Some of my favorite people to do ministry with are the folks at Spirit & Truth. If you have not heard of this ministry, you should check them out right now. For several years now, they have hosted a yearly conference in Dayton, OH at Stillwater Church. This year, they were led to shift to regional gatherings in Alabama, Texas, and Ohio. Maybe even more than these conferences, Spirit & Truth’s sweet spot is going to specific local churches and offering training on evangelism and discipleship empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Spirit & Truth is gifted at introducing people to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit as a person they can partner with to share the gospel. If you invite Spirit & Truth to minister at your church, they will offer excellent teaching on evangelism and discipleship that is practical and immediately applicable. More importantly, they will partner with the Spirit to activate the laity in your church and send them out into your community to talk and pray with real people in your community.

For decades the church in the United States, at least the parts I have been connected to, has been engaged in a sophisticated program of procrastination. We have programmed evangelism, reading books, meeting in classrooms, even forming committees, but we have not engaged with people outside the walls of our church. We have planned and strategized, but not acted. We have talked to each other about these things more than we have spent time with the Lord and sought his direction. We have talked about people who do not know Jesus more than we have talked with them.

Matt, Maggie, and Emma know God the Father intimately. They have been changed by Jesus Christ and the power of the gospel. And they have each been filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit. They are also exceptionally gifted at helping churches experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in their midst. They are willing to be used by the Lord to break up ground in local churches and make room for real Christianity. They don’t have techniques or gimmicks. But they also don’t flinch or lose their nerve when the Spirit of God comes in power in answer to their prayers.

Ok, so that is my pitch to you to reach out to Spirit & Truth!

I started writing this post to share my experience at the recent Spirit & Truth regional conference in Conroe, TX and First Methodist Conroe, where John Wayne McMann is the lead pastor. (For more on what the Lord did, check out Spirit & Truth’s podcast episode with John Wayne McMann.)

Matt asked me to be part of the gathering in Conroe several months ago, I’m not quite sure how far back. But I had really been looking forward to this conference. Matt and I had touched base a few times about what the direction he was sensing from the Lord for the conference, and I had a pretty good idea of the direction I thought I was supposed to take with my message.

I felt like the Lord was asking me to share more vulnerably than I have in this kind of space about my own experience with the Holy Spirit. I felt like I was supposed to share how I, sometimes by fits and starts, have grown in my ability to hear God’s voice and have grown in a hunger to see God heal people inwardly and physically. I also felt like I was supposed to be more unscripted than normal.

This is vulnerable for me for a variety of reasons. First, I know there have been many excesses throughout the history of the church. (I’ve seen many of them in teaching Church History.) Second, pretty much every part of my own formation in the church (and even more so in the academy) taught me to trust what I could know objectively, particularly facts, dates, and ideas I could read in books and master enough to do well on tests. Third, for much of my life, more than I realized, I really wanted to be in control. (Ok, God is still working here.) There is probably more, but that gives you an idea.

But.

I have seen God do things that are powerful, immediate, and life changing and I don’t want to miss the opportunity to be part of what God is doing now in his church because I am unsure of what will happen next, or I’m worried I’ll fall on my face.

So, I did the best I could to share about my experience with the prophetic and how I’ve seen the Lord heal. I tried to share in humility about the times I’ve missed it, gotten it wrong, or at least not gotten to see the full picture. My sense is that at least some of the excesses in the Pentecostal/charismatic world come from the same need to be in control as are found on the anti-supernatural side of the street.

And so, any time I have an impression or a sense that the Lord is speaking, I try to offer it gently and with open hands. I don’t always get it right. But, again, I’ve seen the Lord open doors to ministry I didn’t even know were there, sometimes simply by being willing to ask a question that was persistent in my head all day and seemed completely random.

I’m sharing this here because I want you to know that the Holy Spirit is alive and active. And he is so good!

I am also sharing this here because I want you to know that if I can grow in my faith, willingness to take risks to see the Lord move, and openness to receiving gifts from the Spirit, so can you!

Finally, I’m sharing this here because I don’t think we were meant to go it alone in any part of the Christian life. We need to learn from those who have gone before us. Spirit & Truth has been a place where the Lord has met me and ministered to me in powerful ways. It has also been a place where I have learned and grown in my confidence to minister in the power and authority of the Holy Spirit.

I preached 1 Corinthians 1:18 – 2:5 at the Spirit & Truth Conference in Conroe. I want this to be true of my life and ministry:

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. 

Come Holy Spirit!