In my experience most "Reformed Charismatics" are either charismatics becoming more Reformed or Reformed people becoming more charismatic. Some may come to what appears to be stability in their own ministry, but what happens to the ministry when they move on, especially when others in the ministry may not share all of those emphases? Although Martyn Lloyd-Jones wasn't exactly a charismatic, I think the lesson of what happened at
Westminster Chapel after his retirement and especially his passing is a cautionary tale. According to the article, his successor, R.T. Kendall was in agreement with ML-J on the "sealing" of the Spirit but not on other issues and took the church in a radically different direction within less than a decade after the Doctor's death.
When I was coming around to a Reformed position 3 or 4 years ago, for a year or so I attended a local EPC church off and on. Lloyd-Jones was my biggest influence at this time, until I started reading more confessionally oriented writers. The preaching was generally excellent, and the pastor is very knowledgeable about a great many things. I considered this church to be sort of a halfway house for me to get things figured out since I was a 5 pointer but on the fence with the baptism issue. But things came to a head for me one day when the Sunday School class (which was taught by a husband and wife team, but with the wife often taking the lead although it is officially a complementarian church) featured a protracted argument between a cessationist and a continuationist. This was not long after the teacher of the class, who was one of the elders, had been promoting a ministry in the church newspaper that he was involved in that included Oneness Pentecostals. (In his defense, the pastor, who is strongly trinitarian, said he didn't know about it and put a stop to it.) Then in the worship service it was announced that they would soon be starting the Alpha course, which I disagreed with due to its charismatic origins and because there are other alternatives like Christianity Explored. There was also a septuagenarian woman who typically would get up and dance during the singing.
That evening I went to the OPC church I am a member of now and was there until I moved a few months ago. I think the Reformed-Charismatic pastor always knew I was too much of a nit picker to be there for long (and also perhaps sensed my apprehension about some aspects of charismaticism) and said to me that Pineville (OPC) is a good church during one of our first meetings. Providentially, that evening, I picked up
this back issue of New Horizons that they had laying around.
I want to note that I still have those I would consider friends in the Reformed-Charismatic church I noted above (including the pastor) and had some wonderful fellowship there. I recounted the above in an attempt to illustrate the challenges that are inherent in such a ministry, which is not Reformed enough for some, too Reformed for others, not Charismatic enough for some but too Charismatic for others, etc. The pastor and church are now planning for his eventual retirement, apparently in hopes that the balance they have now will be maintained under his successor.