Profiting from Prophets

Talk about the prophetic gifting is a frightening thing in many church circles. There are those with the charismatic gifts of tongues, discernment, prophecy and words of knowledge in any functioning body of Christ but they are not always welcomed or understood. At worst they are forbidden by misguided cessationists who contend that the miraculous gifts ended with the closing of the canon of Scripture, more often they are officially validated within a congregation's theological framework but unofficially treated with great suspicion and misunderstanding.

I do not have these gifts. I need to say that up front. I have never demonstrated the gifts of prophecy, tongues, words of knowledge or spiritual discernment. It's not how I am wired, nor is it how God has gifted me as a member of the body of Christ. Because of that I am equally uncomfortable with movements within the Church that advocate for those manifestations to be the indisputable sign of the filling of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. My theology, and dare I say more poignantly my experience, does not support such a narrow expression of the Spirit. I am quite comfortable with my tradition's official stance of "seek not, forbid not" so long as both halves of that axiom are expressed with the same level of conviction.

As one who has not been bestowed the charismatic gifts by the Holy Spirit though I have found that I have had to lean on those that have. My gifting and calling in the church is to leadership, I am by vocation a pastor, by calling a shepherd of the flock, by gifting a teacher but to execute these roles well and to the glory of God, my leadership, shepherding, and teaching need to be informed by the prophetic. In the Old Testament the prophets were the people who spoke God's will to power. Samuel rebuked Saul, Nathan confronted David with his sin, even in the New Testament John the Baptist challenged Herod's adulterous and incestuous marriage. As a person who has been given the heavy responsibility of church leadership I should be looking for God to use those with the charismatic gifts to speak into my leadership.

When I accepted the call to lead my previous church in Estevan I intentionally cultivated a relationship with a woman in the congregation that I (and others) had recognized the gifts of prophecy in. And over the course of my tenure as the Lead Pastor there I came to depend on her advice, counsel, and prayer when making significant decisions. When I found myself at a cross roads and the leading of God was not readily apparent to me I would call her up and ask her to pray. Or from time to time I would phone her up and quite simply ask - "do you have a word from the Lord for me today?"

Sometimes she didn't. Often she did. But I know that God frequently used her to clarify, or crystallize his leading and guiding in my life. It has been a blessing to be ministered to by those with the more charismatic spiritual gifts - but too often in our churches we fail to acknowledge them or make room for people who have them to develop their gifting.

You see, I think that we have an unfair expectation of those with the charismatic gifts. We, harkening back to 1 Corinthians 14, assume that they must be perfect or else they be a blight upon the church. The person who speaks in tongues with no interpreter, the person who speaks a word of knowledge that turns out to be wrong; the person who utters prophecy that doesn't seem to work out the way it was supposed to; the person who prays for healing just before the sick person dies - we seem to have no tolerance or patience for those with charismatic giftings who don't exercise those giftings with absolute perfection. But that's not the way Paul instructs the church to function.

"Pursue love, and use your ambition to try to get spiritual gifts but especially so that you might prophesy."

1 Corinthians 14:1 CEB

In this most famous of passages on church order and proper exercise of the charismatic gifts Paul begins by telling the church to grow in their gifting. "Try" he says - in a very un-Yoda-like moment he makes allowance for people to attempt something without the guarantee of success. We have no problem with this mentality when it comes to other gifts of the Spirit; someone with the gift of leadership must become seasoned in that gift and be allowed to make mistakes so that they can grow into the leadership God has called them to. Someone with the gift of helps is afforded the grace to mistakenly help when their help is not wanted or appreciated with the understanding that they are just growing in their gifts. Someone who has been gifted with music is allowed to play some wrong notes as they develop their talents; someone with a gift of hospitality is not strung up for burning the roast - why do we hold this one group of Christians then to an unbiblical and impossible standard of perfection if we hold no one else to it?

I honestly believe that one of the reasons that prophets in particular seem to have disappeared from many of our evangelical churches is because we make no room for them to grow by making mistakes. We have no grace for those who would like to hone their giftedness by putting it into practice knowing that like any gift it needs to be developed before it can flourish into all God intended it to be. We have made our churches places hostile to people who have been called by God to function in this way and then we wonder why we don't see them active in our congregations.

One of the better ways that I've learned to do this is to give your prophets the assurance that their words will not be taken as Gospel but will be subject to the testing of the spirits as prescribed in 1 John 4:1-6. I have had prophets before who have been reluctant to share with me a word from the Lord because the implications of that word if acted upon would be tremendous and the responsibility upon the prophet that shares such a word was almost too much to bear. Give them the assurance that you will take their words seriously, but as the person the words are delivered to (whether they be a personal word, or a word for the church you are in leadership over) you bear the responsibility of deciding what to do with them. When the burden of consequence is removed from the prophet, they are much more freed up to exercise their gift without fear.

And so I make this plea today, both to my congregation and to all the other churches that find themselves in the same boat - celebrate your prophets. Recognize them. Encourage them. And give them permission to make mistakes in the exercising of their giftings. They will never learn how to properly serve Christ and edify the church through their gifts if they have to spend their entire lives in hiding. I promise you, from my own experience, if you give them a voice and learn how to listen to them you will be blessed and your leadership.

At my installation service at The Bridge Church this month I issued the challenge to all of our 'blue' people (Natural Church Development jargon for those with a charismatic spiritual disposition) to come out of the woodwork. To exercise their gifts with boldness so that the church will not become deficient in hearing the guidance of the Lord. And so with this blog post I, reissue that challenge and ask that the rest of us, who are not similarly disposed and gifted would come alongside of, support and make room for our blues to bring balance and guidance into our corporate expression of faith and mission. God not only wants to speak to us, he IS speaking to us. It's time to open up our corporate ears (cf.1 Corinthians 12) and learn to listen as a body.

Blessings on your day,

Chris

The Audience of One

So this morning as I was preparing to go on for the morning worship service something strange happened: I had an epiphany of sorts.

We were in the prayer room preparing our hearts for the ministry ahead with the worship team and our worship leader invited us to pray – nothing unusual about that, but when I prayed I got on a bit of a roll (you know how pastors do) and pretty soon I was getting the odd “yes Lord,” or “please Jesus,” or the good ol’ C&MA “Hmmmm” in response to the words I was praying. I don’t know about you, but if you’re like me that is like throwing fuel on the fire. When I hear people praying in agreement with the words I’m praying I tend to get a little more fired up and lean into the prayer all that much more.

Eventually I was done and it was someone else’s turn to pray and I took a deep breath and moved into a different role in the corporate prayer expression, but it was then that I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me a word of caution, and a word of correction.

You see prayer, even when done in the context of a corporate gathering, is always with an audience of one. When we pray we are ushered by the virtue of the blood of Christ, into the throne room of grace where the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf to our Heavenly Father the inmost cries of our heart. And when we gather together to pray with our brothers and sisters in Christ we join with them in affirming that their prayers are also our prayers, praying in agreement what we hope is the will of God and what will be for his glory and our edification. But sometimes we loose sight of that.

The Holy Spirit told me in that moment that that is exactly what I had done. I, like the seasoned public speaker that I have become, began playing to the crowd rather than enjoying my audience with THE ONE. God forgive me.

I have to be honest it shook me up in that moment. Flashes of Matthew 6:5, which the CEB aptly puts under the heading “Showy Prayer” and says:

“When you pray, don’t be like hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners so that people will see them. I assure you, that’s the only reward they’ll get.”

 It was a weird sort of personal precursor to my illustration about being confronted by the Sermon on the Mount from the message I would deliver a short time later on, but God got my attention. In my zeal not to let this moment pass me by I put into practice my WIDOLIF skills from Bible College (Write It Down Or Lose It Forever) and whipped out my iPhone and typed the following words as quickly as I could:

“Audience of one. Prayer for listeners”

Unfortunately that was while someone else was still praying and I noticed that my worship leader caught me doing it so who knows what sort of horrible pastor she must have thought me at that time but the message was received. Right before I was about to go up and begin the service God needed to do some business with me.

That’s my story; but I can’t help but feel like the issue of audience is a big hindrance to a lot of us as we pray corporately. Either we’re comfortable in front of crowds but lose sight of who we’re really talking to as I did, or we’re so cognisant of the crowd that we become incapacitated and unable to pray with others. Whichever ditch the path of your prayer life slopes toward it’s good to be reminded that when we pray our attention is to be directed heavenward, and not around the room; and that the purpose of corporate prayer is not to impress the people we are praying with, but instead to lend our affirmation to their prayers and join with them in praying the will of the Father, and listening for the voice of the Spirit.

I’m thankful that God corrected me this morning and that he gave me several other opportunities today to pray with people after the service and re-orient myself toward him – but what about you? Do you need an adjustment to your audience orientation? It’s an easy thing to get wrong, but it’s an even easier thing to fix. Our God is gracious, by the blood of Christ he has granted you an audience with THE ONE, so that you can pray to an audience of one.

Flashback Friday: Getting Over Jesus

Editors Note: Flashback Friday is a feature that I'll pull out from time to time when I haven't found time or inspiration during the preceding week to church out an original blog post. It features one of my favourite posts from seasons past. In this case a post from almost a year ago that I entitled "Getting Over Jesus." I hope it speaks to you still.
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September 12, 2012

Waylon and I were having one of our theological brainstorming sessions the other day in advance of some sermon work that we were both about to embark upon when an interesting question came up: are we as a church getting over Jesus? It seems like a bold and terrifying thought when it’s vocalized – but does the seriousness of the accusation make it any less true?

A few years ago there was a book by a guy named Francis Chan that went through many churches (including ours) like wildfire – it was called Crazy Love, and it painted a very radical portrait of what Christian discipleship should look like. People were falling over themselves to ask me if I’d read it and how we should change what we do as a church to emulate Chan’s model of discipleship in our church. Young people were reading it, seniors were reading it, and I led our Guatemala missions group through the book while we were on the field a couple of years ago. It was a good book – not perfect by any means, but this blog is not about pointing out theological fault in Crazy Love – it spoke of a revolutionary type of experience with Christ and then called the reader to follow the model espoused by the author to respond to that crazy love through an equally radical shift in lifestyle. For a while it seemed that a groundswell of radical Christian living was going to overtake our church and that the world would be completely turned upside down by our obedience to the Gospel. But we got over it.

Within a few months, the hype and excitement of Chan’s challenge was lost to the realities of life in Estevan: responsibilities, relationships, recreation and maintaining the status quo.

On a smaller scale, in the last four years a bunch of people in our congregation have had life-changing cross-cultural experiences through short-term missions trips. They have seen the Sprit of God at work in other parts of the world, they have experienced the Church expressed in ways that seem completely foreign to us yet at the same time seem so ‘right’ and ‘natural’, they have had the opportunity to evaluate our culture (both secular and sacred) from the outside – both coming to appreciate the strengths of our culture and being made painfully aware of our blindness to our own sinfulness and shortcomings. People routinely come back from those experiences (as I have) committed to living life in this culture differently as a result of what God showed them from another perspective – and for a short time we witness exactly that happening. People make radical life decisions, change the way they do things, get involved in different ministries, become more generous and more aware of the trappings of our upper-middle class North American culture and Christianity... for a while. And then inevitably life once again intervenes and what was at one point world changing, becomes only a guilt and regret inducing memory of what once was and what could have been. And before too long, even the guilt goes away and we simply get over it and go back to life as usual.

Corporately we’ve been journeying for the last year through the Gospel of Mark in our worship services, and along the way we’ve encountered a Jesus that would be very uncomfortable with our brand of westernized Christianity that has tamed Jesus and made him into our image rather than perusing a path of discipleship that eschews the cultural norms of our culture (again both secular and sacred) leading us into conformity with Christ’s image.  And once again we find ourselves challenged to live a life less ordinary, to pursue Jesus more radically than we have before and see the world changed through the risen and exalted Christ at work in and through his Church as they surrender their lives to his lordship. Along the way we’ve talked about countercultural issues like the primacy of the Family of God in the Kingdom over and above the nuclear family; the fact that Jesus calls people to relationship before he calls them to life transformation; how to Jesus, people are more important than protocol; the radical cost of true discipleship; the inefficacy of tradition, ritual and legalism for defining disciples; and most recently we've looked at a series of stories from the Gospel that reflect on our own desires to be special, to be in authority and to be exclusive in direct contradiction of the teachings of Jesus about servanthood, submission and radical inclusivity as we've watched the disciples continually miss the point on the road to Jerusalem (examples here and here). At every point the message of the Gospel beckons us to live our lives differently than what is culturally expected, than what is culturally normal, than even what passes for ‘normal’ in most Evangelical Christianity – and for a brief moment every week it seems like we’re getting that – for that fleeting season in the foyer after the service we are all in agreement that we need to change, that we need to commit ourselves to a radically new expression of discipleship and obedience – but by Monday (or sometimes even earlier) we've gotten over it and life returns to normal.

Every time we read a book about discipleship, listen to a sermon about following Jesus, experience God in a new way (be it cross-cultural or otherwise), and especially when we see, hear, and are challenged by the words of Scripture itself we are called to a more radical expression of our faith than we are used to. Every time we allow that challenge to change the way we live, relate, shop, worship or serve we become a little more like Jesus and our witness to the world becomes a little more credible – but when we hear the call of discipleship and subsequently get over it, it’s like we become inoculated to the Gospel. Like a virus, every spiritual infection (in the good sense) that we catch and then get over makes us a little more resistant to the next. Every time we fight off the advances of the Holy Spirit in our lives, every time we resist the call of the Gospel and we return to living life exactly as we did before the infection we make ourselves less prone to infection the next time. The Bible calls this phenomenon the hardening of the heart – and we are warned against letting it happen to us:

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:17-24 (TNIV)

We are encouraged, exhorted – commanded in scripture to work against this hardening of the heart, this spiritual inoculation that seems to beset us at every turn. We are called to be a people who are irredeemably redeemed, irreversibly infected with the virus of the Kingdom of God. We are called to be a people who get Jesus and then don’t get over him. We are called to be a people who encounter the Gospel and are forever changed by what Christ does to us and in us and for us! Just as Christ bears the scars of his sacrifice eternally we are called to bear the marks of our transformation – a transformation that affects every function of our life – from our religion to our relationships, from our work to our play, from our morality to our money and everything in between. We desperately need to get over, getting over things – this is an instance where the sickness (Jesus) is the cure.

My hope for you in reading this is that you will once again feel the symptoms of the infection of the Gospel becoming manifested in your life. That in reminding you of these things that we have learned and experienced together that you will feel the fever of the Gospel making you uncomfortable in your own skin; that you will experience fatigue with the status quo and a desire to rest in God’s perfect will; that you will experience an ache in your spirit for people who are living lives apart from God; that you will feel the vertigo that comes from recognizing that this world is not as it should be and that this infection that comes from exposure to Jesus is something that you, and I, will not get better from.

May we never get over Jesus.

Unlike FedEx...

I am not-amazing at many things.

Sometimes it's easy to look at your pastor whom many people see only once week and think that there is a person who has it all together. Every time he or she speaks there is something poignant said and everything they do seems to be done with a level of excellence.

If that's the impression you have of me, or any other pastor you have, or have had in the past you might not be paying very close attention. My life has been a non-stop series of failures floating downstream on a river of God's limitless grace.

Over the last few weeks I've been visiting many of my new church family and getting to know them and what makes them tick. I'm consistently amazed at the skills and talents that exist within the church and how they are so diversely distributed among the members of the body.

For example I can't renovate my house, or fix my car, or create my own art. I don't have a green thumb, have never succeeded in any attempt to learn another language, I can't really ice skate and I have never downhill skied. I have never been athletic and have generally always got picked last at team sports because I was never that good. Yet amidst all of that God has still given me a desire for excellence. I know the difference between a good drywalling job and a bad one, and it bugged me to no end in one of our previous houses that some of the work I did leaned toward the lesser end of the spectrum. I like things that are aesthetically pleasing and I think that I have a good eye for art - but I am hopeless to do anything to create something beautiful myself. These sorts of things have led over the years to me developing a real insecurity about my abilities to accomplish these things and a genuine fear of even trying. Were it not for the loving assurances and an almost maternal level of encouragement that I have received from Joanna in these times I don't think anything would get done.

I know how the fear of failure can lead you to not even try.

In the same way I know that the few things I am skilled at can become intimidating for others who don't have the same giftings or talents and can lead to an equally paralyzing fear of failure when it comes to service in the church or even disciplines of the Christian life. You see someone stand up and preach an eloquent sermon and you say to yourself that I could never speak to a crowd like that and so you bottle up the testimony that the Lord has given you and never share it with the church because you're afraid that you won't sound as good as the preacher. Or you see someone effortlessly sharing their faith and you say to yourself that I could never have the courage to ask my non-Christian friends those types of questions and I wouldn't know how to respond if they asked me any questions back, so you never share your faith with anyone. Or you look at the person in your life that really needs to be mentored and discipled and you say to yourself that you have nothing to offer that new believer because you haven't become a superstar of the faith yet yourself and so nobody mentors them and eventually they leave the church.

Like me, you are not-amazing at many things too.

But you and I, amazing or not, have been called by an amazing God and empowered by him to do the things that matter when they matter most.

Consider Jesus' teaching from Luke 12:

I tell you, my friends, don’t be terrified by those who can kill the body but after that can do nothing more. I’ll show you whom you should fear: fear the one who, after you have been killed, has the authority to throw you into hell. Indeed, I tell you, that’s the one you should fear. Aren’t five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them is overlooked by God. Even the hairs on your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows. “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before humans, the Human One will acknowledge before God’s angels. But the one who rejects me before others will be rejected before God’s angels. Anyone who speaks a word against the Human One will be forgiven, but whoever insults the Holy Spirit won’t be forgiven. When they bring you before the synagogues, rulers, and authorities, don’t worry about how to defend yourself or what you should say. The Holy Spirit will tell you at that very moment what you must say.”

Luke 12:4-12

Not many of us are being dragged before the authorities for our Christian faith, but the little parts of living out the Christian life can sometimes feel as daunting to us. We worry about how our words will be received; we worry about whether we might be seen as a crazy church-nut; we worry about the embarrassment of a rejected invitation or the feeling of abject failure when someone doesn’t immediately accept the Gospel invitation, or understand our follow the logic of our arguments when we try to explain the deeper truths of the Christian life. Like I have been with household projects, we sometimes find ourselves so incapacitated by fear that we decide it’s better not to do anything. But unlike renovating a bathroom or fixing a car, we are promised a dispensation of the Spirit to aid us in completing the challenges that are laid before us in the Great Commission.

Jesus says clearly that the Holy Spirit will tell us what we are to say. He will give us the words, and more than that we also know that he will tell us who to say these things to (Acts 11:12), where to go (Acts 16:9) and even set up supernaturally orchestrated opportunities for us to love out the Gospel (Acts 8:27). The testimony of the church throughout history is an ongoing story of the provision, empowerment, and revelation of the Holy Spirit in the people of God to accomplish the will of God for the world.

You may not be as amazing at many things as the FedEx guy, but you do have an Amazing God that dwells within you – and he’s amazing at more things even than the FedEx guy – including making you amazing at doing his will.

Just something to consider,

Chris