Holy Spirit

I am so excited about our new series. It's on the Holy Spirit. To a friend I once exclaimed, "I love the Holy Spirit!" and it made him laugh.  But it's true.  That we have this near side of God that is literally inside of us and all around us is amazing and exciting to me. This image of the Holy Spirit being the "near side of God" comes from Calvin Miller in Loving God Up Close.  The HS makes God personal to me.  He is literally right here; my friend, my comfort, my conviction, my counselor.  

I like what Francis Chan said about understanding the HS. "The point is not to completely understand God but to worship him.  Let the very fact that you cannot know him fully lead you to praise him for his infiniteness and grandeur."  Whew.  This Holy Spirit thing can be confusing.  I love knowing I don't have to get it all.  I'm not supposed to!  There is so much of God that is mysterious and wonderful to me.  

Sunday Pastor Brent preached about the wind of the HS. The wind is the soul of nature.  I don't know that I will ever see leaves blowing or have the wind blow against me or see trees swaying and not think of the HS. Something we can't touch but we know it's there.  I love that!

Sometimes the spirit comes as a rushing wind. Sometimes a breeze. Sometimes a whisper. In the words of Pastor Brent, we should welcome the spirit on any way it wants to come. 

Its also fun and challenging to find the right songs for each week. Yesterday, we redid a Mercy Me song from 1998. Jimmy practically rewrote all the music for it because it was pretty cheesy. It turned out really well. We are having to go old school with a lot of the music to find Holy Spirit songs that the congregation will know, but there are also several new songs I have come across that will work well as specials. Excited.