Lessons from Living Among Charismatics

 I was perusing my blog and I found this unpublished bit. I like it.

1. It's always been this messy
1. If we accept that God still pours out his Spirit on the Church, we have to accept that there are not different eras in the history of this outpouring. People have always "seen through a glass darkly." Prophecies, miracles and such like have always contained some element of imperfection. It's a mistake to revere the Early Church times as something we need to get back to. It's a mistake to revere the writings of the Early Church as 'the perfect Word of God.' What we are saying if we take that view is that some workings of the Spirit are forever lost... And that runs counter to any ideal of the Church growing in power as, speaking intuitively, is God's obvious intent.
2. God has never stopped inspiring his people. 
1. We are the people of the Holy Spirit. God has never stopped speaking or acting through us. Yes, it has come in waves. Yes, we have quenched the Spirit through sin or through lack of faith. But every time we get together, God is present and we experience his speaking to us. We are the people of his inspiration. 
3. No word, action, decision is perfect
1. Everything we do has an aspect of our imperfection. This imperfection was just as present at the beginning as it now. Therefore all of the works of the church, the New Testament, are subject to it. Human character flaws work their way into the way we do any ministry. It's all at once blessed and open to question in the same way as what you see on 'any given Sunday' is blessed and open to question.
4. Leaders do not have divine right status and can be disagreed with.
1. Abuse is still abuse in whatever form. When leaders demand that you come under their 'authority' or never allow themselves to be disagreed with, they are in error. When you read that kind of thing in Paul's writings, you take it with the same grain of salt as you would a present day leader. Just because patriarchal authority was accepted in Early Church times, doesn't mean it needs to be kowtowed to today. Christ declares you to be equal. One Father. One Teacher. Compare Matthew 23 and 1 Corinthians 4:15. Paul is clearly in error here, though understandably. Leadership is not a top down, God ordained thing. It's a functional thing because large groups of humans need some form of delegated management.
5. Our primary relationship with fellow Christians (past, present, future) is familial not positional
1.  Carrying on from Matthew 23, we are all brothers. Therefore in the presence of divinely blessed imperfect ministry, our default is to smile affectionately and recognize each style as unique. For instance, Paul in his letters, loves lists. It's his favourite way of fleshing out a concept. This does not mean that it's always the only way of looking at that concept and it certainly doesn't mean that the lists are exhaustive. It's just the same as certain prophets and healers like to raise their voices 'just so' when they are doing their stuff. It doesn't mean it's normative. It's just them. We stand up for them because they are our brothers and sisters but we don't have be like them or obey them in every particular.
6. The simplistic survives.
1. Nuances will always get lost from one generation to the next. Well reasoned theology and practise will be subordinated to crass formulaic mumbo-jumbo. This is not a good thing. It's a human thing. You can't stop it. People who weren't there won't get it. 
2. There are two obvious solutions, neither of which work
1. renewal, will probably go even farther in wiping out the nuances of the past. Renewal is very desirable but cannot bring back an understanding of what you once had.
2. Over-training to try to transmit nuances will probably just kill the precious thing you are trying to preserve by making it dry as dust.
7. Earnestness isn't always the answer
1.  So, let's try harder. Let's pray longer. Let's worship louder. Let's... It really doesn't always work. It's not inherently futile. Sometimes God just lets us run out of steam. Relax. Try again when it's the right time. Hopefully you'll know.