Ij
Response to Visitor's Word from 10-9-05
by Clancy Nixon
October 16, 2005
Church of the Holy Spirit
Ashburn, Virginia
I need to apologize to you, church, for the way I responded, and failed to respond,
to the word that a 3-time visitor spoke to you last week. I had preached on faith and then
invited anyone to come forward to speak a word of encouragement from the Lord to the
body.
What came forth was as much rebuke as it was encouragement. While there was
some truth in what he said, I do not believe that it was from the Lord. I believe that it was
the opinion of a visitor, and it set up some dynamics that I now more understand were
counter-productive. As he spoke, it sounded biblical, but I was uncomfortable, and I was
not clear how to articulate my concerns at that time, other than to try to soften the word
and speak of God's forgiveness. Only after the service, as I was mowing my lawn, did I
begin to articulate my reservations about what he said. I'm sorry for not speaking up in
the moment; please forgive me. It is my job to speak up when something amiss is said,
and to correct it.
I have now read the transcription of what he spoke, and I believe that the visitor
was trying to be encouraging of me, my wife, and our music team. I spoke to him by
telephone last week, and I believe that was his heart. Some of you responded humbly to
what he said, and were blessed by it. However, he set up a potentially divisive dynamic,
saying that the people up front were anointed of the Lord and working hard and
sacrificially, but that you, the body, were mired in unbelief, and not following your
leaders. He said that "Jesus can't work in this church, or through your pastor, because
there is unbelief in this room." It particularly pained me when he made mention of the
money I used to make that I left to become a pastor, as if that were relevant to your faith
level.
I want you to know that I disagree with what he said on a few counts. First of all,
it is inappropriate for a visitor to assume the mantle of prophet who can give directive or
corrective words here without my approval. Prophets need to be subject to local pastoral
leadership. Indeed, even a longtime member with a gift of prophecy that I have
recognized ought to come to me before speaking a directive word of rebuke to the body.
Second, I think he misused the Scripture. He said that like Jesus could do no
miracles in Nazareth, because of the unbelief there, nor could he do them here if there
was one person who struggled with unbelief. In Nazareth, they did not believe that Jesus
was the Lord; wasn't this the son of the carpenter? Here at Church of the Holy Spirit,
most of us do follow Jesus as Lord. People here come to church to increase their faith.
That is a good thing, to be commended, not to be blamed for why Jesus is "not working."
Jesus can and does work where there is mustard seed sized faith. Amen?
Third, the tone of delivery was sharp, and could be construed as condemning, and
not convicting. It's important that we understand the difference. When we are convicted
of sin, it is about a specific action or attitude; condemnation, on the other hand, is
general, and pertains to the person, not to behaviors. If you say to someone, "You did a
1
thoughtless thing when you forgot to call me last night," that convicts of a specific sin
and can be repented of. In referring to the same incident, if you said, "You were so
stupid," that's condemnation. You can't repent of being stupid. That is a judgment.
Sometimes condemnation can be conveyed in tone and not in word. Tone is important;
it's one of the ways you know if a word is godly or not. When the Lord speaks a
corrective word, typically what you hear is his broken heart over how we have strayed,
and God's loving offer to help us get right with Him. We are his children, and when God
speaks a hard word, it will be done with a Father's love.
What I do affirm in what the visitor meant to say is that we can all grow in faith.
Indeed, I do believe that our church has much to learn about walking in faith. However, I
don't believe that you are letting me down in some way through your unbelief. I am here
to serve you; you did not ask me to leave my job as a lawyer, God did. I'm not the
suffering servant; Jesus is. I love my work, and I love linking arms with you on our
journey of faith.
While I'm speaking about prophecy, I want to say a word about Jack Stagman's
prophetic sermon from this summer. Jack is the leader of the Loudoun Church Alliance;
he is a friend and we work together. While I believe that God gave Jack a word for
Loudoun County, I believe that it was misapplied for our congregation. His basic
message was that the Loudoun Churches have failed to be evangelistic. Generally, that is
true. Frankly, that has not been true of us. Indeed, Jack gave an award to our church just
last year for being one of the very few churches locally that are effective in evangelism
through Alpha. It was also troubling in that while he asked us to enter a covenant with
God, he did not give me time to carefully formulate it before he asked us to enter it. I
believe that a covenant with God is of such importance that we need to study it and
understand its implications before we make such commitments, and so we can properly
follow through. Having said that, our time of public repentance in a circle that day was
very powerful. The difficulty in sorting all this out is that the troubling can be mixed with
the powerful.
All this has been a time of learning for me. I'm now looking at ways we can better
control prophetic utterances to avoid such problems, such as writing words down before
they are uttered.
I said last week that CHS is a safe place. It's not a safe place because we always
get it right, and never make mistakes; it's a safe place because we acknowledge that we
are on a faith journey together where we will make mistakes, and we have the grace to
admit it when we do err. It's a safe place because we can forgive each other for those
mistakes, and we learn together how to be the church. Amen?
2