Communicating and Ministering the Power of the Gospel Cross-culturally: The Power of God for Christians Who Ride Two Horses
Such retraining is often not difficult among missionaries either, since many of them have come to realize the difficulties we have been outlining here. Though some have hardened their traditional categories, those closest to the people usually are searching for ways to use indigenous power consciousness as a bridge to Christianity.
2. We can introduce both leaders from nonwestern churches studying in this country and missionaries to a sound, balanced biblical approach to this aspect of Christianity. We are seeing leaders and missionaries who have moved through this “paradigm shift”6 return to much more effective ministry. In one case, the people who had noted the difference between the missionaries’ approach and what Jesus had promised remarked, “At last you’ve become real Christians!”
3. Bridges need to be built between non-charismatic and charismatic church leaders worldwide. We have much more in common than we have differences. We evangelicals need to learn more from what charismatics have learned. And they need to learn some things from us. This learning is happening in exciting ways in many parts of the world (e.g. Singapore, U.S.A.) but needs to be encouraged elsewhere (e.g. Japan, Germany).
4. One of the things that will be very important to non-charismatics in dealing with spiritual power will be what they perceive as biblical balance and freedom from excesses. They will probably not open themselves up to approaches that encourage the following: a lot of emotion, either in worship or in receiving the infilling of the Holy Spirit, shouting, elitism (e.g. with regard to gifting), an emphasis on tongues as more important than other gifts, “name it, claim it” approaches to healing, mysticism (e.g. “what I understand of God and his works comes directly from him, not indirectly through others or the Bible”), prophecy (e.g. “God spoke directly to me and told me to tell you … “) and the like. Evangelicals need to be taught by those who know and guard against what evangelicals regard as the excesses of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity—even when being taught to practice some of those things.
5. Pentecostals and charismatics have a golden opportunity to teach and influence non-charismatics if they will learn to tone down some practices and ministry styles that may be perceived as unnecessarily extreme. Are the Scriptures as strong as many charismatics on such things as tongues, high emotion (e.g. in worship and receiving the Holy Spirit), shouting in prayer, and dogmatically (and, often, unlovingly) stated prophecies and words of knowledge? A reconsideration and modification of excesses in such areas could contribute greatly to bridge-building between charismatics and non-charismatics. And we non-charismatics need all the help we can get from charismatics in overcoming those deficiencies in our Christianity that contribute to the dual allegiance problem.
Category: Ministry, Spring 2009
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