Summary
Sam Storms occupies a rare and valuable position in the evangelical landscape. He is a thorough-going Calvinist -- a man who can quote the Westminster Confession and parse the finer points of compatibilist freedom -- who also believes that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are fully operational today. He speaks in tongues. He has prayed for healing. He pursues the prophetic. And he pastors a church where these gifts are practiced in an orderly, biblically grounded way. Practicing the Power is his attempt to show other church leaders how to do the same.
The Question Isn't Whether, But How
The book's genius lies in its practicality. Storms is not primarily making the theological case for continuationism here (he does that elsewhere, particularly in his contributions to the Four Views book and in The Beginner's Guide to Spiritual Gifts). Instead, he starts from the premise that the gifts continue and asks the question that most continuationist books ignore: Okay, but how? How do you actually create a church culture where prophecy, healing, tongues, and other gifts are exercised responsibly? How do you avoid both the sterile caution of cessationist practice and the chaotic excess of unaccountable charismatic practice? How do you pastor people through the confusion, disappointment, and genuine wonder that come with pursuing the Spirit's power?
Storms begins with what he calls the foundation: a robust theology of the Holy Spirit's person and work. He insists that pursuing spiritual gifts must be grounded in pursuing the Spirit Himself. Gifts are not magic powers or spiritual achievements; they are expressions of a relationship with the living God. When churches treat gifts as techniques to master rather than dimensions of a relationship to cultivate, things go wrong quickly. Storms wants churches to be passionate about the Spirit, not just about what the Spirit does.
Prophecy in Practice
From there, the book moves through the major gifts one by one, offering both theological grounding and practical guidance for each. His treatment of prophecy builds on Wayne Grudem's framework -- he affirms that New Testament congregational prophecy is fallible, Spirit-prompted speech that must be tested -- but adds layers of pastoral wisdom about how to handle prophecy in real church settings. What do you do when someone stands up in a service and gives a prophetic word? How do you create a process for evaluating it? What if it is wrong? What if it is right but poorly timed? What if the person delivering it is genuinely gifted but socially awkward or emotionally immature?
Storms addresses these questions with the specificity of someone who has navigated them hundreds of times. He describes the system at his own church, Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City: prophetic words during services are written down, reviewed by a pastoral team, and shared with the congregation only after evaluation. People who feel they have a word from God are trained to deliver it with humility, using tentative language and submitting to pastoral authority. The church provides regular training for those who want to grow in prophetic gifting, and there is a clear process for correction when someone mishandles the gift.
Healing Prayer with Honesty
His treatment of healing prayer is equally practical and equally honest. Storms believes in divine healing. He prays for the sick regularly. But he is forthright about the fact that most of the people he prays for are not healed -- at least not in the way or on the timeline they hoped for. This honesty is refreshing and pastorally vital. Many books on healing create the impression that if you pray with enough faith, healing will come every time. Storms rejects this. He argues that God is sovereign over healing, that faith is important but not a formula, and that the mystery of unanswered prayer is something the church must sit with honestly rather than explain away with easy theological answers.
He offers practical guidance for healing prayer: pray specifically, pray persistently, ask the person what they are experiencing as you pray, do not manipulate emotions, do not blame the sick person if healing does not come, and always point people to Christ rather than to the healing itself. He also addresses the question of when to seek medical treatment alongside prayer -- his answer is unequivocally yes. Faith and medicine are not competitors. God works through doctors, surgery, and medication just as He works through prayer.
Tongues: Neither Required Nor Forbidden
The book's section on tongues is particularly notable because Storms writes as someone who practices the gift privately but exercises significant caution about its public use. He distinguishes between tongues as a personal prayer language (which he sees as broadly available to believers and beneficial for personal devotion) and tongues as a public gift that requires interpretation (which he sees as more restricted and more carefully governed by Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 14). He pushes back against both the cessationist dismissal of tongues and the Pentecostal insistence that tongues is the initial evidence of Spirit baptism. For Storms, tongues is a genuine gift that some believers receive and others do not, and it should be neither required nor forbidden.
The Marriage of Word and Spirit
A particularly valuable chapter addresses the integration of Word and Spirit. Storms argues that the greatest need in the church today is the marriage of expository preaching and Spirit-empowered ministry. Too many churches, he contends, have opted for one or the other: either deep teaching with no room for the Spirit's spontaneous work, or experiential worship with little theological depth. Storms wants both. He envisions churches where the sermon is exegetically rigorous and the prayer time is supernaturally expectant -- where the pastor who carefully parses Greek syntax on Sunday morning is the same pastor who lays hands on the sick and calls the congregation to listen for the Spirit's voice.
This integration extends to worship services. Storms provides detailed guidance on how to structure services that make room for spontaneous prophetic words, healing prayer, and other manifestations without devolving into chaos. His approach is deeply orderly -- not rigid, but structured enough that visitors are not overwhelmed and regular attenders know what to expect. He believes that 1 Corinthians 14's emphasis on order and edification provides the template: everything should be done for building up, and everything should be done decently and in order.
The Convergence Church
Storms also addresses the emotional and relational dynamics of pursuing spiritual gifts in community. He writes about the disappointment that comes when healing does not happen, the relational tension that prophetic ministry can create, the envy and competition that sometimes emerge around gifting, and the subtle pride that can attach itself to spiritual experiences. His pastoral sensitivity here is evident. He has clearly walked with people through the full range of experiences -- the exhilarating and the devastating -- and his counsel reflects hard-won wisdom.
The book closes with a vision for what Storms calls a "convergence church" -- a community that brings together the best of the Reformed tradition (theological depth, expository preaching, doctrinal precision) and the best of the charismatic tradition (spiritual power, experiential worship, expectant faith). He acknowledges that this convergence is difficult. Both traditions carry baggage and suspicion toward the other. Reformed believers worry that charismatic practice will dilute theology; charismatic believers worry that Reformed theology will quench the Spirit. Storms argues that neither fear is well-founded, and that the church of the future will be both more theologically rigorous and more supernaturally empowered than most congregations are today.
For any pastor or leader who is personally convinced that the gifts continue but practically uncertain about how to move forward, Practicing the Power is the most useful book available. It is not a theological treatise or a dramatic testimony. It is a field manual, written by a pastor who has done the work and is willing to share what he has learned.