IS GOOD, GOOD ENOUGH?
Samuel Chadwick, who lived from 1860–1932 served as a Wesleyan Methodist minister and was well known Revivalist. He once said “The church that is man-managed instead of God-governed is doomed to failure.”
Thinking back to my college days I remember a college professor in a Philosophy of Religion class say something to the effect ‘that if there is one thing we have learned from the study of history it is that we have not learned much from the study of history. We tend to make the same mistakes over and over.”
In looking at the history of the church I could not agree more. One need only to look at a phone book to see that there are dozens of different churches. This is the result of generational revivals that started with a new zeal of a certain group of people who found a new found adherence to a supercharged experience of God.
If what I see in history is true, then we as a fellowship of churches are in need of “a new found adherence to the supercharged experience of God.”
Frequently these new works function under the scorn of other established Christian churches and are looked upon as a little bit odd. Yet, each has gone through a rather predictable life cycle of decreased reliance on God, decreased necessity of prayer and an increased reliance on highly trained leaders to figure out how to proceed. This process continues until by the 3 or 4th generations most have completely lost all of the amazing distinction that made them so radical in their earlier day.
I believe this observable life cycle of radical Christian revivals is so well documented that one can safely say that every fiery Christian movement has lost its fire by its 3rd and 4th generations.
Clear back to the time of the Wesley brother, John Wesley was aware of this cycle. In 1786 he wrote, “I am not afraid that people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power”. Wow, that’s kind of a sobering thought. John Wesley made this statement right in the midst of the Methodist revival.
Are we not on the edge of pure arrogance, in light of so much clear history, if we think that such a cycle could not occur to us and in many ways maybe already has?
One sure tell evidence of this cycle taking deep root within a multigenerational fellowship is an escalation of refined conservatism that closes more and more doors to who can be ministered to outside the church walls, while increasing an internal focus of ministry vision and then leads the adherents, with all the best intentions in the world, right straight into spiritual stagnation.
As someone who has been considered by some as a somewhat radical Pentecostal, let me suggest to you the following thought:
“Could it be that as these groups progress through their multigenerational lives they come to a point in their development where they have possibly, maybe even innocently, replaced the Holy Spirits power with a well intended human spirit. Could it be that being good and doing good has actually become a hindrance to receiving God’s best?”
The issue is the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
My friends, if you get around much, you don’t have to go to many churches to see that most have moved far away from their early day experiences and more and more to finely tuned, carefully structured and well planned, predictable services formats.
I personally have been in churches where the operation of the gifts of the spirit have been limited pretty much to just speaking in tongues and in some even speaking in tongues out loud is limited or highly controlled, or possibly even forbidden. My friends this is nothing like Azuza.
When the Holy Spirit is suppressed by man made traditions and is not functioning like he should, this then leaves the churches to find a reasonable alternative to the Holy Spirit if they ever intend to draw anyone to their services.
Ah yes, and what finer way to do so than technology. This is that “beached whale” mentality that some of you have heard me talk about before.
We have no idea what to do because we have not prayed until we have heard from God, so we replace the Holy Spirit with technology and put out our words and teaching as far as possible via every conceivable medium hoping that we might get lucky and draw in a few people, Hallelujah!
We have done good and worked hard at it, and pray a superficial prayer that the secret key to success will be found. Surly God will bless our good intentions. Amen!
The unfortunate thing is, that after we prayed for a few minutes, because we are Christians and Christians are suppose to pray – RIGHT- and then set out on our next beached whale experience for Jesus, God never left the prayer chapel. You see many of us believe in prayer and believe in the Holy Spirit. We also believe that both are important and necessary parts of our faith, yet neither is seen strongly in many churches today.
It is my belief that if prayer and the Holy Spirit where truly being depended upon to move us forward then we would see more of both. The church moves forward on her knees.
This replacement of the God provided provisions for the church are heretical by nature and once this hearsay finds its way into the church it only stands to reason that it will also affect our church leaders.
I remember a time when the fruit of the spirit was the only means of establishing the credibility of the minister. One would ask themselves, ‘Does this man have love? Does he have joy? Is he self controlled? Is he anointed? If not, no one would follow them. Yet today we have become so conditioned be multi-media, that we have been trained to gravitate towards “saintly celebrities”.
Many today are looking for a preacher with a sparkling personality and oratory gifts similar to our favorite TV personalities. We have grown into a subsequent generation of believers that often times mistake showmanship for the anointing. So much for preachers like Tozer, Ravenhill, and Finney. They just would not measure up to today’s standards. And what is up with that “John the Baptist Dude, would somebody take him to Wal-Mart and buy him a par of normal pants.”
Even back into the early 90’s C.K. Barnes (an old friend of mine) and I where having a conversation one day and C.K. pointed out that he was not sure that he could even get ordained anymore because these new leaders had created something all together different then the system he grew up with.
Brother Barnes became ordained with the AG after starting a church. The church grew into a strong healthy fellowship and he felt it would be good for that church to become affiliated with The Assemblies of God. He approached the AG and made this thinking known. He only stipulated one condition. If the AG affiliates the church it must also ordain him so he can pastor it. Both occurred and that was it. No such thing would likely happen today.
It seems to me that not only has there been an attempted replacement of the Holy Spirit in many circles, but that some have even attempted to buy the fruit of the Spirit- on a blue light special.
Could it be that you can buy the anointing. Buy some “air time” so you can increase your exposure and theoretically increase your bottom line. Right! And nobody needs to know the real truth about who you really are!
One monkey wrench in this kind of thinking is found in the New Testament.
Acts 8:18-21 tells of Simon a pagan sorcery who when he saw that through the laying on of hands of the apostles, people were receiving the Holy Spirit. He then sought to buy this power from the apostles. Do you remember the story? DO you also remember what the Apostle Peter said to Simon?
“May your money go to perdition with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money.”
Remember Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:1-4:
“I came with no superiority of eloquence or of wisdom, when I announced to you God’s revealed truth; for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was before you with a sense of weakness, with fear and considerable trepidation.
My message and my preaching were not in persuasive, learned oratory, but rather in evidence of the Spirit and power.”
This clearly shows us that Paul was diametrically opposed to parading around in one’s own self promotion.
So what’s best, showmanship and state of the art technology or the Holy Sprit confirming the preaching of the word of God? There is a big difference between being efficient and being effective.
My friends all these things I have spoken of that supplant the Holy Spirit are simply put, an inferior substitute for the real thing. Technology is not the enemy but a wrong spirit is. Guard your heart against these kinds of things because they will only increase in these last days and they will even increase among people that we should be able to trust but who have lost their way in cheap grace, and the seducing power of popularity and success.
Technology at its best will only cause church growth. This in turn may bolster church membership. Yet one might wonder what kind of membership will that be.
The work of the Holy Spirit will do much, much more then just increase membership. The Holy Spirit working in us will “proclaim the Gospel to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, proclaim deliverance to the captives, bring sight to the blind and set a liberty those having been crushed” (Luke 4:18).
Anything short of this is simply underperforming. We attempt to do good, but end up subpar and way below where the Lord would have us to be.
This is the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Those who find Christ in anything other than a powerful way will gravitate to showboat churches and fancy pants preachers and develop a very shallow reference point to their faith.
One might hear them brag to their friends about how nice their church is and how smooth and predictable it is. They have no real idea about how exciting it is to actually have a power encounter with God that changes everything.
My friends Revival also generates church growth, but it also brings much more. Drug addicts get delivered from drugs, marriages get healed, alcoholics get set free, destructive lifestyles get turned around, and many naysayers are silenced by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.
Frequently, in today’s church, we offer little supernatural deliverance for anything, I guess because we don’t want to make anybody uncomfortable. So what do we do, well we offer the “nicest church in town”. The problem with this is that people that are drawn to this type of church “ambiance” invariably end up as weak Christians.
The kind of “nicest church in town” reference point that many churches in our fellowship are developing could very well make us as rigidly denominational as any other evangelical church.
You are going to have to judge for yourselves just what brings more glory to God, being efficient or being effective.
A.W. Tozer once said, “The great commission is not the first call to the church.” This statement at face value shocks most of us. But Tozer point was that Jesus commanded His followers to go to Jerusalem and tarry there until they were endued with power from on high. Tozer concluded that Jesus had no desire for them to do the work of God until they had a powerful encounter with Him.
So the first call is get on fire yourself before you set others on fire!
Efficiency overstates the importance of doing things right, while effectiveness centers on doing right things. These sound so similar and yet they are completely different mind sets.
As a point of efficiency, if all we are doing is drawing people to an organization, then we must continually compromise to keep everybody happy. Strong standards must decrease because the standards of society have decrease.
God never called the church to be a trend-setter. The church is and must remain a moral setter. We, the church, are supposed to be the number one moral setters in society. As we lower our standards, the world lowers its standards.
Remember Jesus at the temple in Luke 19:45, 46. He drove moral compromisers out of the temple saying “It is written… ‘My house will be a house of prayer, ‘but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
If we are not careful, prayerlessness can blind us to our own sins.
I think at this point I need to clarify some things. For one, I am not against technology. Rightly used technology is one of the most powerful tools the church has ever had access to. I am not against the church being a well polished organization either. If we are going to represent Christ we should do so to the best of our ability. Nor am I against education 2 Timothy 2: 15 is clear as a bell that we should “Study to shew thyself approved unto God”.
I am just against one thing, replacing the Holy Spirit.
The whole trust of the Pentecostal movement has been the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and helping people find God in a powerful way. My objection is to anything that in any way replaces or supplants the intrinsic necessity of Holy Spirit in our lives and ministries. (This is true regardless of your church back round)
When we allow anything, no matter how good it may sound, to replace the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we put ourselves in a position where we are no longer serving God purposes in the building of the kingdom.
If we walk down this road very far we will come to a place where we are not only not serving Gods purpose but we can no longer even hear His voice.
This friend would be a calamity of the highest order.
Mat 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
God does not anoint technology. He does not anoint machinery. He does not anoint programs. God anoints men and women who pray, and then use these other tools to accomplish what the Lord has laid upon their hearts to do.
Denny Davis, a past District Superintendant of the Oregon District once said something I have never forgotten. Something like this “There is nothing more dangerous than a God given idea in the mind of spirit fill saint.”
If God remains in control of us, and we use what we have to use, the gates of hell shall not, can not, prevail against us.
Amen!