Design · Culture · Spirituality

Post-charismatic synchro-blog

From RobbyMac:

Brother Maynard has suggested that September should be a month of post-charismatics giving voice to what apostolic leadership could/should look like. I’d like to propose a synchro-blog to get the ball rolling – namely, as I’ve just shared my earliest “charismatic” experience (after becoming a Christian, that is), let’s remind ourselves and tell each other our stories of how we first became acquainted with, and eager for, the felt presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Should you be unaware of what a post-charismatic is, give the above blogs, as well as Mike Morrell‘s, parts of this blog, and several others, a perusal. In any case, I had actually been planning to give an account of my first encounter with the Spirit. In the near future, I believe I will be telling my story, in a very broad way, for the people of Revolution.

I spent a good part of 1997 and 1998 diving into various occult beliefs and practices, especially Wicca. I found good and bad there, and in addition to that it brought out good and bad that was already in me. One of the things that has always been a part of me for better and for worse is a desire for things to be supernatural, but authentic and life-changing at the same time. I grew up in the church, and did not find it to be any of those things.

In light of this, I wasn’t expecting anything in particular when I visited my first Pentecostal church, which was, and is, an Assemblies of God church in Salisbury, North Carolina. I visited because I had been bribed by a friend, and found myself sitting in a chair watching teenagers clap and sing to God, standing in front of an empty stage while a sound system played CDs. This in itself was radical to me, considering my particular upbringing, but certainly not enough to interest me.

My friend, in what I now understand to have been an incredibly perceptive moment of contextualization and maybe some syncretism, explained to me that I could try to invoke God and see what might happen. Being very familiar with invocations and the interesting experiences that they could bring about, and having never thought about the word in connection with this kind of God, I thought it was worth a try.

When I did this, it was as though I was entirely engulfed and surrounded by tangible power. I had no idea what to do about it, and decided not to do anything but sit there and experience it. I have no idea how long I sat there, and I remember getting up at some point to listen to a youth pastor preach, but I honestly don’t remember anything he said.

As an aside, that is not to devalue people who preach and teach well, but it is to say that for myself as a teacher, a preacher, a theologian, or whatever; my task is to chase after the heart of God and help others to do so as well. If that involves discussing the demise of Christendom and why that is a good thing, or discussing the relevance of Leviticus to postmodern minds, that’s wonderful. If it involves shutting up and getting out of the way, that’s also wonderful.

Anyway. That night, I learned that I wanted to go after God with my life, and be wherever God was and do whatever God was doing. It is this that has placed a drive in me to be at the cutting edge of things I’m involved with (be it design, theology, ministry, or social action), because that’s where change happens. A couple of years later, when I was in college seeking to learn more about all these issues, I was introduced to the writings of Brian McLaren and others like him, some who are known and some who are unknown. I mention him because this introduction occurred through the book More Ready Than You Realize, a book about sharing Jesus with postmodern people. In it, he writes this:

Then he [a friend of Brian’s] became serious and said, “Really, Brian, I want you to remember that you’ll never stop growing in Christ. I don’t ever want you to get comfortable. I want you to always find the curl of the wave, the place out in front where things are happening. Go to the cutting edge of things, and throw your energies in there. That’s where you belong.” Now, nearly thirty years later, I remember that moment vividly, and I realize that God was speaking to me through Dave that day.

I believe that at that moment, in a medium-sized church in a small town, I was given a drive for this. A drive to be at the cutting edge, always moving, always changing. I have not always lived up to this, any more than I have always lived up to the desire to be where God is, but these two desires have combined to be the shaping forces in my life.

11 Comments

  1. Quite interesting post and most informative

  2. Wow, awesome story. Being raised Christian, I always find testimonies of how people discover God’s power coming out of the occult truly fascinating. He is so GOOD!!! Thanks for sharing.

  3. Hi Jonathon – thanks for visiting my blog and your encouraging words on my post.

    I identify with what you said here:

    “One of the things that has always been a part of me for better and for worse is a desire for things to be supernatural, but authentic and life-changing at the same time. I grew up in the church, and did not find it to be any of those things.”

    I have always felt the same way and it fueled my desire to search for more.

    By the way, I’m curious to know how you “invoke” God? Please explain if you can.

  4. jonathan,
    Thanks for sharing your story. I am always so impressed with the the Spirit’s ability to encounter us in a way that we can apprehend. It was nice meeting you through this synchroblog.

  5. Hi Ruth. Thank you for visiting as well.. It’s been great encountering new people through the synchro blog thing.

    As for your question about how to “invoke” God, it was a way for my friend to explain encountering God in a way that I would understand and be open to, similar in some ways to Paul explaining the “unknown God” to the Athenians.

    It’s possible to see a deeper issue, I suppose, in wondering why God would respond to my use of this to seek after him. I think God works like this, in that he wants to meet people where they are if they are seeking him, and is willing to enter their own cultures and their own ways of perceiving the world in order to do so. Certainly he desires to change things about our worldviews, as no worldview is perfect, but he is willing to start where we are. It’s a beautiful thing, and the significance of God’s willingness to meet me like that didn’t become clear to me until a few years after it happened.

    Does this help at all? I appreciate the question, and the comment.

  6. Hi Jonathon – yes I get what you meant that God chose to meet you in a language you alread knew. But I’m stil. wondering what “invoking” means, not that I would try it at home or anything. Is it praying to, meditating on or focusing on a spirit?

  7. Hi Ruth. Apologies for the delay on the reply. Invocation is a very broad word, and it can be used to apply to any number of spiritual practices. In general, though, in my experience Pagans (meaning the specific term here) see it as seeking to bring a spirit into oneself. Maybe to ask it to do something, maybe to seek enlightenment from it, or identification with it, or maybe just to experience it. Does that help?

  8. Hi Jonathan

    This is a very interesting post. I think it depends what you mean by God as to whether you could invoke (insert pronoun of choice). If you mean the Ultimate Divine Source, it’s probably too big. If you mean Yahweh as a specific local tribal god, it’s probably possible.

    I also want to respond to Jared White above. People who are “in the occult” are experiencing the Divine in their own way and on their own path. They’re not in bondage to evil spirits, or whatever. So your God didn’t rescue Jonathan from the occult; Jonathan found that Christianity was his chosen personal path to the Divine. And I wish him well on that path.

  9. Hi Yvonne. Welcome, first of all, and many thanks for the comment. It’s wonderful to have the opportunity for dialog with you.

    When I refer to God, I do mean YHWH, but in meaning that I refer to the ultimate God, who’s nature I believe is revealed in Jesus, and who is the culmination of my search (and, about whom I agree that any pronoun is acceptable, and none are sufficient). That being said, I do believe that in many ways Wicca led me for a season in my search, and have no regrets for that.

    And certainly, Pagans of all types are (generally, though like any faith there are exceptions) on a sincere search just like I was and am, and I honor that and wish them the best, and a continued faithfulness to honest search. My desire that they look into the real Jesus, not the Jesus of Christendom, can never negate the fact that I can and should learn from them as well.

    Grace to you, Yvonne. Feel free to continue to dialogue. Are you familiar with Carl McColman? His is a wonderful website devoted to Christian mysticism and Celtic spirituality, and is a great place for dialogue on these matters as well.

  10. Dear Jonathan

    Thank you for your kind email and response.

    I believe that the ultimate Divine Source (the Ain Sof Aur as it is called in Kabbalah) has many emanations, of which YHWH is one. The less personality “He” has, the closer to the ultimate source – so the personal God worshipped by many Christians is not the same as the ultimate source, in my humble opinion. So if you were trying to invoke the ultimate divine source, you couldn’t fit it all in, but if it was a local and finite manifestation of it, you might have more success, if you see what I mean.

    I am interested in the real Jesus – that’s one of the reasons why I am a Unitarian as well as a Wiccan (but of course my definition of what “the real Jesus” might mean varies quite wildly from Christian definitions!)

    Yes, I like Carl’s writings, very interesting. I came here via Steve Hayes’ blog, by the way.

  11. […] other Christian synchroblog, and next month they will be having a post-charismatic synchroblog. As Jonathan Stegall puts it Should you be unaware of what a post-charismatic is, give the above blogs, as well as Mike […]

About the Designer

Jonathan Stegall is a web designer and emergent / emerging follower of Jesus currently living in Atlanta, seeking to abide in the creative tension between theology, spirituality, design, and justice.

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