How is the Spirit showing up in your life these days? - By Bishop G

How is the Spirit showing up in your life these days? - By Bishop G

How is the Spirit showing up in your life these days? - By Bishop G

Dear Friends,

This past Sunday, I celebrated Pentecost with St. Simon Peter in Pell City. St. Simon Peter was celebrating 50 years of ministry and after church we had a grand picnic with a band playing rock music. Everyone wore red shirts and remembered all the people who’d been part of St. Simon Peter when it was first a mission offshoot from St. Peter’s in Talledega.

We celebrated like the Spirit party we heard about in Acts, when the Spirit landed like fire on the first believers making the Church a body of witnesses.

Then I drove straight to St. Andrew’s Montevallo, where we had confirmation for seven new Episcopalians, followed by the blessing of a new playground. The children saturated the new slide and each other with toy water pistols filled with blessed water. The Bishop also had a toy water pistol. It was a grand way of spreading the Spirit all over the new playground and adding new life to the Body of Christ.

Our Diocese is very blessed with vibrant ministry all around. We cannot afford to take that for granted. Instead we can give thanks and ask God to show us the next steps. Remember when Nicodemus visited Jesus curious about how the Holy Spirit works? Jesus said, “…the wind blows where it will and so it is with the Spirit”?

How is the Spirit showing up in your life these days? Look around for the fruits of it that St. Paul always named. Look for love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control and make a note. God is at work in those places. Turn away from the television and internet news and look for God’s work in the world. Ask the Spirit to come and cover our ministry and make us witnesses to life, hope and peace.

Here’s a favorite prayer we can pray that will help us. It comes from Cursillo ministry:

“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth. Oh God who by the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful. Grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be renewed and ever enjoy your consolations. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I hope I see you at Church!