Is Your Church 'Charismatic?'

Many of you may not be aware that we have an FAQ section on our website (Click Here) that answers a lot of questions that folks may have concerning The Bridge. Since we are studying the Holy Spirit, I thought I might point out this one.
One of those questions states, "Is The Bridge a “Charismatic” church?

The answer is ‘yes and no.’ Yes, if you mean do we believe that all of the spiritual gifts of the Bible still exist today. No, if you mean that we place a major emphasis on the gifts of tongues, healing, and miracles in our celebration services.

The reason for taking that stance is, as always, one of Bible. The Bible says that the public display of these gifts will ALWAYS, and I emphasize always, be orderly and edify the entire body (1 Corinthians 12 & 14). God uses these particular gifts in the Bible to bring an EXTRAORDINARY, NOT COMMONPLACE, NOT EVERY DAY, NOT EVERY SUNDAY, message that the existing language just cannot communicate strongly enough. Our church is made up of probably 45% folks who grew up Baptist, 30% mainline (Methodist, Lutheran, etc), 15% Catholic, and 5% Pentecostal and 5% completely unchurched. How would a prophetic public message in tongues EDIFY, OR BLESS, that entire body? It would not; it would throw us into mass confusion. God ordinarily does things that make sense. I might add that if we don't believe that the Holy Spirit stills gifts the world with miracles and healing, once again, we should close the doors.

However, our current status is that God has not blessed one board member, pastor, staff member,or elder with these gifts; and He has not introduced these gifts into any of at least 1000 different spirit-filled events that we have hosted at The Bridge in almost 4 years. The Bible is clear that not everyone gets the same gifts. Now, I believe we have about 5-10 (maybe more) members of our 135 who have been given these gifts by God, and they all agree that prophecy presented at The Bridge in English is most beneficial and quite sufficient -- this language does just fine to edify this body. Quite honestly, people are capable of ignoring God in any language. And so these beautiful people keep the gifts private and edifying for smaller gatherings. I want you to understand that I believe I have heard legitimate tongues and the following interpretation in my life, and I believe that they were real. I want you to know that God heals people physically, sometimes miraculously, but much of what we see of that publicly is put on by charlatans and is false. So to answer the question, this church is charismatic; it has the Spirit -- just not in the sense that some people are seeking and that is fine. I believe that the Holy Spirit reigns and rules this place -- and if I did not, I would quit and go do something else with my life quickly. God may find a reason to publicly display tongues and interpretation of tongues in a this place sometime, but that will probably only happen if my English version of prophecy is so bad that HE has to make a big deal out of correcting it.

One more note of interest. When God plants churches of significance, He does so because there is a niche in the Body of Christ that needs fulfilled. In my very unofficial and incomplete research, I believe that there are total of three independent churches (not affiliated directly with a denomination) between St. Louis and Arkansas and none in St. Francois County that are not 'charismatic' as being defined as the presentation of these supernatural gifts in public worship gatherings. There are literally hundreds of independent churches (dozens in SFC) already filling the niche of being 'charismatic' in that sense. I believe that called us to fill a niche that he has called many other powerful churches to around the world -- an independent church that He has not chosen to present those gifts in that way. We pray that Christ be glorified in the churches that have been called to focus their ministries in that way, but that is not what He has called us to do.