The action of God is not bound merely to revelation, some sort of divine communication to human beings, but God continues to be present and active in this world through the Holy Spirit. Such an understanding of the Christian faith takes the burden off of the church to be successful and instead calls the church into faithfulness as it attends to the action of God and follows the Holy Spirit in that action. This moves ministry beyond gimmicks and marketing methods and moves towards discernment and spiritual practice.

Just as the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus (Luke 3:22), so the Spirit descended upon the church (Acts 2:1ff). The church is, therefore, more than a collection of individuals who attest to a past event (as profound and cosmologically significant as that past event may have been) but instead the church bears the message of Jesus Christ within her very being as the church is the current primary means of God’s revelation to the world. Paul’s description of the church as the Body of Christ is more than mere metaphor. Indeed, it is a theological assertion that the work of Christ continues through the church. Drawing from Jürgen Moltmann, Anderson agrees when he says that “the messianic mission of Jesus is not entirely completed in his death and resurrection. Through the coming of the Spirit, his history becomes the church’s gospel for the world. The church participates in his mission, becoming the messianic church for the coming kingdom.”

Thus, this is more than nineteenth century liberal theology or anthropocentrism but is a pentecostal ecclesiology. The church did not decide upon herself that she should possess such a task and status, but God is the one who elected for the church to be the continuing agent of God through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In ministry the church continues in the ministry of Christ: “The form of the church is thus incarnational; not another incarnation, but a continuation of the one incarnate life of God in the form of Jesus Christ.” The formation of mature Christians must move past current educational models towards practice-based action, whether that is through ritual and worship or acts of service and justice. Because the Holy Spirit continues to be active in the world, Christian formation must take the form of action.