THE LIVING CHURCH

Dr. Barbara Holmes, pastor, scholar and author wrote concerning the history of the Black Church. In Holmes’s experience, leadership and ministry didn’t come from official ordination, but from the movement of the Holy Spirit among the people:

“You always knew who had the gifts, ’cause they couldn’t fake it. If in their presence folks got healed, that was a healer. If they could walk up to you and tell you what your life had been and what was going to happen tomorrow, that was a discerner. And so there are all these gifted people around but they didn’t have any power within church structures, which made people like me realize that the real power was not in the structure of the church, but in the living church. The gifted prophets in our midst.”

Lord, let it be. Let your church function from gifts and not from specialists. Let us be “the living church.”

“Go and announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!” Jesus