Thursday, October 28, 2010

Samuel Lee's "Possible Statement of Faith"

"The New Kind of Pentecostals are:

1.Those who do not claim exclusivity of the Holy Spirit to a particular denomination or church.

2. Those who respect other Christian denominations and traditions and are willing to fellowship, share and cooperate with them.

3.Those who believe that the unconditional love that is inspired & directed by the Holy Spirit in believers is the greatest sign of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

4. Those who share the Good News with all mankind, but in a manner full of grace and love and not through arrogance and “the-we-know-better-than-you-mentality...”

5. Those who believe that miracles, signs and wonders are still possible today, but one should not elevate these above the humility and the message of Jesus Christ. They are those who are against commercializing and merchandizing the gifts and signs of the Holy Spirit.

6. Those who do not tolerate any form of fear-theology and manipulation techniques in the name of the Holy Spirit in order to gain wealth, even for the ministry.

7. Those who believe in the grace that is in giving tithes and offerings but are against abusive and manipulative forms of preaching/using Malachi 3:8... Tithes and offerings should not be controlled and must come from the heart of the giver and not from the fear preached from the pulpit.

8. Those who may disapprove of the non-heterosexual lifestyle, but are not witch-hunting homosexuals. Instead of using hateful vocabulary toward homosexuals, they listen to and pray for them.

9. Those who are balanced in their theology on Israel/Zionism. New Kind of Pentecostals are those who aim to play the role of bridge builders between the Jews and Palestinians. For God loves both…

10. Those who are not only concerned with miracles, signs and wonders, but are also concerned with social justice, and with the poor, the oppressed, the orphans, the widows and the immigrants.

11. Those who respect other cultures’ and people’s convictions and even religions, and are willing to enter into a mutual dialogue with them, without any hidden agendas.

12. Those who respect and have a dialogue with other cultures, yet when it comes to any form of inhumane practices within these cultures, the New Pentecostals are willing to address them.

13. Those who are concerned with the environment and are willing to bring in Pentecostal input in caring for the creation.

14. Those who believe in the Bible as the inspired collection of Holy Scriptures, yet they use the scriptures to bring forth grace and mercy and offer blessings instead of doom and gloom theology.

15. Those who believe that leadership should be servant hood; that leaders should serve instead of being served. Leaders should sacrifice instead of demanding sacrifice. Leadership should be based on love and fellowship and not on spiritual rank.

16. Those who respect traditional churches, or organized churches, but believe that the real church is built of people and their relationship with God and with each other. They are those who believe that the church is not a “building”, but it is a part of God continually fulfilling kingdom."

7 comments:

mm said...

definitely looking forward to this! there's so much more we can and should be doing as the body of Christ, and knowing about it is a pretty essential step. thank you guys for taking this challenge on!

ChristopherBMac said...

I think the words "love" or "love on" should be added to number 8. It should read something like "...they listen to, love on, and pray for them." I think it's more important that we show love to them as they're so used to hearing hate filled vocabulary coming from the church. Just my two cents.

-Chris

Aimee said...

this is Great Lindsey

Anonymous said...

I love it. It's like soneone has took a lot of stuff that has been in my heart and summarised it in a coherent form.

Anonymous said...

Great idea! How can we go about submitting something to the blog? I searched around the site, but couldn't locate a specific place to do so.

You also may be interested in following my latest blog series where I reflect upon a 1999 Testimony article by Dr. John W. Stephenson (former professor of theology at EPBC, now Master's) entitled, "Theological Issues Beyond 2000).

http://jeffkclarke.com/2010/11/03/dr-john-stephensons-article-theological-issues-beyond-2000-revisited-part-i/

Let's keep the conversation going!

Maybe you could also create a Facebook page to link with the blog.

Jeff

Josh Singh said...

Hey Jeff,

You can submit by email either lindsey or I.

Josh- jsingh@calvarycharlottetown.com

Lindsey- lgallant@calvarycharlottetown.com

Thanks for checking out the blog.

Anonymous said...

I love the idea of this, and want to push it further. Most of the statements here are very positive in that they reflect a progressive expression of our Pentecostal Christian beliefs, but they're quite negative in that they are defensive or reactionary - they're focused on saying what we're not, rather than what we are.

With this list as a catalyst, we have an incredible opportunity to re-examine Pentecostal theology itself, to have our theology be the impetus for our practice rather than (as this list somewhat shows) have our practice (or our culture's ethics) inform/reform our theology. If we work backwards from the values of egalitarian, environmentalist, emancipationist thought in our culture today, we'll have a religion that reflects our culture rather than create a culture that reflects our religion. But if we can go back to Azusa and examine what made Pentecostals distinctive in the first place, we can rebuild or reformulate or reinvigorate distinctively Pentecostal theology from the start - and I have little or no doubt that it will still reflect our current values.