Preach Magazine Issue 3 - Preaching and the Holy Spirit | Page 15

FEATURE

O

ne story that may give pause
for thought is that of US Pastor
Joshua Harris who recently
resigned from his Washington
church to enrol at a Bible School,
Regent College in Vancouver. He’d
never received theological training
before despite leading a 3,000-strong
church for many years.
The stereotypes are there but what
is the reality? Do churches that are
strong on Bible teaching shut out the
possibility of signs and wonders? And
do churches that preach the ministry
of the Holy Spirit using supernatural
gifts deny the Bible is sufficient?
Certainly an examination of the way
that churches present themselves on
their websites and a glance at their
Bible teaching series is very revealing
(see box out).
There seems to be a different code
and shorthand that is used in the way
churches describe themselves, which
lead us to assume they are from
certain ‘tribes’ of theological leaning.
Websites reveal priorities: Bible
teaching at the top of the list for
some, followed by study and
discipleship. Then there’s love,
community and power for churches
with a more charismatic bent. Preach
magazine’s website sample reveals
enough evidence to broadly support
the general assumptions – but only
to a point.
Preacher and President of the
London School of Theology Krish
Kandiah (see below) cites church
network New Frontiers and the
Vineyard movement as seeking to
hold Word and Spirit together. He told
Preach: ‘Terry Virgo, founder of New
Frontiers, was someone who was very
committed to sequence expository
preaching – working through books
of the Bible logically. There’d be an
hour long sermon as part of their
Sunday services as well as room
for manifestations of the Spirit and
words of knowledge and prophecy.’

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A random selection of
church websites reveals
certain buzzwords and
phrases….

Strong on Bible
teaching…
Buzzwords: Obedience…
discipleship… hearing God’s
word together… authority.
‘Listening and responding to
God’s word obediently.’
‘Worship and prayer are a
response to study of scriptures.’
Most churches in this category
listed sermons on their website
with a named Bible text for each
service.

Strong on gifts
of the Spirit...
Buzzwords: Saved… healed…
delivered… in God’s presence…
worship… community… intimacy…
hearing God’s voice.
‘Reach up to God in Worship.’
Talks are more conceptual – not
necessarily linked to a named
Bible passage.

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Trent Vineyard’s website reveals it
also tries to hold that tension: ‘God
has called us to build a growing,
regional, biblically based church
in Nottingham, which will, in a
creative and contemporary way,
in the power of the Holy Spirit,
worship God and communicate
the gospel with compassion and
generosity’, it reads.
There was plenty of evidence from
the other church websites Preach
visited that Bible teaching had
not been abandoned in the more
charismatic churches – far from it.
But the way the Bible is used and
viewed is certainly up for debate
between differing Christian tribes.
St Helen’s in Bishopsgate, London
describes itself as a conservative
evangelical church. One of its
online ‘Sermon Bites’ reads: ‘There
is a common belief that prayer is a
two-way form of communication.
However, there’s no evidence in
the Bible to substantiate the view
that God speaks to us in prayer.
Biblical prayer operates in one
direction only. In his sermon The
only thing that matters, William
Taylor argues that we need to sit
at the feet of Jesus to hear the
voice of God. For us today, this
means reading and meditating on
Scripture, the authoritative word.’
In his most recent book Prayer,
US author and pastor Timothy
Keller offers a similar outlook:
‘Our prayers should arise out of
immersion in the Scripture… We
should listen, study, think, reflect,
and ponder the Scriptures until
there is an answering response in
our hearts and minds.1
He argues that God speaks only
through his word, and not through
inner ‘subjective’ impressions,
describing the clash between
the two theologies as ‘one of the
fundamental issues in the history
of Christian piety and spirituality.’

17/04/2015 15:42:52