Response to “Supporting it when it’s wrong”
The encounter spawned quite a bit of discussion on spiritual warfare, deliverance, manifestations of the Holy Spirit and of demons and an overarching theology of the authority we carry in Christ. It was a great teaching tool but one that broke our hearts.
God provided a ministry training school about 45 minutes away and our team made arrangements for this pastor to attend a 2 year program (which he was THRILLED to attend) in Biblical training and practice of ministry. He’s currently in his second year and doing well.
Asking the Lord
Adventures in Missions has a practice I’ve never seen done so proficiently before as part of their ministry. Based on “The Art of Listening Prayer” by Seth Barnes, AIM has incorporated a practice called “Ask The Lord” or “ATL” for short into their programs. The basic idea is that the team makes no concrete plans and seeks the Lord together for where to go and minister. Based on the Matthew 10 and Luke 10 models of Jesus sending his followers out to evangelize, our missionaries take no funds and rely on almost no personal resources and trust, instead, that the Lord will lead, provide and direct.
The prayer time has no end moment set, when the Lord leads, participants are told to respond. They are shown to pay attention to thoughts that might be descriptive (“brick building”, “man with cane”, “$9”, etc.) and to share them with the group. Often these pictures help guide the participants to near areas of ministry and confirm where they are to serve. Some amazing stories of confirmation, evangelism, miracles, etc. have come out as testimonials from this exercise.
Dissenters to this practice point out how this might not be a practice Biblically grounded. First of all, Jesus did not command all followers to mimic this model (the Early Church was not comprised solely of pioneering missionaries). Secondly, the disciples were called to their own people in nearby areas to Jerusalem – distinctly not cross-cultural. Third, there is a “faithlessness” in the midst of the “faith practice” that appears to “put God to the test.” The sentiment is that we force God’s hand to show up or lose our belief that He can speak and guide. Fourth, we partially fabricate it because we choose the date, time of day and boundaries for where this is “allowed” to occur.
This is a case of interpretation of Biblical directive vs fruit of a faith experience. Is ATL’ing a practice condoned by Scripture. Is there a “right” way to go about it? What are the “wrong” ways to go about it? Should this practice continue?
