The Spirit and the Emerging Church
Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. Thankfully Amber has been writing so at least you don’t think we’re dead.
I’ve been meaning all week to post some observations from our trip to Cincinnati last weekend. One observation really…concerning the ministry of God’s Spirit in the emerging church.
A few months ago I wrote another installment in my (now six-month long) series of posts on rethinking five-fold ministry. That post was on prophetic ministry and challenged the popular definitions by both the charismatic and socially-minded corners of the church. In it I referenced Bob Eckblad and his ministry, Tierra-Nueva, based in Washington state. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to hear Eckblad speak and sit in on a Q&A session with him and about 30 representatives of missional / simple churches around the Midwest.
Eckblad’s message is simple: vast portions of the church and ministries that support bringing justice to the world, ministry to the poor, and advocacy for the weak have divorced the demonstration of God’s power - specifically healing, deliverance, and prophetic proclamation – from their theology and praxis. His argument is not primarily an academic one, although he is certainly capable of making a well informed biblical argument for the necessity of integrating the charismatic and social justice streams. Rather, he has had profound first-hand experience, both of God powerfully intervening in his own life and in the lives of those his ministry has touched for the past few years.
After telling his story, he invited people to come forward and receive whatever God wanted to give – empowerment, encouragement, healing, release. I was able to participate in some of the ministry during that time and had the pleasure of watching the Spirit touch a few people in a profound way. Later, during the Q&A session, many shared both their excitement and curiosity, as well as their skepticism and pain associated with previous negative experiences. One question that arose several times dealt with the issue of suffering. Namely, what do we do if people do not get healed or delivered or touched? In our own group of friends who helped host the event, we have had two brothers die in the past year from serious illnesses. Yet, Eckblad told many stories of healings occurring from illnesses just as serious and potentially life-threatening. This incongruence justifiably produces some difficult questions, but where should those questions leave us?
On the flight home, I was replaying in my mind some of the responses and questions from that conversation. It dawned on me that much of what was said was rooted firmly in a Western, rationalistic worldview. Upon reflection, this honestly surprised and disturbed me. Here are people, who for the most part have identified themselves with God’s kingdom and aligned themselves with his purposes. They are reflecting on the implications of living as a disciple of Jesus in America in all aspects of life. They are experimenting with new forms of church and learning how to blur the typically rigid ecclesial boundaries. They are also aware that traditional evangelical readings of scripture fall short when it comes to awakening the average Christian to the socially prophetic realities of God’s rule on earth. Yet, when confronted with a person who shares all of these concerns, but is actively participating in the demonstration of God’s power as a normal element of day-in-day-out ministry – of life, really – they end up sounding more like functional cessationists than people convinced that God as Spirit is working in world to make things right, in spite of any rational data they might have to the contrary.
Of course, to be fair, it is not like I stand here as someone flowing in the supernatural power of God as naturally as hopping on my bike and riding to the grocery store. However, to whom much has been given, much will be required. I have had some wonderful experiences and models related to healing, deliverance, and the prophetic specifically. Those experiences and examples compel me to keep seeking and experimenting in our current context. I am also interested to “practice” with others who have the same hunger for God’s presence. This is, naturally, not meant to exclude the expressions of Christian life we have been tasting of and growing in – worship, contemplative practices, one-anothering, sharing of each other’s burdens, becoming more acquainted with God’s Story and interpreting the scriptures as a community. It is simply recognition that God is spirit, and so are we. The “unseen” nature of God’s kingdom is not just that we do not fully see how he is setting the world right or will set the world right one day. It is that he operates both at a level we can see – within the relationships and earthly contexts we find ourselves in – and in the “heavenly” realm of spirit and spiritual power. It is the latter that the western, rationalistic worldview is woefully ill equipped to understand or deal with.
If the emerging church, however you wish to define it, is to truly become an agent for change in Western Christianity, and hopefully a unifying force, then it must be willing to lay down its pride regarding the supernatural. No, we cannot understand why God heals some people and doesn’t heal others. In the emerging church of Africa, when a child is dying of AIDS or a young woman is suffering from a tumor and has neither the means or opportunity to have it surgically removed, there is not much discussion why God might heal one but not the other. Both are prayed for and guess what…often they are both healed. Our questions are valid, but they should not paralyze us from joining in on what God is doing. We haven’t shied away from the complications related to the huge cultural shifts occurring around us and the impact those shifts are having on church. Likewise, we should not shy away from diving into what God is doing, both seen and unseen.
In the end, this question must be dealt with corporately as God’s people in community. We will not make headway by sitting alone with our questions or passively ignoring portions of our discipleship that do not make rational sense. Experience proves that people who truly follow Jesus will be given the necessary discernment and wisdom to grow in areas that just don’t fit in our western framework. But, we have to be willing to trust each other, and more importantly, trust God’s Spirit. After all, if following Jesus requires us to “take up our cross” daily, to deny ourselves, to lose control, then trusting God’s Spirit to teach us all everything about his nature and his power should not be any more of a stretch than trusting that he will one day raise us all from the dead.
After this weekend, I am actually very hopeful and excited for what I see God doing. He really is bringing together portions of his church that have been divorced for eons. To think we get to be a part of that reunion, to become fully whole, is a thrilling proposition.
I’ve been meaning all week to post some observations from our trip to Cincinnati last weekend. One observation really…concerning the ministry of God’s Spirit in the emerging church.
A few months ago I wrote another installment in my (now six-month long) series of posts on rethinking five-fold ministry. That post was on prophetic ministry and challenged the popular definitions by both the charismatic and socially-minded corners of the church. In it I referenced Bob Eckblad and his ministry, Tierra-Nueva, based in Washington state. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to hear Eckblad speak and sit in on a Q&A session with him and about 30 representatives of missional / simple churches around the Midwest.
Eckblad’s message is simple: vast portions of the church and ministries that support bringing justice to the world, ministry to the poor, and advocacy for the weak have divorced the demonstration of God’s power - specifically healing, deliverance, and prophetic proclamation – from their theology and praxis. His argument is not primarily an academic one, although he is certainly capable of making a well informed biblical argument for the necessity of integrating the charismatic and social justice streams. Rather, he has had profound first-hand experience, both of God powerfully intervening in his own life and in the lives of those his ministry has touched for the past few years.
After telling his story, he invited people to come forward and receive whatever God wanted to give – empowerment, encouragement, healing, release. I was able to participate in some of the ministry during that time and had the pleasure of watching the Spirit touch a few people in a profound way. Later, during the Q&A session, many shared both their excitement and curiosity, as well as their skepticism and pain associated with previous negative experiences. One question that arose several times dealt with the issue of suffering. Namely, what do we do if people do not get healed or delivered or touched? In our own group of friends who helped host the event, we have had two brothers die in the past year from serious illnesses. Yet, Eckblad told many stories of healings occurring from illnesses just as serious and potentially life-threatening. This incongruence justifiably produces some difficult questions, but where should those questions leave us?
On the flight home, I was replaying in my mind some of the responses and questions from that conversation. It dawned on me that much of what was said was rooted firmly in a Western, rationalistic worldview. Upon reflection, this honestly surprised and disturbed me. Here are people, who for the most part have identified themselves with God’s kingdom and aligned themselves with his purposes. They are reflecting on the implications of living as a disciple of Jesus in America in all aspects of life. They are experimenting with new forms of church and learning how to blur the typically rigid ecclesial boundaries. They are also aware that traditional evangelical readings of scripture fall short when it comes to awakening the average Christian to the socially prophetic realities of God’s rule on earth. Yet, when confronted with a person who shares all of these concerns, but is actively participating in the demonstration of God’s power as a normal element of day-in-day-out ministry – of life, really – they end up sounding more like functional cessationists than people convinced that God as Spirit is working in world to make things right, in spite of any rational data they might have to the contrary.
Of course, to be fair, it is not like I stand here as someone flowing in the supernatural power of God as naturally as hopping on my bike and riding to the grocery store. However, to whom much has been given, much will be required. I have had some wonderful experiences and models related to healing, deliverance, and the prophetic specifically. Those experiences and examples compel me to keep seeking and experimenting in our current context. I am also interested to “practice” with others who have the same hunger for God’s presence. This is, naturally, not meant to exclude the expressions of Christian life we have been tasting of and growing in – worship, contemplative practices, one-anothering, sharing of each other’s burdens, becoming more acquainted with God’s Story and interpreting the scriptures as a community. It is simply recognition that God is spirit, and so are we. The “unseen” nature of God’s kingdom is not just that we do not fully see how he is setting the world right or will set the world right one day. It is that he operates both at a level we can see – within the relationships and earthly contexts we find ourselves in – and in the “heavenly” realm of spirit and spiritual power. It is the latter that the western, rationalistic worldview is woefully ill equipped to understand or deal with.
If the emerging church, however you wish to define it, is to truly become an agent for change in Western Christianity, and hopefully a unifying force, then it must be willing to lay down its pride regarding the supernatural. No, we cannot understand why God heals some people and doesn’t heal others. In the emerging church of Africa, when a child is dying of AIDS or a young woman is suffering from a tumor and has neither the means or opportunity to have it surgically removed, there is not much discussion why God might heal one but not the other. Both are prayed for and guess what…often they are both healed. Our questions are valid, but they should not paralyze us from joining in on what God is doing. We haven’t shied away from the complications related to the huge cultural shifts occurring around us and the impact those shifts are having on church. Likewise, we should not shy away from diving into what God is doing, both seen and unseen.
In the end, this question must be dealt with corporately as God’s people in community. We will not make headway by sitting alone with our questions or passively ignoring portions of our discipleship that do not make rational sense. Experience proves that people who truly follow Jesus will be given the necessary discernment and wisdom to grow in areas that just don’t fit in our western framework. But, we have to be willing to trust each other, and more importantly, trust God’s Spirit. After all, if following Jesus requires us to “take up our cross” daily, to deny ourselves, to lose control, then trusting God’s Spirit to teach us all everything about his nature and his power should not be any more of a stretch than trusting that he will one day raise us all from the dead.
After this weekend, I am actually very hopeful and excited for what I see God doing. He really is bringing together portions of his church that have been divorced for eons. To think we get to be a part of that reunion, to become fully whole, is a thrilling proposition.
posted by Mike Bishop at 10:43 PM
6 Comments:
Stop. You're making me hungry.
mna...all i can say is amen, amen to that...
as we seek to bring God's justice by joining in what we see Him doing in us and around us...in working against human trafficking in Ukraine and our own backyard (Baltimore), but i can hardly fathom the notion of entering into it without the Spirit's empowerment...i mean, i feel like i am running on funes most of the time, and yet there is still a little left in my tank every day (thinking of the widow of Zerephath and Elijah now)...it's just a good reminder for me because i can fall off the wagon so-to-speak and too easily go off in my own direction and in my own strength, so thanks for that mike...i too am immensely encouraged
mike,
it was great to meet you at thinspace. thanks for some good
conversation and just plain letting me vent a little :-)
bob's talk really hit me because, as i mentioned in the breakout
group, when Jesus shared the Kingdom news (or sent
anyone to do the same) he healed (or commanded people to heal).
i do wonder though how much of it is a western thing and how much of it is a human thing. what i mean is the Kingdom is really upside-down from any culture. so some things that Jesus shows us were counter-cultural then, and still are today. (or maybe sometimes some things fit easier than others for different cultures, like your example of the healing in africa where surgery is not an option). my point is that many have struggled with the Kingdom mystery in their culture, as do we, yet many have overcome that - so it's more of an encouragement i guess.
i appreciate the whole "loose control" thing you were talking about) yet that seems oh so hard when one is planting a church (since we are trying to reign things in so we have control, have order, have a church then, right?)
i look forward to more of your posts!
It was good meeting you too, Andy. I think you're right about there being a human resistence to God's kingdom, mainly because we don't like him messing with our little cozy arrangements. For example, I'm sure if someone were healed in the middle of Africa, the local "medicine man" probably would not be too happy about it. So I guess in that way, "losing control" might be better thought of as "laying down our agendas", including (and especially in many cases) if that agenda has anything with planting a church:)
Mike,
I've been meaning to ask this, and then I thought, "Well, not on the blog," but then I think, "We can talk about it both on and off the blog."
As you know, I struggle with this area somewhat. I fully admit to being a skeptic, too rationalistic, fully immersed in post-enlightenment modernity. This is the air I've breathed.
And I desperately want to be open-minded. And yet, what I've been told, repeatedly over the years, is that I'm not -- because of my doubts about what I've seen constituting "power gifts". I have seen fraud, a complete lack of discernment (I don't think we're to "lose control" of that, and I know you don't either) and giftings that are accompanied with blatantly false teachings about, well, pretty much everything.
So I'm skeptical, but don't want to be, and I'm not a cessationist.
All this to say, if people here in the west want to move through the streets and hospitals healing people like Jesus did, please do it, don't merely discuss it, so I can believe it more easily. Please do it.
You're the perfect person to engage on this, because you are such a brilliant, even naturally skeptical, sort, who has written beautifully on how these "power gifts" should not to confined to church services, but be a natural part of living -- and in public, not amid the swirl of church guitars and organs.
It's a "I believe, help me in my unbelief", thing. My experience has been so bad, for so long -- including being judged to be a non-Christian on multiple occasions --and yet I'm still holding out hope.
If Americans say we can heal people in public, raise people from the dead, here, now, and in public, is it okay to say, "Okay --just please show me"?
brant -
yes, yes, yes to much of what you said. in fact, at the thinspace event, i was reminded by george hunsberger about how 'public' our faith-in-action is supposed to be as he went through the greek and showed that this is a demonstrated reign of God...
there has bee a lot of whacked theology and false teaching among many of those who claim to move and practice the 'power gifts'...and then also i have seen really healthy models and 'power gifts' emerge not-so-whacked...
which reminds me, brant, mike, amber, did you guys do some 'kingdom workshops' this year? (i'll have to re-check your former blog posts...)
it makes me wonder about our methods, etc...i love what you guys are doing in a house-like, organic manner down in Jupiter, but the average?/typical? (maybe it's changing) church-planter in our area is still looking to rent facilities at the local school, etc. what if you met at a room/rented a room at a local hospital, then were intentional about visiting and praying for those in it everytime you had you meeting...would we see more healings? would we see the kingdom break through with health and wholeness more, since we might be among those in need...? it makes me wonder..
peace
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