How is your summer going? After an unusually wet June we seem to be settling down to the sunny days that we typically associate with summertime. Lemonade on the lawn, flowers in the garden, monarch butterflies on the wing – these are a few of my favorite things!
This summer we’ve been working together with Christ Church and Epiphany, Denver, exploring the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Over the next two months, Fr. EJ and I will be preaching on the Spirit in the life of believers – the Spirit’s gifts, the fruit of the Spirit, and our dependence upon the Spirit as “the one who comes alongside.” At the end of the summer series, we are invited to attend a join worship service at Christ Church on August 27th when we will celebrate the work of the Holy Spirit through our congregational collaboration. (We will also hold to our regular Sunday service schedule here at Saint Gabriel.)
It was a great joy to preach at Christ Church last Sunday and to welcome Fr. Terry McGugan here at Saint Gabriel. May our friendship among the churches only grow and flourish!
Collaboration brings with it the question, what is the Spirit saying to our churches?
This question has risen in my mind and heart this summer. I’ve been listening to an audio book by Pete Greig titled Red Moon Rising. It’s the story of how the 24/7 prayer movement began, first in the UK, and then simultaneously in wider Europe, Australia, and in the Americas. It’s a fascinating story of God stirring up a young generation to persistent, prevailing prayer. Summer in the Spirit is causing me to ask if God is calling us to a deeper ministry of prayer. Yes, we’ve been attending to the stories of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’s ministry, exploring the work of the Spirit in the early church from Acts onwards, wondering about the baptism of the Spirit and the filling of the Holy Spirit from the Wild Goose and Alpha programs, but what I’m sensing is the call to prayer.
Where is this coming from?
Blips are showing up on my radar screen.
In Austria, HomeChurch, based in Salzburg, emphasizes the eucharist, charismatic-led worship and catholic expressions of church together for (mostly) young people in their teens and twenties. Gebetshaus in Augsburg, Germany recently held a 7-day, 24-hour prayer time with teaching and music, praying for the persecuted church in North Korea, the many unchurched in Europe, young people, peace in Ukraine, and other areas of concern. Pete Greig’s Lectio365 phone app centers on being still each day before the Lord. This summer he’s tracing the way of Saint Aiden from Iona to Lindisfarne in Scotland, the journey of Saint Cuthbert that CJ and I did last fall.
Like detected “weather events” on Doppler radar that we see on the news each night, these various movements of God are showing up, and I’m wondering what God might intend for me – for us – with these blips? Are they just passing clouds, or is there something more significant afoot?
I don’t know.
But I think it worth paying attention to, and I would ask you to pray alongside me for – at the minimum – an outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit upon our communities, upon the people whom God is bringing to a deeper faith journey, and for those who may be looking in and wondering if there is something for them in this place.
Would you join me in asking the Lord to bring clarity, wisdom, holiness, repentance, and discernment in us – along with open hearts – to his work in our midst?
And, if you’ve been sensing stirring in your soul and you have a hunch it is from God, please share it with me – I’d love to hear from you.
Grace and peace be yours always,
Fr. Chris