CharisMissional - my new blog

Just to let you know that I’m now blogging at CharisMissional.

After blogger here on blogger for a serveral years now I decided it was time to move to WordPress. In doing that I thought I could perhaps re-launch the blog with a bit of a clearer focus. Some time ago I posted a little post about the word CharisMissional. The more I’ve thought about it the more that seems to be where I’m coming from.

Why CharisMissional?

Don't worry, I'm not trying to start a new movement or anything, it's just my attempt at a witty name for the blog! The word CharisMissional is a blend of the two words – charismatic and missional – that I feel are both important to my Christian faith.  The new blog will be dedicated to helping other Christians learn about the gifts of the Spirit and mission and hopefully to share their own insights and experiences in these areas.

What Will Happen To This Blog?

I hope to keep this blog going. I will post here any thoughts or comments that don’t really fit in my new blog. One of the reasons for the new blog was that I realised a lot of my posts were about Christianity, mission and those sort of areas. I’m not sure yet what will now appear on this blogger blog now. Perhaps reflections of a more personal nature or other topics that I’m interested in. You’ll have to wait and see. Also there is still plenty of stuff on this blog that I’ll revisit and keep on linking to on the new one.

In the meantime please feel free to follow me at CharisMissional.

Passing on the Gift of the Holy Spirit

Last Sunday in Sunday School we were praying for some of the children to receive the Holy Spirit. As it was Pentecost we were looking at the story of when the early church were first baptised in the Holy Spirit. After briefly telling them of my own experience I gave the children the opportunity to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

It is now thirty years since I first experienced the Holy Spirit. In a small Pentecostal prayer meeting I began to speak in a language that I had never learnt. I didn’t really understand what I was getting into. To tell the truth I didn’t even believe everything I was told about it at the time. But the result of this experience was one of overflowing joy and a desire that everyone could experience this too.

There wasn’t any mighty rushing wind or fire but I would see my experience as similar to what happened to the early church at Pentecost. Of course not everyone’s encounter with the Holy Spirit should be a carbon copy of mine but I do believe that God wants to fall on all his followers in a special way. The Bible calls this the ‘receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit’. Being a gift it is freely given. As believers all we need to do is ask and keep on asking.

In a way receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit opens wide the door to moving in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And I believe we can express these gifts very naturally as part of our authentic relationships with each other. Gratitude is a natural response to receiving a gift. And gratitude often results in generosity. If we are invited to someone’s house for a meal we may take a bottle of wine and on a later date invite them to ours. We may even copy our host’s role model and start inviting others into our home.

Over the years I have come to realise that exchanging gifts like this is a mark of the Spirit at work. Whatever God gives us we pass on. It is what we as Christians do. The Spirit inspires us to become more like Jesus to other people. We serve each other and we serve the world.

So whenever Christians gather it is an opportunity to exchange gifts. This may mean praying for each other or speaking God’s word to each other. But it actually involves far more. We share our lives together. We share food. We share our possessions and even our money when the need arises. There are many gifts we can bring to each other both inside and outside of our worship gatherings - our time, our energy. We just need to ask God and to think more creatively.

Thirty years ago I received this gift of the Holy Spirit and God enabled me to begin to give to others in a way that I'd never really done before. Last Sunday I had the chance to give these children an opportunity to receive this gift too. My prayer is that as a result God's giving will be multiplied through them.

Should We All Speak At The Same Time in Tongues?

In a new article Holy Gobbledygook on his site David Matthew argues for the use of speaking in tongues today but at the same time he is critical of the practice of everyone speaking at the same time in tongues.

He particularly looks at 1 Corinthians 14 and comes to the conclusion that primarily tongues are for private devotions. There is also a place for them in public worship but Paul puts tight guidelines on this such as tongues should not be heard in public without an interpretation. The message in tongues is to be given clear enough for everyone to know it is meant to be a public contribution and is to be followed by an interpretation.

David goes on to show that the quote from Isaiah in 1 Corinthians 14 serves to show that tongue speaking without interpretation tends to put visitors off. Careful analysis shows that it is a reference to foreign languages being a sign of God’s judgement when the Assyrians invaded Israel and carried the Israelites off into captivity. Today people hearing un-interpreted tongues my think, “These Christians are nuts. I’m not coming here again.”

So what do we make of it when someone speaks in tongues in a gathering in a way that is quiet enough for others to know that it is not a public contribution but loudly enough to hear? David refers to such use as ‘unhelpfully intrusive”. He evidently understands that speaking to yourself and to God in 1 Corinthians 14:28 will mean being inaudible to others around you. In a subsequent email discussion David confirmed this.

Interestingly in a recent post by Scott Lencke, as part of a series on speaking in tongues, Scott looks also looks at this verse. Generally he comes to similar conclusions to Dave about tongues and interpretation. But rather than an injunction to remain completely silent Scott sees this as simply not raising your voice but continuing to speak “at a much lower decibel”. I have great respect for Scott’s opinions but I just can’t see any basis for this one. Surely silent means silent!

What does this mean to the common charismatic practice of corporate singing in tongues? Though David sees singing in tongues as following much the same principles as when spoken he does admit that perhaps everyone singing in tongues may be more acceptable in worship than everyone speaking in tongues. Though the Bible is silent on this issue David suggests that it could be seen as similar to everyone worshipping on instruments. But then I must ask: why do un-interpreted tongues cease to be a negative sign to unbelievers just because they are sung rather than spoken?

These ideas have some real practical applications to those of us who use or are seeking to use tongues in our worship gatherings. If you have any further thoughts on this please leave them in the comments below.

Charismissional

Currently as a church we are discussing spiritual gifts. And recently on this blog I posted about missional living. So when I found a set of articles that link these two I was understandably excited. Charismissional is written by Robbymac, Brother Maynard and Emerging Grace (now Kingdom Grace). These three appear to have had similar experiences of being leaders in charismatic circles only to become disillusioned by extremes and abuses. But having left their positions they still find themselves passionate about the gifts of the Spirit. In their new settings they are now finding a new outlet for these gifts in missional living. Go on have a look.

Is the Use of Holy Spirit Gifts in Decline?

Several weeks ago Nettes forwarded me an email from a friend of hers Alison Hull who was writing an article for Christianity magazine and asking people for comments. The article was about the charismatic churches discussing the decline in the use of gifts of the spirit that she has noticed. I emailed Ali my observations and thoughts and amazingly a quote from my email wound up in the article along with a number of quotes from Christian leaders and ex-leaders. My response was as follows:

“Though it may not be exactly what you were after these are my honest thoughts on the subject in our situation. In a small church like ours I would say that how people use gifts in public meetings changes as people with different gifts, styles and temperaments come and go. It is also the case that we all hopefully grow in our own faith and experience of God over time so it is difficult to be objective about such trends. That said, I have noticed some possible changes over the past ten years or so…”

It was this next part of my answer that was quoted. ”…The way people speak nowadays is much more down to earth and less hyped than it used to be. I don't hear people whipping up the crowd with meaningless jargon anymore. I think we are less dogmatic that everyone's experience, for instance with baptism with the Spirit, should be the same, and I also feel that we are now on a verge of beginning to use people's gifts in more creative planned activities. I wonder if these changes simply reflect changes in society as a whole that is more sceptical of hype and more tolerant of differences and desire more creativity.”

The full article is called 'Hands Down' and is the lead article in the March issue of Christianity. You can read it here if you have a subscription. Otherwise you will need to see if you can find any copies of this issue that have not sold out yet.