I have been part of Pentecostal churches for my entire life. It is been a rich experience for me, and one which I am incredibly grateful for.
One of the things that fills the central ethos of Pentecostals is a desire to genuinely experience God. We seek encounters with the Holy Spirit that will change and transform us. We read the bible and aim to experience God as we read it. We worship together and believe that the Holy Spirit is present to heal, restore and transform us in the process. We pray, and believe for 'breakthrough' and for things to change in our lives. These things have been a part of my heritage growing up, and remain a wonderful part of life, faith and church experience.
I do wonder though, as I have gone through the process of thinking through my faith, life and the meaning of the gospel, whether in our emphasis on experience of God we have missed out on the full and deep richness of the Christian faith?
I wonder whether sometimes in our desire to experience God as the ultimate pinnacle of our faith journey, we have turned Christianity into a purely vertical relationship. One in which terms like 'breakthrough' and 'another level' have become slogans that describe some kind of feeling that comes in an experience but are often disconnected from everyday life. And in fact, everyday life can sometimes be de-emphasised in favour of pursuing these experiences.
The scriptures seem to portray a faith that is both vertical AND horizontal. Our relationship with God and our relating to others are intimately linked. The writers of the bible say things like: forgiveness from God is linked to the way we forgive others. That is our unity together that becomes the 'temple' in which God lives by His Spirit.
The prayer of Jesus is that we would be one as He and the Father are one...
His prayer is not just that we would experience God, but that our relationships with one another would be transformed - and that in that transformation, we would find that we are experiencing God.
And so I wonder if 'breakthrough' in our lives might not only be a powerful experience of God, but it would be that something would change in our everyday lives. Maybe it would be shown in the way we treat people... that we would reach out to people in kindness, generosity, and love. That it would transform the way we approach our work, the way we behave with our friends and family, and the way we offer outstretched hands to the marginalised, oppressed and impoverished in communities - and as we see this taking place, we could truly describe this as 'breakthrough'... and maybe we could call it 'another level'.
But until our experience of God translates into these kinds of horizontal implications, we have lost our way. If we passionately pursue some kind of supernatural experience it can seem holy and very "Christian". BUT if we do not see the fruit of the Spirit at work, it may be very questionable how genuinely divine those experiences might actually be.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Not just a nice happy list of attributes. These require the movement of the Spirit in us. And if we are truly experiencing the Spirit at work, then in some way we should see these traits emerge.
I haven't read many Christian leadership books that elevate gentleness as one of the central characteristics of the Christian way... but perhaps "The Gentle Leader" would be a good title for a book someday. I guess I'll start writing :-)
Although maybe I should finish my other book first or my I will get told off by my wife :)
Well there endeth my thoughts and ponderings for today. I am aware that I have made gross generalisations in this post, and so forgive me for that. I am only picking on one side of the story... and I am aware that I in some ways I have painted a overexaggerated view of things. So bearing that in mind, I offer these thoughts as a critique of myself as much as of anything or anyone else.
Faith, hope and love.
michaeljamesfrost
