Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Defining Spirit Empowered Living

Pastors,

I have taken a strong position that we (PCG) must be a Pentecostal church. By this I simply mean that we are a Holy Spirit empowered, a Holy Spirit led, a Holy Spirit filled organization. We exercise the gifts of the Spirit (we are not a cessation church.) We manifest the fruit of the Spirit (we live in righteousness). We allow for true Divine manifestations of the Holy Spirit. We see holistic Spiritual living – We see Holy Spirit empowered leaders – we see Holy Spirit miracles. We believe the evidence of the Baptism is speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance (KJV I know).

My concerns begin with how do we define “Holy Spirit/Ghost empowered living?” And, “How deeply if any, we divided over spiritual issues?” Are we (PCG) seeing the next generation experiencing true fullness of the Holy Spirit? I am deeply troubled over our youth having a real deep encounter with the Holy Spirit.

Some of my questions are:
1. What is producing fruit and what is not producing fruit?
2. What trends/fads are affecting the next generation as they relate to the Holy Spirit?
3. How do we (NPN especially) engage in the process for the next generation to experience the Holy Spirit? (I agree Jesus first I know, salvation is the main thing but on this topic.)
4. If we were at our best what would we be doing now?
5. How do we lead the next generation to embrace Holy Spirit empowered living for maximum evangelistic harvest?

Thanks for responding. I look forward to hearing from each of you.

C Scott

6 comments:

  1. I appreciate your leadership, Bishop Scott, and stand with you on this subject.

    Recently, my oldest son (14 years old) attended one of our "Youth Encounters" with about two dozen of his peers. My prayer was, "Lord, let Austin know You like I know You. Let him have an encounter with Your Spirit like I have experienced." My heart was overwhelmed when reports came to me about the final service. My son was "slain in the spirit" for more than twenty-five minutes.

    It wasn't long ago that I felt an urgency in my spirit to encourge my sons to attend one of our "Encounters", and begin in our "School of Leaders". I spoke to them; and gave them an incentive. For levels one through three, I would give them one hundred dollars for completing each level. Then I told them about Level Four. I said, "It will probably take you three years to complete; but if you complete Level Four, I will give you one thousand dollars".

    Here's my point. We must be intentional about leading our children, famiilies, and churches to have an experience with the Holy Spirit. They must know Him, be empowered by Him, cooperate with Him, and make Him known to everyone around them.

    The hope of "our" fellowship starts in "our" homes. If I don't lead my sons, someone will. If we don't teach our people about the Holy Spirit, someone will. If He doesn't have their undivided attention, something will.

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  2. Wow, where do i start. this is the place for honesty so hopefully all you guys are ready for mine. This has been a question that i have dealt with for the past few years. Being raised in PCG all my life i have seen some things that i was uncomfortable with over the years. I do believe know that we are a spirit filled movement but i do also believe there is lack of teaching on the Holy Spirit. From my view the main thing we have been concerned about is the manifestation of the spirit instead of the Fruit of the spirit. I am uncomfortable with those who seem to always speak in tongues but the fruit is not evident.

    The questions i have is how we claim to be spirit filled when we have churches with laymen, church leadership & even Pastors that continually proclaim "Holy Spirit Living" but do not display the Fruit of the Spirit in such areas: gossip, backbiting, racism, harboring bitterness, envy toward churches not doing things just like they do and even some proclaiming that some people just do not fit in to their church because they are not already cleaned up? To add to the mix many of these churches do not pursue the lost of their communities while continually pursuing a manifestation of the Holy SPirit.

    We have allowed the "Great Commission" to become just words to us "spirit filled" people. Now my question is this, Is "spirit empowered living" seeking a manifestation or allowing the Fruit of the Spirit to operate through us that we may reach the unloveable and unconvinced that there is even a God that is real??

    With all that in mind ask yourself:

    when was the last time you had an unchurched person in your home or went to lunch with them?

    What is the name of the unconvinced person far from God that you prayed for today??

    When was the last time you had a broken heart for the lost and actually shed tears for them??

    How many people have you personally directly lead to Christ in 2008??

    Dealing with the truly unconvinced is dirty and messy. If you are not ready to deal with messy lives then are we really experiencing "SPIRIT EMPOWERED LIVING"??

    I do believe with our Bishop we need to be spirit led, with Holy Spirit empowered leaders along with Holy Spirit miracles with the evidence of speaking in tongues.

    I feel we have to change our teaching to the next generation. That is that we have taught them to seek speaking in tongues rather than living in the Fruit of the Spirit. We teach them that if they experience manifestation they are filled but nothing is ever mentioned about the fruit. While speaking in tongues is the evidence, Holy Spirit Living must be based upon a foundation of the Fruit of the Spirit. I believe this generation is turned off by over emotionalism. They want to see honesty and truth that creates a hunger for the Holy Spirit.

    I do however believe also that we need to teach them to QUIT SEEKING THE MANIFESTATION and begin OPERATING IN THE FRUIT of the Holy Spirit. I truly believe when we are FILLED with the spirit we will see the Fruit and we will be Spirit Empowered Leaders that will TEACH our next generation to seek to live in the Fruit of the Spirit and quit seeking the manifestation only. When the fruit is evident the manifestation will come.

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  3. I truly wish the NPN could come together and spend one full session doing nothing but discussing this subject for it is indeed one that I believe divides our fellowship to a degree.

    I personally have faced this over that last few years since coming to Banning to pastor. I must admit I have rebelled against my previous PCG experiences. I remember one day about 6 months after I took my church. I looked over my small but growing church and asked God one day "are you even moving in this place"? I had asked the question becasue we did not have all the outward stuff i was used to in the churches I was exposed to in the PCG. The response I got came in the form of a question. God said "are you seeing the lost saved and the broken restored to helth etc? My response was "yes" & His response was "then I am here". Why are we so bent on having people speak in tongues when most aren't knowledgeable about the gift they got and therefore misuse it and misunderstand it's purpose. I look at Acts 1:8 and recall the purpose of the power "and you shall be WITNESSES". I concur with Eddie and others when we speak of fruit. Your witness will have little effect if there is no fruit to support the work the SPirit is supposedly doing through you. Why is it that some of the most effective churches at reaching the lost and reproducing Christ followers are non-Pentecostal churches? Could it be that we have fallen in love with how the Spirit makes us feel that we have missed the reason He was sent! Jesus Himself said speaking of the Holy Spirit...

    1)He will lead and guide you into all truth
    2) He will being back to your rememberence all that I have taught you
    3) He will testify of me

    Unless I am missing it we can say we are "SPirit Filled" all day long but if we aren't leading people to the truth of Jesus Christ then we are nothing more than what Tommy Barnett calls a socail club! Just my thoughts.

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  4. I agree with you, Todd that this subject needs extended dialogue, especailly if we are talking about maximum evangelistic harvest. I love hearing the passion and transparency coming out of the comments and believe it is worthy of our time.

    From my chair it appears that even in Pentecostalism there are varying degrees of opinion as to what it really means to be Spirit-filled. All of us have stories of the excesses we have experienced over the years and these excesses have fueled ridicule among some who argue that Pentecostalism is nothing but unbridled emotionalism with no theological substance. We obviously believe this is not the case or we would not be part of this movement. It has been said that fruit is more important than manifestation while others would say that we have to have demonstration (ie - signs and wonders manifesting) to validate the fact that we are Spirit-filled.

    It's interesting that the word "demonstration" is only used one time in the NT (1 Cor 2:4). In context Paul was writing to a church that had an intense political spirit and loved to name drop when it came to their favorite Apostle. I see part of his point being "Hey, it's not me or my words that did it - God did it through me."

    One of my language tools says of this word demonstrate that it is "a proof, a "showing" forth or display, by the operation of the Spirit of God in him, as affecting the hearts and lives of his hearers, in contrast to the attempted methods of proof by rhetorical arts and philosophic arguments."

    We assume that the demonstration was a manifestation of signs and wonders, and it probably was, but could it have been the fruit of his character just as much as the power demonstration? Also, I find it fascinating that Paul moved in demonstration with the Corinthians and in total contrast, used philosophical reason to reach the Athens crowd in Acts 17.

    I submit to this discussion that Paul being filled with the Spirit enabled him to discern the culture and spiritual atmosphere of those he was trying to reach. In this day we must be so full of the Spirit that we have this same divine ability. We can demonstrate (in power and character) when the situation calls for it, and be able to explain, explain, explain when necessary. Some would call it knowing your audience and having enough of the Spirit within to know what to do. Talk about maximum evagelistic harvest! Our problem is, we may not be at a point where we can do either. God help us get to this point. Forgive my wordiness.

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  5. Bishop Scott,

    Thank you for your position!

    1. I think we need to define what "fruit" is. I have witnessed much "pentecostalism" growing up in PCG that fruit was measured by the manifiestatioons in the altar. The tongues in service, people "slain in the spirit". But many of those same people were not walking in freedom or the fruit of the spirit in their everyday lives. I think fruit is "making disciples" we were not called to "get people saved" but to make disciples. I think fruit is "are we; as individual churches; impacting our communities for Christ. The 2 questions that have shaped what I have been doing in Raymond are: If my church closed it's doors today; 1. Would the community even know it. 2. If they knew it; would they care?
    My first honest answer of those questions was not good. It shook me. Our community could not do well now w/o New Life here. That is fruit.
    2. I don't know as much as I would like to here. I know that the next generation is looking for authentic relationships. I also know that many have turned to mainline type; liturgical church services (not sure the "why" on this). Spiritual Father's is my heart's cry for this!
    3. We need to make a place for them. We need to include them. we need to teach them. Not in just a classroom setting, but in everyday life situations.
    4. We would be modeling a wholistic approach to ministry. Meaning so much more than just church services. We would be setting up ministry schools across the nation for the next generation. We would be partnering with church planting assessment centers & sending out teams that may not necessarily be from just one district.
    5. We teach, model & influence them. We must see the next generation now & invest, invest, invest!

    Thanks for the opportunity to share


    Dwayne

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  6. 1. My concern in addressing the challenge of raising up a future generation of Holy Ghost believers led us to the following approach and it is indeed bearing fruit.

    a. LIFE LINE BUILDING; Creation of a very strong Children’s church which teaches the REQUIRED FORMAT. (in part) Memorize Books of the Bible and their authors, memorize the all of the prophets names and who are the minor and major prophets, Ten commandments, Roman road, history of the 400 silent years ( Old to the New testaments) all of our doctrinal points.

    This life line leaves this group at age 12 Who are placed into a transition program from Kids church to Teen life.

    They will enter the youth group for worship and then separate into a program designed for 12 year olds. This gives them a line of adjustment.

    b. Teen level we embrace programs that encourage their talents which leads to involvement in the church.
    c. College age group coming from the teens. In depth study on our faith.

    This program has led us from a 40 attendance Sun. School to an average of 150 …Kids church from 10 to an average of 75…teens from 4 to and Av. Of 54…no adult classes until we now have 4.

    Better then 50% of our youth have the Baptism as a result of this Life Line program.

    On questions 2,3,5. I approached my 12 yr. olds, teens, and college level group in one setting to get feed back.

    On #2.

    a. The common concept is that it is a denomination not an experience.
    b. many denominations do not preach it at all or twist it to fit what they want, but it has no real purpose.
    c. Many just focus on one gift (tongues) but give no logic.
    d. It seems that the baptism is only to be accepted at a youth camp but nowhere else.

    #3

    a. Teach more about it in a applicable way for daily life.
    b. They speak of it but seem to do nothing with it. Except in church.
    c. Make it sound like it is only for certain people who have reached a high level of spiritual life.

    Page 2

    #5

    a. Teach us how to apply it to our lives
    b. How to talk about it on a personal basis.


    Since the large percent of my 12 years old have received the Baptism I found it interesting that they were very much involved in this exchange.

    I attribute this surge of Baptism at this level to be the result of the required studies at the lower level and is now feeding into our youth program which in turn is being reflected in our main body.

    Don’t know if this is what you wanted but here it is.

    I find it exciting and refreshing that you would take a strong stand on our Pentecostal foundation.

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