Part 2: Strategy—How can Pentecostal Churches Overcome Generic Evangelicalism?

In my previous post I invited responses to the question, “What should Pentecostal churches seek to restore to move beyond generic evangelicalism?” (See my previous post for how I qualify this question.) The question regards the nature of Pentecostal spirituality.

To add to what I wrote in that post, here is some of what I discerned from the comments on my post:

Making room for and an openness to all of the gifts of the Spirit.
Moving from a focus on “the leader,” to enabling the whole congregation’s gifts and callings.
Giving time for congregation members to pray with and for each other.
Allowing for some space for the Spirit to direct us in the moment.
Praying for deliverance from demonic oppression.
Allowing time to wait on God as a congregation and individuals.

And we could add to this list.

I was reminded on more than one occasion at the recent Society for Pentecostal Studies meeting that at the center of Pentecostal spirituality is the divine encounter, which leads to witness. One theologian referred to it as a “sense of the divine transformative,” another more simply as a connection with God.

Leading Change

Of course, having a vision alone is not sufficient to bring about change. I’m no Bill Hybels or Andy Stanley, but if I’ve learned anything about leadership, it’s that to lead a group through change, you have to:

Start with developing and communicating a vision.
Come up with a strategy to achieve the vision.
Execute the strategy.
Assess the outcome.

The previous post was about vision. This post is about strategy. In this post, I’m asking the question, “How can Pentecostal churches move beyond generic evangelicalism?” (Again, see my previous post for how I qualify this question.)

Old Strategy vs. New Strategy

One can rightly argue that we cannot make an encounter with God happen in as much as we cannot control God. Nevertheless, some Scriptures make me think that this is something we can facilitate to some extent. Consider, for example like James 4:8: “Come close to God, and God will come close to you.”

A couple of the old strategies Pentecostals used to facilitate the divine encounter were altar calls and revival meetings. There may still be some place for these, but, for many Pentecostals, these have become the rituals of dead, religious Pentecostalism.

(FYI- “religious” is a bad word for many Pentecostals, who generally prefer to speak of a “relationship” with God.)

Some Pentecostals, like Simon Chan, recommend a return to historic liturgical traditions. From my own experience, I know that one can experience God through the liturgy. For example, confession of sin can certainly facilitate an encounter with God, and this is something that is regularly practiced in liturgical services, but less-so in more non-liturgical settings.

At the same time, many Pentecostals have a legitimate concern that liturgy can lead to dead religion too. And Simon Chan himself cautions that if Pentecostals engage liturgy only because of their frequent “craving for novelty,” it isn’t going to fix anything.[1]

Whether it’s liturgical or non-liturgical, traditional or contemporary, true worship will facilitate an encounter with God.

Some Ideas

Here are some ideas to help facilitate this God-human encounter in a church service:

When prayer takes place in a service, instead of the person with the microphone praying on everyone’s behalf, they can give time for the congregants to themselves engage God in prayer. The leader might even give them guidance of what they might pray about.
Worship leaders need to truly lead in worship to God and not just lead people in a Christian sing-a-long. As they do this, worship leaders can invite people into worship with them, rather than just encouraging congregants to “sing this song with me.”
At the end of a sermon, the preacher can lead people through a time of personal response. It doesn’t have to be an altar call.
If you do want to have an altar call, but you are under a strict timeline for your service, consider singing a couple less songs before the sermon in order to give some time for the altar call.

And these ideas only help with a small part of the vision of reviving biblical Pentecostal spirituality.

Reviving Gifts of the Spirit

To add to the above list, Christians should not just be “open” to the spiritual gifts, but they should “desire” them (1 Corinthians 14:1) and even seek them.

Some Pentecostal churches print “policies” in their bulletins to help curb abuses of spiritual gifts. These policies usually instruct individuals to first speak with one of the pastors if they are going to share (during a church service) a word of knowledge, a message in tongues, or some other verbal expression of the spiritual gifts.

I was a pastor at one church that instituted such a policy for good reasons. Nevertheless, these days I’m wondering if the good of these spiritual gifts policies have run their course and if such policies are now more a hindrance than a help. Perhaps it is time for such policies to be revisited.

Aside from revisiting such policies, for those looking for more detailed guidance about facilitating the gifts of the Spirit in their church setting, I recommend Sam Storms’s book, Practicing the Power: Welcoming the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in Your Life (Zondervan, 2017). Storms is the Lead Pastor of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City and a theologian who served as the president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2017.

Storms and I have some differences theologically—he is a Calvinist, Baptist, and complementarian theologian. But we share a desire for the Church (not just Pentecostals!) to fully engage life in the Spirit.

As written on the back cover of his book, “With examples drawn from his forty years of ministry, … Storms offers a guidebook that … assists pastors and church leaders by helping them think through the changed that are needed to see God move in supernatural power.”

Change Over Time

Leaders should not expect a church to change overnight, and these kinds of changes are no different. Once a church (not just the pastor) has clarified its vision regarding what it is aiming at, think about what the church might look like in two years, and then start taking baby steps toward that vision.

It will take biblical teaching, and prayer, and …patience. And along the way, pastors need to revisit the vision consistently with church leadership and the congregation in order to remind them of why the changes are happening in the church.

I invite you to participate in the discussion:

2 thoughts on “Part 2: Strategy—How can Pentecostal Churches Overcome Generic Evangelicalism?”

Bruce Muirhead says:

March 20, 2018 at 8:15 AM

One thing I remember from my youth …19 years old — when I encountered the PAOC …was how as young adults we went forward to pray and to seek His power to overcome temptations of the flesh and to grow in Christ. We sought His blessing and His presence.. Both these needs are of primary importance to young people today. And temptations start at an early age. If our youth do not find victory early on, then they will leave the church, Pentecostal or other.

Churches MUST forget about the clock on the wall and turn their eyes to God for His leading. Our churches grew previous to being slaves to an order of service, an agenda, the control of the “administrators.” Why? Because God was in charge.

- Andrew K. Gabriel says:
  
  March 21, 2018 at 2:00 PM
  
  Thanks for sharing, Bruce.