Last week I had the opportunity to head to attend the “Healthy Lives, Leaders, & Churches” conference, hosted by the Duluth Vineyard, featuring Phil and Janet Strout. Phil is the new Vineyard USA nation director, so I was looking forward to hearing Phil cast vision for the future and to especially hear his heart.
I found the conference to be extremely encouraging, challenging, and somewhat concerning. But those feelings where all good for my soul and I think good to work through and reflect on.
Encouraging Stuff
Phil is awesome. I am ready to follow his leadership and to love him and pray for him and to trust him enough to hopefully continue to form a lasting relationship with the Vineyard Movement, as the Lord wills.
In fact, Phil’s approach to hermeneutics and Scripture and the necessity of conversion was quite the encouragement for me.
I also thought his talks were rather good. He was passionate for the right things and was a good speaker on top of that. I was greatly encouraged.
Challenging
Our congregation needs to get in the game of church planting and needs to also do better at developing (training!) leaders. Speaking from my role as a pastor, I can see that I need to push this issue more. I think we overlook the importance of good leadership too often… I was challenged to reconcile this.
Another issue that I was challenged by was in my own interaction with the concepts of “family ministry” or “children’s ministry.” I have some pretty deep reservations about much of the “split-the-kids-up-and-get-them-away-from-their-families” methodology but equally realize that much of the church that insists that everyone be together overlooks some key hermeneutical and practical issues. Either way we approach the issue demands that we take serious the goal of training our children in the ways of the Lord while equally acknowledging that it is the Lord who draws people (children!) to himself. I’d like to see more theological understanding of soteriology within the general populace of children’s ministry workers. But that’s a different blog for a different day..
I was really challenged by the kingdom focus during most of the music… in fact, one of the things I plan on doing this coming week is meeting with our music team leader and discussing some of the things I think we do well as well as the things we do that need to improve. The improvements seem to center around our church’s shared commitment to the kingdom as a present reality (while also acknowleding the “not yet” dimension that some church’s seem to ignore within the charismatic movement).
Concerns
I hesitate to even voice some of these concerns because I don’t want to (1) hurt anyone’s feelings, (2) misrepresent the intention behind some of the praxis, and (3) sound like I’m a constant critic.
Yet I am a pastor and a theologian so I figure I should offer reflections in areas that concern me because I believe they are areas that need to be either explored and explained or, possibly, changed.
First, I was a bit concerned with the amount of Vineyard branding that seemed to take place. And I say that with a little reservation because I love the Vineyard. Yet I was a bit uncomfortable with statements like, “we’re going to build the Vineyard” or “these are Vineyard kids” and other similar declarations.
I did a few years of my undergraduate training on a denominational setting and regularly heard statements like, “our denomination is the most on fire for God.” Or, “we’re the only group of Christians who want the Holy Spirit to work.” This attitude seemed to breed a very unhealthy view of the wider body of Christ, so muchh so that some couldn’t even imagine marrying someone who was not committed to that specific denomination!
Whenever I heard these ridiculous statements, I remembered thinking, “Really? You’ve visited every denomination and have been able to accurately determine just how on fire for God every other group is and you have been able to equally determine their love and value upon the Holy Spirit? Wow.
You see, this type of thinking wasn’t good for the kingdom of God. And I’m concerned that if we’re not careful as leaders within the Vineyard, there will be a negative and shallow ecclesiology that begins to shape and inform our eccumenical interaction, learning, and influence.
I believe Vineyard has something important to contribute to the wider Body of Christ. The emphasis on inaugurated and enacted eschatology is important for a proper understanding of so much biblical teaching. So this isn’t to say that I think we’re “just another denomination.” I wouldn’t be leading a church through the Vineyard adoption process if I didn’t believe that the Vineyard movement is “home.” But we must keep this in light of our greater citizenship in the kingdom, and in our awareness that God has been doing a lot of cool stuff through a lot of other groups/movements for a lot longer than the last 30+ years.
Secondly, I have some reservations about both the biblical understanding of the nature of NT prophecy and its praxis. Granted, I have done a lot of research and writing on the subject, so I realize I am quick to be nit-picky on this subject, but I think some of this is important. Here’s my concern:
There was a moment where the 500+ people were told to prophesy over the children standing before everyone. I am concerned that this may give people the idea that (1) people can prophesy whenever they want and (2) that whatever we speak “in faith” becomes a prophecy, similar to the “name it and claim it” theology of the Word of Faith movement. These are problematic for me because (1) Paul states that spiritual gifts (in this case, prophecy) are given as the Holy Spirit wills (1 Cor. 12:11) and that (2) prophecy is never described in the Bible as something that human beings come up with on their own and God is bound to carry it out because it’s been proclaimed “in faith.”
I guess I’d like to have seen either a little more clarity or at least some teaching that would give some support to such praxis. The main reason being is because I simply find no biblical support for such actions, AND I think they could end up causing more damage if people take some of these things too far.
Of course, I am an advocate of Third Wave theology when it comes to the spiritual gifts, but I am that way because I believe it provides the best exegetical evidence and hermeneutical care.
Conclusion
These brief concerns come nowhere close to representing the majority of my thoughts, regardless of the differing lengths in this short survey of my thoughts.
I loved the conference. It was great getting to see many friends and to spend the weekend with my wife, four children, and two dogs. Yes, it was a great time.
Luke is a pastor-theologian living in northern California, serving as a co-lead pastor with his life, Dawn, at the Red Bluff Vineyard. Father of five amazing kids, when Luke isn’t hanging with his family, reading or writing theology, he moonlights as a fly fishing guide for Confluence Outfitters. He blogs regularly at LukeGeraty.com and regularly contributes to his YouTube channel.
Luke, I listened to an interview w/ Phil Strout from the Great Lakes Regional Conference, and I just loved the guy. I totally appreciate your concerns (even w/ my slightly different take on how to read Paul’s commands and insights re: tongues and prophecy). Sounds like you’re thinking well. 🙂
Deb, yes, Phil is awesome. Such a great guy and an amazing heart for the kingdom.
How would you differ with my concerns regarding prophecy? Do you believe you can prophesy at will?
I realize you posted that with the caveat, “more teaching would have helped” but, what from the experience made you think they were practicing “prophesy at will?”
I would interpret an experience like that as, “those with the gift of prophesy who are receiving prophetic words for children, as the Lord wills, prophecy.”
It would help to teach that this is what is happening though.
Well, my understanding is that a prophetic word is a message that must be given to someone and they have to hear it so that they can weigh it and so that it can build them up.
This was 500+ people sitting in an auditorium while children walked on the stage and everyone was encouraged to prophesy over them. Yet the kids could (1) not actually hear those who were supposed to be prophesying because it was just a lot of people talking at the same time and (2) seemed to confuse prophecy with prayer.
And that is probably where my concern lies. Paul says that prophecy is something that builds people up and yet none of the kids could have actually heard these prophetic words and Paul also indicates that prophecy should be in order, not a “free for all.”
Of course, this is where I think both (1) a better biblical understanding of prophecy would come in handy and (2) clarity when this stuff is happening would be equally helpful.
Your scenario would have been absolutely fine, as far as I am concerned. Assuming people with a prophetic word would then share their word in a way that the kids could be edified… and I also realize that at a conference that isn’t always easy or practical to have happen…
🙂
Well, in general I don’t think that we should necessarily expect all the possibilities of how tongues and prophecy work to be spelled out in the letters to various churches, and this is where we have diverged some on tongues before.
As for prophesying at will: Well, let me start with experiences. I have been placed in a situation before while visiting a church in New England where a crowd of about a dozen Korean women demanded that I prophesy over them (they just liked my spirit and anointing and just really felt drawn to ask me this). I told them I was untrained and so forth, but they were like, “We understand; we just trust in what God is doing here.” And I don’t know if it was their faith or what, but God really moved. I just went down the line. And I’ve hardly ever had an opportunity to use/develop the gift of prophecy before (or since for that matter). Afterwards, a couple of them approached me to tell me just how accurate it was. And some of them were so excited that they went and sought out some more friends to be prophesied over. So that’s one experience I keep in mind. I also think there has been a real blessing on some of the ministries that go to new age fairs and the like and set up a booth for encouraging people with prophecies. And among my acquaintances who went to Toronto, everyone was accurately ministered to by the prophetic team they have set up to audio-record prophecies on the spot in a down the line sort of way. Also there is a couple who work closely with Heidi Baker whom a friend had prophesy over me on the phone, and it was really astounding how God worked through them. There are some weeks where they just prophesy over people all day every day. But then, too, they specifically have the gift of prophesy; it’s not like you’re asking people who may only rarely operate in that gift to start prophesying on the spot:
I have been in charismatic meetings twice where we were called upon to start prophesying over our neighbors and where I specifically felt (on the way home) that I’d gotten some things wrong and really hoped and prayed God would help them sort it out. And once Jill Austin put me and a few others on the spot and released me to circulate among the crowd and prophesy. My issue may have gotten in the way; namely, as soon as I turned around to minister a number of men reached out toward me wanting me to prophesy over them, and not having really wrestled with the theology of cross-gender ministry yet (despite visions as a child indicating that I would minister to men), the misogynistic experiences of my past just steamrolled over me in that moment. I found myself fearful, ashamed, and confused as to whether I could minister to men and pretty much couldn’t function. Maybe I needed an experience where that question became so striking to stimulate my search.
Anyhow, more than those little personal experiences with my mouth being the instrument in question, I’ve known some ministries where they train and release many people to prophesy on cue to long lines of people to do a tremendous amount of harm at times (and who knows what extended harm they do via those who decide to mimic them on their own). And sometimes it’s not so much harm as a piling heap of nonsense (which is only harmful if you are exceptionally gullible). Granted they sometimes tell you to test everything and send you home with an audiotape to listen to, but brother, a friend in a *highly delicate* season of her life just about got dismantled by some whackadoodle ministry from a woman who trains hundreds of people to prophesy this way. I have been powerfully blessed by somesuch prophetic ministry times and thrown for a loop by the same. As I’ve just indicated, I’ve known peops who were ministered to in devastatingly poor ways in these situations (and sometimes by the leaders not by new trainees).
I theoretically think that this could be a way God would do prophetic ministry such as with those new age festival booths, but I share some of your concerns. In the first place, not having your primary prophetic training be with those with whom you have an opportunity for accountability on how well you did sets you up to fall into habitual errors such as adding to everything God tells you in your excitement. And it also sets you up to assume that when you are in more intimate environments and prophesying and don’t see all the things happening, the person has somehow failed to meet the criteria for the prophesy to come to pass b/c after all, you “felt” anointed and had faith, etc. Granted, a lot of times there are criteria, but I think that sort of process just makes it easy for people to become spiritually high and mighty. I also think that being put on the spot like that to prophesy over every person in front of you rather than the person who has caught your spiritual eye really encourages error in prophecy b/c it encourages a striving rather than a dependent and patient heart. No one wants to have nothing to say and so can easily stir up their soul to make stuff up. Additionally, some personalities are just highly sensitive to the sort of undercurrents of life and can sort of pick up on what other people want them to say I think; this can easily be the basis for someone’s prophetic words rather than God.
These sorts of ministries are almost always looking for people to give encouraging words, not chastisements, and what do you do when God is showing you that the person before you is in considerable sin or error? You keep listening. And maybe God or maybe your soul does tell you something at long last that would be an encouragement (with the hope that God’s love will lead to repentance at long last). But sometimes this sort of prophesying on command ministry enables sinful lifestyles, I think, b/c people can get their prophecy-fix to feel good about themselves. I don’t think God always *does* want to emphasize shoulder-patting encouragements, although then we get into a debate about the nature of prophecy.
Finally, in the situation you are describing, you have hundreds of people, not all of whom probably ever felt a particular call to prophetic ministry, being called upon to make declarations. Now I think we can declare some basic things of God’s heart from scripture (although we can’t just declare everything willy nilly like in word of faith) or agree with faith with some insights a prophet has brought. Additionally we are called to stir up the gift of prophecy. But if a good hunk of the crowd is not gifted to flow continuously in prophecy, who is to say that this is one of those relatively rare occasions when they will be able to prophesy? I’m not clear on how this was handled in the meeting you were at–what exactly the adults were asked to do and whether they were just praying or prophesying directly over each of the kids. But depending on what you’re describing, that’s dicey territory and leads me back to my concerns about striving and error and all the resultant confusion. And I think you are also correct that it can inadvertently encourage the idea that whatever you say while trying to stir up a feeling of faith shall be. This leads to misusing scriptures in ways that are clearly contrary to context, lots of prescriptions for how to claim your way out of troubles, shaming others, etc.
I enjoyed reading your comments, Deborah. It reminds me so much of some of my own experiences and prior struggles. 🙂 As to this situation, though, there were 100 or so children walking across the front of the stage, while 400 or so adults sat in the audience and called out stuff…so even with all of your various thoughts about prophecy, it doesn’t seem to fit because the children couldn’t actually hear any of the stuff being said to them.
I am not opposed to the thought that there may be such a thing as a prophetic declaration…where someone in the audience was gifted in prophecy or was being used prophetically, and the thing they felt led to declare over certain children is exactly what God planned to do with that child’s life, so He was leading the person to make the declaration in a prophetic way. In a case like that, God heard the declaration and it wouldn’t be necessary for the child to hear it.
As to the situation of someone actually giving a prophecy to a child, one-on-one, I think a parent should be standing there with the child, or at the minimum, an appropriate spiritual leader. I think there is a danger is allowing people to prophecy over a child who has no protective adult with them.
Ah, thanks, Timbreldancer!
So it sounds like folks were engaging in corporate intercession Korean style (where everyone prays–here, prophetically–at once with no real intent that anyone would hear it but the Lord)?? If it were more clearly spelled out that what you were saying was a form of inspired intercession would that have made you more comfortable? Luke?
It’s not really an issue of being comfortable. I’m fine with being uncomfortable with things God is doing.
My issue is that I simply don’t find Scripture supporting this type of concept regarding the gift of prophecy. That’s all 🙂
If someone said, “Hey, let’s corporately pray and bless these kids,” I’d be thinking, “Awesome… let’s do this!”
Do you disagree with Korean style corporate praying (as opposed to breaking into small groups)? Or do you just disagree if those prayers are encouraged to be prophetic (they may or may not naturally be so w/o the encouragement)? I’m not sure if your hermeneutical concern is that everyone is doing it, that no one is hearing it as to receive (and weigh) individual encouragements, or that everyone is doing it at once.
The first two years I was in YWAM, our particular base was about 70% Korean, so praying “Korean-style” was pretty much the norm.
Then we lived in Tijuana Mexico for three years, and they do the same thing, except that it’s called “praying Mexican-style”. 🙂
1. I LOVE it because it takes away the individualistic and focuses on the community. And that the prayers are truly “unto the Lord” because nobody can hear everybody (and if they’re praying in Korean/espanol, I couldn’t tell anyway). And for newer/younger believers, it takes the pressure off how they word their prayers.
2. I DO NOT like how it takes away from paying attention to the individual(s) receiving prayer, listening to them share why they want/need prayer, praying together with them (pastoral care), and listening together to what the Holy Spirit may be wanting to reveal/do.
This has been a concern of mine for the Vineyard: quite a number (especially here in Canada) seem to have forgotten or rejected the old classic “five-step prayer model”. In its place, we’ve substituted wild head-shaking machine-gun prophetic utterances or (more commonly) prayer is no longer part of the worship services or culture of the church.
I think you have some good insights in this article. We’ve also struggled with “family” versus “children’s” ministry. Can’t say as we’ve come to any definitive answer yet, either, but I am coming to believe that parents’ intimate involvement in their children’s spiritual lives is extremely important and will help to offset any weaknesses of whatever other ministry the children may receive.
I felt a little uncomfortable with the “prophesy over the children” statement, too. I think a more appropriate terminology would be to “declare blessings over the children”, since I think that’s what people were pretty much doing, anyway. Although I am able to function prophetically, I couldn’t think of any way I could reasonably hear and declare a prophetic word for every single child that streamed across that stage…at least not THAT fast! LOL
Thanks for sharing your thoughts; They’re deep, and good to read.
My own highs:
I loved Phil, and his life, and his style/culture.
I loved the integrated family timeline, and the prayer time for kids (I disgregarded the muddy language… everyone praying for our kids while they went in front of us is AWESOME).
And lows:Totally modernist.
Overall, I’m glad for where we’re headed, but I hope there’s more coming down the pipe that we haven’t heard yet.
My high was that he isn’t postmodern, so that’s hilarious 🙂
Great stuff here, Luke. (Sorry I missed you while you were in the area by the way). The issue of branding is interesting. My wife and I were talking about the ways in which we as Christians identify our “religious views” on Facebook last night, and about how the language we use forces us to identify ourselves somewhere on a scale from zoomed out (“Christian”) to part-way zoomed (“Protestant” or “Evangelical”) to zoomed way in (“Vineyard” or “Methodist”, etc.). While I am choosing to join and affiliate with the Vineyard and increasingly see the Vineyard as sort of my immediate church family, I share you repulsion to too much denominational branding. I would very happily one day send out church planters to plant faithful churches that are not “Vineyard,” because the Kingdom is just too big for anything else.
Excellent insight, Sam. I’m thankful for your thoughts.
We must always be careful to avoid missing the “big picture,” and it’s really hard to do that sometimes!