Wednesday, March 14, 2007

spiritual gifts and missional / emerging church

Maybe I've been missing something...
...but, it seems to me, that there hasn't been a lot of discussion on spiritual gifts and the missional and/or emerging church.

There's a lot written on blogs and in books about doing and being the church, but I get this nagging sense that there is not a sense of dependance on God's Spirit. Over the last 4 months, I've been in a lot of churches, but I wouldn't say I've seen a lot of evidence that God's Spirit was active in people's midst [for that matter... I've not seen a lot of evidence of the Father's love]. There have been a couple of exceptions, but most have not been demonstartions of the Spirit's presence.

Oh, we give a nod of the head to the Spirit - after all we claim to be trinitarian in our theology... but are we trinitarian in our practice or are we really cessationists.
  • Can we claim to believe that the gifts that God gives to his church are for use today, if we don't practice them?
  • Are we really dependent upon God to lead us, or are we dependent on our plans and skills and resources?

What are you seeing & hearing?
Where are the places / churches where it is obvious that the whole range of spiritual gifts are in practice?

2 comments:

Missional Jerry said...

we need more gifts discussion in the missional conversation

oncoffee said...

agreed...
how do see the gifts discussion going forward?