Today, Sunday, September 27, 2015, I return to my roots for a day. My home church, the church I grew up in, a “sort of” Pentecostal church (that fits nobody’s stereotype of that religious type) invited me to preach and lead the singing.
Many people have asked me about my idea of an “ideal New Testament church.” I don’t know very much about my home church as it is now. I know the pastor and he reads my blog faithfully; we grew up in the church together. From what I hear from him and others it is still carrying on the way it did when we were kids and youth growing up in it.
This church was (and I trust still is): a tight knit community of Spirit-filled believers open to outsiders–welcoming everyone but making sure they heard the gospel when they came. As a kid and youth growing up in the church I never felt any reluctance to “go to church.” The moment you walked in the door for any service–Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, “special services” you felt the Holy Spirit’s presence.
There was never any rolling in the aisles or swinging from the chandeliers or any other craziness Hollywood likes to depict (and that some television evangelists reinforce as stereotypes).
What was so very special was that people really cared for each other; prayed for each other; held each other accountable in loving and restorative ways; forgave each other and depended entirely on the Holy Spirit to do marvelous and wonderful things in people’s lives without any manipulation on leaders’ parts.
There were none of the usual divides; the elderly folks loved the youth and vice versa.
God was very busy among us and everyone, including first time visitors, noticed that and gave God all the glory for transformed lives.
The pastor often said “Don’t believe me because I say it; check it out for yourself.” And he meant biblically, first and foremost, and experientially second.
The church included both biblically-based preaching and sound doctrinal teaching. Praying for the sick was the norm–without any fanfare of hype. There was very little in the way of manufactured “programs” intended to whip up involvement and participation. There was virtually no talk about giving money. The philosophy was that people would give if they saw God at work there. And they did and did.
The church was famous in the city for being “that church” where God was moving among people in amazing ways. The church sent out scores of missionaries and evangelists and pastors but never intended to become a maga-church. There was no emphasis on joining the church; membership was quite small. People who came to be filled with the Spirit were encouraged, if they wished, to go back to their own churches (assuming they had one) and light the fire of the Holy Spirit there.
The church’s focus was on Jesus and his cross and living presence forgiving and transforming lives. People got saved or filled with the Spirit at every service–without any long, drawn-out, begging, pleading “altar calls” Racists were liberated of their racism; the chronically ill were healed or given strength to endure with peace and hope; the spiritually complacent and lethargic were spiritually energized. The poor were fed.
The kingdom of God was real, alive, at work, being lived out.
Perfection? Utopia? Of course not. Like every group of human beings, finite and fallen as we all are, there were problems. But they were miniscule compared with the transforming power present.
Naturally, growing up in that church has made it problematic for me (and my wife who also grew up in the church) to find another church that satisfies our hunger for our “home church’s” ethos.
So what made that church…that way? There was no formula at work or followed. The pastor and the people simply invited the Holy Spirit to do what he/she does and made room for that among them. They (the key lay leaders and the pastors) were absolutely serious about God being busy among us. That was the most important thing in our lives. Church was no “adjunct” to the “main parts” of our lives; it was central.
You asked. There it is.
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