Distinctive Charismatic Contributions to Christian Corporate Worship and Personal Spirituality

Pentecost by Josef Ignaz Mildorfer (1719–1775)

Those of you who have been tracking with this blog will know that part of my purpose here is to suggest ways in which charismatics might seek to improve the charismatic movement from within by shoring up some of our typical deficiencies. At the very same time, however, my goal is also to celebrate the many aspects of the charismatic movement that I think are fantastic gifts of God to the global Church. In this post I want to discuss some key distinctives of charismatic (and to a certain extent Pentecostal) theology and practice that I think have the potential to add a great deal to Christian corporate worship services and also personal Christian spirituality.

My main point in this blog post is that charismatics tend to emphasize a powerful combination of divine goodness, immediacy and power, with these realities effecting corporate and personal transformation. What do I mean by all this? Let’s begin with a silly and overall, very inadequate illustration. Queen Elizabeth II was until her death in 2022 one of the longest serving monarchs in recorded history. By virtue of her position in British society, she was immensely influential and wealthy. She was also personally very well-liked and respected, even by proud Scotsmen such as myself, due to the fact that people generally seemed to sense that she was, though far from perfect, a good, faithful person of substantial character. To many Canadian citizens, Queen Elizabeth was a person they knew to be important and well respected, but she was generally conceived of as distant, far off, and mostly irrelevant to Canadian society corporately and to individual Canadians. That said, I think that the average Canadian would have felt and acted quite differently in relation to the Queen and in their life as a whole if they were informed by a reliable source that Queen Elizabeth II would be coming to visit them at their home for a cup of tea on Sunday afternoon next week. This good and powerful ruler immediately went from being irrelevant and mostly ignored, to becoming the very centre of attention. What would the Queen say or do this Sunday? Would she bestow a generous gift of some kind upon this fortunate person? Would she use her power to release them from some kind of debt or burden? How would this person feel being in the presence of royalty, with someone this powerful and esteemed taking a personal interest in them and their family?

I hope you are generally catching my drift here. Charismatic theology and practice tend to emphasize that God is or can be present in both our corporate Christian gatherings and our personal lives in an intensely immediate sense. When charismatics meet together as Christians and as they live their personal lives of devotion to Christ, they do not understand themselves to be talking, singing, preaching, praying about/to someone who is not very present. God is right here, his very immediate presence that once dwelled in the tabernacle and then in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem is here, and he is not sitting twiddling his thumbs, he is active: speaking, healing, calling, forgiving, reconciling, strengthening. Charismatics usually combine this sense of God’s immediate presence with a strong belief in both his absolute loving goodness and his power. God is not only immediately present, he is also profoundly good and therefore willing to set us free from our burdens, pains, addictions, worries, doubts and fears, he is also powerful, and therefore able to do these things in our lives. Although all orthodox Christians tend to believe that God is present, good and powerful, these things are generally emphasized and believed much more intensely by charismatics, and this makes a big difference in their corporate worship gatherings and their personal spiritual lives. It is a basic human social principle that we act differently in relationship to other people, especially powerful people, when they are present versus when they are absent. How much of what we say and do in church would become less common if we remembered that Christ, and therefore God, is personally in the room, walking in the midst of his lampstands (Revelation 1:13)? Not in a merely theoretical, doctrinal sense, but in a manner that may actually change what visibly happens or does not happen in the room.

These theological ideas are not only comforting and encouraging, they are also in a sense profoundly challenging and unnerving. For example, a regular trip to the grocery store for a charismatic has the potential to become a moment in which God the Holy Spirit, who is immediately present inside and with the believer as they do their groceries, calls them to stop and actually speak to the marginalized person sitting on the street corner, not just to feel good about giving them a gift card or praying for them in a self-focused/righteous way, but to actually try and get to know them a little. Or maybe a short drive to get gas and a car wash turns into the Holy Spirit prompting you to call your estranged sibling and apologize for something in the past. If God is immediately present with us at all times, he can tell us what he wants us to do at all times, and we need to obey at all times! And when we do, charismatics believe and expect, God sometimes does amazing things. To return briefly to my silly example of Queen Elizabeth, it is one thing to believe that Jesus is good, powerful and wants the best for you generally speaking, it is completely another thing to expect to meet him immediately in an ongoing way in your Christian life. For the charismatic, God is not distant and maybe willing to intervene in our lives. Rather, it is almost as if our entire Christian lives, individually and together, are lived on “holy ground”, just as when Moses approached the burning bush and was addressed by the very voice of YHWH: ‘When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God’ (Exodus 3:4-6, NRSV).

To my non-charismatic friends, you may be wondering how much validity there is to these emphases biblically speaking. Without going into too much detail, I think that there is a great deal of biblical material that supports the belief that God is immediately present amongst his church in great power and goodness and that this can often result in people, families and churches being transformed for the better. Consider the prologue of John, where Eugene Peterson famously paraphrased John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (the Message). The Greek can be more literally rendered “The Word became flesh and tabernacled with us”. John understands Jesus’ incarnation, God himself becoming human flesh and blood and walking among us, as the ultimate fulfilment of what began in the Hebrew tabernacle in the wilderness - the very presence of God amongst humanity, especially his people. And what better things are we to glean from the healing and deliverance ministry of Jesus other than that that he is supremely powerful - able to help us - and supremely good - desiring to help us. And how often did Jesus rebuke is disciples for not believing that his presence with them meant that anything was now possible and people’s lives would be transformed for the better? And we must also remember Jesus' startling statement: "Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7, NRSV).

I want to leave you with two thoughts at the end of this post:

Firstly, although I personally have a love/hate relationship with charismatic worship music, take a look at these intriguing lyrics from the very charismatic worship team UPPERROOM, they are pretty great I think! This song is entitled Holy Spirit (We Love You):

And You are here, breaking all the boxes with love

And You are close, satisfying longings inside

And as You move, we anticipate what You’ll do

'Cause You’re so good

'Cause You are here, breaking all the boxes with love

And You are close, satisfying longings inside

And as You move, we anticipate what You’ll do

'Cause You’re so good

Secondly, I would challenge all of us, myself very much included, to think about the difference that God’s immediate presence in our lives and churches makes to how we think, speak and act. If the Queen was coming for tea this Sunday, I am sure that I would think, speak and act very differently this week! As many of you know, I am studying for a PhD in New Testament at the moment. The charismatic emphasis on God’s immediate presence with me has the potential to transform the way I go about my studies. God is not just an object to be studied, examined, dissected, talked about. When I study the New Testament, even with all the sophistication of a so-called ‘expert-in-the-making’, God is with me, watching and listening, in all his unspeakable holiness, power and goodness. Although I may feel like I am the one taking the initiative here: I am studying Him, in reality, even in my studying, it is He who addresses me.