I want some more.... Newsletter 1st June 2008

Last night viewers of the BBC show ‘I’ll Do Anything’ voted for the person they would most like to play the role of Nancy in the new West End production of Oliver. One of the key opening scenes in this story takes place in the workhouse which is run by the fearsome Mr Bumble. Hungry as a result of the forced labour, and the meagre portions of gruel the children are expected to survive on, Oliver approaches Mr Bumble and asks: ‘Please sir, I want some more.’

Last week I visited a church in Dudley which is experiencing a significant outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A number of things struck me about the church, first of all the fact that there were up to 500 people in the church on a Tuesday evening (and they have been holding daily meetings like this for over 35 days). The other thing that struck me was how many young people there were in the church, but the most significant thing that struck me was the real tangible sense of God’s presence as we worshipped. On the night I attended, they were many stories of people being miraculously healed and of people coming to faith.

I asked Roger, my spiritual director, who took me along to this church, why he felt this church was experiencing such a significant movement of the Holy Spirit. His answer was that the people in the church were hungry for more of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and were saying to God ‘I want some more.’

It left me wondering, how hungry are we for more of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives and in our church? My deepest desire and prayer is for more of God’s Holy Spirit in my life and in St Martin’s. It is when we are open to the Holy Spirit that we really see God at work, lives touched and people healed.

Unlike Mr Bumble, God longs to lavish good gifts on us his children, and the gift of the Holy Spirit is the greatest gift of all, the presence of God himself. Jesus reminds us that “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13)

Don’t put it off, ask God today to fill you and to fill St Martin’s again with his Holy Spirit, and let’s all say to him ‘I want some more… more of your love, more of you power, more of your Spirit’