Every church movement, every local church, has their challenges. Left to purely human reasoning, there are things that can feel restricting, too slow to bloom to fruit—and dare we say it (?), too slow to conform to our expectations...however close our impatient convictions might accurately mirror the thrust of the Scriptures.
None of these concerning observations need lead one to despair or being offended, irritated, or feeling misunderstood and isolated. Instead, thoughts of how to reconcile our reasonings and emotions to what we encounter can simply be left aside if we keep in mind that from day to day, at every level of ministry in the Body of Christ, the Spirit is speaking prophetically. It is up to us to not just agree with this but to actively make note of the God-directed trends. I will use the example of following one’s local church leaders as an example.
How the Spirit is prophetically moving may not be as obvious as one thinks. I suggest writing the main points of emphases that you are hearing from the pulpit and church bible studies. To this, try to retain highlights of what you and church acquaintances are gleaning from your personal studies and from how our Lord is intervening in your lives as you share anecdotes.
Finally, take all of this like it were a figurative mass of dough, a kneaded mix, a multi-layered revelation that shows a certain leading by the Lord. As individual believers in the congregation “compare notes” about this—by active obedience of “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25), an edifying and at times thrilling realization comes to surface. A cohesion of “knowings” all parallel to show the Spirit moving like a river through the congregation.
To borrow from a chorus from yesteryear, "Spring up oh well, within [our souls]"!
None of these concerning observations need lead one to despair or being offended, irritated, or feeling misunderstood and isolated. Instead, thoughts of how to reconcile our reasonings and emotions to what we encounter can simply be left aside if we keep in mind that from day to day, at every level of ministry in the Body of Christ, the Spirit is speaking prophetically. It is up to us to not just agree with this but to actively make note of the God-directed trends. I will use the example of following one’s local church leaders as an example.
How the Spirit is prophetically moving may not be as obvious as one thinks. I suggest writing the main points of emphases that you are hearing from the pulpit and church bible studies. To this, try to retain highlights of what you and church acquaintances are gleaning from your personal studies and from how our Lord is intervening in your lives as you share anecdotes.
Finally, take all of this like it were a figurative mass of dough, a kneaded mix, a multi-layered revelation that shows a certain leading by the Lord. As individual believers in the congregation “compare notes” about this—by active obedience of “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25), an edifying and at times thrilling realization comes to surface. A cohesion of “knowings” all parallel to show the Spirit moving like a river through the congregation.
To borrow from a chorus from yesteryear, "Spring up oh well, within [our souls]"!
