A blog dedicated to the daily life of a man named Jude aka Bissell and his thoughts on anything under the Sun.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Spirit's Moving

Today at Exit 59 was quite the service. During the 1st service, Darren cast out a demon from a guy that goes to Taylor. Then he talked about the several healings that had happened in the church including his father's disappearance of a heart condition, the complete healing of a brain tumor, and a couple others I can't remember. As usual, someone from the congregation prays for Darren before he preaches, but this time the guy praying said he felt the Spirit calling him to tell someone in the crowd that they were being tormented by demons, that they were free and they had no power over them. He then asked them to stand up or wave their hand while the rest of us had our eyes closed. To be honest, I was completely weirded out and was praying someone, anyone would raise their hand so this guy didn't look crazy. Thank God, someone did. She later went up for prayer after the sermon and had several people praying over her. Even Darren admitted that being raised Wesleyan, he had several reservations when it came to miracles, demon possession, and the like. He (and I) was raised to believe that the Spirit worked visibly in the early Church and overseas, but surely not in places like Indianapolis or Gas City or Upland. I must say I completely understand his view since many evangelicals view Pentacostals and AOG as crazed fools that are faking the Spirit and just smacking people in the head (no wonder they drop like a rock). As a way to distance ourselves from those wing-nuts we have downplayed the influence of the Spirit in our modern and civil society, restricting Him to history and the 3rd world mission fields. Darren also talked about the "Church of Comfort" that has dominated church thought for the last decade or so. My home church, Kingsway, has fallen to this heresy in several ways. It seems like the goal of the church is to be "nice"; nice clothes, nice cars, nice & clean people, nice suburbs, nice feelings, and nice Jesus. I find this view to be sickening and a complete misreading of the Scripture. Christ is the God of the losers, the weak, the poor, the orphan, the widow, and most importantly the sinner. If there is one thing the Church is, the Church is a hospital for sinners to be healed by the blood of Jesus Christ. While I'm still very uncomfortable with the thought of healings and miracles, I long for the Spirit to do His work, whether I'm comfortable with it or not. If I wanted a comfortable life, Jesus would be the last person to follow. I'd love to hear what anyone else thinks about this.

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