The Hunger for Spirituality

According to Eugene Taylor, “We are witnessing a spiritual awakening unprecedented in modern times…” [1] These are exciting words until one understands that the spiritual awakening being referred to is highly eclectic and “perceptually grounded in what the experiencer believes is a deeper level of the immediate reality…”[2]

Indeed, spirituality is “making a comeback.”[3] Many people appear to be enthusiastically embracing spirituality—although not necessarily within the context of the organized churches.
Psychotherapist David Elkins, in an article titled “Spirituality: It’s What’s Missing in Mental Health,” writes, “… most Americans want spirituality, but perhaps not in religious form. … Many left church and synagogue not because they had lost interest in spirituality, but because organized religion was not meeting their spiritual needs [emphasis added].”[4]

For the participants of this “massive flight from traditional religious institutions into spirituality,”[5] mystical vitality and truth can be found “as much in the Christian Bible as in the Torah, the Koran, the Tao te Ching, or the Bagavad Gita.”[6] Their religious experiences are of the “self-help variety.” [7] They have turned to Eastern practices, new age philosophies, Twelve Step programs, Greek mythology, Jungian psychology, shamanic practices, massage, yoga, “music, poetry, literature, art, nature and intimate relationships.”[8]

A quick survey of the sociological landscape reveals that people are realizing that they have a spiritual side. It is an area of their existence that “neither science nor materialism has satisfied.”[9] So, people are hungry for spirituality. According to John Bowen, “The fact that The Celestine Prophecy, with its strong pro-spirituality, anti-organized religion message, has been on the best-seller lists since mid-1994 indicates the strength of this hunger for spirituality.”[10]

The modern spiritual explorer is offered many options and many spiritual pathways from which to choose. However, not all options are equally valid. Jesus Christ taught that in a world filled with counterfeits there is a definitive, a genuine, an exclusive “road that leads to life” and “only a few find [it]” (Matthew 7:14, NIV).

Ron Dart laments, “We live in an age in which the old paths have been overgrown, the ancient springs have been deserted and the golden string is lost.”[11] In such an age, is it possible to discover an authentic Christian spirituality—the road that leads to life? Dart believes so. He writes, “If we are willing to trek to these ancient springs, we might just find the water we need to nourish us on our own hike through time. … If we pay due attention … we might find the path we need, a path that will guide us to … the source and center of all things.”[12]

[1] Eugene Taylor, “Desperately Seeking Spirituality,” Psychology Today 27, no. 6 (1994): 54.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Carl. F.H. Henry, “Spiritual? Say It Isn’t So!” in Alive to God: Studies in Spirituality, ed. J.I. Packer and Loren Wilkinson (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 8.
[4] David Elkins, “Spirituality: It’s What’s Missing In Mental Health,” Psychology Today 32, no. 5 (1999): 44.
[5] Taylor.
[6] Elkins.
[7] Henry, 9.
[8] Elkins.
[9] John Bowen, “The Spirituality of Jesus and the Dangers of Religion” [article on-line] (Toronto, Ontario Canada: Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada, 1998, accessed 3 January 2001); available from http://www.dare-connexions.org/spirituality.html#rel%20w%20God; Internet.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ron Dart, “Prophetic Spirituality: Markings for the Journey,” in Alive to God: Studies in Spirituality, ed. J.I. Packer and Loren Wilkinson (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 296.
[12] Ibid.

From the Valley of the Kidney Stone: Recapitulation

Why Then How

I begin all my courses by answering the “why” question before moving on to the others–who, what, when, where, how–especially how. If one adequately answers why, passion will fire the imagination and creative methods and materials will emerge.

Can You Require Appreciation?

Some years ago, I was invited to participate in a summit meeting to revitalize Christian Education in the Assemblies of God (particularly Sunday school). One person suggested requiring all candidates for credentials to complete a course in Christian education. How do you require people to appreciate anything? My response then and now is: “One cannot mandate interest. However, if someone with ‘fire in the belly’ can help pastors see the urgency for discipleship and Bible-based instruction, the pastors will find ways to make it happen in their congregations (SS, small groups, JBQ, Bible Quiz, seminars, retreats, workshops, conferences, church-based Bible institutes, devotional materials, evotionals, podcasts, catechisms, whatever). They may even ask HQ for curricular materials or write their own.”

Where Have the “True Believers” Gone?

Pentecostalism has arrived at that point when visionary leaders (Eric Hoffer would call them “true believers.”) are dying and being replaced by third and fourth generation leaders who inherited their tenets and practices without spilling blood in the crucible of revolution.

Who were the “true believers” who founded the Pentecostal Movement? Many Pentecostal pioneers experienced radical conversion as they responded to the “full gospel” message. The foremost doctrines of the “four square” message were: Salvation in Jesus Christ, Divine Healing through the atonement, the premillennial return of Christ, and the baptism in the Holy Spirit (with the initial evidence of speaking in other tongues. Some added sanctification by faith as a second definite work of grace as a fifth fundamental of the full gospel.

John Wannenmacher of Milwaukee (my former Senior Adults Pastor) used recall how his father Joseph (an early leader in the Assemblies of God) frequently started his sermons focusing on some distinctive topic, but always worked the sermon around to expound the “four cardinal doctrines.”

For pioneers like Joseph P. Wannenmacher becoming a Pentecostal was a decisive step. They tearfully and passionately testified to the validity of the Pentecostal teachings. They boldly battled foes within and without over the distinctives. They were true believers.

Even the second generation of Pentecostals demonstrated passionate loyalty for the movement. Perhaps they personally witnessed or knew of the radical transformation that occurred in the lives of their parents. John Wannenmacher vividly tells the story of the dramatic healing that his Hungarian, violin-playing father experienced in the “faith homes” in Zion, Illinois (started by John Alexander Dowie). Whether he was aware of it or not, each time John preached for me, his sermon became a four pointer—just like his father’s.

From the Valley of the Kidney Stone: Recapitulation

It is a privilege to challenge young pministers to cherish the foundations while being open to anything new God wants to do in and through His Church. While it is an honor, it is not always easy. They frequently say they are “sick of hearing about the good old days.” They want to experience the good days for themselves. Perhaps this is a need for curricular changes—or at least changes in instructional techniques.

Pondering this difficulty while under the influence of powerful painkillers prescribed for a kidney stone, the idea came to me—recapitulation. Although it long had been discredited as ridiculous, unscientific and fraudulent, Ernst Haeckel’s “concept of recapitulation” (also called the “Biogenetic Law”) was still being included in high school biology books as recently as 1999 as a “proof” for the Theory of Evolution. “Recapitulation” taught that at different stages in human embryo development the organs of supposed evolutionary ancestors appear—chicken sac, lizard tail, and fish gills. Simply put, during gestation, every human being allegedly experienced the sweep of supposed evolutionary history.

What does a fraudulent theory have to do with training Pentecostal ministers? It might be possible through social system simulations, drama, discovery-learning and other participatory techniques to help young Pentecostals “experience” the sweep of history and doctrinal development that led up to the urgency for cleansing and empowerment felt by the Pentecostal pioneers.

Through such “recapitulation training,” it might be possible to recapture some of the passion of the true believers.

With Fire in the Belly,

Dr. David Arnett, Professor/Church Planting Pastor

Preaching in the Midst of Cultural Change

Dr. J. David Arnett (c) 2009

The tectonic activity of cultural change is making it necessary for today’s Pentecostal ministers and missionaries to adjust their methods and media to communicate God’s good news about Jesus Christ more effectively—just as the Pentecostal pioneers did.


In an interview for Leadership Journal, Brian McLaren states,

In dealing with postmoderns, you’re dealing with people who do not know the basics of Christianity. If anything, they have a negative idea of what Christianity is. So it makes no sense to them if you come on too strong and quickly ask for a commitment.… For postmodern people, anything presented as an argument is less persuasive because arguments suggest a message of conquest rather than a message of peace. Postmoderns are so assaulted by advertisements and political messages that for a message to be important and true, it must come in a form other than argument. [1]

This postmodern resistance to anything perceived to be argumentative or manipulative is a problem for contemporary ministers educated to preach to those with a modern mindset.


Seminaries and Bible colleges generally train preachers to dissect the Scriptures in search of “principles” to share with their congregations. In this approach, the preacher seeks to ascertain the biblical author’s original intent by analyzing specific biblical passages. With careful hermeneutics (involving grammatical-contextual-historical-syntactical-theological-cultural exegesis), the preacher develops succinct propositions, precepts, or principles to summarize the author’s key concepts. Walter Kaiser calls this process of summarizing authorial intent “principlization.”[2]


To aid in communicating these biblical principles to his or her audience, the preacher restates the timeless truths in contemporary terms. Ramesh Richard refers to the process of restatement as “contemporization.”[3] With the work of principlization and contemporization in hand, the modern preacher designs deductive sermons with carefully crafted, point-making arguments to convince congregants to apply the propositional truths to their lives.


While effective in the past, this paradigm for homiletics faces the challenge of a shifting culture. When contemporary preachers stand before their congregations, they find themselves confronted by people who prefer to receive and process information in different ways.


Some congregants favor sermons based on propositional truths, logically supported, deductively designed, and dogmatically delivered. Other congregants, often younger and influenced by postmodernism, prefer sermons that are image rich, experientially supported, inductively designed, and delivered with authenticity and vulnerability on the part of the preacher.


Many preachers are skillful at preparing and presenting sermons that connect well with the first group of congregants. They have not been as adept at preparing sermons that connect well with the second group—those who are younger and most affected by postmodernity.


A declining trend in church attendance reflects this inability to connect with those who are younger and influenced by postmodernism. According to a 2006 national survey conducted by the Barna Research Group, “Mosaics [individuals born after 1983] are least likely to attend church in a typical weekend (33 percent) versus Baby Busters (43 percent), Baby Boomers (49 percent), and Elders (54 percent).”[4]

George Hunter notes that, of the more than 350,000 churches in the United States, about 80 percent are stagnant. Of the 20 percent that are growing, most increase by biological or transfer growth. Less than one percent of churches are growing by winning the unchurched. [5]


Tom Clegg and Warren Bird estimate that the unchurched population of the U.S. is the largest mission field in the English-speaking world, and the fifth largest globally.[6]

The Church in Western Europe and North America is stagnant or in decline. It is not winning its world and, in some cases, not even holding on to its own. There may be many reasons why the Church is no longer effective at evangelism, but one important reason is that preachers are slow to adjust and become proficient in connecting with and effectively preaching the gospel to those influenced by postmodernism.


[1]Brian McLaren, “How to Evangelize Today,” Leadership Journal (August 2001) Web site; available from http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2001/ cln10801.html; accessed 29 June 2006.

[2]Walter C. Kaiser, Toward an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1981), 152.

[3] Ramesh Richard, Preparing Expository Sermons (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001), 19.

[4] George Barna, “Church Attendance,” The Barna Group Web site; available http://www.barna.org/; accessed 13 August 2006.

[5]George Hunter, Church for the Unchurched (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 20.

[6] Tom Clegg and Warren Bird, Lost in America: How You and Your Church Can Impact the World Next Door (Loveland, Colo.: Group Publishing, 2001), 25.

Communicating Good News Across Cultures

(c) 2009 Dr. J. David Arnett

The Pentecostal Movement places a priority on preaching, evangelization, and missions. Believing the Spirit Baptism empowers one to witness “to the ends of the earth,” the early pioneers of the Pentecostal Movement spread across the globe (Acts 1:8). Without the benefit of cross-cultural studies or language school, the so-called “Missionaries of the One-Way Ticket” endeavored to carry out the missio Dei—the “mission of God.”

Many early Pentecostal ministers and missionaries mistakenly believed that the supernatural ability to speak in other tongues that accompanied their Baptism in the Holy Spirit would enable them to “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere” (Mark 16:15, NLT). A. G. Garr, the first missionary to leave the Azusa Street Revival, “went to India fully expecting to preach in Hindustani. After a few months, he admitted his failure on this point, but nonetheless remained to carry on a successful ministry for several years, preaching to these British subjects in English.” [1]

Though disappointed by their inability to speak the languages of the natives, the early Pentecostal missionaries adjusted their presentations of the sacrosanct message of God to connect effectively with their audiences. They adopted methods and media to aid them in communicating the good news that reconciliation and restored intimacy with the Creator is possible through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Eventually, the Pentecostal missionaries implemented indigenous church principles so that native converts—who obviously understood the local language and cultural context—could even more efficiently share the gospel. Notable authority on Assemblies of God foreign missions, Melvin L. Hodges advocated the application of indigenous principles while at the same time emphasizing that the New Testament Church is established only with the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit. Hodges writes, “Along with the evangelistic and church-planting ministries are those auxiliary activities of reducing languages to written form, the translating of the Scriptures and training of national pastors and evangelists.” [2]

Today, passionate Pentecostal ministers find themselves confronted by a similar dilemma. This time it is not a foreign language in a foreign land, but a “foreign culture” in the neighborhood. This alien culture is the result of the epistemological and cultural upheaval known as postmodernism. According to Diogenes Allen, “A massive intellectual revolution is taking place that is perhaps as great as that which marked off the modern world from the Middle Ages. The foundations of the modern world are collapsing, and we are entering a post-modern world.” [3]

[1] D. William Faupel, “Glossolalia as Foreign Language: An Investigation of the Early Twentieth-Century Pentecostal Claim,” ed. Michael Mattei, 2003; Wesley Center for Applied Theology, Northwest Nazarene University Web site; available from http://wesley.nnu.edu/ WesleyanTheology/theojrnl/31-35/31-1-05.htm#_edn21; accessed 14 February 2004.

[2] Melvin L. Hodges, The Indigenous Church, rev. ed. (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1976), 10.

[3] Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Postmodern World (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989), 2.