What Will Be Repeatable After the Pandemic
As Easter season comes to an end and slower summer months are coming, many of us in church ministry are planning for the Fall season and a new ministry year. And we’re nervous. We’ve been told in various places that we are not going back to normal after this pandemic. In other words, there are some things that we could assume upon before the pandemic that won’t be repeatable afterward.
Admittedly, this might look different depending on your community and region. You might be in a location where the joyful unity you depended upon might be broken up by divisive politics and arguments over government restrictions. You might be in an urban environment where much of your church was made up of entertainment and service industry workers and now your church is half it’s size. There might be a deep fragility in your leadership after experiencing a year of burn-out level work. A church community may find that the level of mental health concerns far out-weigh their capacity to manage care. We will be figuring out and dealing with the social and financial costs of this pandemic for quite some time.
The things that cannot be shaken
A woman in our community was leading our church through a corporate prayer and she expressed that in this season it feels as if only the things that cannot be shaken are left. I sensed the weight of that statement. Much has been shaken. And many in our community are wondering, what are the things that will remain? What can we depend on being repeatable?
Sinclair Ferguson was reflecting on this question as it relates to Pentecost in his book The Holy Spirit. Pentecost was a unique moment in history, a new epoch, where new things were happening. He was arguing that just as there were some things that are “once and for all” in the death and resurrection of Christ, so it is with Pentecost. There are some things that aren’t repeatable. He was arguing against “second blessing” theology among Methodist pietists and Pentecostals that argued for a second experience of grace, a baptism of the Holy Spirit, apart from conversion (note: while I imagine Ferguson is a Cessationist, his argument wasn’t against the continuation of the gifts).
Nevertheless, Ferguson argues that what is repeatable in every age since Pentecost is power. “Luke-Acts speaks of being filled with or being full of the Spirit as an ongoing condition, but also describes particular occasions when individuals appear to experience distinct fillings.” And here he creates two categories of what it means to be full of or filled with the Spirit:
First, in one sense, to be “filled with the Spirit refers predominately to exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit in a life that is under the lordship of the Spirit.”
And second, where there seems to be a “special influx of ability and power in the service of the kingdom.”
So while there might be debates around what are the “isolated phenomenons” at Pentecost, Ferguson gives good evidence that what is not debatable is that Christians experience power from the Spirit to be Christ’s witnesses and to participate in the advancement of his kingdom.
Even more than that, what is not isolated to Pentecost is the measure of power evidenced in that moment. In other words, there seems to be a breaking out of spiritual power from God upon his people and it was not just one person, full of the Spirit, as in Old Testament accounts, fulfilling God’s purposes, it was thousands of people at a time. Ferguson argues that this dynamic, as well, seems repeatable in history and we call this dynamic, revival. “We might say,” he explains, “that revival is the unstopping of the pent-up energies of the Spirit of God, breaking down the dams which have been erected against his convicting and converting ministry in whole communities of individuals, as happened at Pentecost and in the ‘awakenings’ which have followed.”
Praying towards things repeatable
So in an age when so many things that we have assumed in the past will not be repeatable in the future, there seems to be at least three things we can pray towards being repeatable in our churches:
First, our communities will be filled with the Spirit and give evidence of obedience and love.
Second, that we will be filled with power to be fruitful despite setbacks, diminishments, and heartbreak.
Third, that God might pour out with such power on our weaknesses in convicting and converting whole communities towards revival.
If you are a pastor or spiritual leader, your resources may be low, but your power hasn’t changed. That should mean a great deal to us.
John Starke is pastor of preaching at Apostles Church, a Harbor Network church in New York City, serves on our Board of Directors, is the author of The Possibility of Prayer and co-editor of One God in Three Persons. You can follow him on Twitter.
