Seth Drewry, a TC staff member is the guest author for this newsletter. His article will get your spiritual heart and blood pumping! By God’s Spirit we are equipped for effective ministry to our students! Read on….

BY SETH DREWRY

Will D. Campbell, Southern Baptist minister and civil rights activist, wrote this about his brother Paul’s experience of joining a Pentecostal church after his divorce in the book Brother to a Dragonfly.

He did not then turn to drugs or booze but joined … what we as children had called the “holy rollers” and considered children of the devil. But the split-level Baptists, now grown rich, could offer him nothing but a weekly appointment on the counselor’s couch with a young Th. D. probing his psyche. The “holy rollers” could, and did, offer him a place where he could cry out loud to an empathizing audience who could cry with him because they loved him, a place where he could laugh out loud and shout God’s goodness out loud and roll on the floor and scream in either agony or joy when he felt like it.

Campbell’s colorful description illustrates the unique opportunity that Spirit-empowered Christianity has in contemporary millennial culture. Spirit-empowered Christians like the ones Campbell encountered make up communities of love that are open to the spiritual experiences that bring about change and healing in the lives of millennials.

Research shows many millennials see Christianity as angry, institutional and politicized. Not all millennials (like myself) are opposed to faith; however, many are resistant to exclusivity. The question for the typical millennial is not, “Is Christianity the true religion?” The question is, “Even if it is the true religion, so what? What difference does it make for me right now?”

The millennial generation can pose some frustrations to many Christians. Along with these frustrations, though, comes immense opportunity. The Church cannot cower from the challenges of the millennial generation, nor should she treat millennials as shallow customers chasing the next fad. She must, rather, seek out the opportunities to proclaim the truth of the gospel by pointing to Jesus. After all, God may see opportunities in this generation that we may not see.

There are three overarching features or themes that both the millennial generation and the Spirit-empowered movement share: story, experience and community.

The Power of Story

Millennials have a strong affinity for narrative. While many millennials may be wary of objective truth statements, they all enjoy a good story. Just look at the box office reports over the last few years. Many of the most successful films are sequels, prequels or trilogies that contribute to larger stories.

Like the millennial generation, Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians have always appreciated and valued story. We derive our theological distinctive of Spirit baptism and spiritual gifts largely from the narrative portions of Scripture. Pentecostal preaching includes a great deal of storytelling. Pentecostal worship services often include “testimonies”-or stories-from congregants.

Stories are powerful; millennials know this, and so do Spirit-empowered Christians. When we tell the stories of the Bible and tell our own life stories, we invite others into biblical reality where they discover meaning and realize that the miraculous events of the Bible can happen in their own lives.

Pentecostals and charismatics must continue telling stories. When Christians start sharing their testimonies of being healed, others’ will be encouraged in their faith to believe for healings. When once-lost-but-now-found believers share their stories of God’s transforming love, the lost will be encouraged to come to Jesus. When we share testimonies of Spirit baptisms, prophetic encounters and miraculous events, millennials will listen and seek out the God who desires to write their stories.

Spirit-Empowered Experience

A second theme that millennial culture and Spirit-empowered Christianity share is the embrace of experience.

In his book SoulTsunami, Leonard Sweet writes that millennials are preoccupied with “the quest for experience, especially experiences with a purpose, and the reveling in full sensory immersion in rituals, signs and symbols that connect to the divine.” Millennials, then, are usually not seeking out complex lectures that explain theological propositions (though there is a place for those). Rather, we want to feel, see or hear something meaningful. To be sure, we aren’t looking for simple emotion-we desire substantive experiences that can bring transformation and change to our lives.

I remember a friend from a mainline denomination criticizing my theological tendencies as “just experiential religion.” He meant it as a criticism but my response was, “Absolutely!” Spirit-empowered Christianity is the scriptural continuation of biblical experience in the contemporary world.

For too long, Spirit-empowered Christians have cowered away from the “experiential religion” criticisms and chosen to relegate our experiences to private prayer rooms or discreet small groups. Over the past few years I have visited many Pentecostal churches only to realize I could sooner learn more about the pastor’s latest tax return than I could about the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

Sure, there have been some abuses and extremes. Some Christians have misused the gifts of the Spirit or emphasized experience over Scripture. Others, perhaps in the name of church growth, have downplayed the supernatural to become “seeker-friendly” and succumbed to the temptation of hiding distinctive beliefs.

All the while, we have denied this generation the chance to experience the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit that our forebears experienced. Instead, we have allowed the entertainment industry or New Age spiritualism to give millennials the experiences they have been seeking.
Let’s stay true to our colors and embrace the Holy Spirit. I challenge readers to seek out the gifts and the fruits of the Spirit, which go hand-in-hand. I call on young Pentecostal and charismatic Christians to be bold witnesses of Jesus, empowered by the Spirit, and invite the Holy Spirit to do the supernatural in their life and ministry.

The Necessity of Community

Finally, Spirit-empowered Christians and millennials share a common affection for community.
Millennials crave connecting in relationships and community. The world system has given us Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to create a superficial sense of community. In the search for connection, we have often found virtual realities that only offer shallow, electronically manipulated relationships.

In my work with Teen Challenge, I have seen that community is often the key to changing a young person’s life. The young men that come to our center usually do not believe everything the staff members believe. They may not immediately be converted to our belief system, but they are immediately immersed in a community where they are loved and valued. It’s within the context of those real, loving relationships that true discipleship and life transformation occur.
Pentecostals and the broader charismatic movement have always emphasized community. When the earliest Pentecostals were excommunicated from their mainline denominations and their faith was considered the “bad side of town” of religion, their church communities flourished and were strengthened.

In Spirit-empowered theology, every member of the community is uniquely empowered by the Spirit to serve God and each other. The worship in Spirit-empowered churches is not something to be observed but something to in which to participate. Every member is necessary because the Spirit of God possesses every member.

Pentecost offers millennials a new type of community where God is at work and can be encountered in real and substantive experiences. In this community, sinners and saints alike are allowed to live their own stories surrounded by people who will love them.

Will Campbell’s “holy rollers,” though likely disturbing to some, were Spirit-empowered Christians who seemed to offer a community of love for Will’s brother to have spiritual experiences with God and change his life story for the better. My thesis is simple: Spirit-empowered Christians are tailor-made to reach the millennial generation if we adhere to our distinctives of story, experience and community.

In Pentecostal and charismatic Christian communities people are empowered to redefine themselves and their stories. These types of communities are necessary to engage millennials and bring the biblical truths of Spirit-empowered Christianity to them. Millennials will begin to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ when believers live the gospel in communities of story and experience.

Seth Drewry (@sethdrewry) is an ordained Assemblies of God minister and serves as dean of students at Teen Challenge Adventure Ranch in Northwest Arkansas. He attends seminary at Oral Roberts University, enjoys working with horses and can always be found drinking a cup of coffee.