Ministering At The Altar

Receiving the Filling of the Holy Spirit

We are going to talk a lot more about the anointing, the filling of the Holy Spirit. Let me just say that lots of times, after a person has been ministered to, it is always good to get a fresh thought. "Let's just ask the Holy Spirit to fill you in a new way." Ask them if they would like that. And we always need filling, because we always leak. Let me put it another way: we have all these things that pull and drain us with the things of the Lord, so we just want to pray a blessing prayer for them to be filled. Sometimes filling is slow; sometimes filling is fast. Sometimes there are manifestations and sometimes there are not. You have all of these possible manifestations.

There is not one right manifestation when people are filled with the Holy Spirit. Some people stand still the entire time God is filling them. Some laugh; some faint or fall down. I know some people use the terminology "slain in the spirit." I don't like that term. I think that came from the early Pentecostal movement. The early revivals called it fainting. People fall because they become overwhelmed with the Spirit one way or the other. Sometimes it's because it's easier to go down than to stand. For some, it's an act of obedience. Some people feel things. One of the things we try not to do in our church is promote any kind of manifestations, but if I see somebody getting ready to fall over, I start standing to the side or I will call for help. It's not a normal thing for us at our church. We don't have "catchers." Rick Ritter says, "A lot of people give courtesy falls." Because they have a catcher, they feel like they're supposed to fall. If you remove the catchers, people think twice about falling down. If, however, they do fall down under the Spirit, you want to help them.

I remember once, a guy from the Baptist Convention, from the California Baptist headquarters, came to speak at our church. One of our senior adults came up for prayer and while he prayed for her, the Spirit hit her and wham! She fell down. He talked to me later and said, "Man, have you ever thought about getting catchers?" I thought that was interesting, coming from the Baptist Convention, telling me I should have catchers in church. I said, "Well, normally we don't have that job for people in our church."

Be sensitive and aware, and if people look like they are about to fall and there is someone nearby, call for help. If there is not anyone to ask to act as a catcher, I usually say, "Would you like to sit down, or would you like to get on your knees?" I say that when I see it happening. The Spirit lands on them and they start wobbling, and I think, "Let's avert this thing." Some people fall forward, which is OK because you are usually in front. People can be hurt when they fall. A lot of times people can fall and hit the deck hard, and not feel a thing, but I have also seen times when people have been hurt. So, let's do the best that we can to assure they are not hurt if they fall. We just don't want to promote it by making people think that we expect them to fall down when we pray for them.

Sometimes people speak in tongues. Don't go ballistic when that happens. With some people there is joy, for some people there is shouting. When they are getting filled, they are getting excited. There is some whooping and hollering. Sometimes there are some other physical experiences, so there's nothing I would say happens every time when somebody is filled with the Holy Spirit. Just keep that in mind.

A lot of times when you are through praying for people and it has been a real draining time, it is good to take your own time to get a fresh filling. "De-slime" a little bit, and just receive from the Lord. Sometimes when I'm done, I'll just simply kneel. But if you have had a pretty extensive time of ministering to people, take the time to receive.

Providing 'Pastoral Care'

The last thing is pastoring in small groups. It's very important for people to get connected. One of the reasons people keep coming up for prayer is that they're not connecting with other people. You need to be in relationship with other people. I was listening to a set of tapes by Mary Pitches. She said that before she will meet with anybody for inner healing, they have to be active in her church for six months. Francis Frangipane wrote the book, "The Three Battlegrounds." He makes people go to their corporate prayer meeting for two months before they have a session with him.

Larry Crabb, a psychologist stationed out of Denver, I believe, wrote a very interesting article back in 1995 about counseling. He is a Christian counselor, and has a lot of books on the extended list such as "Inside, Out" and others. Here's a quote from that article. "If you ask most people who have had two or three years with a good therapist what it was that helped them, nine times out of ten they will say this guy really cared about me. He looked at me and said, 'I really want to see you feel better.' The therapist caring was much more important than his or her professional interpretations." Those therapists who are doing really good care are in fact doing what I call 'eldering,' or 'pastoring.' And if eldering is being done within the professional setting, why can't it be done in the non-professional setting of the church? I think it can be, and I think that's where it ideally belongs.

This is a Christian counselor sharing that most people are going to see a psychologist because they are not being pastored by the church. Think about it. What do I mean by the term "elder?" I'm not referring to the official church position as such, but to godly people. To whatever degree that you and I have pursued the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we have something to offer those around us, either in a discipleship or friendship capacity. The church needs to take the spiritual role of godly men and women more seriously. They have a lot more power to deeply affect the souls of other people than they are generally given credit for.

Larry Crabb really assaults Christian counselors here, and he is one. See the passage in Ephesians 4:16 that says, "The whole body grows when each part does its work, we're joined and held together by God, there's an inner connection." So when I meaningfully relate to another person, deep things happen inside him or her. That is what we have taken out of the Christian community, and we have put in a therapist's office. In the interview it asks, "Is there still a place for the skilled professional in the ideal functioning church?" In the ideal functioning church, no. But, since we are never going to get there, there will always be a place. There is obviously a need for professional counselors for hurting folks who can't find the help that should be available elsewhere. In other words, Larry says that he has job security, because the church will never function. Ideally, the church should be able to take care of it.

Larry feels that almost all of the problems people go to therapy for should be able to be fixed and taken care of in a small, pastoring group in relationship. Isn't that interesting? And that is true. If the church did its job, we wouldn't need all these Christian counselors. They didn't have them for the first couple thousand years. Why do we need them today? It's because the church isn't functioning. In reality, a lot of the recovery ministry is simply a piece of bait for people in our culture who think they need it. Eventually this brings them in to let Jesus heal them.

One of the most effective ways I've found for lay people to minister to others is theophostic ministry, developed by Ed Smith.

Theophostic ministry is where we help the person get to a place where Jesus can come and minister directly to them. The basis is that it's not the past experience that causes all the pain; it's lies we embrace and come to believe as a result of that past experience. For instance, a person who was attacked seriously by a dog as a child may become terrified as an adult when a small dog enters the room, even though the small dog shows no signs of aggression toward them. But that person learned a lie, that "all dogs are dangerous and will hurt me" from the time they were attacked by a dog as a child. The truth is that the dog that attacked them as a child is dead and this is another dog, one that won't attack them. But the lie, deeply embedded in their being, is that "all dogs will hurt me." The lie affects them whenever it is triggered. In this case, it would be triggered by getting close to a dog. Their heart starts palpating, the adrenalin flows, they have trouble catching their breath and they feel a great deal of fear. Their reaction is inappropriate to the situation they are in. But their reaction is consistent with the lie that has been embedded into them.

(I purposely used a non-threatening example of dog phobia. But many believers have crippling lies that affect their behavior, such as "I am not loved," "I am unclean because of what so-and-so did to me as a child," "I am of no value," etc.)

These lies can be triggered by seemingly innocent situations and cause reactions that are not appropriate to their situation. When a person believes a lie, they need Jesus to come in and speak His truth to these lies. To facilitate that, we allow them to remember the situation where the lie became embedded. We help them identify the lie embedded there and we invite Jesus to come and bring His truth into the situation. The Lord shows up and speaks truth to them and sets them free from the power of the lie. Then, when they are in a situation that triggers the memory, there's no longer a lie attached to it and the memory has no more power to hurt them.

(My church offers Ed Smith's theophostic ministry training as an "advanced" prayer ministry training. If you are a pastor or leader, you might want to explore the possibility of introducing this highly effective ministry technique into your church. It does not work for everyone, but overall it seems to be a highly effective way of getting people well. It allows trained members of the congregation to minister effectively to some of those in the church who need healing.)

I'm not demeaning Christian psychology or putting it down. But I agree with Larry Crabb. Christian counselors may help introduce, they may help expose, but most of them don't bring you to Jesus for healing. Let's go to the root and cut it. I know a few counselors who do, and I recommend people to them.

Most people ask, "How do you know when you are done? How do you know when you are through with Christian counseling?" A lot of therapists are cutting off their livelihood when they get their patients healed. You are their income and if they get you fixed, then what happens? Obviously there isn't a lot of motivation to get you cut loose.

In the church there is a lot of motivation. Let's get you healed so you can function, then I won't have to spend all my time ministering to you. I can get you to the place where you can spend your time ministering to someone else. Let's move on to the next person who needs healing.