Veroni Kruger: What Has Your Church Become
Brother Krüger is pentecostal by denominational background but he is quick to recognize the work of the Spirit in salvation and he relegates glossolalia to a lesser position of importance than Classical Pentecostal groups have traditionally done. Not a dispensationalist, he maintains that the gifts of the Spirit operate today within the church—or should—but his emphasis is on the Holy Spirit at work in us (worship) first and then among us and through us (service).
Worship without the Holy Spirit’s work in believers becomes mere powerless form rather than the means to an empowered witness. The fruit of the Spirit, in fact, validates the gifts. The clear evidence of the Spirit is not outward but inward. The indwelling Spirit does not change a believer’s personality but He empowers it. The Spirit inspires us alive to witness to Jesus’ death and resurrection. To Brother Krüger , the evidence is in Acts 1:8. He refers to this as “evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit is indispensable in the ministry of the church as the Body of Christ: His power (effective witness and ministry), His personality (fruit of the Spirit) and His holiness (our sanctification). Brother Krüger also writes about the supporting concepts of body language (how unbelievers read us), the headship of Christ (His Lordship or authority over us) and total church involvement in ministry.
Finally, the first church was missional, which embraces each one’s calling and service to Christ.
Brother Krüger ‘s thoughts on missions recall for me the conclusion of the missionary council of 1928 meeting in Jerusalem when they expounded on the Great commission: “Go and make disciples of all nations.”
Our message is Jesus Christ. He is the revelation of what God is and of what man through Him may become. In Him … we find God incarnate, the final, yet ever-unfolding, revelation of the God in whom we live and move and have our being… Jesus Christ…through His death and resurrection…has disclosed to us the Father, … as almighty Love, reconciling the world to Himself by the Cross….
If such is our message, the motive for its delivery should be plain. The Gospel is the answer to the world’s greatest need. It is not our discovery or achievement; it rests on what we recognize as an act of God… We believe that men are made for Christ and cannot really live apart from Him… Herein lies the Christian motive; it is simple. We cannot live without Christ and we cannot bear to think of men living without Him… Christ is our motive and Christ is our end. We must give nothing less and we can give nothing more.” – DuBose, Francis M. ed. Classics of Christian Missions (Page 336).
Brother Krüger calls this “the cosmic proportions of the calling of the Servant of God” and “the worldwide scope of God’s mission.” These are all embracing and absolute terms that offer the church no plan ‘B’ or alternate possibility for ministry. He speaks of Jesus’ ministry which started in Jerusalem as an ever widening “circle … to become all-inclusive… of the future impact of the Gospel.”
Category: Ministry, Summer 2015
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