What happened to us?

The essence of Pentecostalism is to step away from religion as we knew it – that routine way of worshipping and praying, according to a centuries-old script.

Being born-again is a faith movement, not religion. You basically let the Holy Spirit lead in everything you do, because His mercies are new every morning. So, when exactly did we again morph into a religion?

In many Pentecostal churches, the service, intercession, praise and worship, sermon, everything is now scripted and little or no room is left for the Holy Spirit’s ministration. As we start a new year, maybe we should ask ourselves some difficult questions; how different are we from the religions we professedly left?

In your church, does the Spirit of God still dictate how the service is organized and driven, or you too have resorted to experience and copying what you see happening elsewhere?

When things become too scripted and driven according to human beings’ whims and convenience, the Holy Spirit withdraws. That is what I have been taught from my earliest days in salvation.

I love it when I turn up for Sunday service and we set out to do the usual: praise and worship, testimonies, sermon, etc, but when the pastor is invited to preach, he launches into ‘a little more worship’ before delivering his sermon, only to end up worshipping for a full hour, before we say ‘The Grace’ and go home.

That has happened a couple of times before in my church, and we are always left in awe when the Spirit of God leads that way. By the way, during such services, there are more manifestations of healing and deliverance than when we do it our own way. The Spirit of the Lord can inspire sermons, songs to use during praise and worship, and even who should deliver the sermon or lead worship, if only we let Him.

There is increasingly too much scripting in church, in our bid to squeeze in as many services as possible in one day, majorly for economic, not spiritual, reasons. I wish with all my heart, that I see more Pentecostal churches go back to what we are supposed to be; Spirit-led establishments committed to guiding God’s people into a deeply personal relationship with Him...

But now, because the Holy Spirit has departed from many of our churches, so has the fear of God. The cringeworthy developments we are witnessing in some churches are a direct result of what started as a Spirit-led church becoming an individual’s business and making.

May God guide your feet to a Spirit-filled church still standing on a firm foundation. Landing in the wrong church can make you hate Pentecostalism and God, altogether.

malita@observer.ug