Word and Spirit

It’s a while since my last blog, partly because I have been very busy with other things, and partly because I think the nature of the blog will shift slightly. When I started I had the aim of encouraging people on two levels. One level was simply to help to keep people connected to God throughout the time of lockdown and church closure. That need is no longer necessary. The other aim was to help people to see the possibilities of doing church a different way, but not just for the sake of it, or as an attempt to ‘try something new’. My motivation was, and still is, the strongly held conviction that the Church needs to change drastically if it is to fulfil the task that God has for it. For a long time now, Church has been failing to make much of an impact on the nation. Yes there are a number of local exceptions, but overall we are not cutting the mustard. So from now on I shall probably write some slightly longer and more thoughtful pieces, but not every week.

So that’s the introduction over. Let’s get to it!

I think it’s true to say that large parts of the institutional church have probably had their day, or at the very least need a radical change. Even many of the ‘new churches’ are now over thirty years old and are no longer ‘new’. Whilst they may be lively and may be still attracting some people and even seeing new people saved, their impact is limited and they too have become a part of the institutional church in the nation. Compared to the early church that managed to turn the world upside down, the church today is no longer a force to be reckoned with.

By that I don’t mean a political force, a pressure group force or an interest group force. I mean an organism that is radically changing lives, areas and cultures by the power of the gospel. An organism, that wherever you go and wherever you encounter it, is recognisably the same because Jesus is the Head and the very centre of everything it does – and the proof of that particular pudding is that His supernatural power is evident among a people who are rooted in His Word, the Scripture.

And that brings me to a powerful and partly fulfilled prophetic word for the U.K. given by an amazingly godly man Smith Wigglesworth. He gave this word shortly before he died in 1947 and this is what he foresaw:

During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it, and will be characterised by the restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches. In the duration of each of these moves, the people who are involved will say, ‘This is a great revival.’ But the Lord says, ‘No, neither is this the great revival but both are steps towards it.’

When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidence in the churches of something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit.

When the word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nations, and indeed, the world have ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and Welsh revivals of former years.The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the United Kingdom to mainland Europe, and from there, will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.

Exciting stuff! As you read it, you can see that the first two parts have already been fulfilled. We have seen the restoration of the baptism and the gifts of the Spirit, and we have seen people leaving the historic churches and planting new churches. That phase is largely over,

I believe that we are now in the phase prophesied in the third paragraph. Note how it starts: “when the new church phase is on the wane….”. I believe that is exactly where we are now. For many of the new churches, the whole covid debacle has revealed that many of the new churches have replicated one characteristic of the historic churches they thought they had replaced. Quite a number of their congregation attended because it was a habit, it was nice or it was convenient. Post lockdown, those people have discovered other things which are nice, convenient or have become new habits. The new churches are not as permanent as they thought they were – and I speak as one who has spent most of his christian life in the new churches.

Many churches are just so pleased to be “allowed” to meet again that they have put all their efforts into trying to restore what they had before. Few, it seems, have stopped to ask God what He is up to, what He is planning, what He is doing, what He is saying. I do believe that in the whole covid mess that we had to live through, God wanted to take advantage of the upending of everything to get our attention and to get us to ask Him some important questions. Questions like…….

• What is the church for?
• What is church meant to look like?
• How do we reach the lost in todays culture?
• What are we doing as a church that needs to stop now?
• What do we need to start doing now?
• How and where are we supposed to meet?
• Why are we not turning the world upside down?
• Is it time to stop our ‘attractional’ way of attempting evangelism – ie trying to invite people to church to sit and hear the gospel?
• Are there better ways for the church to demonstrate the gospel outside our building (I mean all the believers, not paid staff, evangelists, youth workers etc)?
• Should we even have a building?
• Are we prepared to take risks?
• Do we need to move away from controlling and steering people and be releasing and equipping them instead?
• What should we do when we meet – do we give people 52 sermons a year or do we use some of the time for practical hands on training of people in Holy Spirit gifts, and more, to function in the world outside?

I could add more, but the point is that these are questions to be asking God (as opposed to asking for opinions in the leadership team). Once we start this process I am quite sure that Holy Spirit has more questions to ask, and more revelation to give.

The bottom line I believe, is that we are seeing the start of the waning of the new churches. The next bit of the prophetic word points to something taking place that has not happened before – a coming together of those with an emphasis on the word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit. Those people who lay a strong emphasis on the Word of God, the Bible but neglect the power of Holy Spirit will begin to come together with those who lay a strong emphasis on the power of Holy Spirit but are very light with their understanding of the Word. This is what is essential before the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nations, and indeed, the world have ever seen.

It is important to read this carefully to understand it properly. It is prophesying that two wings of the church that have settled in opposite and unscriptural positions will abandon their imbalance and come together into the place that God intends; a place where Word and Spirit function hand in hand. Neither group is completely wrong; neither group is completely right.

At the moment, at one extreme, we have people who are very hot on the Word, and view anything to do with the gifts of the Spirit as decidedly dodgy. The argument runs that all that stuff died out with the first apostles. At the other extreme we have believers who have a poor understanding of the Bible, but are unconcerned because they just want to be “in the flow” or “in the spirit” where feelings and manifestations are what really counts.

David Pawson once said, “All Word, and we dry up; All Spirit and we blow up”. It’s not a case of ‘either/or’, it’s a case of ‘both/and’. Here’s the deal. We all need to check carefully where we are on the spectrum. We need to be fully immersed in the Word and fully immersed in the Spirit at the same time.

As I said, I have spent most of my christian life in the ‘new’ churches and I have seen many of the failings of the charismatic end of the church. At our end of the spectrum, the biggest failing has been often the unwillingness to follow the instruction of the New Testament – to test everything, to test the spirits and test the prophecies, to measure everything against the scriptures, to not let ourselves be carried away by strange teachings. On this last point, it is often helpful to ask: Is it in the scripture? Is it firmly rooted in the New Covenant? Is it part of First Church practice as seen in Acts? The other weakness we have had is to make the things of the Spirit purely for ‘in house’.

Holy Spirit never meant to be confined to move only in our churches. Sometimes it’s almost as if we had an internal switch to put Him on mute as soon as we leave the building. The point when we leave the building is the very point where we should be turning our sensitivity to Him up to Max., and join that super-sensitivity and openness to Him with a thorough grounding in the Word. Treat the Bible not as a text book but as a User Manual.

So, here’s the thing. Throughout the Bible, the Word and the Spirit have operated together. At creation, the word was spoken and Holy Spirit moved. Many many times we see the same pattern in the Old Testament. The birth of Jesus was accomplished by the marrying together of the prophetic words spoken by the prophets and the Word delivered by the Angel, with the power of the Holy Spirit coming on Mary. Jesus’ Ministry was a perfectly balanced union of the Word of God and the Power of Holy Spirit. No Holy Spirit – no miracles. No Word (Scripture) – meaningless miracles. It’s the same working together of the two throughout Acts and the birth of the Church. Word and Spirit hand in hand. It needs to be the same today. And the main place for all of this is not in the church building. It is literally everywhere else.

The Word, the scriptures, are to be our User Manual for how to walk in the Spirit and bring the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nations, and indeed, the world have ever seen. The Presence, power and gifts of Holy Spirit are there for the same thing. It’s time to leave behind any self indulgence, whether its academic study of the scriptures for the sake of study, or meeting centred bless ups that lead nowhere. Remember the words of Jesus to the Pharisees – “you do not know the scriptures or the power of God” We need both. When we have both, God moves. That’s good enough for me!