and, in many cases, has to be overcome before individuals will be open to the gospel. Pentecostalism (which I grew up in and love dearly) is unlike any other expression of Christianity. The past 100 years have seen a rapid rise of Pentecostalism across the globe and we are privileged to be a part of this great expansive movement. As Pentecostals, we doctrinally believe that the Holy Spirit gives power for evangelism, yet in America we see that many non-Pentecostal churches match and even exceed us in evangelistic impact. Why is this? Could it be related to Pentecostal culture?

Recently another couple, one of whom is a school teacher, started coming to our church. They didn’t bolt after the first service, but we are fairly sure they have not committed their lives to Christ and are being drawn by the Spirit. When my wife and I met them for dinner a few weeks later, we asked them pointedly if they had any questions about the church or the services. They replied, “we have a ton of questions.” The school teacher said she spent weeks looking at our signage (vision, mission, etc…) and listened intently to the services trying to piece the whole thing together using the reasoning skills she learned in college. Again, I started seeing Pentecostal culture through someone else’s eyes. They didn’t freak out, but we resolved that we are going to have to take our time in bridging these cultural gaps to get them to Christ. I realize now more than ever that Christianity can be a foreign language to the unregenerate. Add in the language of Pentecostalism, and we have even more to translate and explain than we realize.

Bishop Scott declares in his sermons and blogs that we (The PCG) are a Pentecostal church. How can we continue to be Pentecostal and, at the same time, avoid letting Pentecostal culture get in the way of successful evangelism? Also, how can we avoid the pitfall of taking evangelistic efforts in our own hands, thus minimizing or unintentionally eliminating the Holy Spirit’s role in the process? I hope we get some good discussion going on this.
at 12:01 AM Labels: ,

13 comments:

  1. When a message in tongues comes to the church, we are sure to explain biblicly what just happened. We have found that people have been more understanding if a simple explanation is given, especially when it is bible based. However, there will always be those individuals that were taught from an early age that this is all of the devil and have no desire to reprogram their thinking. According to 1 Cor 14 where Paul gives the structure and order for a service, he is very clear that if nobody is present to interpret the tongue than the one giving the message should refrain or instead, prophesy. I think for the most part the pentecostal church in general has abused and misrepresented the gift or use of tongues. As if it were a high society club, and we rattle some words off like high school kids rev their engines at a trffic light to try and show what they got under the hood. I love in 1 Cor 14 where it says that the gift is subject to the beholder, therefore to everything there is a season. A time to speak to edify the church and a time to simply just shut up and edify our own spirit. Whatever happen to using wisdom? Or being wise as serpants and harmless as doves. Just thinkin' out loud.
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  2. I've found that I don't have nearly as much trouble explaining messages in tongues, even to non-Pentecostals, as I have explaining praying or worshipping in tongues.

    In my experience, when a message in tongues is given, most everyone else gets quiet and the speaker has the attention of the church. This is almost always followed by an interpretation, and often there's time either between the message and the interpretation or afterwards for the pastor to explain what's going on.

    Our bigger hurdle is shouting -- times when many, many people are speaking in tongues, some are creeing like banshees, and others are shouting or dancing "in the Spirit". These are the sorts of times when unbelievers come in and deduce that we're plumb nuts.

    I can't think of many (if any) scriptures to support "dancing in the Spirit". Sure, the apostles were thought to be drunk on the Day of Pentecost, but if you were to hear someone say they had to deal with a drunk at work, you'd imagine them dealing with someone whose speech was incoherent or whose emotions were out of norms (excessive crying or excessive laughter) -- you would not imagine them dancing or shouting (or even having the coordination to do so).

    Having said all that, I must admit I enjoy shouting services -- the joy, the elation, the energy of the people all combine for a good time. But there's more to Pentecostalism than shouting. Shouting is not the epitomy, the apex, of spiritual life, not even close.

    I think one could draw a parallel to sports. Victory dances are fun, but they are not the apex, not the defining moments of sports. The defining moments vary by position -- for the quarterback, it's a perfectly executed pass; for the running back, it's being able to slide through a horde of defenders; for a lineman, it's holding the line and protecting the quarterback. Could you imagine a team that spent every practice working on their "victory dance"? Yet, that's what happens in our churches -- we come together every week and shout, but our game never improves.
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  3. I love this post and the comments that followed. As a pastor I have wrestled with this the entire 8 years I have been at my church, especially as our church grows. My church had 6 pastors in 10 years and had 4 people left when I got there. I still remember our first Easter (about 3 months after I took the church). We had just done our first outreach and had 3 people show up from the outreach. It was an elderly woman with her daughter and grandaughter. The former pastor showed up that Sunday for whatever reason and during worship shouted out in tongues and those 3 ladies about came out of their skin. They looked at one another and left and never came back.

    I agree w/ Ken that it's all the stuff during worship that is harder to explain and quite frankly is usually a losing battle. People want biblical answers for what we do and how we behave. I wonder if we have focused more on HAVING CHURCH than BEING THE CHURCH. That is not to say that having good services is not important but what is the purpose of those services.
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  4. I am excited to see a post concerning this matter. We all will have our feelings of how we should allow the gifts of the spirit to operate within the context of our worship experiences. The fact is that we can choose as a leader what we will lead our church to do and what we will allow. I do have the same thoughts as Jon. Why is it that many non-pentecostal churches exceed us in evangelism?? Is it because we are teaching our people to sit at the church table and be fed and never go out and exercise their faith?? I was born into this fellowship (PCG) and over the past 40 years of my life I have seen lots of things in church that I personally feel was simply to satisfy the christians. (music, tongues, dinners, events) What will it take for us to realize we are called to "bring them in", not pamper ourselves?? I really feel like it goes back to this fact that many feel church is all about them, and it simply is NOT. I believe this to the fullest degree.

    For the past 2 Sundays i have stood on the stage at our church and said, "If you think this church is all about you, then don't come back next Sunday". Our Sunday worship experience is all about convincing the unconvinced that they need Christ and we take whatever measure necessary to bring them in. Anything short of sin to win bring them to Christ.

    If we are the mature Christ followers that we claim to be then we can pray in tongues in our own prayer closet at home. If we are the mature Christ followers that we claim to be then we should be out bringing people to Christ and putting works with our Faith. It does disturb me that many other denominations that are not spirit filled are seeing more people saved than spirit filled churches.

    So i pose this question, Do we really have a good understanding of what being spirit filled really is? Have we taught our people only of the manifestation rather than the equipping power. Acts 1:8;...you will recieve power to be a WITNESS!!!
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  5. Acts 1:8 doesn't say "power to be a witness", it says "power... and you shall be witnesses".

    A witness is not someone who engages in soul-winning.

    A witness is someone who can testify about something that they personally saw or heard.

    A witness unto God is someone who can personally testify that they saw God do something.

    Having said that, I wonder if the reason we focus so much on manifestation is because that's the main thing that separates Pentecostals from mainline churches?

    From the very beginning, Pentecostalism has been about that distinction. Think about our roots -- the students in Kansas who determined that tongues were the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit; Charles Parham, William Seymour, and all the other early Pentecostals who rendezvoused around that very distinction; A.A. Allen, William Branham, T.L. Osbourne, John Lake, Aimee Semple McPherson, Smith Wigglesworth, Jimmy Swaggart, and others that continued the same traditions and distinctions.

    Perhaps the attention on manifestation was even well and proper for Pentecostals during the last century -- the American people were largely churched already, they just weren't Pentecostal. We didn't have to focus as much on getting people saved as we had to focus on getting them filled.

    Furthermore, the surest way to attract attention was to say something different from what everybody else was saying, so instead of preaching John 3:16, we preached Acts 1:8. The Apostolics, also needing a distinct message, centered on Acts 2:38 -- both a salvation verse and a Holy Ghost verse.

    In this century, however, the largest task before us is not converting mainline Christians into Pentecostals, rather it the same as that of the mainline Christians -- winning a lost world to Christ.

    The strongest tool in our box is the promise of Acts 1:8 -- We will receive power (and enablement, and ability) when the Holy Ghost is on us, and we will be witnesses -- we will be able to say that we saw God do something with our very own eyes; nobody can talk us out of it for we saw it for ourselves.

    Our hurdle is that we've emphasized manifestations for so long that many of us believe it's the main thing -- after all it's the main thing we've preached for years.

    The cure is to continually redirect the people's focus onto what really matters.

    Some ways I did that as a pastor include:

    - servant evangelism projects

    - giving out phone book pages to my constituents, asking them to pray over every household on their page, and, as they pray, to listen to see if the Spirit mentions any particular needs for those households

    - having the congregation form a prayer circle, only facing outwards instead of inwards. Then we would pray for the Holy Spirit to flow out from us like rivers of water and touch those that live in the directions we were pointing.
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  6. Great job on the discussion, guys. We all know confession is good for the soul and bad for the reputation. I have been in a funk the last year wrestling with this issue because I have always believed in my heart that we can find the proper balance between maintaining our Pentecostal experience and being seeker friendly to the point where we shut off the Spirit all together. I really thought our church was moving in that direction and then the Lakeland thing hit us. We had no less than 20 people from our church visit Lakeland and upon return to Phoenix desire to "impart" the manifestations back into our church. It just about sent me over the edge because all of a sudden church was (as one of you said) about "us" or "me" and the manefestations, not about the lost. It has almost taken me a year to climb out of that funk.

    That said, I believe that we have to embrace the great commission (and all of its components including missions, teaching, baptism and discipleship) and allow the Spirit to draw people to salvation as we use Godly wisdom. Keep the the thoughts coming gents.
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  7. What if we coined a phrase, "Level II Manifestation", to distinguish Holy Ghost encounters that go beyond the far-too-typical tongue-talking, getting-slain, and dancing-in-the-Spirit?

    Level II Manifestations would have to be of the sort that any witness would know without doubt that God was involved.

    Most Biblical manifestations are of the "Level II" variety:
    - the miraculous translation of the Apostles' tongues on Pentecost
    - the healing of the lame man in Acts 3
    - the casting-out of demons
    - people wanting to stand in Peter's shadow
    - Paul and Eutychus being brought back to life

    I can see a slew of preaching (and even more soundbites) coming out of this, based mostly on 1 Cor 14:

    v1: "desire spiritual gifts" meaning "intensely desire level II manifestations"... seek something more than the simple entry-level "initial evidences" of speaking in tongues. We should especially desire to prophesy (a Level II Manifestation).

    v5 "greater is he that prophesies than he that speaks with tongues" meaning "level II manifestations" are better than "entry-level manifestations".

    v18 "I thank my God I speak in tongues more than you all" - just because we're seeking Level II manifestations doesn't mean we ignore, despise or under-appreciate the entry-level things. In fact, there's a reason God gave us the entry-level gifts (the tongues). Tongues indicate we have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, tongues help us pray better, and tongues edify our spirit-man. But... we must realize some other things are more important than tongues. Tongues are not nearly as important as being able to teach others (v19) and level II manifestations like prophecy (vs 5, 12, 24-25)

    vs 24-25 (I think this verse should be our "Level II Vision Statement" as it shows the incredible, powerful result of a genuine Level II Manifestation.) "if all prophesy, and there come in one that believes not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth."

    I'm proposing a paradigm shift here -- a change in the way people think.

    Instead of thinking tongues and shouting are the best thing going, we need to shift our thinking to understand that God has even better things in store for those who want them badly enough.

    It is high time for the church to break past entry-level experiences and begin seeking Level II Manifestations in earnest.

    It is high time we quit being satisfied with tongues and goose bumps and start seeking God for prophesies, discernment, gifts of healing, and working of miracles.

    It is high time for us to shift from church services that run off sinners to church services where sinners run down the aisle to the altar.

    It is high time for us to stop seeking a word from God and begin speaking the Word of God.

    It is high time we be everything God intended for us to be from the beginning - that is, the body of Christ, the measure of the staure of the fullness of Christ, endued with power, doing greater things than Christ did, not satisfied with mere entry-level feel-good experiences, but coveting (intensely desiring) the best gifts, the Level II Manifestations, so that we can conquer every foe and win every soul to Christ.
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  8. So what I am hearing you say, Ken, is that if Level II Manefestations are the norm and not the exception, people will recognize it as God and our evangelistic impact will increase. Allow me to ramble for a second with the precursor that I am not disagreeing with you.

    I think we are guilty of limiting our definition of what a miracle is. Sign, wonder and miracle all come from the same original word in the NT which means simply an "indication." Signs, wonders and miracles then would be "indications" that God is among us and working through human vessels to accomplish his purpose. Having said that we tend to limit the scope of a miracle to a healing, resurrection from the dead, etc... Is it possible that we look so much for these "big" miracles that we miss out entirely on the other indications (signs) that God is at work through us?

    Here's an example: My wife's grandmother died 5 years ago at the age of 91. For a while in her later years she volunteered at a local hospital in her city rocking and feeding babies born addicted to crack while the babies' mothers went through detox. She would quietly sing and pray over each baby, interceeding for the mother and believing God would intervene in a hopeless situation. In many cases she told us how the babies would calm and resume normal breathing and eating patterns sooner than expected. To me, that is a Level II manefestation of a miracle.

    Where am I going with this? Someone in a comment on this thread said the church needed to be the church. If that would happen and we teach our people that in Level II it's not about us - it's about letting the power of the Spirit work through you to manifest an indication that God is truly at work, our impact would increase. Teach them that even the smallest demonstration of God's love can slice through darkness. It can be a simple hand on the shoulder of a co-worker who is struggling coupled with a prayer of faith for something supernatural to happen. It can be a $100 grocery gift card to a single mom who can't make ends meet and she received a miracle because we were sensitive enough to the Spirit in Level II that we moved in obedience to that need.

    I agree we need another level. As we seek it, let's oray for God to enlarge our paradigm on exactly what it looks like. Maybe then our evangelistic efforts will truly increase because we are getting past Level I where it's more about us, and we've moved on to Level II where it's truly about humanity. Make sense?
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  9. I think this not only makes sense, but it's Biblically sound.

    1 Cor 13 and 2 Peter 1 both list agape-love as the ultimate trait. Another verse says we'd be known as Christians by our love.

    A level II operation would have both Christ-love and Christ-anointing, both of which combine to impart the sense that God is in us.

    I love the thought that Level I is more about us, whereas Level II is about humanity. Sounds about right -- tongues are evidence that edify the believer, prophecy and love are evidences that convince the sinner.
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  10. Lovin' this conversation!

    I would also like to toss this on the table: our focus on the "manifestation" (which may be a work of God or an emotional reaction to a favorite song) depersonalizes God Himself.

    Though I have been guilty (hopefully not too often) of the shallow cliche, "There's no high like the Most High", I've begun to question the validity of that comment. When we give into that sentiment, we are depersonalizing God. We flatten Him from the infinitely personal Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit into the usable invisible commodity of a spiritual drug. No longer is He the one leading and developing us in our relationship with Him. He becomes the usable thing for my ecstasy. Try treating your spouse that way and see how long it lasts...

    Sunday in a team meeting I was thrilled to have one member make the following observation: he realized that he was "down" b/c he wasn't seeing and experiencing the manifestations in his life he was used to and wanted. He admitted his attitude was wrong and the Spirit begin to prompt him to find joy in seeing others transformed by the power of Christ. He is moving from the "victory dance" Christianity to redemptive Christianity.
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  11. Daniel you sparked something in me withe your comment. As it relates to this conversation I think you hit a key phrase with "Redemptive Christianity." That was really my heart in writing this blog to begin with - to spark conversation of how we as a Pentecostal Fellowship can connect to the harvest with greater impact and still maintain our Pentecostal heritage.
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  12. Jim Hogge,
    I was saved in 1992 in a pentecostal church ( and there remained for 16 years), and immediately began to learn scripture fully loaded with, and rooted in the pentecostal culture.
    I think the word 'culture' is important to understand when talking about the issues with Pentelcostalism. Pentecostalism has developed a way to do church that is not seen in any other denominations. And, because of the manifestations (tongues, jumping, dancing, laughing, shouting, shaking, etc. etc.) of the"power" of God, pentecostals have grown to believe, (I was actually taught that while others are saved, they do not possess the power of the 'Spirit baptized' pentecostal), that they in fact have something superior to other denominations. How else would someone question why other non-pentecostal denominations could possibly be more active and more effective in evangelism? Once I began to focus on reading and studying the Bible for what it actually says, without any denominational spin, I realized that much of the teaching that is specific to the pentecostal church is at best, wrong interpretations, and at worst, a going beyond what is written (1Cor 4:6). The reason a non-pentecostal is able to evangelize with power is because when they are born again they have receive, been filled with, and baptized by, the Holy Spirit of God (1Cor 12:13). Pentecostalism has terribly misinterpreted the issue of tongues in Acts 2 and 1Cor 12, 13, and 14. The speaking in tongues (other languages) in Acts was a sign for the Apostles so that they would see that Jesus had indeed sent the Holy Spirit to them. They would be confident in the fact because, "look we speak in other languages, this fulfills what Jesus declared". The Holy Spirit had been given to the Church once and for all times, now anyone who comes to the Lord and is born again, they are filled with the Holy Spirit just as 1Cor 12:13 affirms. Tongues are no longer necessary as they were a sign for the Apostles. It is the norm, not an exception, for a person (from any denomination), who is genuinely born again, to immediately begin evangelizing within days of their conversion, often producing fruit. The Apostle Paul is a perfect example. Somehow, the gift of tongues in 1Cor 12 and 14, has been reduced to a non-cognitive, non-human language, when within text it is clear that it is a human language. Remember, it was not that way in the beginning of Pentecostal movement, the early adherents strongly believed that hey were speaking actual human languages. Why did they believe this? Because that is what scripture told them (info is available to all who desire to research). The modern practices of a private prayer language for personal worship and prayer times, and speaking non-human languages within the congregation, was a later development that can only be explained by 1Cor 4:6 (going beyond what is written.
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  13. While we could debate the theology of what you are saying, I do believe that in many Pentecostal circles tongues has superceded evangelism on the list of priorities. I do concur that when someone is genuinely born again by the Spirit of God the natural drive will be toward evangelism. I believe our entire focus, Penteocstal or not, has to be the great commission and any church culture that gets in the way have that mandate has to be broken through.
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