Prophetic Pendulum Swing

I am honestly a little torn right now.

On one hand I am happy there appears to be a reckoning in the Church around prophecy.

But also concerned the pendulum might swing too far back to another time, a time where religious ritual practice alone becomes the dominant expression of faith filled believers.

My personal opinion is that we need health.

We need honesty and integrity.

The prophetic has been crying out for these attributes for far too long.

Today I had read statements celebrating the initial stages of dealing with problematic so called prophetic ministries. Some of these ministries have recently announced a period of removing themselves from public for whatever reason.

I am thrilled to finally see some accountability!

There have been many too manipulators and apparent liars rampant for far too long!

Something inside of me is also concerned we might not get to the bottom of the problem.

And those who have have longing for faith expression without these types of gifting will feel self justified and even vindicated.

A large problem for me with any extreme position in Christianity, whether it be pro or anti Holy Spirit gifts etc, is that extremes look concerning on many levels. To hold the belief they do, it appears they need to ignore the parts of scripture that don’t support their position while exaggerating the importance of others.

I have been a follower of Jesus since 1991. So have seen and experienced a little since then.

During that time I have “received” plenty of prophetic words from people who I have always hoped were just trying to do their best.

And we need to be honest here. 

Some of it was apparently spot on while others were ridiculously off the mark.

One one music tour I did traveling around at least half a dozen Churchs, at every single one, someone approached me afterwards telling me that God had told them I would be back to be their youth pastor.

Did it confuse me or cause me to have a crisis of faith? No.

What it did do was cause me to pray and reflect on what was said, why they said it, and what was really potentially going on.

The Apostle Paul encouraged prophecy but also sober reflection and testing of what said.

I tried to apply that to this strange moment.

I think in part they recognised that I had giftings that could have benefit to their Church.

They prophecied based on what they saw and what they hoped they saw.

Their “humaness” got mixed with their revelation.

And I needed to take stock according.

I have experienced amazing prophetic words and prayers that have staggered me as to their accuracy, which came true not by my doing anything to make them a reality.

There are stories I could tell!

What am I trying to say?

I guess in the end we need to be passionate both ways to protect the pendulum swing in this moment being too strong.

We need sober judgement of the prophetic. And we need the prophetic.

The prophet needs accountability.

The receiver needs better understanding on how to process prophecy.

This is our moment to grow up.

I really hope we can.

Something to think about…