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A Normal or Abnormal Church

I don’t want to have church as usual but I want to experience an outpouring from heaven. We need to have a renewed sense of mission and a renewed sense of direction. Too many within the church have fallen into a rut and have allowed the winds of adversity to blow them off course. We must get back to Spirit-Filled living. God longs to pour out His Spirit upon and within His church. Recently the Lord began to deal with me about being a normal or abnormal church. I don’t know what kind of church that you are looking for, but I know what kind of church God is looking for! What we call normal, God calls abnormal! What God calls abnormal we call normal.


The following items will help us distinguish between a normal or abnormal church:


  • A Normal Church is predictable and refuses to embrace what God is Saying.
  • An Abnormal Church is unpredictable and spends time listening to God’s voice.
  • A Normal Church does the same things and you can set your clock by what happens during a service on Sunday morning.
  • An Abnormal Church has a set time to start and just may stay in church all day long or way up into the early hours of the morning.
  • A Normal Church puts very little priority into prayer, and when it prays, the prayers are lifeless and without spontaneity.
  • An Abnormal Church will make prayer a priority and refuse to move without getting clear direction from the Holy Spirit.
  • A Normal Church has no life-giving, life-changing, or life-impartation.
  • An Abnormal Church has Holy Spirit anointed life-giving, life-changing, and life-imparting services.
  • A Normal Church knows nothing about the cloud of His presence.
  • An Abnormal Church refuses to move unless they are following the cloud of His presence.
  • A Normal Church has no interest in the deeper things of God
  • An Abnormal Church cries out continually for a greater revelation and understanding of the deeper things of God.
  • A Normal Church imparts information
  • An Abnormal Church imparts revelation.*

I believe that God is calling us to what the world calls an abnormal church. Church growth studies and Missiologist tell us that one of the fastest growing segments of Christianity is the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. We are part of that movement. Our Church is a Spirit-filled fellowship and my prayer today is that we will be abnormal to the world, but normal in the eyes of God. How many of you would like to be an abnormal Christian? What is an abnormal Christian? An abnormal Christian is a Spirit-filled Christian.


Some years ago Dr. Peter Wagner did a study on the Pentecostal Movement. He concluded that we have been successful because our churches have been churches of purity, power, and of the poor. The Pentecostal Movement has reached out to the people that nobody else wanted. He concluded that one of the greatest threats that faces individual Pentecostal churches is what he called “the curse of credibility.” When we seek credibility with the world if we are not careful we will lose the passion and the power of the Holy Spirit.


We must heed Dr. Wagner's warning. We must not blend into the world or allow the world to define who are we, but we must be filled with the Spirit. We must stop trying to blend into the world, and start infusing God’s power and grace into the world in which we live.


*Source unknown. (These materials were found in sermon notes and I am not sure of their origin.)

Comments

Patti Smeak said…
My husband and I have been looking for an abnormal church. Jesus never fit in the religious establishment, we're not to fit in either.
I've learned that revival isn't about a series of special services where the evangelist comes to town and people get saved, although that too is revival. Revival is falling in love with Jesus and wanting Him more than anything else. It is giving up my right to myself and everything I hold dear. It is trusting Him to be who He says He is and do what He said He would do. Now that is something to shout Hallelujah about. HALLELUJAH!
One of my favorite revival quotations is from Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda who describe revival this way, "Revival is messy, it is spontaneous, it is glorious, it is costly, it is joyous and it is rewarding."
Best of all, revival can be permanent. Hurray, let's go! God is waiting, we're hungry and ready.
April 13, 2010 at 9:43 AM
Daisy Jackson said…
When I think abnormal, I think non-traditional and beyond routine. That is the type of ministry Jesus demonstrated when He was here. He did not operate in the same old mode. He ministered to different types of people with different types of situations in the ways that were significant for their needs. Thank God that He applies individuality when He encounters us because this is how He made us...unique, individual, different, unlike anyone else. We are to follow in His footsteps, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us in the various ways and to the various paths that are waiting for us, that we may do His will. Yet, prayer is one thing that does remain constant. We need to be praying corporately as well as individually for the will of God to be done.
April 13, 2010 at 11:03 AM
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