Last weekend in one of my favorite local cafés, a few students starting chatting with a friend and me, and at some point the issue of church came up. One young guy in particular had a lot to say about the subject and was particularly concerned about the use of prophecy in some churches. This conversation got me thinking.

In the church I used to belong to, the members were so-called charismatics, open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit being used today, including speaking in tongues and using prophecy. If you are not sure about what biblical prophecy is, you can look up some examples here: Acts 19:6 and 1 Corinthians 14.

In practice, usually when gathered together, individual Christians would receive some kind of impression or words from God and share this with those present. Sometimes the words or impressions were for an individual, sometimes they were for everyone present or the entire local church and on occasion for the entire nation or even the world. We were taught that such prophecies should be evaluated by the leaders of the church, and that the more significant the prophecy, the more it needed to be evaluated by leaders. I have to admit that I have seen prophecy used in contexts where it was very exciting and encouraging, and the content foretold really did come true.

When I look back, however, the aspect that bugs me now concerns some of the much bigger prophecies for individuals and for the church across the nations that did not come true.

Soon after I joined the church, there was a lot of excitement about a so-called “move of the Holy Spirit.” To try to be balanced, there was a lot of genuine excitement about going to church and it really did seem at the time that something big was about to happen in the UK.

Often, during church gatherings, people were laughing uncontrollably, making strange noises and falling over on the floor. There were churches in North America where these activities were even more intense and people in the UK saved up money and got on aeroplanes and came back to the UK very excited, bringing with them prophetic words in which God was clearly saying that He was shaking up the UK and blowing a warm wind that was going to bring a religious revival  that would result in millions of people becoming Christians and the whole moral atmosphere of the nation changing for the better and for the glory of God.

In this flurry of excitement, church leaders asked their congregations for even more money, buildings were bought, often large warehouses that were then converted in to large “barns and storehouses” ready to contain the huge harvest of souls that was about to be brought in.

We are now roughly twenty years on and none of this has come true. Instead, there has been no harvest of souls, no revival, no tangible positive change in the moral climate, the big churches in the US have either closed down, split up or their leaders have been caught in serious sin, and where the barns have not been filled, they have been split up into smaller units in order to hide the lack of growth – oh yes, because God is now allegedly saying something different.

When you are on the inside of a sect, you just don’t see this deception for what it is. You are so busy and consumed with God that you just move from one engulfing trend to another: first it was big buildings, then kids clubs for unchurched working class children, then church planting at home and abroad, and then multiple services and satellite meetings (all of which largely see some church growth by attracting disenchanted believers from other local churches).

The real question is this: where is the integrity of the church leaders who were responsible for so-called evaluating all of this? Who has had the courage and integrity to stand up in front of these genuine and committed believers and to apologise to them for the fact that these prophecies about a massive harvest of souls and great move of God were clearly wrong and not from God? Who is going to say sorry to the parents who were wrongly told that their severely sick children would be healed, that their baby in the womb with hydrocephalus would live or that their husband with cancer would enjoy another fifteen years of life?

In one meeting we were exhorted to give an amount of money that made us laugh, a ridiculous sum of money based on the Bible verse: “God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians, 9:7).

In the world, if you gave $5,000 for something that you never received, you would want you money back, and you would have a right to receive it. It’s about time the church did the same.

In conclusion, as I said to the agitated young man in the café, even if we forget for one moment the awkward question as to how an omnipotent, omniscient, almighty creator of the universe can communicate in such an unclear way with his/her creatures, surely these church leaders still have responsibility to address this whole issue with their congregations?

What do you think? It would be good to share our experiences on this point, if only in order to try to stop this appalling abuse of so many sincere believers.

Home, home again.
I like to be here when I can.
When I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire.
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell.

Pink Floyd , Breathe (reprise) Dark side of the moon.