I had the chance to head down to Jimi's alma mater this weekend, Virginia Tech, where the university was on a suicide watch after their loss to the Hurricane's last week.
However, I was not heading to lovely Blacksburg for football. I cruised down 77 with Pastor Jim, Rich, and Matt B for a day long intensive Pastor Jim was giving on the Holy Spirit. VTECH participates in Pavi Thomas' nifty little "e4," equipping program. We had a real good time as brothers and leaders on the car ride there and back chewing through our lives, Heritage, where we head in the future, all in all it was a great time.
The intensive was a lot of fun as well. Our stream of churches hasn't traditionally embraced the manifestations of the Spirit in prophecy, tongues, and healing, so it was fun to be able to walk through the Scriptures, the history of Godly men and women's encounters with the Spirit, the theology of the kingdom, and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. At this point, everyone was tracking and excited, then we ventured into 1 Corinthians 13-14, broke down the cessationist argument and dug into Paul's admonition to the church at Corinth to see the things of the Spirit. It was encouraging to see the way the attendees acknowledged the scriptures and realized that scripturally you can't deny these works (important for us evangelicals), most hang ups came from bad experiences or labels placed on the idea of practicing the things of the Spirit because of Pentecostalism (which tends to say that the mark of a Christian is that thye speak in tongues). Pastor Jim did a good job easing folks into an understanding of how we can remain Biblical Christians and practice the things of the Spirit (which we have to if we are Biblical Christians). While Pastor Jim was sensitive, He truly urged the leaders there to engage with God and to ask for gifts of prophecy and tongues.. I feel like I learned a lot about leadership watching the way he stepped into these traditionally icy waters and helped ones move to a new understanding of the fullness we can have in our relationship with God by embracing the gifts of the Spirit.
11.14.2005
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1 comment:
that's a real interesting. i think it's sweet that you guys had a chance to go down there, and that Jim spoke. It's kind of tight to me thinking about it, because i know our church acknowledges signs and wonders, but at the same time i guess it's not stressed, i think it would be sweet if it were stressed more. i think a generation is coming up on that being given gifts from the spirit. that's real hard that he also included the cessationist argument because i haven't heard a whole lot about that. and i wish i could have heard what Jim said. that's tight though.
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