Different Isn’t Wrong…

I was talking with my friend Mitch this morning and he told me a story that made my head spin. I’ll tell it to you and let’s see if it does the same.

Mitch was on an airplane talking to the guy next to him. It ended up that his travel buddy was a Presbyterian pastor. They got to talking and eventually ended up discussing the movement of the Holy Spirit and what that looked like.

The pastor said this: “To a Presbyterian, the Holy Spirit is moving when everything lines up in order. When one element of the service flows perfectly into the next with no seams, we feel like the Spirit is at work powerfully. If there is perfect order to a service, we feel exceptionally blessed.“

The pastor continued, “Now, contrast that with a different tradition – let’s say Pentecostal. Pentecostals feel like the Spirit moves when schedules are put aside, the pastor or preacher gives a message that lasts two hours, people are clapping and speaking in tongues and laid out on the floor.“

So, my question to you is, which one is right? Is there a “right”? Can you tell one tradition that the Spirit is not moving in their church because, on the surface, it seems to be at odds with another tradition’s definition of the movement of the Spirit? Could it be both?

I think this situation floored me because we Christians spend so much time judging one another that we can not step back for a minute and ask the question, “Is God big enough to move in different ways in different churches and traditions and still be God?” Nothing bothers me more than when I visit a church that cannot accept faith traditions that express themselves differently than their own.

A relationship with God goes so much deeper than our cultural assumptions and traditions. Plainly speaking, that’s what most of our worship expressions are – traditions that have been passed onto us by the people who have gone before us. This isn’t a bad thing, we just need to be aware of it. Perhaps the tradition that makes you feel most expressive in worship before God is the tradition that makes another Christian feel the most inhibited and uncomfortable before that same God. They aren’t any less faithful, they just aren’t like you.

Different is not wrong. Different is just different.

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Contributor: Justin Wise

I am a religious deviant who enjoys coffee, collared shirts, spending time with my wife and son, learning about quantum physics and creatively exploring the riches of the Spirit of Christ. Find more here: JustinWise.me

Makella

Once gain Justin, thank you for eloquently stating something that has been a bit of a frustration of mine for a while now.
I have a few Christian friends at the moment who do not feel like they fit into this particularly predominant ministry on my campus because they feel as though they relate to God and experience the Holy Spirit in different ways then the majority of the people involved in that particular ministry do. It can get uncomfortable for both parties and people end up feeling a bit judged at the end of it. If someone responds to a particular tradition while the 'majority' (or at least what seemed like the majority at the time) does not respond the same way, there is no reason why that person should be made to feel inadequate or wrong in any way, or even worse, that they do not experience God as fully.
I am guilty of being on the judging end of things because I respond so strongly to certain traditions, so I know that I need to get the plank out before I complain; I suppose this is something I have noticed recently so I figured this post rendered a comment of agreement from me.
Thank you for being so open Justin.

Chris

Amen. Amen.

Luke

I agree, the fact that we are talking about this question suggests that we have become WAY too narrow-sighted.

My opinion: Humans, without God, are fully capable of both pulling off a seamless service as well as interrupting the stuffing out of one. We are both a technically precise and emotionally distracted species. Depending on the mix, and the mood... we can do both equally well without intervention form the divine. As such I wouldn't accept either as a worthy measure of the movement of the Spirit of God.

Accounts of the Holy Spirit's presence throughout scripture are wide and varying. Some of them brought peace, some brought fear. The 12 were baptized in fire (whatever that means) in the upper room, and then began to speak in languages other than their own. When the Spirit moved through Peter in Acts when he was talking with Ananias and Sapphira, it killed them. Speaking of Peter, here was a man who couldn't stop long enough to give any thought to what he was about to say, and his ability to stick his foot in his mouth is thoroughly documented. When the spirit was upon him in Acts 4 in front of the Sanhedrin, he gave one of the most profound monologues in Acts. To deviate form the NT, the Spirit of God was with the Israelites in battle as long as Moses's hands were in the air... something Lutherans would be appalled to do in church. The philistines knew the spirit was with Sampson when the building started collapsing and they all died.

some might question the last few citing that the HS wasn't around until the New Covenant. I would agree on a humanity wide scale, but King David repeatedly petitions God not to take "your spirit" away from me. Also, you can't get two verses into Genesis without reading that the "spirit of God was hovering over the waters"

In the end, I believe the HS is moving when truth is revealed and humans are broken against it. If that means a seamless service does it, I think God likely moved in the hearts of people. If it is through chaos, so be it. Jesus introduced the Holy Spirit as "the Spirit of Truth"... which is interesting because Jesus himself said he came to "testify the truth".

Pride is the essence of all sin, Truth hammers a human soul until the pride falls out, like a hammer to a piggybank. To the degree that human action, through the routine or through the spontaneous, accomplishes this breaking, I believe that is the degree that the Holy Spirit was working. This is true in both the actors and the soul being acted upon. many times they are the same person.

For what its worth.

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