Cross-generational outpouring

When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, the book of Acts records these words of Joel, quoted by Peter; “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy”.

Today I want to write about the last point of convergence; the cross-generational outpouring. It is interesting to note that when the church was birthed by this wonderful act of the Spirit in Acts 2, Peter being inspired by the Spirit, quotes a passage that is very clear in terms of who gets to participate in this outpouring: everyone, male and female, old and young, all flesh! No generation was to be left out of this experience. It was for everyone and it spoke to a truth that I believe in the western world we have lost: God works across generations to accomplish His Will!

In the western world, we love classifying our generations. Since 1890, we have classified generations based on the date that we were birthed. The Lost Generation was born in 1890 and ever since then we have tried to identify people around the generation they are born in. We have identified Baby Boomer Generation (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1979), Xennials (1975-(1985), Millenials/Gen Y (1980-1994), Gen Z (1995-2012) and finally Gen Alpha.

I am not sure whether our culture’s fascination with generations came first or whether the church’s fascination came first but this habit of labelling generations is also very much a part of our church culture. We often label or identify a generation with some kind of biblical connotation as though having that label will magically induce the anointing of the label. In my years of being a follower of the way, I have heard different generations being labelled as the Joshua generation, the Jacob generation, the Elijah generation, the Joseph and for those brave enough, even the Christ generation. While I have no doubt the good intention behind this I believe the labelling and classification of generations have had the opposite effect of what the Acts moment had in Acts 2. Instead of incorporating and including everyone in the outworking of Father’s current plans, it has often segregated, offended and placed unrealistic expectations on the poor generation that gets the label.

The root word for generations, is, wait for it…generate. It simply means to bring “something” into existence through a physical or chemical process. An interesting aspect about this process of generation is that it uses the “old” in the process of creating something “new”. The old elements generate something new and in that sense the “new” is both old and new. The new generation is connected to what went before it. When we start seeing the value of the connectedness between generations we start positioning ourselves for the inheritance that only flows through generational blessing!

Let me explain. When God spoke His promise to Abraham that he would be the father of nations and would be a blessing to the nations, there was no way that Abraham by himself would be able to fulfil this word. The natural time span of his life would not allow him to see his family tree grow into what would become the nation of Israel. In other words, the word to Abraham and the promise of God to him was cross-generational. It would not be fulfilled by Abraham alone. It would only be fulfilled by multiple generations. These generations, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob each had to sow their own lives into the “generate” process so that the twelve sons of Jacob could walk in the promise of Abraham. They were connected and could not fulfil the promise by themselves, they had to receive what the other generations sowed and had to sow what they received for the next generation.

How many times do we cut ourselves off from walking in a truth or a victory or an experience, because we fail to see ourselves connected to the generations before and after us? How many times do we limit a future generation from walking in a blessing because we expect God’s promise to be fulfilled in the here and did not sow for the next generation?

I believe that at this moment God is asking the Abrahams to sow now so that future generations may reap our present moment promises. As we look with this kind of discernment, we enter into present moment promises that generations before us believed for, spoke out and sowed for us to experience today.

I am fully convinced that the outpouring of the Spirit is coming to those who see the value of being connected across generations. They see both the value of receiving from and honouring the older generation as well as sowing and honouring the generation to come. I wrote last week that the Abrahams are moving from a place of delay; these Abrahams are both young and old. These Abrahams see the generations to come and are willing to share their promises with those to come. They do this because they know they are connected.

In the outpouring of the Spirit across generations nobody gets left behind. We all get to be connected to the work of the Spirit in our day.

Look out for next week’s post: Journey of the Ekklesia

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