My Problem with Pentecost

This is a long one, but worth the read.

Acts 2 has made my life what it is. I remember being fourteen years old and walking into a youth group of seventy-five or so teens with their hands all in the air, singing with their eyes tightly closed, as though they were having visions. Whoa! What is this?! I thought. The presence of God was strong in that room, and since I grew up born again, I recognized that this dynamic was right; it was God. Pastor Wendell, Pastor Bob, Pastor Rick, and Pastor Wayman were all up front, leading our charge into the presence of God. This was so different from the sing-a-long and chitchat youth ministries I had been to previously. I was changed for life.

Pentecost

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit that forever launched, changed, and empowered those men and women of God in the upper prayer room during the festival season in Jerusalem has continued to change, empower, and launch people to this day. I remember hearing a passionate Pentecostal preacher speak on this, and one statement made me think twice about this great day in church history. He said that when God moves in a dynamic way like he did in Acts 2, no one has to explain it. God can and will do the explaining. He went on to infer that if some folks didn't get the move of God, their hearts may be hard to the things of God, so any explanation would be futile. He quoted Acts 2:8 to show that the event itself was sufficient explanation: "And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?" Why was it sufficient? Because they all heard it in their own language.

But I went on to read verse 12: "And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?" Some blamed the bottle for the craziness. But Peter, being filled with the Spirit, did what I perceive to be a very cultural and spiritual act: he explained it. Peter went back to the Scriptures and told what has happened. He also used this extraordinary event as a means to preach about the Messiah-ship of Christ. At this point the crowd begged to know what they ought to do, and revival began.

I do not have a problem with bringing Pentecost to our churches toady. But I do take issue with a mindset that says that we can stay in church and experience the presence, renewal, or the moving of the Spirit without offering this to the community we live in with some relevant explanation. Any Holy Spirit activity has to point people to Jesus. I have found that our greatest church altar calls are timed when we all can sense the manifest presence of God, and then the Gospel is preached in the middle of that. When God is on the move, we stop to explain what He is doing, and people get saved. Those are great times.

Recently, a church that I have some loose relational ties with, changed fellowships to reflect their change of position on this issue. Embracing wild manifestations, they desire to be in "the Throne room" and be with their Father (and act like children). They have made statements that indicate that they are truly unconcerned with whether their church grows or whether visitors feel embraced, or if the unbeliever that walks in can understand anything that is going on in this new, wildly charismatic gathering. And sure enough, two things have happened: first, their numbers have gone down, and evangelism is all but done. Second, charismatic “experience seekers” are the only people drawn to the church. They come to “swim in glory,” if you will. So what about the community of unbelievers that don't understand what is going on it there? What about presenting a clear story and testimony of the grace and love of Jesus and what He has done for us? Wasn't the outpouring really for the onlookers in Acts, anyway? It was in their language, and it was explained in their context, with their starting points of understanding. In Acts, the church grew, and others were drawn into experience Jesus via the Holy Spirit.

My mom (many of you know this amazing woman of God) received her own new Mac computer from my dad, both as a gift and as a means for my father to not have his files inexplicably erased anymore. I am a Mac guy, so I rejoiced with her. That is, until she began to consult me as her personal Genius Bar representative. One event is lodged in my memory from this era. One night I got a call from my mother (who lives nearly an hour away). She just wanted to add a picture to an email that she hoped to send, but she just couldn't quite figure it out on her own. For starters, she couldn't find the picture she wanted on her computer. "Mom, you need to open a new finder window." After a few “what's that?” moments, I had to try to describe what the hard drive icon looked like, and where it was on her desktop. I found out soon that she was looking on her literal desktop, the one the computer is sitting on, for this mysterious icon that I swore to her was there in the upper right hand corner. Frustration occurred for both parties. We have since had healing.

Can you see in this story a picture of our generation and our churches? We can see so clearly what the lost need to do, but what is so natural, ingrained, and easy for us is not clear to them. We may have to go over to their homes, look at their computer screen, use their language, and show it to them at their starting point of understanding. When we do that, we can convert the whole world to Mac's. (Wait, what am I writing about today? Sorry.)

Starting Points

We are challenged today with reaching a generation of non-believers—but not just first generation non-believers. As a college pastor, I deal with college-age kids who haven't ever been in church. Ever. And their parents never went to church. Ever. They don't own a Bible, a tie, and they don't put a roast in the oven for the after-service meal. What are their starting points?

I have heard is said that "The first word of the kingdom is Repent." That is true. Jesus told followers to repent, and Peter told the crowd that day to repent, and then be baptized. This may be the first word for us, but it may not be for our neighbors today. I often start my personal witnessing with a word of knowledge carefully stated in language they can understand. I start with the existence of a God that knows them, loves them, and wants a relationship with them. Oh, I get to the repentance part, but if they don't believe that there is a God—or that Christ was real—how are they going to want to repent? Perhaps Hebrews 11:6 is a closer starting point for today: "Anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that He exists and that He cares enough to respond to those who seek Him." Faith starts at these two points: believing He exists and believing He cares. Surely we all know that from this corner on the life-map, His kindness will lead us to repentance.

For my own story, I had a working knowledge of God, so that atmosphere in the youth meeting I attended at fourteen had an essence of familiarity to it. I recognized God there. My friend Greg who came with me that night did not perceive what I was sensing, and the ride home was filled with questions from his racing thoughts. I want to introduce my "Gregs" to Jesus, so they can appreciate His Spirit.

Passover

Currently my home, or slice of paradise as I like to call it, sits at the end of a cul-de-sac. We live in one of thirty-eight homes in our development. When we moved into our house eight years ago, it was brand new. There was excitement among all the new neighbors for our new houses. But some of the nice houses were not nice homes. Seven houses went up for sale in under sixteen months due to divorces or separations in the homes. We decided to take action. As a result, five families have come to visit our church from our own invitations over the years and something like fifteen of the teenagers in our neighborhood have come to youth group or camp with us because of our boys' invites. We really care about these folks and have a vested interest in seeing them come to a place of faith in Christ.

Let me describe some of these middle-America neighbors of mine. One mother is an alcoholic but tries to hide it. Our next-door neighbors are living together, with four kids. One of my daughter’s eight-year-old friends stays the night often and really likes it when I come in and say prayers with her and Abbi. At her last sleepover, she told me about how when she stays the night with her auntie, she does some spells, rubs her hands with crystals, and tells her what her aura is looking like. She told me this was right after my world-changing good night prayer! Another man, a father of three, was accused last year of being a child molester, which he denies. That's my neighborhood. You wouldn't know the messed up lives were there when driving through, but they are. I cry over them when I think about them. I have prayed for and loved these people for a long time now. I can only imagine how much the Lord loves and misses them.

To them, Pentecost is so far away, so distant; it isn't their starting point. They need to understand Passover before they understand Pentecost. As a pastor in our local church, my passion is to explain it to them. I want them to go through presbytery, to have the blessing of the manifest presence during worship. I want them to feel safe with the covering of multiplicity of elders, and to see a functioning local church. I want them to see the power of theology rooted in covenant, and I want them to pray in a heavenly language that changes, releases, and empowers them. But honestly, what I have as a vision for a starting point is that they come to know Jesus.

Focus

I recognize that our fellowship is first for pastors and leaders, so those topics are not just important, but critical for the longevity of ministry. I am deeply rooted in as a local church guy. And I believe everyone should and can be baptized in the Spirit. This is who I am. I take those foundation stones of our movement as a presupposition now. I do not want in any way to abandon my roots. However, I do want to take all of that benefit and strategize what we preach, how we market, what we pray for, and why we gather. I don't want to sit in my office during the week and enjoy church on the weekend, full of Holy Spirit activity, and leave out the Missio Dei. I want all those values to launch me into the lives of people who are lost, separated from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to all of these wonderful promises. I believe that Peter preached Jesus at Pentecost. We must use Pentecost to preach Jesus. Get ready for a bold saying: I can say that at this point I don't really care if my neighbor ever speaks in tongues. I just want to see him in Heaven. Now, please know that I want him to experience glossolalia, some day. But my efforts and my strategies for our church are going to be geared toward reaching an increasingly godless culture, not on how we can have more manifestations.

Here are a few practical ideas we have put to practice in our church.

1. We have had our small groups work together to adopt whole apartment complexes in need of ministry. We take church to them, instead of just inviting them to come to us for outreach services.

2. We have routine services that are geared to the preaching of the Gospel. We let our people know in advance that this is coming up so that we can pray and they can plan on inviting friends.

3. As the Spirit leads, we have spontaneous altar calls during services.

4. Pastor Bob's preaching is geared toward strengthening the believer for the purpose of the Gospel. People want to be equipped to know what to say and what the Bible says.

5. We read about churches that are successful in evangelism. We listen to podcasts of pastors that are having good fruit in this arena. Many are in MFI, and some are not, but we glean what will work within our values and try to add their innovations to our mix.

6. We pray for people by name. Before a special outreach Sunday, we will gather the names of real people that are going to be invited to church and pray for these who are heirs of salvation.

(This article was originally written for MFI leaders' quarterly)