Showing posts with label The failure of seminaries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The failure of seminaries. Show all posts
Saturday, 23 November 2019
Jesus The Word, The Bread,The Manna John 6
This is a pretty leftbrain rendering of some rightbrain insight from John Curtis and some Facebook stuff Id written,
It's's four years old and Id forgotten the last sentence completely which I still think is hilarious and true!!!!
I write daily on Facebook so there's tons of material over the past two years that has only been available to my friend's list, and I'm not adding to my friend list that much because the reality is the friend list is already pretty unmanageable, let alone if I used up all my Facebook allowance.
So this leaves the conundrum , do I open a public page for anybody to view? Or do I try to repost here or create a fresh platform? Really like John Edwards it's probably best to be out there with real people. The real burden I have to share, like Jesus , almost requires some background. Jesus came to a nation that had 2000 years background. But with the Canaanite woman, she had such extraordinary faith she kind of broke all the rules like Rahab , Ruth and Abigail in the Old Testament.
I genuinely am open to sharing with anybody, but what happens is unless people are really hungry for more than their immediate needs being met they havent got a clue what I am on about. The converse truth is, according to Maslow's heirarchy of needs, if you havent got a roof over your head nor food in your belly, what use is spiritual stuff when you are freezing and about to die from malnutrition?
Friday, 12 April 2013
Pollination and why Seminaries "really don't get it".
Pollination
In spite of a common perception that pollen grains are gametes, like the sperm cells of animals, this is incorrect; pollination is a phase in the alternation of generations: each pollen grain is a male haploid plant, a gametophyte, adapted to being transported to the female gametophyte, where it can achieve fertilization by producing the male gamete (or gametes, in the process of double fertilization).
As such the Angiosperm successful pollen grain (gametophyte) containing the male gametes (sperm) gets transported to the stigma, where it germinates and its pollen tube grows down the style to the ovary. Its two gametes travel down the tube to where the gametophyte(s) containing the female gametes are held within the carpel. One nucleus fuses with the polar bodies to produce the endosperm tissues, and the other with the ovum to produce the embryo[1][2] Hence the term: "double fertilization".............Mechanics
Pollination can be accomplished by cross-pollination or by self-pollination :- Cross-pollination, also called allogamy, occurs when pollen is delivered to a flower from a different plant. Plants adapted to outcross or cross-pollinate often have taller stamens than carpels or use other mechanisms to better ensure the spread of pollen to other plants' flowers.
- Self-pollination occurs when pollen from one flower pollinates the same flower or other flowers of the same individual.[3] It is thought to have evolved under conditions when pollinators were not reliable vectors for pollen transport, and is most often seen in short-lived annual species and plants that colonize new locations...........
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God's Divine Seed
What no seminary
No denomination
Neither any local church close to me in the Portsmouth area
seems to have grasped is the two or threefold truth concerning God's Word.
1.Apparent Randomness humanly speaking
John 1 : 11-14 Youngs Literal Translation
11 to his own (things) he came, and his own people did not receive him;
12 but as many as did receive him to them he gave authority to become sons of God -- to those believing in his name,
13 who -- not of blood nor of a will of flesh, nor of a will of man but -- of God were begotten.
14 And
the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us, and we beheld his
glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father, full of grace and
truth.
It was pretty amazing in Abraham's family to get three consecutive generations who all pushed ahead in God, and four if you count Abraham's dad. Abraham,Isaac and Jacob become our archetype as followers of God everywhere, representing salvation faith , an outpouring of the Spirit and "exploring wells of salvation", and finally the last great search for the Face of the One who is from the Beginning, and matters concerning Union.
Generally though, notwithstanding the promise to Abraham and his generations to bless the earth, those who indeed responded to the call of God in a lineage that led to the Messiah, were but the rarest examples of lovers of God in a whole sea of offspring.
So the Word comes NOT by flesh lineage
Not by surface desire
Not even by moral whim or high religious principle
But by direct encounter in the mystery of two....God and Man....becoming One by a Divine Begetting.
You can't really organise for this stuff.
Jesus said...see the fields white for harvest....??? Well DON'T you dare rush in and mess it all up....He said "You pray the Father that HE send out workers.
2. The Seed... er.....GROWS of itself
Divine seed is what it says on the tin....Divine.
You understand tis does NOT mean you behave like Calvinists and fold your arms in your little wooden pews, thinking that since it has to be all God, we don't actually do anything. No...that too is baloney. WE WORK with all our might...but hopefully in the increasing revelation that it is God Himself BY US. In Union.
This is consciousness. You can't fake consciousness. You are either in HIS REST....or you think you are doing a work for God.
But the point completely lost in our Portsmouth area by all the denominational churches and by all the charismatic ones too, is that Christ grows FULLY in a believer. Not halfway, according to local churches belief....no.....FULLY....which is the whole point of this blog. The three stages of growth that we see spelled out in 1 John 2. Children. Matters of forgiveness by grace.Young men. Issues to do with the battle of faith around our new identity as New Creations, and roughly aligning with Romans Chapters 6 and 7.
Then, Fathers. The life begetting principles of intercession and pouring your life out for others to see them also receive Seed and grow too.
3. Pollination
The entire world of natural living plants and trees and grasses relies on a seemingly random cross fertilisation process continually.And if we could examine all basic particles we would doubtless see the same kind of dance going on.
In the same way the Word is transmitted. In the same way believers grow into maturity. If you look at the Bible characters. Outwardly not one life was the same. Inwardly however their lives were going through the same patterns of spiritual development that we do. Grace people, as I call them...not to disparage grace...but imagine a group of people who get stuck in a groove in the Romans teachings of Chapters 3 to 5, never maturing beyond this point, and you start to get what I mean. These ones never really get beyond picking holes in God's Old Testament Laws....so they are never able to stand back enough and begin to see exactly the same life arcs (allbeit in an Old Covenant context) that we go through in our growth with Jesus. Why should this be? Well God always was the I AM. And He still is. And it was in a living relationship with Him that they lived moved and had their being....allbeit again...in an Old Covenant context.Local church leaders denominational,nondenominational, charismatic or just evangelical....just haven't caught what God is doing.They run set meetings. Set housegroups. With set teachings. And set programmes.
Well apart from the specific occasion brought about by the birth of a "particular God people" in history requiring a Law framework for the whole of national life.....and perhaps something of a forensic detailed study in Romans of how salvation exactly unfolds....
actually the 60 or so other books are really annoying to people still trying to have a jolly good stab at living from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They are far too random. Nonsequenced. Haphazard. So are the descriptions of the three years lived by the disciples with Jesus in all the four gospels. It's only since the Spirit has been outpoured in the last hundred years than anybody anywhere has been able to cotton onto the way John wrote his gospel. The thicko professors of the last two hundred years just give up in desperation and describe it as a non synoptic gospel, out on its own.
The key ofcourse is that John's gospel is spiritually topographical in the same way that the London Underground maps may not show you distances and precise geographic descriptiveness, but they show you the exact connective framework by which everything hangs together. And the gospel of John is really a connective thread that runs along the main experiences that we encounter spiritually as we press on through to seeing our Union with God.This kind of dovetails consciously with the Jewish Feasts and their understanding of Tabernacle and Temple.
But all our local leaders scream inwardly, but put on a show outwardly, because they cannot be seen to argue with scripture. But oh, how they wish the gospels were a system based teaching they could roll out among their flocks. Complete with laptop Powerpoint demonstrations in housemeetings on people's walls.
But you see it's all SEED.Seed is Divine Life.
It is transmitted almost randomly by pollination.
You have to actually live with these wretches that are your minions who you are extracting a tithe from, so you feel under pressure to perform with a sytematized teaching each week, in case they stop funding your existence.
Jesus, instead, loved those who were His own. he lived alongside them for 3 and a half years. He rubbed pollen on them as and when it was relevant, as His own life came forth....
in praise of them
in teaching spiritual principle
in having a good laugh at Pharisaical behaviour
in letting them have it when they were in a totally inappropriate spirit.....whatever
He was cross-pollinating them.....LITERALLY.
Take up your cross and follow Me.
There's no real system. Just this. Rubbing your Divine Life against other's lives and watching how more and more of it sticks.
This is the difference between third level ministries and all the previous ages of ministries. We are not teaching shoulds and oughts and "out there" Bible stories of an "out there God".
Hebrews 7:16 describes Jesus ministry in this way:
one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.
and we too now
but as many as did receive him to them he gave authority to become sons of God -- to those believing in his name,
13 who -- not of blood nor of a will of flesh, nor of a will of man but -- of God were begotten.
We have to know we are ministering from SEED, begotten of God.
Not blood ancestry
Not just because we want to minister because it's a nice wayto live and we are funded with other people's tithes
not because we are very very moral and consider it's our duty to impose this effort on others that they can be as extremely good as us!!!!
NO....By DIVINE SEED OF the EMPOWERING GRACE OF JESUS...that we have been pollinated by, that is now fullgrown and busting out of us and is waiting to brush against some more stamens.
On Monday, I had the phrase "rooted and grounded" in Him going round and round. Then I got home and remembered Daniel's last post had been called "I am rooted in Paul's gospel".
We are rooted first. And you cannot see roots. Then after much buffeting those roots become very very firm and people recognise we are grounded. They may never admit to what, they may never understand what grounds us.....but they can see something strange is going on,because everyone else is being blown apart, but they can see it's not for lack of wind. They say of us, like Jesus:
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
But this is just the outer stuff. In reality we are actually finding those inner wellsprings through it all. What "seems" so negative, is actually what drives us to the world beyond appearances, which we find is so much more stable and to be relied on.
Saturday, 25 June 2011
The church is for man, not man for the church
People are not there in church to listen to endless sermons about the same thing.
People are not there to sustain a pastor with their tithe so he is happy.
People are not there to be endlessly patronised, so they feel good about themselves humanly, so fully bolstered they can go back into the week set up for another fall, to be able to crawl to church the next weekend to have their back patted again. (Well actually....clearly people do go for that reason, or what else would sustain a man financially providing the same repeated behaviour for decades on end? Clearly , in order for the synergy to work, that IS what people want. But you'll find no authentic basis for it.)
In Africa the pastor's role is not to fill the role previously occupied by the village elder, a semi-god like person who was there to sort out all your major problems, so you never had to fully grow up yourself, and face the world as a man is supposed to.
Jesus never said I will build my church on Pastor Kwami Smith, so when he pulls the strings, you all move your limbs.
He never said through Paul, "and the Body, fitly joined together,by everything Pastor Kwami Smith supplies on the overhead, while passing round the offering plate for his super duper house with 5 bathrooms."
No, honestly, Jesus, nor Paul , never said or wrote that. I know that has come as a shock to Africans.
Jesus never said I will build my church on my apostle and prophet. And the apostle shall pull all the strings, and all pastors shall do what he says. Yup. He never said that. That's for England.Apostles is always plural Terry Virgo.
Also for England, Jesus never said I will build my church to straddle all the geographical locations of England, subdivided neatly between bishops, who pull all the strings of the little vicars in all the parishes.
Are you sure Chris?
Well, maybe I've just got the wrong Bible, but I've checked about 12 on the internet, and I haven't found it yet.
I've also checked the letters, and they all seem to start and finish, and have middle bits with the word grace in.And, from the context, it didn't seem to be a thanksgiving prayer at meal times. It seemed to be about a spiritual power imparted by true teachers and ministers, that when they passed through a place, they only seemed to teach for a few hours, and then.....how weird is this? the power of the grace force coming out of their insides seemed to empower the believers so much, the ministries just left. And when they returned they never preached the same message twice. How extraordinary is that?
I know the early church had a lot to learn to be as clever and dead as we are...but that's just how it is.
Now here's another weird thing. Let's take a walk through Ephesians.
Ephesians chapters one and two seemed to be the starting point. All English pastors regard this as a lesson for the more spiritual. But Ephesians 1 , 2 and 3seems to be what people learned first, and because of this strange power these early ministries had called grace, that's all they really needed to know to empower them to live. And chapters 4 and 5 were all about working out this grace power with a few practical instructions, not so much laws, in the following areas of Church, (or living within a LIVE Body ), earthly families and work environments. The Body living was interesting because this didn't just seem to be between 10 and 12 on Sundays. Clearly the early church got that wrong, as they were showed the error of their ways when they crystallised into the Catholic church by about 400. And people were able to show Christians the right and proper way not to be so keen.
Then, now this is absolutely freaky: having worked out this strange grace power message...well actually more than a message, more a force really, which made church, family and work environments work....in other words they became overcomers right where they were......they seemed to think they now had enough authority to extend their territories and their prayer focus in spiritual warfare. Now , not one of them refers to spiritual warfare conferences, or special seminary studies, or exams, or special forms of clothing....but it's a funny thing, by the end of the first century, what began as a bunch of followers of the Way, had congregations of believers in certainly every major city and most towns in the lands bounding the Northern side of the Mediterranean. Most probably fluke.
Surely modernday pastors could teach these people a thing or two about living from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the 7 steps of this and the 10 steps of that? I mean how would believers know how to live? You cannot really rely on an unseen force of grace acting in the life of a believer? This is really no way to run a mega denomination which will only expect a few people to convert every decade or so, and begin teaching others how they can live from rules in the same way like good honest churchgoers.
Ofcourse, the very thing I'm pretending to be incredulous about like my fellow left-brain countrymen in England IS THE VERY way GOD moves in and through His genuine church. Grace imparted. Grace left to work itself through in all areas of life. Then Ephesians implies in Chapter 6 you have spiritual grace empowering to go into action yourself, and the Body you've worked things through with, in order to expand into other regions. You get your authority in Jerusalem, you expand your grace authority in Samaria, and by now you are on a roll to take over the ends of the Earth and bring the nations, as Paul writes, INTO THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH.
Pastors, bless'em are all working backwards. They are struggling over their own gospel, because they never heard it in the first place through a grace empowered servant. They are left in the delusion that "the Overcoming Life" must be a set of rules then, carefully studied and examined in seminary. Full of all these facts they then deluge this putrid LAW filth onto a bunch of willing listeners until they too are as bewitched as the pastors. The people never grow, but get increasingly bound up. The pastors get madder. They go 200 miles to make a convert twice the son of hell that they are. Then they send their flock to conferences to get them gee'd up with the revelation someone should have taught them in the first place. The congregation are then turfed out onto Waterlooville High Street to do a healing crusade, but inwardly and outwardly they are all miserable, because they know their Johnny is on drugs, their daughter is pregnant and her boyfriend has left her, and they are trying to strum a few chords and tell everyone that Jesus is marvellous.
Anyone sense a gulf between the Ephesians letter and present day churches?
first appeared as a Facebook note by Chris Welch
Friday, 2 April 2010
How do we grow in a safe Church environment without the bustups and the Rifts?
If you think this is a safe post with a fairly predictable series of guidelines which are anyway taught in seminary, so you don't have to pay too much attention.......
Sorry. I do not have the answer. The question in the heading is a serious question which to date does not have an answer, but Jesus knew how to do it, and I guess He still knows how to do it. When He got His new physical body, I don't think He lost what He had learned to do on Earth. But to date, there is little proof, as we look at history. Maybe we are just not connected to Him enough.
I am speaking of two aspects of unity, or the lack of it.
I.Our character,gifting,personality and ministry differences.
1Cor12:14-26 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Originally this set of scriptures was presented to us in a meeting context. That each person had a role to play. that we had to be completely open to the radically different ways of operating of the other members personalities, anointings, and giftings. Peter Stott said he tries to be sensitive to patterns of operation of other members in the Body in order not to stifle them. This is particularly important in open-ended meetings such as Key of David pattern meetings where literally anyone can have the anointing for leading at different times.
But ofcourse these scriptures go way beyond meetings. They describe the very real shunning of one another that is done on a weekly basis by evangelicals and charismatics.Female led settings against male led settings. By denominational mainstream versus denominational non-Conformist. By denominational and independent churches. By foreign national churches in the cities and their English counterparts. In one grievous nutshell: The Body of Christ is a Mess.
But quite apart from these frictions, this post is about the subject of this blog , the frictions caused by the stages of growth.
II. Differences and The Four Stages of Growth outlined by M.Scott Peck and Dave Tomlinson.
In speaking of four stages of psychological growth, the last three intertwine with the spiritual counterparts described in this blog. First the natural, then the spiritual. They are not the same at all, but they are not totally different either. Yup, that's the mystery of living as psycho spiritual beings on planet Earth who have asked Jesus into their life.
Before we get into Dave's passage from Chapter 4 of The Post evangelical published by Triangle, here is an Old Testament picture.
If we think of our life as a sacrifice to God as in Romans 12 and compare that with the different sacrifices in the Old Testament, there is a side of our lives that is an oil offering. It is an offering
more directly related to the sanctuary, to anointing, to the Holy Spirit, to worship. But one of the other offerings is a grain offering. It's drier. It speaks of the roughage of our daily lives, ground down and refined and poured out before God. A huge amount of the "electric charge buildup" and any authority for meetings comes out of the rather dry repetitive process of holding down a job tuning pianos. Sometimes I say to Peter that I'm going back to work to recharge. Something about this natural world in which we live and move is exactly right for working authority in the insides of our being. Something like the Proverb...the diligent shall rule.
As we progress to the 3rd level, sort of akin to the fourth mentioned here, we can become intensely frustrated with the plastic rather manipulated feel of the charismatic scene. You become aware that many ministries, if they are any good, glide from Conference to Conference, but their lives can be impoverished because they never live much in this 3D natural world that God created for us to grow in. To work in. To touch,feel,taste. To raise kids in. To have fun in. To share together in. The thought that you can experience Jesus as you in your form continually, as you grow in sensitivity kind of boggles them. Because they think they have to pray 3 hours. Or attend so many conferences. Or...or... a thousand and one harrassing laws the devil gets them under pressure to do.
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Stages of Personal Growth - section of Chapter 4 from The Post Evangelical by Dave Tomlinson
It is now well understood that people pass through different stages in their personal development, and these stages have been analysed in different ways.1 I have chosen a fairly straightforward example which seems to have a lot of common-sense behind it: that of Scott Peck's four stages of spiritual growth, discussed in his book The Different Drum.2
In his psychotherapy practice Peck noticed an interesting phenomenon: that religious people who came to him in pain and trouble frequently left the therapeutic process as atheists, agnostics or at least sceptics. On the other hand, atheists, agnostics and sceptics often left therapy as deeply religious people. Same therapy, same therapist, and each of the cases successful in their own terms, and yet with utterly different outcomes from a religious perspective. After puzzling over this for some time, he concluded that the different reactions were connected to the different stages of personal development in each
patient undergoing therapy. He also concluded that these stages of personal development, which are common to us all, form an identifiable pattern of progress throughout our lives. It follows from this that just as it is a positive thing for some patients to adopt religious faith, so it is equally positive for others to reject it. Why? Because their faith is more an expression of conformity than a fully independent choice. Hopefully they will rediscover their faith at a later point, but this time as a more enlightened decision. Not that the earlier experience would be invalid; it would have been a genuine expression of what the person felt at the time.
Like any model Peck's is an over-simplification, and most people fit somewhere between the stages. I have changed some of his wording slightly, since I find his rather ambiguous:
STAGE I: Self-obsessed STAGE II: Conformist STAGE III: Individualist STAGE IV: Integrated
Stage I is the normal state of most children, though Peck reckons that around 20 per cent of all adults are also still at this stage. When the shift from Stage I to Stage II occurs in adult life, it often appears sudden and dramatic. It might well be linked to a religious conversion, but it could equally happen through another experience which creates a sudden shift of attitude, like getting married or having a child, or through a close encounter with death, or deciding to resolve a drink problem by joining Alcoholics Anonymous, or whatever. Many dramatic conversions to Christianity take place in people who need a shift from Stage I to Stage 11. Others of us who, for example, are already in Stage II before becoming Christians, will probably have a much less dramatic experience – and consequently feel inferior, because we interpret the drama of another person's experience as a sign of greater divine power at work in them.
Peck maintains that most believers and churchgoers are in Stage II of their development, which he calls 'formal', since they become attached to the forms (as opposed to the essence) of their religion. They will vigorously oppose any attacks on, or attempts to change, its canons, liturgies or traditions, which they
We all regress through earlier stages of our development in certain situations.
The model is not pejorative. It describes stages we all pass through and, to some extent, continue to pass through. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' about being in a particular stage.
0 People become Christians at each of the levels and this inevitably has a bearing on the kind of conversion they experience, as well as on the perspective they have on the Christian life and faith in general.
Peck comments that Stage IV men and women will frequently enter religion through an attraction to mystery, whereas Stage II people enter religion to find concrete answers. When we discussed Peck's model at Holy Joe's, one man was brave enough to admit that he wanted a more conformist experience of Christianity and that he struggled when faced with too much uncertainty and ambiguity. Thankfully, the group resisted any temptation to argue him into a different position, and simply reassured him that his feelings were perfectly valid.
I think, in a very approximate way, a lot of post-evangelicals are people who are moving from Stage 11 to Stage III. This does not make them any more intelligent or clever than those who remain contentedly in Stage II, and their next steps can be varied, as our two opening stories show. Incidentally, some people who appear to be post-evangelical are actually regressing to Stage I and, not to put too fine a point on it, might be better described as pre-evangelical.
The more important question is why so many folk who progress to Stage III or IV feel the need to move
on from evangelicalism to some other expression of the church, or to abandon formal churchgoing altogether. It seems as though the sociological (to say nothing of the theological and spiritual) environment of evangelicalism does not accommodate people at these stages as effectively and easily as it does those at Stage 11. Perhaps this is because of the definitiveness of evangelical faith, with respect to both its theology and morality. An environment which can comfortably accommodate Stage III people, for example, has to be much freer with its definitions and expectations, and to the average evangelical that smacks of liberalism!
There is another point, however, which Peck does not explore, but which undoubtedly complicates this process even more. It is the way in which people who are otherwise in Stage III or IV seem to regress to Stage II when it comes to the religious part of their lives. Peck's model, which concentrates on a straightforward progression through the stages, is not geared to deal with this phenomenon, so for this we shall now turn to a different model which specifically deals with the way that we switch from one pattern of behaviour to another, depending on the situation.
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Dave then shares findings from "Games People Play", a very influential book in the 70s by Eric Berne. It describes different types of personalities we adopt, and roles we adopt in different circumstances.
So why is this all important?
The second level of Christianity is when we take on board what Christ has done for us at the Cross. We begin to reckon ourselves dead. What then begins happening to us can so shock us, that many leave the church. Truly it can be like the sound of thousands of dead rattling bones. Our own ones, and those around us, who we thought were very much alive just now!!!! What happened. It is also when Church kids, or kids of pastors, solidly raised from a young age on born again church life...appear to freak out. Appear not to be interested any more. Whatever ,whatever. It can be hugely alarming.
One main Derby pastor suddenly found his daughter with illegitimate child, and seriously went to hand in his notice as a complete failure.
III. The evangelism Tension
This is a subsection of the second point above. It is such a thorny subject. It divides Pentecostal churches from charismatic independent churches. It divides Grace Churches from longer established Spirit-filled Churches.
On Facebook I have been sharing from Song of Solomon. Here is the conversation:
Chris Welch:Song of Solomon 5:2-6. The delay in going out to "them". See Jamie's blog post.
Chris Welch:The love relationship never changes,but its form does.I suppose I am being bold to declare that the time of the charismatic movement worldwide is now over.It is now time for the Third Level in all the Earth.Where we learn to walk Him as me in my form upon the mountains and in the suffering places, the places of myrrh.Nothing forced Norman Grubb to start learning this level faster than a spell out in the Congo. He then spent the next 65 years defining how it works precisely for this coming generation. It was always there in scripture but somehow apart from a brave handful absolutely no one seems to know about it, less still,articulate it for others.
Paul Noble I think the charismatic movement has been over for at least 10 yrs! Trouble is, people of the generation that grew up in that revival are finding it hard to transition and leave the old behind ( especially leaders). Thats how I got into trouble at LCC when I shared a vision of the church that God was building in Gosport. People just stone the ... See moreprophet because God isn't building church their way. What I have found in family church is interesting because its not particulary "charismatic" but it is reaching the lost ( 65 people saved in a month) and touching the young effectively.
Chris Welch Family church is interesting, like a lot of numerically growing churches. I like that Andy Elmes spent some time getting zapped out with Vaughan Jarrold in New York State in His Early Days. Traditionally evangelistic churches haven't been good at growing people. I felt God put it on my heart that He wants to change that in these days. Although it will be a true miracle. Jesus moved simultaneously with the the three levels of children young men and fathers in His ministry. This is where John got it from (1John2)This is in the Spirit not age.
And in recent years the three stages keep themselves to themselves. They don't mix very well.But as it becomes more normal to have a 3 level church again, I believe that is the challenge God is giving us.People like Ed Miller have had to stay in the backrooms up until now, because the people in the first two levels cannot take them. This happened to Jesus halfway through His ministry, when He started explaining about fusion..."You must eat my body and drink my blood" and nearly everyone cleared off.
Chris Welch Immature people don't like fusion. They like God at arm's length.This way if they sin, they can still say they are poor miserable sinners and what else can you expect? So the challenge of Song of Solomon 5 is that here is a prepared people, that know Christ is their life, but rather like sticking around in worship and praise, and is it really necessary to go out among all those nasty people?
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By now I am sure you are starting to understand what is behind the heading of this post.
And this is the background. I visited another small church the other Sunday with Ben and Christine which is being led by a friend of ours from Emsworth days. For a greeting I felt Jesus put this challenge on my heart for them while we were all worshipping.
That they find a pattern/patterns of ministry that would simultaneously meet the three level need of believers. Because right now, most evangelistic churches leading huge numbers of students/young marrieds and singles/and youth to Jesus, don't even know of the existence of the third level of growth. Unless you actually meet one of the worthies that appear in many of the bookstores, you simply have no idea of their existence.
One shattering meeting with Richard Wurmbrand or Mother Basilea or to a certain extent Mother Teresa completely put paid to that. Especially if you are a poet/musician type who tends to see below the surface of everything that is uttered.
After that, everyone you hear in a normal UK church is like a little Black and White TV set, which didn't matter before...
BUT NOW you've just seen HD 3D Colour Flatscreen Sony TV....and well...what are you to do?
But a lot of the grace church people will never have met a 3rd leveller. So to them, evangelism is just about going out, getting a druggie to stop doing drugs
prostitutes to stop selling themselves
crooks to stop thieving or getting into prison and for all these to get zapped into the Kingdom, both saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. And you know what, that is God's plan! And He never wants people to lose that stuff, and resort to being people that the apostle Paul would write to and say "Who has bewitched you foolish Galations....having begun so well in the Spirit do you now put your trust in the flesh!"
And I really hope Andy Elmes, who was radically saved in Bognor Regis Bible Week in the 80s near here,left for a spell in New York and sought God intently for his life, and genuinely came back empowered for ministry....I never want him to lose that....
But I want everyone to realise that Jesus life is even more real than that....
so real, that by the third level you can practically reproduce Jesus Life in someone else by them just being in your presence for an hour or two. This happened to Norman Grubb with Jessie Penn Lewis. This happened to Rheinhardt Bonnke with George Jeffries the Pentecostal pioneer.
This happened to thousands that had anything to do with Madame Guyon, Fenelon and Brother Lawrence in the 1600s.
But at the moment THERE IS NO RECOGNITION of the different levels in the Body. Only friction. The above passage helps to explain some of the problem psychologically. But spiritually, the other problem is this. The closer we fuse with Jesus, the more our light begins to show up darkness that others may or may not want touched. Ed Miller describes the process as suddenly turning on the light for people. And like lifting up a stone, you are suddenly aware of the horrible creatures scurrying about that you had no idea were there. And for some, the shock is too great, and they prefer to switch the light off and remain in denial.
So what is the answer?Somehow Jesus ministered simultaneously to
THE UNSAVED and UNBELIEVING
THE SOON TO BELIEVE
THE QUITE COMMITTED 120 or so and
THE SOLD OUT 12 disciples.
Yup simultaneously! We learn one trick. He used parables...and for those who really wanted to know, He filled them in later. But at least they were all in the same place.
We have division after division, belief system after belief system,
and seminaries, that far from being the answer, just train people intellectually
to fully arm them in their ability to utterly alienate other believers.
At least Morris Cerullo tries his best to empower people in the Spirit in a few days.
Seminaries spend three full years destroying any Holy Spirit relationship believers ever had.
Morris needs to wake up to what God is doing, and to the stages of growth.
Seminaries just need to wake up full stop.
But a total answer to this post, I am afraid I do not have. But by at least airing the question, may be we can open ourselves to God for Him to bring the answers.
Sorry. I do not have the answer. The question in the heading is a serious question which to date does not have an answer, but Jesus knew how to do it, and I guess He still knows how to do it. When He got His new physical body, I don't think He lost what He had learned to do on Earth. But to date, there is little proof, as we look at history. Maybe we are just not connected to Him enough.
I am speaking of two aspects of unity, or the lack of it.
I.Our character,gifting,personality and ministry differences.
1Cor12:14-26 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Originally this set of scriptures was presented to us in a meeting context. That each person had a role to play. that we had to be completely open to the radically different ways of operating of the other members personalities, anointings, and giftings. Peter Stott said he tries to be sensitive to patterns of operation of other members in the Body in order not to stifle them. This is particularly important in open-ended meetings such as Key of David pattern meetings where literally anyone can have the anointing for leading at different times.
But ofcourse these scriptures go way beyond meetings. They describe the very real shunning of one another that is done on a weekly basis by evangelicals and charismatics.Female led settings against male led settings. By denominational mainstream versus denominational non-Conformist. By denominational and independent churches. By foreign national churches in the cities and their English counterparts. In one grievous nutshell: The Body of Christ is a Mess.
But quite apart from these frictions, this post is about the subject of this blog , the frictions caused by the stages of growth.
II. Differences and The Four Stages of Growth outlined by M.Scott Peck and Dave Tomlinson.
In speaking of four stages of psychological growth, the last three intertwine with the spiritual counterparts described in this blog. First the natural, then the spiritual. They are not the same at all, but they are not totally different either. Yup, that's the mystery of living as psycho spiritual beings on planet Earth who have asked Jesus into their life.
Before we get into Dave's passage from Chapter 4 of The Post evangelical published by Triangle, here is an Old Testament picture.
If we think of our life as a sacrifice to God as in Romans 12 and compare that with the different sacrifices in the Old Testament, there is a side of our lives that is an oil offering. It is an offering
more directly related to the sanctuary, to anointing, to the Holy Spirit, to worship. But one of the other offerings is a grain offering. It's drier. It speaks of the roughage of our daily lives, ground down and refined and poured out before God. A huge amount of the "electric charge buildup" and any authority for meetings comes out of the rather dry repetitive process of holding down a job tuning pianos. Sometimes I say to Peter that I'm going back to work to recharge. Something about this natural world in which we live and move is exactly right for working authority in the insides of our being. Something like the Proverb...the diligent shall rule.
As we progress to the 3rd level, sort of akin to the fourth mentioned here, we can become intensely frustrated with the plastic rather manipulated feel of the charismatic scene. You become aware that many ministries, if they are any good, glide from Conference to Conference, but their lives can be impoverished because they never live much in this 3D natural world that God created for us to grow in. To work in. To touch,feel,taste. To raise kids in. To have fun in. To share together in. The thought that you can experience Jesus as you in your form continually, as you grow in sensitivity kind of boggles them. Because they think they have to pray 3 hours. Or attend so many conferences. Or...or... a thousand and one harrassing laws the devil gets them under pressure to do.
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Stages of Personal Growth - section of Chapter 4 from The Post Evangelical by Dave Tomlinson
It is now well understood that people pass through different stages in their personal development, and these stages have been analysed in different ways.1 I have chosen a fairly straightforward example which seems to have a lot of common-sense behind it: that of Scott Peck's four stages of spiritual growth, discussed in his book The Different Drum.2
In his psychotherapy practice Peck noticed an interesting phenomenon: that religious people who came to him in pain and trouble frequently left the therapeutic process as atheists, agnostics or at least sceptics. On the other hand, atheists, agnostics and sceptics often left therapy as deeply religious people. Same therapy, same therapist, and each of the cases successful in their own terms, and yet with utterly different outcomes from a religious perspective. After puzzling over this for some time, he concluded that the different reactions were connected to the different stages of personal development in each
patient undergoing therapy. He also concluded that these stages of personal development, which are common to us all, form an identifiable pattern of progress throughout our lives. It follows from this that just as it is a positive thing for some patients to adopt religious faith, so it is equally positive for others to reject it. Why? Because their faith is more an expression of conformity than a fully independent choice. Hopefully they will rediscover their faith at a later point, but this time as a more enlightened decision. Not that the earlier experience would be invalid; it would have been a genuine expression of what the person felt at the time.
Like any model Peck's is an over-simplification, and most people fit somewhere between the stages. I have changed some of his wording slightly, since I find his rather ambiguous:
STAGE I: Self-obsessed STAGE II: Conformist STAGE III: Individualist STAGE IV: Integrated
Stage I is the normal state of most children, though Peck reckons that around 20 per cent of all adults are also still at this stage. When the shift from Stage I to Stage II occurs in adult life, it often appears sudden and dramatic. It might well be linked to a religious conversion, but it could equally happen through another experience which creates a sudden shift of attitude, like getting married or having a child, or through a close encounter with death, or deciding to resolve a drink problem by joining Alcoholics Anonymous, or whatever. Many dramatic conversions to Christianity take place in people who need a shift from Stage I to Stage 11. Others of us who, for example, are already in Stage II before becoming Christians, will probably have a much less dramatic experience – and consequently feel inferior, because we interpret the drama of another person's experience as a sign of greater divine power at work in them.
Peck maintains that most believers and churchgoers are in Stage II of their development, which he calls 'formal', since they become attached to the forms (as opposed to the essence) of their religion. They will vigorously oppose any attacks on, or attempts to change, its canons, liturgies or traditions, which they
We all regress through earlier stages of our development in certain situations.
The model is not pejorative. It describes stages we all pass through and, to some extent, continue to pass through. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' about being in a particular stage.
0 People become Christians at each of the levels and this inevitably has a bearing on the kind of conversion they experience, as well as on the perspective they have on the Christian life and faith in general.
Peck comments that Stage IV men and women will frequently enter religion through an attraction to mystery, whereas Stage II people enter religion to find concrete answers. When we discussed Peck's model at Holy Joe's, one man was brave enough to admit that he wanted a more conformist experience of Christianity and that he struggled when faced with too much uncertainty and ambiguity. Thankfully, the group resisted any temptation to argue him into a different position, and simply reassured him that his feelings were perfectly valid.
I think, in a very approximate way, a lot of post-evangelicals are people who are moving from Stage 11 to Stage III. This does not make them any more intelligent or clever than those who remain contentedly in Stage II, and their next steps can be varied, as our two opening stories show. Incidentally, some people who appear to be post-evangelical are actually regressing to Stage I and, not to put too fine a point on it, might be better described as pre-evangelical.
The more important question is why so many folk who progress to Stage III or IV feel the need to move
on from evangelicalism to some other expression of the church, or to abandon formal churchgoing altogether. It seems as though the sociological (to say nothing of the theological and spiritual) environment of evangelicalism does not accommodate people at these stages as effectively and easily as it does those at Stage 11. Perhaps this is because of the definitiveness of evangelical faith, with respect to both its theology and morality. An environment which can comfortably accommodate Stage III people, for example, has to be much freer with its definitions and expectations, and to the average evangelical that smacks of liberalism!
There is another point, however, which Peck does not explore, but which undoubtedly complicates this process even more. It is the way in which people who are otherwise in Stage III or IV seem to regress to Stage II when it comes to the religious part of their lives. Peck's model, which concentrates on a straightforward progression through the stages, is not geared to deal with this phenomenon, so for this we shall now turn to a different model which specifically deals with the way that we switch from one pattern of behaviour to another, depending on the situation.
++++++++++++++++++
Dave then shares findings from "Games People Play", a very influential book in the 70s by Eric Berne. It describes different types of personalities we adopt, and roles we adopt in different circumstances.
So why is this all important?
The second level of Christianity is when we take on board what Christ has done for us at the Cross. We begin to reckon ourselves dead. What then begins happening to us can so shock us, that many leave the church. Truly it can be like the sound of thousands of dead rattling bones. Our own ones, and those around us, who we thought were very much alive just now!!!! What happened. It is also when Church kids, or kids of pastors, solidly raised from a young age on born again church life...appear to freak out. Appear not to be interested any more. Whatever ,whatever. It can be hugely alarming.
One main Derby pastor suddenly found his daughter with illegitimate child, and seriously went to hand in his notice as a complete failure.
III. The evangelism Tension
This is a subsection of the second point above. It is such a thorny subject. It divides Pentecostal churches from charismatic independent churches. It divides Grace Churches from longer established Spirit-filled Churches.
On Facebook I have been sharing from Song of Solomon. Here is the conversation:
Chris Welch:Song of Solomon 5:2-6. The delay in going out to "them". See Jamie's blog post.
Chris Welch:The love relationship never changes,but its form does.I suppose I am being bold to declare that the time of the charismatic movement worldwide is now over.It is now time for the Third Level in all the Earth.Where we learn to walk Him as me in my form upon the mountains and in the suffering places, the places of myrrh.Nothing forced Norman Grubb to start learning this level faster than a spell out in the Congo. He then spent the next 65 years defining how it works precisely for this coming generation. It was always there in scripture but somehow apart from a brave handful absolutely no one seems to know about it, less still,articulate it for others.
Paul Noble I think the charismatic movement has been over for at least 10 yrs! Trouble is, people of the generation that grew up in that revival are finding it hard to transition and leave the old behind ( especially leaders). Thats how I got into trouble at LCC when I shared a vision of the church that God was building in Gosport. People just stone the ... See moreprophet because God isn't building church their way. What I have found in family church is interesting because its not particulary "charismatic" but it is reaching the lost ( 65 people saved in a month) and touching the young effectively.
Chris Welch Family church is interesting, like a lot of numerically growing churches. I like that Andy Elmes spent some time getting zapped out with Vaughan Jarrold in New York State in His Early Days. Traditionally evangelistic churches haven't been good at growing people. I felt God put it on my heart that He wants to change that in these days. Although it will be a true miracle. Jesus moved simultaneously with the the three levels of children young men and fathers in His ministry. This is where John got it from (1John2)This is in the Spirit not age.
And in recent years the three stages keep themselves to themselves. They don't mix very well.But as it becomes more normal to have a 3 level church again, I believe that is the challenge God is giving us.People like Ed Miller have had to stay in the backrooms up until now, because the people in the first two levels cannot take them. This happened to Jesus halfway through His ministry, when He started explaining about fusion..."You must eat my body and drink my blood" and nearly everyone cleared off.
Chris Welch Immature people don't like fusion. They like God at arm's length.This way if they sin, they can still say they are poor miserable sinners and what else can you expect? So the challenge of Song of Solomon 5 is that here is a prepared people, that know Christ is their life, but rather like sticking around in worship and praise, and is it really necessary to go out among all those nasty people?
+++++++++++++++++++++
By now I am sure you are starting to understand what is behind the heading of this post.
And this is the background. I visited another small church the other Sunday with Ben and Christine which is being led by a friend of ours from Emsworth days. For a greeting I felt Jesus put this challenge on my heart for them while we were all worshipping.
That they find a pattern/patterns of ministry that would simultaneously meet the three level need of believers. Because right now, most evangelistic churches leading huge numbers of students/young marrieds and singles/and youth to Jesus, don't even know of the existence of the third level of growth. Unless you actually meet one of the worthies that appear in many of the bookstores, you simply have no idea of their existence.
One shattering meeting with Richard Wurmbrand or Mother Basilea or to a certain extent Mother Teresa completely put paid to that. Especially if you are a poet/musician type who tends to see below the surface of everything that is uttered.
After that, everyone you hear in a normal UK church is like a little Black and White TV set, which didn't matter before...
BUT NOW you've just seen HD 3D Colour Flatscreen Sony TV....and well...what are you to do?
But a lot of the grace church people will never have met a 3rd leveller. So to them, evangelism is just about going out, getting a druggie to stop doing drugs
prostitutes to stop selling themselves
crooks to stop thieving or getting into prison and for all these to get zapped into the Kingdom, both saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. And you know what, that is God's plan! And He never wants people to lose that stuff, and resort to being people that the apostle Paul would write to and say "Who has bewitched you foolish Galations....having begun so well in the Spirit do you now put your trust in the flesh!"
And I really hope Andy Elmes, who was radically saved in Bognor Regis Bible Week in the 80s near here,left for a spell in New York and sought God intently for his life, and genuinely came back empowered for ministry....I never want him to lose that....
But I want everyone to realise that Jesus life is even more real than that....
so real, that by the third level you can practically reproduce Jesus Life in someone else by them just being in your presence for an hour or two. This happened to Norman Grubb with Jessie Penn Lewis. This happened to Rheinhardt Bonnke with George Jeffries the Pentecostal pioneer.
This happened to thousands that had anything to do with Madame Guyon, Fenelon and Brother Lawrence in the 1600s.
But at the moment THERE IS NO RECOGNITION of the different levels in the Body. Only friction. The above passage helps to explain some of the problem psychologically. But spiritually, the other problem is this. The closer we fuse with Jesus, the more our light begins to show up darkness that others may or may not want touched. Ed Miller describes the process as suddenly turning on the light for people. And like lifting up a stone, you are suddenly aware of the horrible creatures scurrying about that you had no idea were there. And for some, the shock is too great, and they prefer to switch the light off and remain in denial.
So what is the answer?Somehow Jesus ministered simultaneously to
THE UNSAVED and UNBELIEVING
THE SOON TO BELIEVE
THE QUITE COMMITTED 120 or so and
THE SOLD OUT 12 disciples.
Yup simultaneously! We learn one trick. He used parables...and for those who really wanted to know, He filled them in later. But at least they were all in the same place.
We have division after division, belief system after belief system,
and seminaries, that far from being the answer, just train people intellectually
to fully arm them in their ability to utterly alienate other believers.
At least Morris Cerullo tries his best to empower people in the Spirit in a few days.
Seminaries spend three full years destroying any Holy Spirit relationship believers ever had.
Morris needs to wake up to what God is doing, and to the stages of growth.
Seminaries just need to wake up full stop.
But a total answer to this post, I am afraid I do not have. But by at least airing the question, may be we can open ourselves to God for Him to bring the answers.
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