What About Being Pentecostal?

by Dale Van Steenis

While still young in ministry, and because of repetitive snide remarks and criticisms of Pentecostals and my church environment, I deeply questioned my Pentecostal baptism accompanied by tongues speaking, and many of the worship expressions demonstrated periodically in the church I attended. To be honest, I was ashamed of “us” and embarrassed by my inability to explain religious practices that were not easy to explain.

As a whole, Pentecostalism seemed anti-intellectual. How so? A college educated person or a true intellectual were hard to find where I was. My Pentecostal associates were, for the most part, simple work-a-day folks. And the expressions in worship left me wondering: Why did Brother H occasionally run the aisle shouting for joy waving his guitar over his head? Why did Sister A do a little dance acting stiff like her body was strapped to a board. Yes, those things really happened.

With calloused criticism on the one hand, and my inability to make sense enough to explain it on the other, this bothered me deeply. I was born again in the fires of revival. My parents came to Christ through healing miracles and the manifest presence of God. Apart from my mother’s miraculous healing our family would probably not have known God. With God’s power as my birth environment, I pledged to God to pass along that legacy and nothing less, in spite of the criticism. Some acts were deemed by cynics as “emotional excess” and nonsense, others credited demons, yet others called Pentecostal worship “the entertainment of ignorant and unlearned people.” Clearly those were not compliments.

Nevertheless, I believe that a huge price is being paid by the “cooling off” of the movement. As a whole the movement functions and behaves much more like main stream evangelicals than a power centered, presence led, revival body. Across our land one can visit in so-called Pentecostal churches and in expression at least, they act like traditional evangelicals who speak in tongues (quietly for sure) once in awhile. The price being paid is manifest in at least the following places:

1. No spontaneity for the Holy Spirit to work. Many services begin with a prayer something like this, “Lord have your way in this service, Amen.” But not one second is allocated for that to happen making the person who prayed a hypocrite at a minimum and a liar at worst.
2. Over emphasis on teaching and preaching at the expense a balanced church life which remains open to and regularly makes room for the Holy Spirit to work.
3. No time spent waiting for and then enjoying a true breakthrough in the personal sins of the congregation leading to a season of refreshing church-wide. I remember being invited to churches to preach “until there is a breakthrough”. No longer.
4. Barren altar times, if any at all, and few salvations, if any.
5. Fear of the power of and working of the Holy Spirit manifest primarily through neglect of time in His presence and permission for His spirit to work.

You know the above or I hope you do. A question to follow then could be, “what’s appropriate in terms of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in a public meeting?”

1. Every local church needs pastoral leadership in a public meeting. I deeply honor Pastor John Kilpatrick and the late Evangelist Steve Hill in leading meetings for five years with something over 4,000,000 visitors and 500,000 converts. Through supernatural wisdom and grace, Pastor John pastored the revival. Not an easy task when revival tides are at flood stage. Leaders must lead by guiding the rivers of God and not dam building.
2. What then is God glorifying, profitable, and honoring to the Holy Spirit with Jesus as center and the Bible patterns followed? With the last sentence as general boundaries, let the Holy Spirit lead. There is no formal training for this today and little experience and few pattern leaders to follow. It is worth finding one to follow.

Frankly, I am increasingly tired of services with endlessly repeated choruses, deafening noise levels, carefully crafted monologues that draw no presence, offend no devils, deliver no bondages, and release no people. All so-called ministry is platform centered. I attended a large conference recently where “worship” (a term recklessly used) continued for an hour to hour and half each service. Service after service more than eighty percent of the people were long returned to sitting engaged playing with their cell phones or reading or wandering the halls. The majority of the people did not connect with God during the falsely named worship time. What’s also shocking is the platform leadership didn’t get it or seem to recognize the disconnect. The band just played blissfully on. I am hungry to see God explode in full Pentecostal power. That did not happen at the above mentioned conference. No one wants nonsense. Nor foolishness. Not power at the expense of soul winning but to produce it. I’m still dreaming of a day when real believers release the real power to penitents and Pentecostals alike. Oh God, send your power and give us humans the wisdom and power to demonstrate it! Meanwhile, let us keep our heads down, hearts ready, and eyes fixed on seeing on planet earth, in our lifetime, a genuine outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Dale has been involved in ministry since his mid-teens, has pastored churches in Texas and California, and led a youth program serving over 400 churches for five and a half years. He is the director of Leadership Strategies International
(LSI), which has taken him to more than 100 nations to train ministers and into relationship with many FCA ministers and ministries. He and his wife Gloria have four children.