Archive: Costa Rica The Holy Spirit Moves

A UM mission team sees a spiritual

by Mark Rutland

The Methodist bishop, his arms in the air, tears streaming down his face, stood praising God in the Spirit. A young Methodist pastor told of his commitment to see a true outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Laymen from three or four other Methodist churches in the area testified to having received salvation, baptism in the Spirit and miraculous healings. A prophetic utterance spoke of the beginning of revival in the Methodist church across the nation.

A dream, perhaps? Or maybe the fanciful wish of a hopeless romantic? Or could it be the description of some 19th-century frontier revival? None of the above.

Not only is this scene real, but it is also as contemporary as 1986, and as Methodist as John Wesley. I witnessed events in Costa Rica which may well signal the beginning of an historic reversal of Methodism’s posture in that country.

In recent years the Methodist Church in Costa Rica, as in much of Latin America, gradually began to slide into the darkness of liberation theology. Wherever Biblical Christianity is replaced with pop theology and Marxist political activism, the result will be spiritual decline. And Costa Rican Methodism’s vital signs were growing fainter. With membership declining and lay resentment toward a lethargic clergy rising, the results were predictable. Bitterness among the clergy began to increase. Scandal haunted several pastors, and increasingly angry political maneuvering threatened to swamp the boat. Evangelicals frantically bailed and nervously watched the water rise.

Finally, Bishop Don Roberto Diaz said, “Enough!” In accordance with the prophet Joel’s admonition to “Blow a trumpet in Zion, call a solemn assembly,” Diaz rallied the troops and decreed December a month of prayer and fasting across the country. The spirit began to move, and Diaz sensed revival was on the way.

The bishop drew up a plan including a pastors’ conference for spiritual renewal and an intensive program of evangelism. His idea was simple—renew the clergy, stir the laity, win the lost!

Following the month of spiritual preparation, the bishop scheduled a week-long, nation-wide pastors’ conference in San Jose. These all-day meetings were to be combined with evangelistic services in Methodist churches in and around the capital city. The hope was that if the meetings gave any sign of substantial success, the evangelistic part of the plan would be repeated in other regions. No one had any idea how successful it would be!

Former bishop Don Fernando Palomo, currently an Asbury Theological Seminary doctoral student, was invited to return to help advise and coordinate the event. Through the council of Dr. Paul Morrell (pastor of the Carrollton, Texas First UMC and board member of the Mission Society for United Methodists) several speakers were invited for the conference. Rev. Ted Grout, the senior member of the Rio Grande Conference came from New Mexico. Dr. Ray Hundley, an OMS missionary, came from Colombia where he teaches in the seminary at Medellin. Rev. Hundley, whose credentials include current studies for a Ph. D. from Cambridge in liberation theology, is perhaps one of the most highly qualified teachers on this topic.

The fire fell first among the pastors. Near the end of my second morning’s teaching I felt led to give an invitation. I wondered what the response might be among pastors, many of whom I knew to be experienced and dedicated men of God. I was hardly prepared for the sudden rush to the altar. Weeping, broken, hungry men filled first the altar, then the whole front of the church. Heart-rending cries of uninhibited passion came from men no longer content to live without the Holy Ghost. On their knees, on their faces, on the floor they literally cried out to God to send the power of Pentecost! He did, and soon petition gave way to praise.

Confession, repentance and the healing of relationships are some of the surest signs of revival. I watched for signals that the pyrotechnics were more than skin deep.

“I want everyone to forgive me for what I have done,” said one of the older pastors. “I have said things, terrible things, behind the bishop’s back.”

Before the pastors’ startled eyes, Bishop Diaz and the older pastor joined in a tearful embrace. Quickly they were surrounded by others. More confessions and evidences of revival followed.

A middle-aged pastor confessed that liberation theology and angry activism had nearly “possessed” him. “Pray for me,” he sobbed, his outstretched hands before him. “Pray that God will set me free to preach the true Gospel again.”

Later, his face aglow, he testified to the whole conference, ”I’m free! I’m free to preach again. Today I have received the Holy Spirit. Today my ministry starts.”

After a truly powerful message by Dr. Hundley, the younger men headed to the altar seeking the anointing of God on their ministries. I especially remember a young student pastor who was involved in immorality. I will never forget the look in his eyes when he really faced the gravity of his sin and the joy in his countenance when he found grace.

Several of the “liberation” pastors had opposed Bishop Diaz at first. One man refused to come until the last day of the conference, but on that day he was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Another pastor had steadfastly forbidden any of the visiting evangelists from visiting his church. After attending the conference, he insisted the bishop allow him to host the closing rally.

My most unforgettable moment occurred on my last night there. At the Methodist church in Guadalupe, one of San Jose’s suburbs, I saw the most immediate, manifest orthopedic healing miracle I have ever witnessed.

Among those drawn in from the streets by the sounds of praise was a ragged young woman with a crippled child. As an infant, the little boy named Pablo was involved in a serious auto accident which left one leg twisted, malformed and much shorter than the other. His lurching gait was testimony to the fruitlessness of a lifetime spent with doctors and in hospitals. He wore a brace.

His mother, though probably only in her twenties, looked old and tired. She had never before attended a Protestant service and she warily watched the joyful proceedings. Yet, when I gave the invitation to pray with the sick, she was the first person in the aisle, carrying her sleeping child straight toward the front.

Ted Grout, Bishop Diaz, Fernando Palomo and Nathan Dickerson, a visiting layman from Carrollton First UMC in Texas, joined me to lay hands on the boy. I held his ankles in my hands with the soles of his shoes flat against my chest. Only seconds into the prayer I sensed movement. The child’s leg suddenly turned in my hand and surged slightly against my chest. I could actually feel it move!

Rev. Grout helped me measure the boy’s legs and we found definite, obvious progress. After a second prayer the leg moved again. We removed his brace and both of his shoes and socks. The boy stood and walked as balanced as an athlete. His mother’s praises electrified the congregation. Spontaneous shouts, weeping and singing filled the room. God continued to move as still others were healed.

Later, at an invitation to receive Christ, the front of the church filled. Among them stood Pablo’s mother. “Do you want to repent of your sins,” I asked her, “and accept salvation by faith alone? Will you give your life to Jesus?”

Her answer in Spanish was unclear to me.

“Do you understand what she said?” Rev. Grout asked me. “She said, ‘How can I not? Tonight I have seen Him!’ ”

I have thought about that moment often. I have studied the whole situation—the pastors’ conference, the service, the signs of revival. I usually tend to think in terms of the “greater issues,” like revival in an annual conference, or the confirmation of God on the work of the Mission Society for United Methodists as they helped plan and finance the meetings. Those things are important. I long to see such happenings in my own conference.

Yet I suspect that none of those thoughts are in the mind and heart of Pablo’s mother.

Jesus has healed her son and come to live in her heart. That is all she knows of the revival in Costa Rica. “I have seen Him.” she said.

So have I.

Mark Rutland, a member of the North Georgia Annual Conference, is an approved UM evangelist.

 

A United Methodist Evangelist Talks About His Church

Evangelist Mark Rutland has preached before thousands of people around the world. His prescription for UM renewal: “What is needed more than anything else is for the clergy to be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Good News: Mark, you’re traveling and doing evangelistic work in the United Methodist Church. What are you seeing in United Methodism in terms of signs of renewal. Are you encouraged?

Rutland: I’m especially encouraged about the laity. I see a tremendous openness to the fullest implications of the gospel. People are tired of the worn-out liberalism of the 60s and early 70s. They’ve confronted the bankruptcy of that whole way of thinking, and they’re not as patient with the shallow superficialities of that kind of preaching as they were. This is putting added pressure on the clergy, and yet it’s a sign of renewal, not a threat—if we in the clergy will only receive it that way. I see a good sign of renewal among Methodist men. I see that many Methodist Men’s conferences are ready to hear the Gospel.

Good News: This is a concern, especially in the light of membership loss. Are you concerned about these denominational loyalties?

Rutland: In my generation and in the following generation, that denominational loyalty has completely disintegrated. Methodism, per se, only means anything to anybody now as it presents a dynamic Gospel and the power of God. In 1966, when I graduated from high school, if you had attended the First Methodist Church in Sacramento and then moved to Atlanta, you joined the First Methodist church in Atlanta, no questions asked. That’s what everybody did. Now, that is simply not being done. People want to find a church where something is happening.

Good News: They’re more likely to shop around and look for a church that really speaks to them?

Rutland: Exactly, and I think that we’re going to have to face that, or we’re just going to gradually sink into the swamp. People want liberty in the Spirit, they want joy, they want the power and they want preaching that is substantial. Hints for happy living are just not going to cut it with the young, upwardly mobile, thoughtful business executive whose computer thinks faster than he does. He wants something that’s going to challenge him, gut-level Christianity.

Good News: How do you feel about the new strategy and the concern the bishops have in trying to reverse our membership loss? Do you envision this happening?

Rutland: I’m excited over the turn on the problem of membership loss. If we can get two million members in the next 10, 20, 30 years, I’d be thrilled with that, I’d thank God for it. My concern is that we concentrate on church growth techniques that will address the superficialities: having the choir sing Bill Gaither anthems, painting the sanctuary a more appealing pastel color and getting people who will hand out evangelism awards to the churches who have the most members. This only adds dead wood to dead wood. And gradually that will eat the heart out of the church. I’m hoping that we won’t just settle on a passion to make the church grow, but that there will be a genuine return to the power of the Holy Spirit, that we’ll grow in revival power.

Good News: What would you say the clergy needs to do to begin to see and experience renewal?

Rutland: What is needed more than anything else is for the clergy to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I think we are so rooted into climbing the corporate ladder of ecclesiastical success, of getting so involved in the church routine, that we have simply programmed power out of our own clergy. Ten years ago I was sinking, going under as a Methodist pastor-involved in sin. My ministry was going bankrupt. My marriage was on the rocks. Through the ministry of David Seamands from Wilmore, Ky. and Ralph Wilkerson from California I received the Holy Spirit, and that completely revolutionized my life.

My dream is to see conferences on the Holy Spirit for clergy in every annual conference. And I don’t mean just to come together and dissect dried up bones of theology; I’m talking about a place where clergy can come into dynamic, personal experiences of the Holy Spirit.