as a guy who has grown up in the classical pentecostal church i'm getting started with this blog probably more than anything as a sort of "soul therapy." i guess what i'm trying to do is work out the postmodern implications of living not only the Christlife as a product of the modern church but also as one who has embraced the Spiritlife. i'm beginning to get a picture, foggy as it still is, of the "new kind of christian" that will inhabit the church but i wonder how acts2 people will fit into this "church on the other side." i don't really hear anyone talking about this. there are probably a few folks in this conversation but i don't know of any.
anyway, i kind of feel like a quarterback who just threw an interception. all i can do is helplessly look on as everyone goes running in the other direction, and hope i don't get clobbered in the process. the church is changing "direction" again and i want to be a part of what's happening but i appear to be on the wrong team. it's no big deal, as pentecostals we're pretty used to that kind of thing. i was just hoping that the emerging church would be past the idea of separate teams.
the funny thing is, we have always embraced the imminence of God. you want experience? we got it baby! we've never been afraid of that. and the truth is we have always had a good handle on the theology behind our experience though we have been accused otherwise. we simply didn't feel compelled to codify everything or create pneumatology text books (except that we are doing more of that nowadays). we just shared our acts2 stories (and, subsequently, our theology) in community.
anyway, as for me, i have experienced the Presence. i'm one of "those" people who speaks in "tongues." i have felt the rush of his spirit like a river flooding the church building - divine healing, dreams, visions, prophetic insight - all those things have been and continue to be a part of my experience. and what i'm wondering is this; am i going to be more accepted in the postmodern world than i have been in the modern one we're all leaving behind? if so, bring it on!
well, i have a bunch of other questions too but before i get to those i'm hoping to churn up some dialogue on the subject because I wonder who else is feeling out of place. i wonder who else in my particular tribe (assemblies of god) may be involved in this same process. i wonder what the pentecostal church will look like on the other side.
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1 comment:
well, well...
the pentecostal church, for that the evangelical church - a product of modernity?
you think.
The things that the church must be willing to recognize so that this cultural tide doesn't pass it by - is that we (the church) have bought into a universe that is mechanistic - If I input A then I can expect the output B.
In the church we expect and seem to teach - that if I pray "thus and so" God will do my bidding.
Another thought on the mechanistic front - that we feel the church is more like an assembly line - churning out fully devoted followers who talk "right", look "right" and have all the "right" answers.
My hope is that we will be able to relinquish such mechanistic views and fully embrace a God who works in marvelous and wondrous ways - a God much more worthy of our worship than a God who is predictible and machine like.
pax
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