What can we learn from Stage 2 communities about spiritual power? / Ben Catlin (Minneapolis, MN)

Disclaimer: I believe that within every community there exist people at any of the 4 stages we so often discuss on this blog.  Also, I know that an individual doesn't hold any one consistent 'stage' attitude across all subjects.  That being said, what I'm terming 'stage 2' is a community or person that tends toward more rules-based teaching and highly-structured organizational models.

I don't know if any of you are like me but I find myself periodically seeking to grow deeper in what people might call the ‘power gifts.’ That simply means I'm seeking to hear God more for myself and others, and to pray for miracles and actually see them happen.  Recently after a series of some exciting interactions, and some where I felt particularly let down, I find myself pushing into this topic again.

Just like a lot of people I know, I started digging into this by seeking out people who are better than I am and asking questions.  This could be through online sermons (like Boston Vineyards recent visit from Heidi Baker) or just hitting up my local church prayer/prophetic guru. The last time I felt I had an itch to scratch on this topic my wife and I got involved with a local group called the "Healing Rooms" to draw closer to more people trying to do the same thing.

One thing I noticed is that a lot of these people seem to come from Stage 2 communities, or they carry at least some distinctly stage 2 rules. (The Healing Rooms for example, was full of wonderful volunteers from a very large Charismatic stage 2 church).  By that, I simply mean that they have a very unmovable faith on their interpretation on miracles and healing, almost as if they have an IF-THEN approach to praying for the sick.  (IF I pray long enough, hard enough, and God wants to do this THEN it will happen). They have little to no questioning of these principals and their faith is unmoved, even in the face of some pretty major let-downs.

I once heard Heidi Baker speak (incidentally at that big local Charismatic stage 2 church, where my wife's lingering injury from a bike-on-truck accident was completely healed) and she said something to the effect of "We will not let our Theology be defined by our experience."  At that moment I was simultaneously intrigued, challenged and a little put off.  Because I didn't know what to do with that statement, I tried to compartmentalize that into the context of the setting I was in (namely a big stage 2 church).

But, it didn't fit neatly into any box.  On the one hand, to not challenge a dogmatic principal in the face of overwhelming evidence is very Stage 2.  On the other hand, this woman had just prayed to heal people and several were, including my wife.  And that is to say nothing of the all the things she said that night that I thought fit very well into a stage 4 understanding of faith, or the umpteen-thousand churches in Africa she has helped to plant, or the dead she and her friends have raised.  (I've never raised the dead, but that seems like a pretty sweet thing to have happen).

So, I was challenged.  And here I am, getting ready to help teach at a conference workshop about hearing God for yourself and other people, so the topic is very on my mind. (I figure at this point if I want to go farther into the topic, I have to start sharing with others how far I've already made it).  And I find myself wondering, what, if anything, can I learn from these communities and people (who don't seem to fit into my faith 'culture') to grow in my own spiritual power?  If I can’t argue with or reproduce the results, there has to be something good going on there that I’m not getting.

Comments

[Jonathan]

What an intriguing statement. And off-putting. It strikes at the heart of the intellectualism/spiritualism dichotomy. Of course it seems ludicrous to continue believing in a stage 2-ish way in principles that time and again are circumstantially disproved. On the other hand, the faith and the hope in her statement point to a stage 4-ish belief in a God who operates within the physical universe he made but entirely transcends it.

As you have quoted her, Heidi may not be saying we will not let experience have any bearing whatsoever on our theology, but that we will not use our experience as the source to define our theology. Allowing experience its place in the process I think is something I relate more to.

[Titi]

I think Heidi's statement can certainly characterize a Stage 4 approach, but it doesn't quite mean "what you think it means" in that context. At Stage 4, you've typically been through the wringer of defining (or undefining) your theology through the lens of your experience, and are presumably moving towards transcending that by discovering that the truths really do stay true despite copious evidence that on its face seems to point to the contrary. It's not denying the existence of negating experiences. It's trying to assemble a fuller picture and come out better in the end. I think it's kinda like Job, who went through his Stage 3 of well-deserved angst, and in the end pushed through to some sort of Stage 4-ish acceptance of the negative circumstances with the ability to also say "I know that my Redeemer lives." In the end, God's power did in fact come through for him.

I think practically speaking, to move from Stage 3 to Stage 4, you need to have your faith re-built. The approach we're generally encouraging at the Boston Vineyard is small steps of faith, with corresponding small results (but results nonetheless, hopefully), leading to larger steps and larger results. Not the only path, as Job's path looked more like a big rock of revelation dropped on him. But it seems to be a useful path for many who are recovering skeptics, if you will. I count myself among them, and am trying to resist the temptation to push on towards larger steps of faith without shoring up my foundations with smaller steps and confirming results.

So am I contradicting myself? I just said that many of us need experiences to back up our faith, whereas we started talking about faith in contradiction to experiences. I guess I'm saying it's possible to do Stage 4 where theology does not allow itself to be bound by experience, but I think to get to that point, you will often need some affirming experiences to pave the way. Once you have "gained the position" through whatever means, you may be freed up to hold onto faith even as the scales of experience tilt the other way.

[DJ Sybear]

Thanks for the post, Ben. Certainly there's some fodder for discussion on this subject, and I hope you find the content interesting when you return.

That said, I'm going to do something novel with the comment space here, given the circumstances. Ben, my longtime friend and author of this post, is in the hospital with a rather bizarre foot infection and a 103 fever as of last night @ 2am. So I think I'll use the venue here, our little stage 4 venue, to do a little praying for him. Feel free to join me if you like or reply to this comment with your own prayers; if folks would like to continue the discussion further down there's plenty of room; this is the internet, after all.

Holy Spirit, would you go to Ben right now in his hospital room in Minneapolis and fill that space with your presence. God, go to him with peace and rest and healing for his mind and body.

God, stop the infection in its tracks. Arm his body to destroy the remaining vestiges of infection and to remove any blood clots that may be there. To the pain in his leg and foot I say stop and leave, in the name of Jesus. And to the infection I say release your grip on Ben's body, in the name of Jesus.

Holy Spirit, would you fill Ben now with peace and comfort and power to heal and recover.

Amen.

[steven hamilton]

amen!

[Holly]

And amen!

[Dave Schmelzer]

Get well soon, Ben! I've prayed.

[Dan L]

DJ, thanks for the heads up! I've prayed as well. Keep us posted on how Ben is doing.

[PB]

Have prayed! Thanks for rallying us, DJ --

[Ryan NYC]

Couldn't think of a better use of the blog space. Thank you, we'll keep praying and keep us posted.

[Ian]

Titi, I was interested in your post, especially the 1st paragraph, which helps me come to grips with what "stage 4" might actually mean in real life, and provides a description which I can relate to.

There was a period of 2-3 years in my life where I went through some very difficult and painful experiences, only to come out at the end, feeling that I had developed a deeper and stronger faith and relationship with God as a result. At the end of it all, I wondered if there could have been a short-cut to developing that deeper faith, or whether the long road of pain and struggle was necessary, in order to get there. I felt that I could *almost* echo the Psalmist of Psalm 119 v71 in saying "it was good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes ..."

Similarly today, perhaps, I find myself on a road where I am encouraged to "believe in miracles" and yet I search for an answer to my prayers. I have a feeling that I will eventually end up in a place where my belief in miracles is restored, at the end of a long and unfolding personal 'stage 3' journey which will help me make my own sense of this, and get to 'stage 4' on this question.

The question remains for me, however, whether there is a short cut from stage 2 through the stage 3 wilderness to get to stage 4 ...

[Brent]

Praying as well. Seems his latest FB status updates suggest he is on the mend, but still in the hospital.

On the post above, I wanted to share that the stage typology we use here has help me clarify an experience I had a few years ago when my family and I attended a large Assemblies of God church here for almost two years. It is a great church in many ways and the head pastor is fantastic. His teaching is very stage 4 and Kingdom-centered. During this time, we were also active in a small group for 18 months or so and came to love many of its members as friends. These friends were always there for us if we needed something, always had encouraging words, are just all-around great people.

Despite all this, we kept running into walls. No matter how hard we tried, we just couldn't get beyond a certain level of community with our group or others in the church. We couldn't get people to open up about their lives and journeys into Christ beyond sharing a list of recent sins, victories, and prayer requests. Each time I'd raise a probing question about our bible study, it would be met with quick answers and awkward stares rather than real reflection (the worst was when I questioned the rapture - pretty sure I became a heretic at that point).

Eventually we left the church and went back to Vineyard where, upon our first night at a small group, we listened as people who were complete strangers to us completely opened up about their struggles and spiritual walks and asked us to pray for them in very personal ways. We were back home.

And to be clear, it's not that my current church is full of stage 4 people. But the culture of the church allows the freedom for people to grow toward stage 4 faith.

Still, though, I think about our previous church and the many things they did incredibly well - including providing support for each other, encouraging ethnic and economic diversity in their congregation, running effective community outreaches, and even encouraging others in spiritual power. E.g., they run monthly 'breakthrough' weekends where people get healed and free from oppression all the time.

Today it strikes me that what this big stage 2 church does well is that they are great at organization, networking, efficient outreach, etc, perhaps just the sorts of things we might expect a very rule-based culture to be good at. I don't think this gives them any special access to spiritual power, except that they use those tools to provide lots of space and opportunities where the holy spirit can work. And one thing I've learned over the years is that the HS will take just about any opportunity we want to give it. God won't turn down an opportunity to touch people just because the event was organized with stage 2 goals in mind.

OK, have to stop with these long comments. Sorry.

[Brent]

One more note on the quote: "We will not let our Theology be defined by our experience."

I suspect it was meant as a rhetorical statement about hoping in the face of adversity. Taken as a statement about theology, though, I'll be honest and say I have no idea what it could possibly mean. If your theology and experience don't line up, your theology is useless.

[PB]

Hmm, we (wife and I) had almost an identical experience with community. I think she feels the brunt of it more than I do since she's very passionate about friendships having a sense of vulnerability in them - i.e. ability to share openly about one's life without the expectation of canned advice received in response to said sharing... and for this type of sharing to be readily available for anyone in the group.

Anyway, one of my big dreams for our current situation (being that I WORK at this church) is that God might use us to break through those "walls" as you said. I'm not going to lie, it feels really bleak right now. We have, however, still decided to stay in the game and be intentional about pursuing friendships with people, even in the face of some pretty painful days/weeks/months.

And sometimes I wonder if we're just crazy or kidding ourselves; I mean, it seems like all of this would change if the leadership were setting the tone for this type of openness/vulnerability we're shooting for. The problem is, I can't control them. I can control me. Usually :).

Anyway, glad to know I'm not alone.

[Ben Catlin]

A few updates from my iPhone (excuse the spelling errors):

Healthwise I'm feeling better but they are keeping me for at least another day for monitoring and IV antibiotics.

The conference I mentioned in the post was actually last weekend and I prayed for 4 people who God healed of whatever pain or symptom they were experiencing - I prayed for a fifth, but that requires an x-Ray to see if it is better, so I'm considering that one as pending. And I prayed for a bunch other people who felt like God showed up and spoke to them. I thought that was pretty great!

All that aside I'm now generally wondering if there are some good things/ideas lost a well as negative ideas gained as we go from stage 2 to the more cynical part of stage 3? Maybe some of being in and transitioning to stage 4 is somewhat about that rediscovery process?

[Ben Catlin]

Thanks! You guys are really great.

I've been pretty overwhelmed the number of people praying for me the last few days. God is really amazing in bringing the right people in at the right times to really experience his love through his Church.