Growing up from a conservative background, I find that some of the sentiments that some theologians have had about the charismatic movement are the very ones I cherish in my own journey growing in the Lord as well as in my new ministry applications. I particularly enjoyed what Veli-Matti Karkainnen said:
It has been the task of the rapidly growing Pentecostal and Charismatic movements to remind the church catholic that in the devotion to God’s Spirit, it is not theology that is primary but rather a revitalization of the experience of the Spirit.
Veli-Matti Karkkanien in “Pneumatology”
What I find when people experience the move of the Holy Spirit for the first time, having rarely encountered his presence from their church background, they are moved in such a way that does not compel them to write well thought-out theological statements or deeply intellectual proclamations.
If anything, most of what I read among peers who have experienced the Holy Spirit as Charismatics are advocating, regardless of the authors’ age, have a semblance of an overexcited teenager experiencing something new and exciting for the first time. Their emotions are way over the roof and their speech and writing are hardly comprehensible. I suppose it is emotional difference between looking at a photograph of a rollercoaster and actually riding one.
It is sentiments of this experience and many others that I value being a Pentecostal and enjoy seeing others being impacted by the fruit that is coming from that stream of Christianity. It is the joy of seeing others having an encounter with God in a way that does not change their intellect, but their heart; that drives them not to greater sophistication, but to more child-likeness.
