Last week I had the opportunity to join with over 3,000 church planters down in Orlando, Florida for the annual Exponential Conference. It was a good time of networking and connecting with people from all over the country, hearing their stories of triumph and defeat, excitements and challenges. Coming together like this as a community who are on a similar path is extremely valuable to anyone in the preparation stage or early stages of planting a church.
During the conference, it seemed that at every turn, with every speaker and each of the breakout sessions the “topic” of the Holy Spirit was mentioned, sometimes in great detail. (It was nice to hear the Holy Spirit show up in conversations and presentations not being used as a weapon to win an argument or make a point.) It seems as if the Church is having an easier time talking about the mystical nature of the Holy Spirit even if we don’t necessarily know what to do with Him/Her. Yet, at each turn it seemed as if there was a “silo affect” taking place in our approach to the Holy Spirit. It seems that we, as the Church have become fairly comfortable with two separate trains of thought, or silos, that we use to understand the Holy Spirit and yet we never allow these two thoughts to merge into a more holistic reality of who He/She is and how He/She works.
One of the stated categorizations that is perhaps more well known because of how outspoken its proponents are is that Holy Spirit works and it’s our job to join in where the Holy Spirit is working. There’s nothing wrong with this statement but the application of this statement is less than desirable. In this silo, the Christian’s responsibility is to simply wander around aimlessly, with no strategy, no plan, no ideation and simply hope to stumble upon where the Spirit was moving. (This idea was blatantly visible in a couple of breakouts that I attended.) Although there can be some tremendously good experiences and benefits that can grow from this mode of understanding–faithfulness, follower-ship, a submissive spirit–it removes responsibility of the mind from the follower. The Christian, therefore becomes a mindless wanderer hoping to stumble onto the movement of God. Secondarily, we find that the Holy Spirit is already working without the activity of humanity and our participation is voluntary at best and unnecessary at worst (especially if you have a high view of the sovereignty of God.)
The second silo that was evident is the exact reverse. This silo gives more credit to humanity than it does to the Holy Spirit. In this stated silo, the mind of man with strategies and planning, a heavy sense of responsibility for success, is in the forefront. This mode of thinking places a tremendous sense of responsibility on the Christian to go out and do your best with the best thinking that you have at your disposal and in the midst of the “task” simply hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will bless it. This is more of a Type A personality approach to the Holy Spirit. Just lead and “hope” the Spirit follows. This approach relegates the Holy Spirit to an after-thought. The dilemma: If what we’re doing is working, then why is the Holy Spirit necessary? The Holy Spirit’s only role then is to catalyze an already existent human idea. Blessing, therefore is seen as catalyzing a good idea–any idea that fails was obviously a bad idea according to the Holy Spirit’s standard no matter how good it may seem on paper or in practice.
As we continue to transition out of modernism as the church, it seems that we’re still maintaining a categorization approach to our theology. We are still more comfortable with an either/or approach, especially when its in regards to the Holy Spirit. (I wonder if this may have more to do with the schism that’s prevalent between the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement and everyone else.) This is grievously unfortunate when understanding the Holy Spirit.
Jim Collins unveiled for the world in his book Good to Great the valuable and important slogan “The Genius of the And” whereby two seemingly contradictory or incompatible ideas or methods somehow find their way together to create an even stronger or more powerful idea than previously possible. The two silos that the Church is working from needs to be blended together under the moniker of “And” so that we can enjoy a more holistic and fuller understanding of not only who the Holy Spirit is, but how the Holy Spirit works.
Since the beginning of the 1900′s with the reemergence of Charismatic Christianity we have worked hard to entrench ourselves into one of these two silos of understanding in regards to the Holy Spirit. We’ve worked hard to nail down the Holy Spirit to one particular form of working or another. (In fact, it seems as if we’ve treated the Holy Spirit more as an object rather than a subject.) What’s truly interesting about this approach is that I don’t think it’s possible to truly nail down the Holy Spirit to one of these silos. I woud argue that the Holy Spirit will do what he/she wants, when/where he/she wants to do it, to whomever or through whomever he/she wants, however he/she wishes!
It’s when we try and silo the Holy Spirit that we miss out on a great deal of possibilities not only in our own lives, but in the life of the Church. I truly wonder what a holistic understanding of the Spirit looks like, how a truly blended ideation of these two silos functions and what else beyond the two understandings we’re missing out on as the Spirit works throughout the Church and beyond…
Related posts:
- believing in the church
- a spiritual awakening.
- so i went to see the “prophet” the other day…
- things i wish Jesus never said: a personal note
- a new national mission statement.
