When I became a Christian I joined a Baptist church. One Sunday night my pastor recommended a book (The Holy Spirit: Who He Is and What He Does by R.A. Torrey) that had a tremendous impact on me. Then I went off to college and was introduced to the charismatic renewal. As a result my eyes were opened – God still wants to do what the New Testament talks about! We moved to Memphis and the Baptist church we were an active part of made it clear, they wanted to no part of baptism with the Spirit, spiritual gifts, healing and more. So we had a parting of the ways.
We were churchless. Then I began to listen to a local pastor on the radio – Loren Calkins of Alliance Bible Church. He was going through the Book of Acts. I was impressed: he was going through verse by verse AND whatever it said, he believed. Not only did it happen then but similar things happened now. And he didn’t make a big deal of it, there was just room for God to be God and do what He said.
One afternoon he talked about something he called The Four Fold Gospel. That is, Jesus Christ our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. I was excited. When I got home I told Mary about it. “I just heard about this Four Fold Gospel. I’m not sure about the Sanctifier part but this sounds a lot like where we are!”
I contacted Pastor Calkins. He visited us and we visited the church. We were still so Baptist that we said, Let’s give it a month and if we like it we will join. At the end of the month we joined the church. We affiliated with this church, a part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance because of the Four Fold Gospel and their openness to God. I found out later on that not everyone was so open to the gifts etc. As a result of their interaction with the early Pentecostal movement (some of this movement came out of the Alliance, such as the Assemblies of God and Four Square), the Alliance had developed a position toward spiritual gifts: “Seek not, forbid not.” This is an obvious compromise and in some cases the actual position was, “Seek not, forbid not, hope not, better not.” Despite this, there was expectation of fullness of life and blessing.
I can tell you wonderful stories of this expectation. I remember hearing Bob Battles sharing about an earlier day when there were three lines at the altar during the invitation (salvation, sanctification, healing) and that they used to sing, “I was there when the fire fell!” Then there was the fairly new Christian (I can’t recall his name, but I heard him tell this story), saved under Glen Tingley’s amazing ministry in Alabama, who was sent out to pastor a new work. A woman came to the altar to be anointed with oil for healing. He objected, “Sister, I’m not sure about this. I need to look into this.” She said, “Pastor, I don’t have time for you to study this. I hurt too bad. Pray for me!” He did and the next thing he knew she was running around the auditorium, praising God for her healing! And then there was L.L. King. He told us how he came to pastor a church in Nebraska and discovered the young people were not interested in spiritual things. He set about praying for them to be saved. And every single one was born again while he was the pastor! All with just an emphasis on Jesus.
But the bonus was missions. We were introduced to the world, God’s working in the world, and these amazing people called missionaries. I know the SBC has the largest Protestant missionary force, but when I was in the SBC I never met missionaries. I only knew about the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon Easter and Christmas offerings. In the Alliance, missions was our middle name. Literally!
And what stories we could tell about missions! The first church I was pastored was Brent Alliance in Pensacola. Once a month those dear ladies would meet as the Women’s Missionary & Prayer Fellowship. The meeting would start at 7 pm and routinely lasted until 10:30 or 11:00 pm, with most of that time spent in prayer. We learned where Irian Jaya was and how Bill and Gracie Cutts went to work among the Moni tribe. They prayed and preached but nothing happened. Nothing. Then one day they woke up and found their yard full of people who explained, “We are hungry for God” and a great awakening occurred among them! I was reminded of this when a friend said to me, in a discussion about “seeker sensitive” churches, “No one ever goes to church seeking God.” I disagreed and he amended his statement. And it reminded me, the Moni came seeking God before there was a church! Then there was R.A. Jaffray. He went to China, then to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). While in China, in a prayer meeting, God poured out His Spirit upon them and all the gifts were manifested. No hype, no fanfare, just life. John A. MacMillan went to China and then the Philippines. He wrote a book, The Authority of the Believer, which was about spiritual warfare - before the charismatic movement. Powerful teaching. Once again, and this was the coolest thing, there was no “Look at me, see what I can do.” It was simply the expected fullness of Jesus. We had a strong work in Viet Nam that was mightily affected by the war. When the Montagnards (mountain people from Viet Nam) came to the US, we were in York and took a lot of aid to Raleigh, where Betty Mitchell was. Then Helen Evans came to Charlotte to work with them there. Both of these sisters had been missionaries in Viet Nam. In fact, Charlie Long, then the pastor in Raleigh, had also been a missionary among the Montagnards and worked on a Bible translation for them. The last I heard, Helen was in her 80s and still working with them! Amazing and awesome people. And every year we had two missionaries for our annual Missions Conference (I still prefer the older name, Missionary Convention). So I have many more stories like these.
I know this is rather random and even disconnected. But it is my friend’s fault. His comment got me thinking about all this. The Christian & Missionary Alliance has changed a lot in the last few years, especially the last five years and I am no longer affiliated with them. But I am grateful for the years I was with them. And still long for a church where the fullness of life in Jesus is taught and expected and experienced, and where the mission is: “The Whole Gospel for the Whole Man for the Whole World.”
No comments:
Post a Comment