Thinking Big

One of the necessary things the Holy Spirit brings to the church is spiritual energy.  It is a spiritual energy which comes not from increased human activity, but from the Holy Spirit being given room to do what it is that He wants to do with the church.  Of course, this is one of the things which is often a hindrance to the Spirit as He seeks to empower the church.  We want Him present, but we want Him to bless what we have already put in place through our planning and our tradition.  In so many places He is more like a silent spiritual icon in the window sill than the source of its spiritual power.   

The truth is the church is too much guided by what happened last year.  We have a tendency to pat ourselves on the back for the good things we are doing without really giving consideration to the possibility that the Spirit is leading us to something new or different.  Someone whose name I have forgotten suggested some years ago that the Holy Spirit could leave the church and it would be at least five years before anyone noticed.  It does often seem that the church is operating on auto pilot instead of listening to the direction of the Spirit.  

When we look closely at the way the Holy Spirit showed up for the work of the Kingdom on Pentecost, we see the unpredictable, we see enthusiasm for the things of Christ, we see a radical kind of faith that sees as possible what would have been regarded as impossible, and we see men and women whose hearts were strangely and severely warmed by the power of the Spirit.  Such a church was equipped and empowered to change the world which is nothing less than how the Spirit desires to use our church.  We may think little, but the Holy Spirit gives us power to think big!