Pentecost and the Inside-Out Church
Evangelism took place everywhere. The only recorded altar calls happened in the streets, in courtrooms, and in the living rooms of unbelievers. Prophetic ministry and other supernatural giftings (like healings) took place in homes and in the streets as well as in corporate gatherings of believers. The early Church simply believed that the Holy Spirit was EVERYWHERE and that it was their job to be about His business all the time, wherever they were, not just on Sunday and not just “in church.”
A Fresh Call to an Ancient Calling
It’s important to study the Holy Spirit’s activity in the early Church because your church is being encouraged to live inside out, just like the early Church did. The call to be an inside-out church is a call back to the roots of the Church, back to the very foundation of what it means to be Pentecostal.
When Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be filled with the Holy Spirit, he wrote about the reasons why God would pour out His Spirit: to bring good news to the poor, to bind up broken hearts, to set captives free, to comfort the mourning, and to restore broken foundations (see Is. 61:1-4 and Luke 4:16-21). And when Jesus announced the imminent arrival of the Holy Spirit’s power in Acts 1, He reminded the disciples that the power they would receive would propel them beyond the walls of their comfortable gatherings into places like Samaria, places they had always been taught to avoid. He told them that Pentecostal power would take them, not to the end of the church service, but to the ends of the Earth (Acts 1:8).
That power is available to us. Whether we were baptized in the Holy Spirit during the Charismatic Renewal or as recently as last week, we have the power now “to do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Galatians 6:10).
How exciting to know that we can walk in the power of the Holy Spirit outside of the church building, in our everyday lives! This is why we have received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. This is the ancient calling that recent revival has prepared us for. This is the vision that we must open our eyes to. The Holy Spirit is at work in our offices, in our classrooms, in our neighborhoods, in our living rooms. It’s up to us to see that He doesn’t have to work alone.
PR
From Beyond Words (Vol 1 No 3, August 2001). Reprinted with permission, Grand Rapids First 2001.
Category: Living the Faith, Spring 2002
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