THE CONNECTION

(I was going to entitle this “Getting Hooked Up” but my wife’s good sense prevailed over my childish and slightly risqué attempt at humor.)

Several years ago Carol and I were in West Texas for a weekend of ministry. We had not driven   Interstate 20 west of Dallas for close to twenty-five years. We enjoyed the drive out and back and especially the time of ministry at the Dream Center in Odessa, TX. Our friend Jimmy Dennis is doing a great work in that area. The Dream Center is reaching a lot of people for Christ; they have a men’s home; they are touching the community with Christian love and service; and God is building a great church there.

On the drive out I was fascinated to see the huge wind farms that have been built in the last several decades. There were hundreds and hundreds of giant wind turbines, their massive blades driven by the invisible force of the wind. Each of the majestic turbines is connected to a local power grid that either uses the electric power locally or feeds it on to a regional power grid. From the regional power grid, electricity is then distributed sometimes nationally and who knows where. Maybe just a little of the power that perked your coffee this morning came from West Texas.

Harvesting energy from the wind seems to have a very bright future. Wind power is environmentally friendly, there is a phenomenal supply of wind worldwide, and new technology is continually bringing down the price of generating power from this source. Some countries, like Denmark, are already getting nearly 20 percent of their electrical power from the wind.

I understand that one of the difficulties facing the harvesting of wind for power is that you cannot just find a windy place and build a turbine and poof, you have usable electricity. Unless the turbine is put near a local user such as a home or a business or is plugged into a grid where the electrical power can be sent, then the turbine, while perfectly good and capable of producing lots of usable power, is not usable.

The bottom line is that without the availability of an outlet, the majestic wind turbine is nothing but a rotating piece of art generating power with nowhere to go!

The fastest growing segment of Christianity in the world is the Pentecostal/Charismatic community. While modern Pentecostalism is just slightly over 100 years old, it has experienced phenomenal growth that shows no sign of slowing down. It is estimated that at least 600 million people are now “Pentecostal/Charismatic” Christians and some surveys indicate that close to 40 percent of all Christians (globally) are Pentecostal/Charismatic. The greatest growth presently is in Asia and Africa.

The cornerstone scripture for most “Spirit-filled” Christians is Acts 1:8:

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; AND you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

How many dozens of messages have you heard preached on the power of the Holy Spirit?

How many messages have you heard about being witnesses in your local community and beyond?

How many messages have you ever heard on the word “and”? 

What pulls these two powerful concepts/truths together is the often overlooked word “and.”  “And” is a conjunction, a connector; it hooks the two truths together and makes them the hallmark statement of New Testament Christianity.

If Pentecost is all about power and that’s all it’s about for us, then we are missing the point! The word “and” takes the power of Pentecost and joins it to an outlet of meaningful service and witness. “And” is the connection that takes the lethal elements of the power of the Holy Spirit and joins them into the grid of powerful service; it brings to life the purpose of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Too much of the modern New Testament church is nothing more than an exercise of wasted power. The majestic turbine of the church is standing in the midst of the roaring wind of Pentecost and is spilling its power on the ground because it is plugged into nothing, it has no outlet. It has taken the power of God and engaged in spiritual self-gratification.

The power of Pentecost is to be connected to the grid of outreach, service and missions. Pentecost is not a plan to empower the individual believer for personal gain and enjoyment of spiritual highs. The power of Pentecost is to be connected to the grid of the whole of God’s eternal plan for the church and if it is not, then it is simply a waste of “the power.” “And you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

(Whoops, I used the word “hook” a few paragraphs back and I think I see my wife coming this way with an eraser in her hand!)