Some of you might have already received this by email. If so ignore. For some of you this might be of no interest… ignore! For others maybe adds to your own thoughts?
I have a few posts to complete and also to give a response to our time in Sicily. I will (maybe spelt ‘hope’?) to complete what I started on Jew, Israel, Gentile (with a slant on eschatology) and my thoughts on the Pauline gospel, but given the heat that is on some recent exposures on prophecy within charismatic circles I thought I should in this interlude comment on that first.
Well this is not really to charismatics, but a few responses to some of what is unfolding.
While away in Sicily I have sought to follow the scandals / exposures in the past weeks that Mike Winger has documented. I have not watched all the hours (and hours and hours) of videos but I have seen enough and experienced enough disappointment. Of course I have my take on it as many of you do, and wanted to give my response here – particularly to those of you who want to align yourself with the ‘charismatic’.
For those not in the know, in short, the scandals are focused on a number of individuals who have data-mined social media so that they can then present details (names, addresses, specific contexts) as words of knowledge… a kind of ‘Is there a Martin Scott present who lives in Oliva, does Isla de Sicilia mean anything to you?’ blah, blah. Impressive and spectacular. (Interestingly the prophetic that follows is often at a much lower ‘level’ of revelation or simply continues with an affirmation of what was presented on Facebook etc.!)
A little personal history
There are three personal experiences that will also shape where I am coming from / where I am headed.
1) Not knowing anything about what was to come I wrote to someone (first in 2021) whose feet have been held to the fire in these past days that a major test was coming and that he would need the spirit of wisdom when it hit. I had a further 3 pieces of communication with him over the following years.
Then around 2 years ago I had two dreams that seem very relevant:
2) The first dream I was present in a discussion among European believers who were discussing as to what protocols should be foundational for a healthy prophetic to rise in the coming context and season. Into that dream a USA prophetic person (who passed away some years back but was one of the best known names from his era) materialised as a 40 year old. He was intently focused on discovering what we would come up with and his face showed clearly that he knew now that what they had put in place in their era was now proving to be sadly defective.
3) The second dream was of one of the best known and ‘stable’ prophets of today holding the platform in a large auditorium. He acknowledged my presence and said ‘we need to hear from Martin later’… however he filled the whole time and when he ran out of any meaningful content he jumped off the stage and simply began to dance around and shadow box! I said to Gayle ‘there is nothing for us here, let’s leave’. As we left by a side door I realised there was another back room and so I said ‘let’s go in here and see what is taking place.’ We did this and inside was someone dedicated to raising the next generation of prophetic voices. He had clearly been (apologies and I do not want to be crude) stimulating himself and now (fully clothed) he was demonstrating how significant his male package was – this being a point of pride. I said to Gayle – we are out of here and so we left that whole scene: the best of the current was shadow boxing and the next generation was being developed in the setting of male pride and performance.
After those dreams speak into the public space with the exposures of the abuse of the prophetic, and sadly with a comment – ‘we all do this’. I am grateful that that is not totally true (‘all’) but the data-mining and other abuses seems more widespread than just with a few.
The discrediting of the prophetic is clear as a result.
Some 6 months back I said to Gayle the prophetic is about to be shaken but once that is through the same will happen to the current healing move. That is just ahead of us.
So what now charismatics? (And I write as one.)
1) The spectacular – who to impress?
I had a call with David Shadbolt a few weeks back who brought up Philip’s visit to Samaria and in that village was Simon who with his ‘magic’ had deeply impressed / mesmerised the people.
The platform (problematic in itself) has facilitated the impressive. Truth is I do not need someone to give me my name nor my address but do need help to better align my character to fulfil a purpose for others while I am on this planet.
The spectacular lifts the so-called ‘messenger’ up. That is always the vision of all imperially-driven constructs and the total opposite of any Pauline vision for gifts and calling. We have to see the current exposure as a wake up call to being sadly unaligned in direction.
There are remarkable words of knowledge (‘you have had 5 husbands and the one you are with you are not married to’). A friend of mine who passed away in 2001 I often witnessed him bring revelation that even that person’s closest friend did not know – his gift and character impacted me deeply. He once turned up late… reason? ‘Sorry mate, I had to pull over, I was having such an acute panic attack’. He brought freedom to many and yet…. Maybe he should have been through the personal trauma by that stage… maybe… but his weakness was his strength. He was human with flaws. Humanity with flaws is closer to God’s image than the spectacular on a platform.
2) Healing – a new context
I have read through many of the stories of the ‘healing revival’ of 1948-58 where many of those involved came from backgrounds of poverty (and through the difficulties of the 1930s). Seeking God for power (and significance?) they sought to manifest healing power. Two flaws: power does not heal a heart… love does. I remember meeting one (from a slightly later era) healing evangelist who held crusades with 100s of thousands globally. He came from an orphaned background, but was by the time I met him incredibly well known and it so happened that for around 10 minutes only he and I were in the same room. It was like talking to boy who was 12 years old. Only a conviction of love brings healing, being valued because of reputation does not heal.
Power – we will demonstrate God’s power, thus impressing people about God… (and maybe about us?). Second problem – God is not impressive!!! Insecurity needs to impress… God is not insecure!
We do not have a responsibility to show the world the power of God. There is a shift from power to PRESENCE. Jesus first chose 12 to be WITH him and then he commissioned them. He was known as ‘Emmanuel’, God WITH us. To be with Jesus is not simply to go away on a retreat, it is to be where he is.
There are three helpful prepositions – TO, FOR, and WITH. We can do something TO people – colonialism; we can do something FOR people – better and sometimes a necessary step… but WITH is the God-way.
There is a healing wave to come, but it first requires that we move to be WITH those who are marginalised. It is not about moving into the top 3% and then having power to change what is around… but being with. To be with is to listen. God’s bias is to the margins. I, male, have to LISTEN to those of a different gender / those who express gender / sexual orientation differently to me if I am to disrobe my ungodly status.
There is a total ‘disrobing’ of status. Jesus ‘got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself’. This is what lies ahead. Only then will we have presence. Presence is not a style of worship, but a discovery that there is nothing more significant than being simply a ‘person in Christ’ as Paul described himself.
In summary
The heat is rightly on now. Change is being called for. A loss of power is required; power that comes through social status or pulled on through insecurity. Significance is to be found in being insignificant; anointed in being disrobed.
And a final note as a convinced charismatic. I am aware of thousands who in the past decades have received words of prophecy concerning their lives. They received them (as I did) in the context of ‘four walls’ and the platform. Those words are not dead, but the fulfilment is in a different context. The platform as we have had it is problematic; the four walls are deeply restrictive… The fulfilments are waiting to be connected with… the path to the place of fulfilment is the preposition ‘with’.
Here’s to a new phase.
I resonate strongly with your movement from spectacle to presence and especially the shift from doing things to or for people toward being with. That feels like an important correction in this moment.
I do wonder though whether the language of “with the margins” can still leave us imagining ourselves travelling there from somewhere else. The incarnation seems to move more radically than that. Jesus does not visit the margins or even stand alongside them. He is born there, lives there, dies there and rises again among ordinary people.
The movement is not simply solidarity but kenosis …!a pouring out!…and katabasis, a real descent. Once something is poured out it cannot simply be gathered back into the same container. In that sense “among” is not proximity or mission strategy but the relinquishing of the centre itself.
Even the calling of the first disciples reflects this. Jesus is not summoning strangers from an elevated position. In small Galilean communities he would already have been known among them, and when fishermen “leave their nets” the action carries economic weight … a stepping out of an entire system of livelihood embedded in imperial economics rather than simply a personal spiritual decision. In that sense the call is not only vocational but liberative ..a release from a structure that ordered their lives.
It is not the movement of good people toward those on the edge, but the discovery that God has already chosen to dwell within the shared human condition itself.
Perhaps the ‘prophetic’ (maybe read prophecy as projecy..my word 😉) crisis we are witnessing is therefore not only about spectacle and platforms but about the collapse of the centre that sustained them? My ponderings this morning..
Heidi… I can always rely on you to provoke and am very grateful! Language and what it communicates is so critical. I have no push back on what you wrote – thank you.
I wonder if what you are challenging is ‘for’ – where we are doing something ‘for’, it looks so good but is charitable and patronising. Jesus was born, lived… etc. on the margins – ‘with’. Yet Jewish (not Samaritan, nor Gentile) and male (not intersex, nor female). Those aspects he lived out (‘with’) (and still had to learn?? – the interchange with the Syro-Phoenician woman that Matthew anachronistically / wrongly calls a Canaanite!!!).
Post-cross Jesus is neither male nor female, nor is he Jew.
A great number of us are not truly at the margins – we have water, most of us have been educated to a level etc., not to mention people such as myself – white, privileged male. We have to find ways – or maybe steps toward – being ‘with’.
Thanks Heidi.