In some corner of many pastors’ minds is the disturbing belief that most of their members, while verbalizing Christian beliefs, don’t really choose to practice them as a community. Members see themselves as a gathering of individuals rather than as the Body of Christ.
As a result, the pastors spend a lot of their preaching efforts trying to convince their members of the truth of the Christian beliefs as a church rather than how to listen to the Spirit.(1 Corinthians 12:12-26). Our first task is to learn how to listen as one Body of Christ.
According to Scripture, from the beginning of the church, those who have been baptized in the name of Christ have been sent the Spirit of truth to both instruct and empower them as a church. (John 14:15-17). So, if Scripture is truthful, we have God’s Spirit available to us in our churches. As we see in some of the stories in Scripture, that doesn’t mean we will avail ourselves of the Spirit, but it means God has provided us with a unique resource that is not available to the rest of the world.
With the Gospel stories of the life of Jesus available, our task is to allow the Spirit to empower and guide us to relate to each other in a way that glorifies God.
The stories about the early church often describe the human nature of the church and the results of disobedience. However, it also describes the presence of God’s Spirit always being available in transformative power dependent not on our wisdom or morality but on our being open to God’s loving spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not the only spirit available to us. There are other spirits in our lives that seek to dominate and direct our lives. Some of those spirits are the spirit of greed, the spirit of anger, fear, lust, revenge, etc. Any of these spirits can distort our lives. The gift of the Holy Spirit can enable us to resist the power of the distorting spirits and be empowered to be the “One Body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Cor 12:27)
God’s Spirit is not forced upon us but is gifted to us. It is our response that makes the difference. “Lead us not into temptation.”
The challenge before us or any church is how to enable the membership of the church to be open to that spirit. What is described below is a way to engage our entire membership in testing the promised Spirit of truth among us. It doesn’t mean that every member has to agree to participate, but we need to provide the opportunity for them to listen to the whisper of the Spirit.
We clergy have been called to be spiritual guides in this process. It doesn’t mean we have the answers, but we have been gifted with gifts that can help guide the membership.
(to be continued)