Spirit works best when we’re weak, Fong says

Posted: 8/05/05

Spirit works best when we're weak, Fong says

By Laurena Zondo

Canadian Baptist Ministries

Birmingham, England—One of the greatest problems in churches is people with “correct beliefs but lame living,” said Pastor Kenneth Fong of Evergreen Church in Los Angeles, one of North America’s most multicultural, multigenerational, economically diverse congregations.

The climbing divorce rate in the United States is now higher among born-again evangelicals than the secular population, he noted.

This is just one sign Christians completely misunderstood the saint-making process, Fong suggested.  Part of the problem, he maintained, is that they don’t hang around the right people—people with whom they might feel uncomfortable.

Fong reflected on lessons he learns when he volunteered in a secular drug clinic to help connect with someone from his church who had a drug problem.

“I learned from drug addicts that if you keep acting like you’re strong, you’ll kill yourself and hurt everyone you love,” he said. “They have to admit weakness—learn to be weak.”

But real and lasting change demands empowered weakness, something rarely discussed in churches, he said. Growing up in a Baptist church, Fong always felt that there was a secret member whom he was not being told about—the Holy Spirit.

He described the significance and the power of the Holy Spirit during a Bible study at the Baptist World Alliance Centenary Congress.

“The Holy Spirit works best when we’re weak,” said Fong. Only the Holy Spirit can turn ordinary sinners into extraordinary saints, he insisted.

“There’s pressure in the church to look like you’re strong; it’s a false sense of what it’s like to be in Christ.”

Fong suggested Baptists need to resurrect the church as a place for the weak and wounded. “Right now it’s the last place people think to go. Here in England, they take you to the pub, in the US, a 12-step program.”

Christians need the Spirit who pours through human weaknesses to fill believers with God’s power, Fong said.  When it happens in a few people, he noted, it’s going to affect the whole church.

“Discipleship is waking up every day and saying how much am I going to let the Holy Spirit work in me,” he said.  “When it becomes as natural as breathing, that’s what brings God glory.”