Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost came they were all together in one place...All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them Acts 2, verses 1 and 4.

I am always inspired by this passage of Scripture - God intervenes through his Holy Spirit on a massive scale. As I prepared to preach what really spoke to me was the sheer life-giving energy of the Spirit (I was reading an extract from a forthcoming book by Brian McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking). So I brought this into my sermon, how the signs of the Spirit ; water, dove, wind or breath and even fire all have connections with bringing life.

What also struck me is that the Spirit breaks all the rules. Church growth of over 2000% overnight is crazy, as happened that Pentecost Sunday. Today church growth is a topic people write about and teach about and some of that works, but even so how it happens and why it happens defies the rules, and surprises even the experts. There is usually prayer involved, and committed, long term prayer at that. But it all boils down to the fact that it comes from God, and that true growth involves lives changing, not just bodies shifting from one church's pews to another.

Our small Forest churches struggle to hold on in the face of declining attendances and ageing congregations. I believe what we do here has value and worth, and is part of God's kingdom coming to the earth. I also believe that unless we are open to the Holy Spirit, we may be hanging on to the wrong things in our urge to be good servants of our Saviour. Maybe church traditions and church buildings are less important than loving our neighbours and sharing the love of Christ with them.