[THO] When Charismatics Get It Right

Went to my friend Ahren’s church today. It was fun because Michel, one of my parishioners, came with us and we met up with our old friend Gerard. I was surprised to find Achen’ Dave doing worship and they also had a guest speaker lined up. Don Kantel who works with Iris Ministries.

What was neat was that Don is a Charismatic, unapologetically too. And he is doing the stuff! Specifically working with the poor and fatherless in Mozambique. It was like God was challenging my rant a bit. In fact as I think about it there are a number of Charismatics that I know about that are doing the right stuff. But they aren’t the most vocal ones.

In fact for the non-Charismatics I know doing the stuff, this also holds true. It is probably a good assumption that some of the best ministry happens in relative obscurity. And I think that is the way it is supposed to be. After all last Wednesday’s gospel reading was about doing these things in private looking for the rewards that come from God alone.

One other thing that I have been thinking about is that we seem to place a lot of weight on getting the understanding right instead of just doing. Our assumptions about orthodoxy have overshadowed our orthopraxy. I for one would rather have ten folks completely giving themselves for the poor than just one who has all the dots correctly placed on their theology. We can work on getting the ideas lined up better (as if any one of us has it all figured out anyway) but it is a lot harder to get the heart lined up.