When the Spirit comes

I’m writing a book on Acts and I’m getting input from my editor that it needs work on helping people apply the lessons. Here’s what I wrote originally on the Holy Spirit in Acts. Below is my first attempt at the application side.

There are two opposite errors regarding the work of the Holy Spirit today, one is to confine the work of the Spirit to the pages of Scripture and banish him from contemporary experience. The other is to pursue the individual experience of the Holy Spirit as an end. Luke wrote Acts to remind every generation that the Spirit is given to bear witness to Jesus throughout the world. The one who empowers is also the one who unsettles God’s people, ensuring they remain on the move. We are in as desperate need today for the power of the Holy Spirit as that first generation of disciples. How are we to recognize a true work of the Holy Spirit? When the Spirit moves in power we’ll see the life and ministry of Jesus lived out by disciples in communities, spreading from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

It’s over a century since a son of former slaves cried out for a fresh work of the Holy Spirit that would sweep the world. Today his prayers are being answered in the impoverished favelas and prisons of Rio de Janeiro.

Drug gangs rule Rio’s favelas. The police dare not enter. The Rio prison system is an extension of the favelas. The gangs, not the prison officials rule on the inside.

Wherever the gangs are strongest, Pentecostalism thrives. Faith in Christ has enabled these desperate men in appalling conditions to reject death and affirm the right to live. Pentecostalism thrives behind bars because it has adapted to this harsh environment by taking on the structure and function of the prison gangs. The prison churches are run by prisoners. Members are easy to identify: they dress differently, quit drugs, and spend time studying the Bible.

Rio’s most stigmatized residents have built churches where they experience joy, brotherhood, and dignity in one of the city’s most apparently god-forsaken places. 

The relationship between Pentecostal churches and the narco-gangs is characterized by respect. The churches treat gang members as people worthy of redemption. The gangs in turn command their members to treat the church members and pastors with respect and to acknowledge their authority in the community.

As long as the Pentecostals are known as a group who practice what they preached, they are protected from prison violence and allowed to occupy space in the prison and in the favelas.

This is Pentecostalism at its best, with its emphasis on the power of the Spirit enabling every believer to bear witness to Jesus in the darkest places resulting in disciples and churches to the glory of God. Yes, the overflow is community impact, but their mission is to make disciples.