How to Spot the Spirit's Work in Your Life
Seek His Gifts and Fruit
by
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The Spirit that the Father and the Son send in turn gives believers special gifts. Paul considered these gifts of the Spirit to be the key to thriving spiritually as people of God. What are those special gifts of the Spirit? He described some as the greater gifts of love, faith and hope. These are part of his larger listing of the product or the fruit of the Spirit’s work in hearts of God’s people: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness and self-control. To thrive spiritually is to discover and experience growth in such inner qualities worked by the Spirit. He extends into our lives “the riches of God’s kindness, tolerance and patience.”
The other kind of gifts or manifestations of the Spirit, according to Paul, are believers specially motivated to serve the common good of Christ’s people according to their differing talents and interests. Churches that benefit from such Spirit-driven energy of Spirit-shaped believers will thrive, whatever their numeric size.
When we focus on Christ’s Spirit, we can learn to expect the Spirit to enrich us with his gifts. Those gifts are an extension of God’s basic grace by which he freely gives believers his favor and salvation without the need to earn it. By grace God reaches out to draw us to the Savior. By grace the Spirit moves to enrich our inner lives with his fruit and special energy.
This focus on the gifts of the Spirit can for traditional churches amount to a new approach to understanding and leading church life today. It is not really new, because Paul explained and used it in his church leadership. But it needs to be renewed among traditional churches that proudly maintain their heritage of church and ministry practiced over the centuries since the Reformation. For all practical purposes, the ministries of Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Calvinists (Presbyterian, Reformed and many Baptists) have overlooked the active work of the Spirit in changing lives today. Certainly The Spirit has always been a part of the Trinitarian formula of Father, Son and Spirit. But the special gifts of the Spirit usually are not part of our formula for doing ministry among those we encounter today. We focus on God the Father and God the Son--a binitarian emphasis.
While Christ’s Spirit has always been active among believers, he can bring more growth to our faith life when we learn to recognize how he works and to pray for his special influence. We can become more mindful of the Spirit at work in and around us. Our personal challenge is to put ourselves where the Spirit can most effectively change us. The ministry challenge is to be fully tri-nitarian in featuring all that God does for his people.
This book is about those challenges. It aims to be very practical by offering six spiritual practices that put us more directly in the pathway the Spirit can use best for our individual temperaments. These practices are Go to God, Receive his word, Own Jesus' challenge to deny self, give Witness to our spiritual experiences, Trust God in kingdom adventures, and deliberately Humble yourself. Recognize them as GROWTH practices.
A while ago a committee at my church spent a year designing a visual logo to summarize what we are about. They chose three words: Connect, Belong and Thrive. Our leaders will aim to effectively Connect with people beyond our church, to purposefully help them Belong to this fellowship and to deliberately provide resources so they can Thrive in their relation to God. To thrive in our Christian faith is an exciting goal and was clearly a high priority for the committee. Ways to better Connect and Belong are projects we can figure out and do with planning and hard work. How do we help believers thrive? This is a tougher challenge. What does a thriving faith look like? This book explores in depth what is involved in thriving spiritually. To be sure, the basic resource to thrive spiritually is God's word. We can and should be continually asking how we can more creatively present Bible truths in ways that participants find most relevant to their personal lives. Ultimately such personal perception and application is enlightenment granted by the Spirit. While we can plant and water seeds, the Spirit from God makes them grow into a thriving faith life.
So an extension of the challenge to present God’s word creatively is to develop additional ways to help believers put themselves where the Spirit can most effectively grow them into a flourishing life with God. The GROWTH practices are one attempt. Believers who do these six practices at least once a week put themselves into situations that will stretch their faith and cause them to reflect on what is happening. Sharing or giving Witness to their experiences will help develop a church culture more receptive to the Spirit’s ongoing work in their midst.
Traditional mainline churches would do well to accept the challenge to refocus attention on the Spirit’s gifts because so many of those congregations no longer appear to be thriving, at least by outward appearances. Their decline in members and dollars has been underway the last 45 years, increasingly so since 2000. More explicit emphasis on the Spirit did not seem necessary over the centuries and up until this general decline. Unheralded, the Spirit was getting his work done, and most traditional congregations were thriving. But their formula for bi-nitarian ministry focused on the Father and the Son is no longer so effective.
While traditional churches have been declining, a new kind of Christianity has flourished among believers who highlight and celebrate the gifts of the Spirit. They go by the name Pentecostal. Most feature the gift of speaking in strange tongues, as happened on the first Pentecost when the Spirit moved mightily in Jerusalem and brought thousands to faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ. In recent decades the Spirit is moving mightily especially in other parts of the world. Almost all of that is happening among believers with heightened experiences of the gifts of the Spirit. Theirs is not a traditional approach to understanding and living the Christian faith.
Traditional Protestant Christians come from a heritage that features a very rational understanding and application of the biblical word of God. That heritage makes us resistant to irrational experiences. But the Spirit wants to give many other gifts that would be appreciated in any congregation. These would be especially fruit like love, joy, peace and patience. Consider those gifts to be feelings generated by the Spirit and not just virtues to be pursued on our own. Naming and sharing experiences of the Spirit has great value in sharing the faith. Reclaiming Paul’s emphasis on the Spirit’s gifts can bring renewal to traditional Protestant churches.
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About the Book
Believers who raise their awareness of the Holy Spirit, practice GROWTH in the Spirit and share their experiences will find their Christian life becomes more exciting and fulfilling. Pastors who teach Spirit awareness and GROWTH practices will see their congregation become more stimulating, healthy and attractive. We confess that the fellowship of the Holy Spirit gives churches their unique identity and energy. Yet many traditional Protestant churches act otherwise. Withering congregations can regain vitality by refocusing on this truth and learning to name and share their encounters with Christ’s Spirit.
How to Spot the Spirit’s Work in Your Life is the second in a series of three books pastor and psychologist David S Luecke has written on the Holy Spirit:
1st Encounters with the Holy Spirit works out the biblical basics for the Spirit’s job description today, offers insights from behavioral and developmental psychology, and outlines leadership principles for fine-tuning a church’s culture.
2nd How to Spot the Spirit’s Work in Your Life emphasizes practical application in a discussion format and advocates six GROWTH practices.
3rd How the Spirit Shapes Prayer offers survey findings for how prayer is actually done by traditional Christians.
Based on How to Spot the Spirit’s Work in Your Life, Dave Luecke developed four sessions of Spot-the-Spirit Discussions. The 32-page Guide and videos of his introductions are available at www.GROWTHintheSpirit.church.
After seminary and ordination, David S. Luecke earned an MBA and PhD at Washington University of Saint Louis and then spent the next 20 years in academia, teaching leadership techniques in business schools and church management at Fuller Theological Seminary. When he received a call to plant a church near his home town of Cleveland, he welcomed the opportunity to practice what he taught. He moved on to become administrative pastor of Royal Redeemer Lutheran Church. He continues to serve there as a semi-retired missions pastor.
www.GROWTHintheSpirit.church
About the Author
After seminary and ordination, David S. Luecke earned an MBA and PhD at Washington University of Saint Louis and then spent the next 20 years in academia, teaching leadership techniques in business schools and church management at Fuller Theological Seminary. When he received a call to plant a church near his home town of Cleveland, he welcomed the opportunity to practice what he taught. He moved on to become administrative pastor of Royal Redeemer Lutheran Church. He continues to serve there as a semi-retired missions pastor. www.GROWTHintheSpirit@net.