.

[jimmyjimmy]

.

 

[Albion]

What does it mean when someone says that he belongs to a, "Spirit-filled" church? Is he claiming that other churches or Christians are not "filled" with God's Spirit? Is it all about falling on the ground and "holy laughter"?

Don't all of God's elect have His Spirit indwelling?

Just about everyone I've ever encountered who used that term meant by it that 'evidence' of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, i.e. tongues, prophesy, etc., was present during the worship services.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

Just about everyone I've ever encountered who used that term meant by it that 'evidence' of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, i.e. tongues, prophesy, etc., was present during the worship services.

Thank you. Yes, that's my take as well, but is it not also a slight, or backhanded way to say that the rest of us are lacking in God's Spirit? Have you ever been accused of attending a "dead" church, for instance?

 

[Albion]

Thank you. Yes, that's my take as well, but is it not also a slight, or backhanded way to say that the rest of us are lacking in God's Spirit? Have you ever been accused of attending a "dead" church, for instance?

Absolutely.

 

[Tigger45]

I typically see Spirit filled and Charismatic as being used synonymously but to distinguish themselves from the holy roller Pentecostals and cessationalist Christian churches.

 

[Righttruth]

What does it mean when someone says that he belongs to a, "Spirit-filled" church? Is he claiming that other churches or Christians are not "filled" with God's Spirit? Is it all about falling on the ground and "holy laughter"?

Don't all of God's elect have His Spirit indwelling?

All external shows of gimmicks and acrobatics are not related to the Spirit.

 

[Tigger45]

I often hear in their personal testimony experiences, particularly coming from a traditional church, that they've now been baptized by the HS as opposed to just water baptism.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

I often hear in their personal testimony experiences, particularly coming from a traditional church, that they've now been baptized by the HS as opposed to just water baptism.

I guess that makes the rest of us second class Christians. Are we even Christians in their eyes, if we have not the Holy Spirit?

 

[Tigger45]

I used to attend a little AoG church and the pastor would occasionally preach on scriptures making distinctions on verses where it refers to the HS being 'in' us i.e. (The qualifier for salvation) and the HS being 'on' us i.e. (The HS anointing/empowering us).

So 'he' not 'me' would summarize by saying a person is 'saved' by the initial indwelling of the HS but that there is a higher level of calling and relationship with God that is available to the believer.

 

[Albion]

I guess that makes the rest of us second class Christians. Are we even Christians in their eyes, if we have not the Holy Spirit?

It depends on whom you are conversing with. But yes, there are some who take the view that to be a complete or genuine Christian you must be gifted in this way.

Normally, that means to speak in unintelligible sounds because doing that is much easier to accomplish than healing the disabled, prophesying, or etc.

 

[seashale76]

I used to attend a little AoG church and the pastor would occasionally preach on scriptures making distinctions on verses where it refers to the HS being 'in' us i.e. (The qualifier for salvation) and the HS being 'on' us i.e. (The HS anointing/empowering us).

So 'he' not 'me' would summarize by saying a person is 'saved' by the initial indwelling of the HS but that there is a higher level of calling and relationship with God that is available to the believer.

I was AoG for the first 23 years of my life. I never heard of this distinction in any sermons ever. The topic of whether others were saved was sort of avoided, but the fact that anyone that left for a non-Pentecostal church was looked on as leaving the faith gave away the real teaching. I was told repeatedly and even memorized the following phrase growing up, 'The initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues.' It was considered so important that you had to seek out this experience. I'm told that now their on-line position papers have tried to be more inclusive and offer the distinction you've mentioned, but that was absolutely not the case when I was growing up. Other churches were dead.

This would explain why my mother flipped her lid when I started going to my husband's Southern Baptist church- where we got married (now she's Southern Baptist herself). She very much held to the idea that if you didn't go to a church where people speak in tongues, then you were missing something (I was flat out told I was going to hell when I became Orthodox). She has since told me that some of the multi-generational AoG folks she knows (such as we were as my grandfather was an AoG minister) act like she's hell bound for leaving. Those that were raised in the movement tend to adhere to the older views and don't keep up with the newer twists that have since been introduced. (Some of those folks that I grew up with act like we're total strangers if I run into them. It's sad.)

Catholics, all main-line denominations, et cetera are dead churches to the AoG.

ETA: When I went on an AIM mission trip to South America way back when, we had no issues in trying to convert people that already claimed to be Christian- especially if they said they were Catholic, as Catholics weren't considered Christian in the first place.

 

[sunlover1]

I remember when my girlfriend was talking about one of the neighbors, years ago. She mentioned that she'd had the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I asked her if she thought we didnt all have that. I mean, I prayed and studied the Bible and thought of God always.
We concluded that we certainly MUST have been 'baptized with the Spirit'
These guys seem a bit confused about that too:
1It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the
upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. 2He said
to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they
said to him, "No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit."
3And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" And they said,
"Into John's baptism."…

Here it shows that it's a separate event, AND that it is somehow observable.
"Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water.
They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have."

Years later when I did receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there was no longer
any question in my mind. I knew immediately that I'd received it and ALL things
became new. (I'd been fasting for 3 days and God led me to ask for it, it wasn't
my idea because I thought I had it already) Best day of my entire life!

 

[Extraneous]

The Pope seems to agree with them.

 

[sunlover1]

It depends on whom you are conversing with. But yes, there are some who take the view that to be a complete or genuine Christian you must be gifted in this way.

Normally, that means to speak in unintelligible sounds because doing that is much easier to accomplish than healing the disabled, prophesying, or etc.

Amazing how "Christians" can be so hateful to one another.
Wait, that's no fruit of the Spirit.
A tree is known by the FRUIT he produces, not by how
fancy he thinks he looks or which forest he stands in.

 

[Albion]

I'm told that now their on-line position papers have tried to be more....

Your post's a nice overview of the subject, seashale.

The AoG has clearly moderated as it's grown to be a large denomination, and some congregations couldn't really be identified as Pentecostal by a visitor so long as he was judging only by what he saw during a visit.

 

[Extraneous]

I was AoG for the first 23 years of my life. I never heard of this distinction in any sermons ever. The topic of whether others were saved was sort of avoided, but the fact that anyone that left for a non-Pentecostal church was looked on as leaving the faith gave away the real teaching. I was told repeatedly and even memorized the following phrase growing up, 'The initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues.' It was considered so important that you had to seek out this experience. I'm told that now their on-line position papers have tried to be more inclusive and offer the distinction you've mentioned, but that was absolutely not the case when I was growing up. Other churches were dead.

This would explain why my mother flipped her lid when I started going to my husband's Southern Baptist church- where we got married (now she's Southern Baptist herself). She very much held to the idea that if you didn't go to a church where people speak in tongues, then you were missing something (I was flat out told I was going to hell when I became Orthodox). She has since told me that some of the multi-generational AoG folks she knows (such as we were as my grandfather was an AoG minister) act like she's hell bound for leaving. Those that were raised in the movement tend to adhere to the older views and don't keep up with the newer twists that have since been introduced. (Some of those folks that I grew up with act like we're total strangers if I run into them. It's sad.)

Catholics, all main-line denominations, et cetera are dead churches to the AoG.

ETA: When I went on an AIM mission trip to South America way back when, we had no issues in trying to convert people that already claimed to be Christian- especially if they said they were Catholic, as Catholics weren't considered Christian in the first place.

I called a prayer hotline one time for prayer, and the lady on the phone asked me if i spoke in tongues, i said no, and she said that i didn't have the holy spirit. I tried to bring up 1 Corinthians 12, and tell her that paul says that not all have the gift of tongues, but it fell on "deaf ears" and she didn't hear what i said.

 

[seashale76]

nice overview, seashale.

The AoG has clearly moderated as it's grown to be a large denomination, and some congregations couldn't really be identified as Pentecostal by a visitor so long as he was judging only by what he saw during a visit.

That's so true. Recently, I was talking to a girl in my cohort at school and she mentioned where she went to church. I told her that I didn't know she was pentecostal. However, she insisted that she didn't go to a pentecostal church. When I started telling her her pastor's name and all of his family member's names and how we knew each other from going to church camp every summer as kids, and how my mom knew one of them from when they went to an AoG college together, she was flabbergasted. The church doesn't officially identify itself as AoG by name, but it still very much is. Since she never went to the Sunday evening services or the non-youth Wednesday night services, she somehow never saw the 'speaking in tongues' stuff (which is when a lot of AoG churches tend to do those things).

 

[Righttruth]

I often hear in their personal testimony experiences, particularly coming from a traditional church, that they've now been baptized by the HS as opposed to just water baptism.

A delusion. Normally, the Holy Spirit baptism is administered by Jesus after water baptism for the faithful. Speaking gibberish after baptism is not that one.

 

[Albion]

But Tigger is certainly right when he says that such a POV is voiced by many Pentecostal Christians.

 

[Righttruth]

It depends on whom you are conversing with. But yes, there are some who take the view that to be a complete or genuine Christian you must be gifted in this way.

Normally, that means to speak in unintelligible sounds because doing that is much easier to accomplish than healing the disabled, prophesying, or etc.

What is important is not the gifts of the Spirit but the fruit that fetches salvation