Is Pentecostal Spirituality vibrant today or dissipating?

Spirit-baptism provides the Pentecostal with a heightened awareness of God’s presence and anointing. While grace makes Spirit baptism possible, people must seek the experience for it to happen. Pentecostal spirituality and practice revolve around our relationship with God.

The Pentecost experience at Azusa has been described as a global fire that was expected to consume the world. One hundred years later, although events did not turn out as expected, Pentecostalism and Charismatic Christianity is attributed as the fastest expanding movements in the world. The second Pentecostal wave in the 1960s brought with it indigenous Christianities that experienced signs and wonders, prophecies, gifts of the Spirit and expressive worship that energize churches around the globe.

However, compared to the heydays of Pentecostal fire, symptoms of spiritual stagnation can be seen in churches today. Statistics have shown a decline in glossalolia, interpretation of tongues and interpretation of tongues in the church. Sociologist Margaret Poloma’s research on the cyclical nature of institutionalising forces within Christian spiritual renewal movements identified the emergence of the “routinzation of charisma.” in the last 30 years of the twentieth century. According to her, “A movement’s full optimized flowering, is at the crest of the wave. Yet it’s right there at the height, that a movement naturally experiences the forces of declension.”

The outpouring and workings of the Holy Spirit appears to be loosing momentum. I was not an eyewitness but have heard from pastors that some large contemporary driven mega churches today have entertainment driven settings for praise and worship. Congregational worship has been observed to be displacing a genuine encounter with the Holy Spirit, with a largely sensate, entertainment driven approach.

Literature confirms that the problem of institutionalisation, including the “routinizaton of the charisma,” is global. AG ecumenist Cecil Robeck foresees that these developments will only lead to increasing decline in the number of those who have been baptized in the Spirit, with less than 40% of AG parishioners receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit today.

Within Pentecostal spiritualities, it has been observed over the past decade a definitive loss of consciousness, towards Spirit-baptism as being important to shape a believer’s spirituality. Concurring with Poloma, we see, “ the control of public prayer and testimony has steadily increased over the past decades. This trend directly parallels other symptoms of institutionalism within the movement, such as the decreasing number of people who have experienced or practice speaking in tongues.”

God responds through an outpouring of His Spirit to congregational prayer that is not bound by fixed agendas. The true power of Scripture is released in its spoken rather than written form. We need more spontaneous testimony, spontaneous prayer, and the congregational exercise of tongues, coming through our whole being to almighty God to bring down revival fire upon us again. Sadly, in the name of decency and order, and from the motive of conveniently averting possible error, we are now programming the Holy Spirit almost out of the church service. Today people do prayers on the run, spiritual practices in between a busy day. We need to experience authentic spirituality on a daily basis. Churches too, need to re-focus on providing experiences rather than just programs. The spiritual renewal that came a hundred year ago came as a result of spending time together in unity and prayer!