{"id":660,"date":"2013-10-10T13:01:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T13:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=660"},"modified":"2014-08-13T22:11:40","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T22:11:40","slug":"looking-at-pentecostalism-afresh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/looking-at-pentecostalism-afresh\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Pentecostalism Afresh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I thoroughly enjoyed reading Donald Miller\u2019s <em>Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement<\/em>. To be perfectly honest, my understanding of Pentecostalism is informed by experiences from my childhood that are, shall we say, less then ideal. When I was a senior in high school, I went on a mission trip to Ghana with a very prominent Pentecostal group and it was the worst short\u2013term mission trip ever (there\u2019s actually a website dedicated to people telling their story and \u2018overcoming\u2019 their experiences with them). It was so bad, that I\u2019m embarrassed to give words to the actual experiences. Suffice it to say, all we did was \u201cpreach\u201d to Ghanaians about their souls and that they should accept Christianity, well our version of it anyway. I cringe when I think about it, and pray that I didn\u2019t actually push anyone away from the Gospel of Christ. (Disclaimer, I am in no way saying that other denominations had or have cross-cultural ministry figured out, this experience just happened to be with a Pentecostal group).<\/p>\n<p>Reading this book and spending time with some of my Pentecostal friends in my George Fox cohort has helped cover over the scars from that experience. Pentecostalism as I had experienced it, does not represent all of Pentecostalism today (and probably didn\u2019t then either). \u00a0\u00a0It warms my heart to read the stories in this book of Pentecostals embracing a full understanding of the Gospel. \u00a0One that seeks to minister to the \u2018least of these\u2019 and expresses the Gospel in both word and deed. As I\u2019ve thought about the Pentecostal movement, there are at least two lessons that I as a less emotionally expressive Baptist need to learn afresh.<\/p>\n<p>As I\u2019ve thought about ministering to the homeless, addict, and rejected, I think Pentecostals have a lot to teach the rest of us. Those forms of brokenness can often be healed better by an expression of the Gospel that really focuses on the heart and responding in joy and exuberance to the Gospel.\u00a0 When one has been through such trying times one is more exuberant and expressive when redemption comes. When there\u2019s the realization that they aren\u2019t alone and that the future can be different, pure unadulterated joy and a desire to express that joy naturally flows out. In my Baptist church, it\u2019s safe to say that a \u2018heart\u2019 expression of worship isn\u2019t the primary one. In fact, you\u2019d rarely ever find a Pentecostal expression of \u2018heart\u2019 worship at our church. We\u2019re much more inclined to \u2018head\u2019 or \u2018mind\u2019 worship and singing theology and allowing for moments of stillness and reflection. To break from our chaotic lives and allow God to nurture our souls.\u00a0 We\u2019d rather ponder mystery and depth than sing choruses over and over that express our feelings. The main question I have is, how can our church allow for moments of exuberance that allow someone whose natural response to the Gospel is utter joy to express that emotion? Would we be comfortable with that?<\/p>\n<p>I think Pentecostals can be much more sensitive to the Holy Spirit. They\u2019re not afraid to talk about the Spirit or seek the Spirits direction. They\u2019re not afraid the Spirit might do something \u2018out of the ordinary\u2019 like physically heal someone or give someone a prophetic word or vision. Unfortunately, that isn\u2019t the case for many Baptist. We say that the Trinity is a core foundational belief,\u00a0but we act as if the Holy Spirit is the least of the three. We love talking\/praying about\/to God and Jesus, but we just don\u2019t know what to do with the Spirit. It\u2019s as if we don\u2019t really believe the Spirit exists, or what it does, or we\u2019re afraid that the Spirit will do something that makes us really uncomfortable. \u00a0How can we reclaim who the Holy Spirit is and be more sensitive to the Spirit\u2019s working?<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s your experience of Pentecostalism and what can we learn from them?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thoroughly enjoyed reading Donald Miller\u2019s Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement. To be perfectly honest, my understanding of Pentecostalism is informed by experiences from my childhood that are, shall we say, less then ideal. When I was a senior in high school, I went on a mission trip to Ghana with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,255],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-miller","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}