Typically when i get in a taxi, I try to show some respect for the other human being - and interest in their story. We tend to get chatting, often about his story - most drivers are male of course - his story, country, family, job etc.
Sometimes feels like a blessing is present here - affirming interest in stories and jobs and cultures that tend to be stereotyped or marginalized. Ask an Indian taxi driver where they're from and the young driver - who has often just finished an accounting or hospitality degree - invariably winces. So sometimes the ensuing conversation feels quite significant as we progress on to talking about family and background story, and the common humanity is drawn out. Blessing another human being, just because they're also made in God's image.
But i'm not often directly evangelistic in all this, in that i don't usually expect this to get into deep questions of faith. (Oh, your daughter's name means Goddess of Beauty? I see. Thats, um, interesting).
Nor do i usually declare my own most significant story.
But things are changing - i'm more out there sometimes, these days.
A while ago i'd been reading a book, "Prophetic Evangelism" (1) on the way home. The author is an influential Anglican minister (Mark Stibbes, of Breakout lore (2)), and I'm sure he's evangelical in the sense of believing basic doctrine. But he's more than that - as well as sound evangelical doctrine, good as that is, he also has a charismatic formation.
I should clarify some terms perhaps. One can be a not very evangelistic evangelical -ie theologically 'correct' in the sense of being able to affirm the right things, without being evangelistic - engaged in communicating those same things.
For another definition, charismatic in my book simply means biblical, in the sense of not just believing propositional doctrine, but also expecting some of the same transactions and divine idioms of the Spirit that were so central in the biblical narrative, to still occur - ie honouring the fact the Spirit is given in this era as God's personal, powerful presence. Indeed not doing that is perhaps even missing the biblical formation.
(As an aside i think we wouldn't need these words - 'charismatic', 'pentecostal', if we simply took the biblical texts about the role of the Holy Spirit as normative - if we simply were formed and informed by the Scripture, and the Spirit dimensions revealed there, rather than allowing an extracted theology to work against it. I think Spirit movements and definitions - and the potential for over emphasis - perhaps only occur when the mainstream refuses to integrate them in biblical dimension - and themselves become excessively rationalistic, which many comment that the church, by and large, has become. (Jack Deere talks of a divorce between those who emphasise Word and those who emphasise Spirit - though of course both sides think they have both in appropriate balance - with the risk of one side going dry and overly cerebral, passive, non experiential, while the other is possibly loopy without some of the steadying theology - my terms for his summing up (3)).
You are in error, said Jesus to the religious Sadducees, who had grown to like the arrangements and accommodations of the present age, because you don't know the scriptures or the power of God. Both are needed to get it right; scripture alone is not biblical; not according to Jesus (or Paul for the matter, who knew scripture backwards with a devout and monotheistic passion - until he experienced the risen Lord, and then consigned that era as being according to flesh, belonging to the old dispensation which was inadequate to deliver the people into the fullness to which it richly pointed - not itself the glorious Spirit indwelt formation of God's people, who have come to him via the death and resurrection of His son. Power of God indeed. Later he said the letter killed, and Spirit gave life; though he obviously wrote and wrestled with scripture more deeply than perhaps any other).
Tom Wright comments that the basic meaning of Pentecost is for all Christians - all Christians are meant to inherit from the agricultural feast of Pentecost - 50 days after passover - now imbued with the meaning of a post resurrection, Spirit empowered, harvest of first fruits. I'm beginning to think its a truncation, on both sides, to just take part of the experience and identify it as a feature for those identified as 'pentecostals' - who perhaps then risk overemphasising what others are denying or sidestepping. Thus 'pentecostalism' (which i know well from 13 or so years there) is perhaps an over focus on, in some ways, on what should be given to the whole church - partly because of the reaction against God turning up in present and dynamic way by the presence and power of the Spirit. (And maybe the movement is like a particle accelerator as well - one gains speed and is accelerated there, before being channeled off to other streams). And the middle ground is where this is re-integrated into mainstream charismatic expressions - the theology and the experiential dynamic belong together. As Wright says in a commentary on Acts, re theology and experience:
the first day of Pentecost, and the experience of God's Spirit from that day to this, can no more be reduced to theological formulae and interesting Old Testament echoes than you can reduce a hurricane to a list of diagrams on a meteorologist's chart .... its far more important that you're out there in the wind, letting it sweep through your heart, your life, your imagination, your powers of speech, and let it transform you from a listless or lifeless believer to someone whose heart is on fire with the love of God. Those images of wind and fire are of course what Luke says it was like on the first day. Many Christians in many traditions have used similar images to describe what it is sometimes like when the Spirit comes to do new things in the lives of individuals and communities ... some of the creative power of God comes down from heaven to earth and does its work there (4)(So maybe some need to stop trying to lock the storm in the cupboard, and others need to map the storm as well as experience it)
Anyway, the 'prophetic' aspect of the prophetic evangelism book was encouraging Christians to listen to God in the moment, for keys that might unlock a conversation. Maybe moving from asking for a drink of water - or your friendly taxi conversation - to "you've had 5 husbands, and the man you're with is not your husband" (5) - not just teaching that passage in the 17 ways we've heard it preached - all of which are good - but also moving into the that dynamic of listening to the God who knows, who communicates.
As i said, the author is a minister - a friend of mine goes to their church and told me this story about him:
We had a visiting preacher come to St Andrew's a decade ago. He was the health minister from Norway. Mark had met him on a preaching trip there, felt compelled by the Spirit to walk up to a total stranger while sight-seeing at the Norwegian parliament building and say "God wants to tell you, 'you will be PM soon.'" The guy was health minister and within a short period became PM! (6)That's starting at the deep end. And perhaps not many people will have such striking examples - that is a particularly compelling example (my friend was commenting on diverse ways God used some of their staff). But is certainly illustrates one dimension of the gifting to hear in the present moment.
Some won't like that i think. "Let me tell you the stories of those who wrecked their lives over this sort of prophecy thing". And no doubt thats possible. I can tell terrible stories about those injured by motor accidents too. I drove over the Harbour bridge a few days ago - and there was an accident there later. So I'm all for seatbelts and road rules when i'm in a car. I'm also for weighing prophecy and employing all the biblical frameworks. Even after all that, there is still some risk - just as there is in preaching or any other way of hearing the Word. (The Word who came and dwelt among us - don't think theological systematising can ever make it totally safe, unless its not living). Still, most of us choose to drive cars, despite some risk of being out there. Anyway, back to my taxi story.
So, i'm attracted by the concept of this mode of evangelism, described in the book i've been reading on the plane home one Friday night. I'm ok at the relational stuff, and believe i can hear God - often at work etc - but rarely get into sharing the gospel explicitly. But the book stirs me to think, about connecting evangelism with that ability to hear God (often in work meetings for example, i have a sense of what to say, and there is a particular way i often sense God is guiding me. I sense some of it now, as i write. Not over the whole post - but these last three sentences say. The sense of having something to say at that point, of having 'current content' is impressed on me - not that I imply its therefore guaranteed to be expressed correctly, or that this post is other than a partial perspective (i add the caveats to clarify i'm not claiming infallible inspiration of course - i'm not making that sort of claim, except that God does still speak and guide, and His sheep should hear and recognise his voice).
So I sat on the plane and wondered, maybe i can work that current listening into evangelism as Mark Stibbes suggests. So i prayed and ask for an opportunity to do that.
Half an hour later, i'm sitting next to my taxi driver. He's sitting quietly - doesn't seem to be into initiating any small talk. Been a long day for me - its already 8 pm and i could just sit quietly for the next 20 minutes as we go from airport to train station - where another 2 hour trip waits. But as i look at him, i sense something. I can see something, something about him is highlighted or stands out to me. I think i can see, that he seems to have a capacity to 'hear', - dormant, but there.
I question it for a few moments myself - I wonder if maybe i'm just projecting what i've been reading about, on to him? But in ways that i can't describe except its an idiom i've been learning, i still think i can see something in him relating to that capacity.
"Can i ask you, do you dream?" i ask. (I didn't feel particularly led to say that, but i wanted to somehow kick it off down that sort of track - about hearing, and that seemed a possible way.)
He whirls around, eyes wide. "Why do you ask!"
I knew nothing about him - this was our first exchange - but turns out, as we open a conversation, that he is from Sudan; family moved here as refugees, from war and conflict. He's Muslim, nominally, and who knows what their family must have seen in refugee camps etc.
We're in for a good ride, though. I tell him a little bit, and as the conversation goes, he tells me another Christian has shared with him, "he told me to open my up hands like this" - he lays his hands open before him - (the opposite of crossed arms - a poise of open-ness) - "and he told me secrets of my heart that know one else knew!".
The wonder of this is still very evident to him. I'm sure he doesn't know he's quoting almost verbatim what Paul said prophecy would do, lay bare secrets of the heart and convict non believers that God is really among us. (7)
But he is still a bit fearful of all this - having been raised in a culture that knew black magic/witchcraft, he tells me knew of the capacity for listening for revelation, but in evil ways. Who knows what counterfeit gifts were in the local witchdoctor, in touch with who knows what.
I explain to him (a) that Jesus is good, and has no darkness and (b) He is stronger than than devil and the spirits he has seen so (c) there is no need to fear, in that way, the source of these gifts in Christians. Its a simple chat - but he is not your typical materialistic westerner either.
I also tell him i think he has a latent gift for hearing. That's it not an accident that Christians are approaching him in this way; highlighting that channel of hearing. He is, by now, all ears. As we arrive at the end of the trip I ask if i can pray for him, and do so, and he watches me pray, is deeply moved - wants the journey to go on, wants to know more, etc.
So. I'm glad i wasn't just a kind listening ear that day, hearing the story of Sudan - oh you're a refugee, i'll listen to your story, good as that can be - that i dared to believe God might give me something as i listened to him in the moment.
I also wish i had a lot more stories like that. Have a few, but not nearly as many as i'd like. Might have more if I trusted that dynamic of listening in the moment more. I know its real - i've been trained in hearing and speaking i think, - this is not so unusual for me ..
Then the Spirit came on Amasai, chief of the Thirty, and he said:A capacity to say things, is sometimes given, in ways that might not even look 'religious' at all - one might observe that statement without knowing Amasai had been touched by the Spirit (even though in this case he does go on to swear an oath by God - but affirming allegiance could be done without that). (I don't know how Amasai found it, but i certainly make plenty of errors as well - one can go from there to ones own error quite quickly - as Peter knew (9)). (And yes, I know that allegiance to David could be taken as an illustrative foreshadowing of allegiance to a greater King; and also that Peter was in a different inter-testamental dispensation in terms of that revelation. But i know he moved into another, in Acts, that has not closed. Its clunky to add these caveats, but maybe needed).
“We are yours, David!
We are with you, son of Jesse! (8)
The world is coming to our doorstep - i might never get to war torn Sudan; but it will come to us in the local taxi driver. A friend of mine noted that the formal missionaries the church dutifully prays for ("God bless the Smiths in Turdikistan" etc) - are often just making a life, living, working, and trying to share as opportunity arises. We miss the opportunity of owning that ourselves, if we think its all locked up in foreign and formal missionaries.
Just like pushing the biblical dynamic of the Spirit into another church subculture - such as 'pentecostals'- can alienate the common inheritance of the gift of the Spirit - we should all own all of this. Its all normal, biblically speaking. In fact, no Pentecost = no Acts - as many modern examples basically illustrate. And Paul of course commanded the demon to leave the fortune telling slave girl (10) - there is no allegiance between the demonic things my driver had seen with the witch doctor, and the real gifts of God. Indeed the reality of these dimensions should displace, possibly in power encounters, the interest in counterfeit gifts; such things do still happen. The TV show "Search for Australia's number one psychic" just shows people hungry for experience, but gobbling poison. We have the good food, if we can share it.
(Note that I haven't called this "gifts of the Spirit" - as much they are drawn into what i'm saying - but the title is alluding to the gift of the Spirit, God's presence among us, first and foremost, as a distinctive and primary Christian reality- and what makes the good evangelical doctrine come alive to us).
Only just finished writing that up - happened ages ago but i wanted to record something here - when i have another similar experience. Who knows, I might even get good at this.
1. Prophetic Evangelism, Mark Stibbes
2. Breakout Mark Stibbes, Andrew Williams
3. Surprised the by the Voice of God, Jack Deere (last page)
4. NT Wright for Everyone Series - Acts of the Apostles.
5. John 4:3-30
6. personal email
7. 1 Corinthians 14:25
8. 1 Chron 12
9. Matt 16:16-23
10. Acts 16:16
