Towards a Biblical and life-giving model of spiritual gifts
One of my greatest desires as a pastor is to see balance in the life of the church. When a congregation matures to the point that they are able to take risks, experiment and still land squarely in a place of balance I think they have achieved something rare.
This value drives my heart when we come to the topic of spiritual gifts. I very much want to encourage and challenge everyone to pursuit spiritual gifts, just as the scriptures exhort us. I Cor. 14:12 So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. And at the same time I want to see the church approach spiritual gifts with a desire to arrive at balance. Does that seem like a difficult thing to achieve in your mind? It certainly does in mine. Almost by the nature of certain spiritual gifts we are pushed toward excess or extremes. Gifts like tongues, healing, and prophecy don’t really come with the kind of detailed precise instructions that would make it all a lot easier. The truth is we have no choice but to experiment, take a bit of a leap and act in faith. The results can be weird, slightly wacky at times and even downright wrong. The alternative is to me, unacceptable. Tighten things up, over scrutinize and keep things under control at all times sounds like a total bummer to me. Worse than a bummer - I think it is not being faithful to the testimony of the Bible. The N.T. church was highly experimental and had lots of examples of things getting a bit weird and out of control (I mean really read 1 Corinthians, its full of crazy stuff in terms of what church services were like at 1 Corithians Baptist).
All that being said - we want to be a church full of experiential Christianity. By this I mean - we believe that God is a being who interacts with His people and makes His presence known. We believe that He dynamically enters into our actual experiences by means of spiritual gifts (”manifestations of the Spirit”). We believe that He can be encountered in prayer, in worship and in loving service to one another and the world. This is foundational to our common life together at Lamb.
This is one of the reasons why preparation is so important in terms of what happens on Sunday, or any other gathering for that matter. We don’t come to church to be entertained by the music, or the preaching. We don’t come to be indoctrinated, of for purely social interaction. We come to gathering as a holy assembly before the Lord, to adore Him, to lay our lives out before Him and to give Him the praise and honor of which He is so worthy. Preaching is important, but it is only one person offering the fruit of their prepartions from the previous week or weeks. Just as critical is the participation of the whole body assembled. It is at the very minimum the people of God coming together with something to say to the Lord first (a vocabulary of praise and thanksgiving), and it also may include something to minister to others gathered. I Cor. 14 26 - What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. This is the kind of church where “anything”can happen. It is exciting, and it is sometimes slightly strange. But that is okay as far as I am concerned. The mixture of those things which stretch us and those things which bring us great encouragement, strengtheing and comfort.
What then is the balance? How do we keep our heads together, not freak each other out too much and keep pressing into all that God has for us? 1 Corinthians 13, baby! That says everything that needs to be said about how a church keeps moving into the things of the Spirit and still keeps balance. We keep pursuing love with the same intensity that we pursue spiritual gifts. We keep asking ourselves questions like - Is this loving? Does it show concern for others? Is it respectful and thoughtful of others needs, and or sensitivites? Now I realize sometimes we will push each other a little beyond (maybe even sometimes way beyond) what we are comfortable with. Love keeps us from storming out, acting all huffy, rolling our eyes and generally just being impatient with one another. Love calls us back to something deeper than the moment, deeper than some incident that occurred at a meeting or a service, deeper than even our strongly held opinions about certain things - it calls us back to what Jesus has done for us and how that incredible gift of salvation makes us family in ways that supercede everything else. That is what I am down for - being a part of a body of people who so value Jesus that they will put up with each others idiosyncracies and instruct their souls to love one another no matter what! What do you think?