I spent some time with a friend the other day who is a little older than me.
He told me of his experiences in the early days of what was known as the renewal movement.
His church was opposed to the gifts of the Spirit and those who wanted to know more were forced to meet in secret and discuss such things.
Eventually people began to leave their evangelical churches and form new charismatic churches. He was involved in one locally, almost from its inception.
What was it like? "Like being in heaven". That's what he felt.
I guess sometimes we take our Pentecostal / Charismatic heritage just a little bit for granted.
2 comments:
oh my this brings it back. I became a Christian when I was 14 and a few weeks later had a pretty dramatic experience of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues while alone in my bedroom. Thankfully I had read Den Ben's book "Nine O'Clock in the Morning" so I was hungry starving for the Holy Spirit!
I was soooooo excited. I told my pastor and he said it was great news but said I shouldn't tell anyone in the church. I so clearly remember being perplexed. Why should something so good be kept so quiet?
I now know why he said that. He didn't want what I had to be stolen and he was protecting me. A wise, wise man and a real pastor to me and guess what - renewal came to that church pretty amazingly over the following years :-)
Thanks for that Lynn. You had a very wise pastor! Always think it's good to remind ourselves of how amazing all of this was when we first experienced it. We owe so much to people like the Bennetts, David Watson, Arthur Wallis, David Pawson et al.
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