Or ....as Monty Python put "...What have the Romans ever done for us?" And in fact, if you've ever watched that side splitting piece of film sequence from Python, it goes on in this very funny away of "...ok, ok, apart from the plumbing and the roads, and the heating, and the medicine ....what have they done for us? Answer Nothing!. Oh, okay then!"
Sorry, but that had to be done. More importantly, lest we "throw the baby out with the bathwater" (I've never actually been sure if this is technically possible), it would be far too easy to be dismissive then of the charismatic movement (if it is indeed a movement) and suggest that "they" have given us nothing, which would be simply wrong.
By the way, thanks for all the feedback. I hope that what I blogged on last week doesn't make this blog too serious!!
Anyway, I think the charismatic movement has given us a few things worthy of mention:
1. It has reminded us that we live and minister now in "the age of the Spirit." And in my book that means that previously the church had up until the beginings of the charismatic movement in the 1970's largely forgotten the 3rd person of the Trinity. And if theologically we affirm and hold to a Trinitarian foundation then he is there for all to tap into and use. For as any decent theological education will remind us, "one in three persons and yet distinctive." Yes, the Spirit - "he" is readily available for us to minister - him through us, and us to minister him to others.
We can pray to and in/through the Spirit as much as we do with the Father and the Son. We can invite the Spirit to move, or to put it in another way, we can welcome him. What Wimber, Pytches, Subritzky and others have shown us is that we should be quite at home with inviting the Spirit to come and to move amongst us. They seem to have reminded us too that he often comes in waves. As such, we should be aware that it is possible to block or quench (sin against?) the Spirit's work.
Fascinatingly, it was the Quakers with their famous quiet "waiting on the Spirit" to say something that models this for us. They became well known for their "quaking" or shaking in the Spirit as this did this.
Hopefully these days, we are able to hold to a Trinitarian balance in ministry - ie, it's all of them: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But I just want to throw up a tiny question: have charismatics now over emphasised The Spirit at the expense of the Father and the Son? I ask that, because the freedom of the Spirit that the Corinthian church were criticised for by their Apostle, and which they argued gave them license to be free of him and in many cases do what they want, in some cases allowed them (the Gnostics) to argue that they were now superior to him and even to the Gospel. And I what I see in some places today is Charismatics doing exactly that, which is creating a kind of a new gospel (small g) that is not the gospel of grace and mercy. And the worst of it that in some cases that gospel seems to be turning into a gospel of works, not grace.
I heard it used the other day in terms of prayer, that God now expected more out of us in prayer, and unless we did he somehow wouldn't hear us. Huh! where did that come from in scripture?
2. It has reminded us to expect God - in the Spirit, to do something when ever we gather. And that on the whole has got to be a good thing. That when we gather in worship that it's not simply to go through a series of points on an agenda and be finished by the time the number 11 bus comes by. Rather to expect God to speak to us or move in a tangible way.
This applies for those who set out for church, as they leave their homes to expect the living God to be present, as well as for those who prepare and lead such occasions.
And that's good for us. Lets expect this where perhaps once we didn't.
But, lets not panic or have a downer if we don't seemingly feel that "God was in the house" that morning. Do our feelings suggest he wasn't? And nor should we as a result of any panic somehow feel that we then need to hastily manufacture the experience of the Spirit (can you anyway? No!) which always, always come us somehow feels fraudulent in feel and nature anyway.
And that's where we need to hold breadth in our worship. As much at home with the deep words of liturgy that bring wonder and awe and take our spirits when they are wounded and down on new journeys of the Spirit to places of grace, as with the upbeat, jubilant praise of the prophetic. I cringe ....no i get angry when so new churches roll into town and label such worship experiences as "traditional". As if somehow now they are past the traditional and have gone on to the super advanced mode!
And expecting the Spirit to move does not mean we thefore have no order of service, nor does it mean that we have to have a stringently tied down order of service, but there is balance in there somewhere! And, the Spirit of God is not about dis-order, chaos and lack of preparation.
3. It has reminded us, quite necessarily actually, that worship must have a joyful, and upbeat reality to it. That worship is about God; about his faithfullness and mercy, and power to heal and restore. That worship is as the book of Corinthians make clear a kind of body experience, not an isolated subjective set of choices of the visiting speaker for the day. That the organ is not God's annointed or chosen expression of music, and that he is an author of inifinte colours in the rainbow of worship. And the charismatic movement has given permission to a culture (the English Saxon one) that has been bound up in a "face one direction, behave, wear a suit and don't smile" kind of church behaviour.
4. It has reminded us of the New Testament basis of church function and operation, and God's giving of the gifts for that purpose. It has reminded us that a church goes forward together with those gifts in operation, as a body, not as a bunch of followers of a single human in which it traditonally deemed that everything must be done by or through.
5. It has genuinely brought the new wine of the Spirit into churches that essentially were dead, and or dying. It has started new churches, and new expressions of church, and new ministries that are not typically embedded within local church settings. It has released new people into ministry both here and overseas, who in all probability would never ever have considered themselves likely candidates.
So when all is said and done I thank the Holy Spirit for being gracious enought to visit us again, certainly in my life time. He continues to do so in every land, and in the most suprising of places. Some evern argue that he is more at work at times outside of the church than within!
If it is true - as most do agree, that we are essentially now in "post charismatic days" - whatever that means, then we should no less hunger and thirst for fresh waves of the Spirit of God.
But we do so with wisdom and growth in our hearts, seeking not to make mistakes from the past, and wanting most of all (and I passionately believe this) to be a missioning people that meet people in their struggles truthfully and honourably, and not presenting a Gospel and a God that makes you cringe, but gives you a overriding sense of reality in a broken and needy world!
Come Holy Spirit!
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