The Holy Spirit in the Prayer Books

This was published in the Fall 2015 issue of Anglicans for Renewal, the Anglican Renewal Ministries magazine. 

I'm an Anglican by marriage. Actually, we all are if you go back far enough. So I didn't grow up with the Prayer Book. I was pretty suspicious of it and the idea of praying out of books when I first encountered it. But I really wanted to be in the company and good graces of a certain intriguing and very attractive young woman who happened to be Anglican and attended Evensong at St Paul's Anglican Cathedral in Dunedin, New Zealand. It was in her company that my experience of praying out of a book began. She was a very comely incentive. God is good. 

Some years later when I came to a faith of my own, it was when I made television programs for a living. Most of the program's I made required a script. I directed the actors, performers, crew, images and sound to tell the script's story. One day I realized that the Prayer Book was like one of those scripts. We worshippers take the words of the page, into our hearts and offer them in worship to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. And The Story continues as it is told over and over again.

I became Anglican just after The Book of Alternative Services came on the scene. I have to confess that I enjoyed the contemporary language. It seemed more open to me. I still enjoy it. But those early years of praying the office, exploring The Prayers and Thanksgivings, Family Prayer, Compline and the rest followed by fifteen years of Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion on Sundays at 830 gave me some roots and prayers for real life.

Last June I experienced the joy of being present when my granddaughter was confirmed at St Mary’s in Regina. As he laid his hands on each confirmand, Bishop Hardwick used the second prayer For Confirmation in The Book of Alternative Services: “Defend, O Lord, your servant Emily with your heavenly grace, that she may continue yours for ever, and daily increase in your Holy Spirit more and more, until she comes to your everlasting kingdom. Amen. (p628) This is also the confirmation prayer from The Book of Common Prayer (p560) in contemporary English.

Now is that a wild-eyed, knock-down charismatic prayer, or what? “Daily increase in your Holy Spirit more and more”? It was done very decently and in order, but those were the words prayed out loud, over my granddaughter (and everyone else who is confirmed in the Anglican Church of Canada) to the living God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Think about it. It’s a wonder we weren’t all thrown to the floor in a tangle of Anglican knees and kneelers. But we weren’t—at least not outwardly. I wonder why? Have we just given up on expecting God to act in such ways? Are we hoping for it, but God is saying, “Not now”? I don’t know.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that confirmation should only be valid when everyone is slain in the Spirit (although I’d love to see it one day). But what if you and I were to pay closer attention to the way the Holy Spirit of truth is woven through our prayer book prayers and liturgies bearing witness about Jesus (John 15.26) and what if we watch for them and pray into them? Might the Lord be waiting to release something new?

In that hope, Lord willing, I’m going to explore the references to the Holy Ghost/Spirit in our books to see where they lead. And what better place to start than with the SOLEMN DECLARATION 1893 (The Book of Common Prayer, p. viii), a foundational document for the Anglican Church of Canada.

“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen,” are the first words; an foundational invocation of the Holy Trinity. We begin with profound mystery. Such is the Holy Spirit. Such is the Father and the Son. We worship one God in three Persons. Indivisible. So when we focus on one Person, we do not deny or diminish the others. To be filled with the Holy Ghost is to be filled with all the fullness of God. And that is about as far as I dare go with that except to say that it is the best way to begin this expression of the Anglican church.

The next reference is in the third paragraph; a declaration that this church will “worship One God and Father through the same Lord Jesus Christ, by the same Holy and Divine Spirit who is given to them that believe to guide them into all truth.” Believe, and I am given that Holy and Divine Spirit to guide me into all truth. What is truth? God’s word is (John 17.17) and I am (John 14.6) says Jesus and truth is in Jesus, writes Paul (Eph 4.21). Not only that, but the Holy and Divine Spirit is the Spirit of that truth (John 14.17 & 15.26) and that pretty well wraps it up.

So the foundational document of the Anglican Church of Canada (after the Scriptures and the prayer book) affirms and attests that it is important to have been given the Holy and Divine Spirit because he will guide us into Jesus. Thus begins our trustworthy script for Anglican worship; a script which is essentially the Scriptures set to prayer.

As we learn our lines in worship and prayer may we make them our own while daily increasing in the Holy Spirit more and more until times of refreshing, renewal and revival come. Amen and amen.

On Being (Quietly) Charismatic

The following was published in the Summer 2015 issue of the Anglican Renewal Ministries magazine, Anglicans for Renewal. Subscriptions available here.

Hi, my name is Gene and I’m a charismatic. I’m not a very loud one. Pretty quiet, actually. I’ve not shouted, rolled (as in Holy), shaken or stomach-crunched yet.

A few people have been blessed, a couple even healed when I’ve prayed for them. Quietly. No sparks or gold dust. Hardly anyone seems to have noticed, which is probably a good thing.

The LORD gave me the gift of tongues—a prayer language. Nobody has come up to me and said, “I didn’t know you could speak Mandarin (or Thai, or Hungarian or whatever)” yet, but I know it’s real because after being prayed for many times and trying to make noises myself all of a sudden one day it just took off with a fluency that surprised me. Again, no lightning or spectacular manifestations, just a switch thrown somewhere in my spirit or soul or heart and off I went. It took about two years of praying with various degrees of intensity for that particular gift until that switch was turned on. Reading Dennis Bennet’s Nine O’Clock in the Morning was what really got me going on it. But I know that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ touched me with the power of the Holy Spirit. Amazing. A reminder for me when doubts assail.

I’ve been “slain in the Spirit” a couple of times. Gently and quietly. I could have remained standing. I felt a weight pressing down through me—the weight of glory someone said. I found myself swaying and let go to fall back as if into pillows, but I’ve not yet experienced going down involuntarily as if shot. I’ve seen it but I haven’t had it happen to me yet.

The LORD also gave me some prophetic gifting; the 1 Corinthians 14.3 strengthening,  encouraging and comforting kind. I’m certainly not a capital P Prophet. Nobody is today, in my opinion. Nobody carries the office, but many people exercise the 1 Corinthians 12.10 and 14.1-5 gift. Every now and then somehow the Holy Spirit puts things into to my mind that I could not know about the person for whom I am praying and it blesses them because they know I couldn’t have known and their faith grows because they realize that God does know what’s going on their lives and cares for them. It’s amazing to be a part of God doing that.

My priest used to say we’ve drifted away from believing that God can or will really act these days and that the Holy Spirit has been lost in the ecclesiastical shuffle somehow. Today’s Holy Trinity is God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the silent partner. One of the reasons that has happened is fear, I suspect. People are afraid of extremes—people falling over, or laughing, or shaking, or saying, “Thus saith the Lord!” Some feel left out when nothing seems to happen to, or around, them when they pray, so they give up. Some feel criticized or abused by over-enthusiastic charismatics or people who have got charismatic things just plain wrong. The trouble is that all of church, charismatic or not, includes a fair dose of the world, the flesh and the devil. There will always be unhelpful disturbing behaviour.

Despite it all, however, the Holy Spirit is a major player in the Scriptures and in the Church. From his first creation appearance in the second verse of the whole Bible, to his last mention in the fifth to last verse, the Holy Spirit blows throughout and continues to do so. Most often he is a gentle, barely perceptible breeze, these days it seems, yet every now and then he blows things over and sets the church bounding across the waves.

So, my name is Gene and I’m a charismatic retired Anglican priest. I’ve not experienced anything that has been particularly spectacular. I suspect that’s because The LORD knows only too well how easily I could get full of myself. But I believe in it. I believe in it all. I believe that without the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit working in me, I can do nothing worthwhile. I believe that Jesus still miraculously heals and changes lives. I wish he would do it more often in ways that I can see, but that’s up to him. I believe that people really are strengthened, encouraged and comforted by ordinary Christians exercising the spiritual gifts God has given. I believe that every now and then God still even raises people from the dead. I haven’t seen it myself, but I’ve read about it. I believe in revival and hope to see another one soon—especially in the Anglican church. And that’s why I serve on the Anglican Renewal Ministries board and write for this magazine.

UPDATE: since this article was published in the magazine a couple of good folk have taken me to task over what I've written above about the office of Prophet with a capital P. Citing passages such as 1 Cor 12.28, Eph 4.11 and others they believe there are still Christian prophets and a prophetic ministry operating today  I have to confess that I had missed these rather obvious references to there being an active Christian prophetic ministry in addition to the gift. I agree that some people do exercise the ministry today. It would have been better if I'd included that, but I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of a capital P Prophet as an office in today's Church.

The Fruit of the Spirit: Part One—An Introduction and Love

The following was published in the Spring 2015 issue of the Anglican Renewal Ministries magazine, Anglicans for Renewal. 

Since Anglican Renewal Ministries exists to help us all experience and enjoy more of the refreshing presence of God, the Holy Spirit, in our lives, our relationships and our church, from time to time it is encouraging to look into the benefits of living in that presence. When we do our best to live and move and have our being (Acts 17.28) in the Gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 12.8-10 & 28), good things grow. This is the first of a series of articles exploring those good things—the challenges, delights and blessings of Fruit of the Spirit ( Gal 5.22—see also Mt 7.15-20). 

Fruit Inspection

Before we give the Fruit of the Spirit tree a shake, let’s take a moment to think about fruit in nature and what it’s for. Fruit is for reproduction. It bears the seeds and is the medium by which those seeds are distributed and sown. To that end, fruit is designed to be sweet and juicy, attractive and tasty. 

Being tasty and enhancing life’s flavours seems to be a part of The LORD’s recipe for fruitful Jesus following. Saltiness is another powerful Biblical image (Mt 5.13) for how we Christians are are called to attract and add zest to the lives of those around us. The Holy Spirit working through you and me makes lives flavourful and tasty with a divinely inspired balance of sweetness and saltiness.

But lest we over-spiritualize the idea of being the folk who yield the fruit that attracts people to Jesus, remember fruit’s reproductive purpose and process requires eating, digestion, defecation, rotting and fermentation—earthy stuff—having to do with the real life and death that has to come before there can be resurrection (cf 1 Cor 15.35-49). This means the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives must be more than just sweetly sentimental well-wishing. The sweetest, most fruitful, fruit comes from the rich soil of you and me getting down alongside people where they live; especially with those whose lives have gone sour and who are mired in life’s pain and injustice. This is the earthiness that produces the fruit that leads to resurrection and new life. 

The more open and available I am to the Holy Spirit’s filling and empowering, the sweeter and tastier will my fruit be. So will yours. 

By Our Fruits…

Healthy trees, says Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, bear good fruit (Mt 7.17). So do healthy people, relationships and churches. Moreover, it is by our fruits we will be recognized as Christians, or not (Mt 7.20), so let’s take a closer look at fruit. There are nine fruits of the Spirit according to the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galations: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5.22).

Knowing What Love Is

It is no accident that love is the first fruit on the list. Just as love is the centre and foundation of Paul’s description of the Gifts of the Spirit, how they work and how they are to be used, in 1 Corinthians 12-14 (more on that in a moment); love is the first on his companion list of the Spirit’s Fruit. Love is always the greatest and more excellent way (1 Cor 13.13; 12.31). Without it, the rest of the Fruit cannot ripen. Love is number one, the other eight fruits are delightful and particular expressions of it. 

The Greek word is agapé. That’s the John 3.16 kind of love with which God so loves the world. The words for romantic, warm fuzzy, brotherly, sisterly or between friends love are all different. I don’t fall in agapé, I rise in it. Fruit of the Spirit love comes not primarily from warm feelings for a person, it comes from being prayerfully intelligent, purposeful and always focussed on the need of the other (Marva Dawn, The Unnecessary Pastor (Eerdman’s, 2000), p212) while needing no love in return. Fruit of the Spirit love is the fierce love of one who really cares about you or me. Fruit of the Spirit love is love to do, by choice of will, whether I feel like it, or not. 

John gives us a vivid image of love’s trajectory in John 3.16. God so loved, he wrote. Who? The world and everyone in it. That? He gave his only—not what he had to spare or didn’t need any more—his only Son, Jesus. And, following the same trajectory, Jesus so loved his Father and the world that he gave his life so that you and I get to enjoy eternal life. Surely Spirit-filled Jesus followers are called so to love—not just those with whom we agree or smell right or treat us well—everyone—so that we, too, will give what the people around us need in order taste and see how good the Lord is. 

Paul fills John’s image of love out even more in 1 Corinthians 13. Without this love, he states, I’m nothing. I can gong, clang and clatter away noisily in tongues, declare “Thus saith the Lord…” all I want, super-spiritually give away all I have, but if I do it without love I—and, more importantly, those around me—will gain absolutely nothing. So, if we really want to understand the Fruit of the Spirit, you and I really need to know what love is. Paul tells us. Love is—patient, kind, does not envy or boast, is not arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way; is not irritable or resentful; does not rejoice at wrong-doing, rejoices with the truth, bears, believes, hopes and endures all things (1 Cor 13.4-7). Paul's what-love-is gives me the so with which I can do my loving. I need to keep the what-love-is fresh, then I can so love well and without fail. So do you. 

Preaching: Paul's Merely Plausible to the Power of the Cross

...reading 1 Corinthians as I follow my St James Devotional Guide towards Holy Week.

How do I, as a priest/pastor, get from eloquent-wisdom-lofty-speech and plausible-words-of-wisdom preaching (which is what, if we're honest, most of us end up trying to do) to the demonstration of the Spirit and the power of the Cross about which Paul writes? How do I get from plausible to power?

The Scottish Connection

I recently listened to three lectures by pastor and professor, Dr Sinclair Ferguson, from First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina, on preaching. He had some challenges for the likes of me.

• Is anybody ever converted when I preach? If not, why not? Is there something missing in my ministry?


• Am I trying to do what will work rather than what will convert?


• Am I preaching so that folk are impacted by the passage, rather than by my plausible preaching?


• Am I preaching in such a way that, if conversion does happen, people are converted “under the Word” rather than by my eloquence, cleverness, and plausibility?

Good questions. Imagine lives being changed right there and then when I preach.

Ferguson also mused on the need for more on Jesus and who he is and less on application.

Plausibility to Power

It also seems to me, apart from the conversion problem, I must be filled with the Holy Spirit. I mean FILLED and over-flowing with, not just academically, doctrinally or theologically, as in "we-all-are-by-virtue-of-our-baptism," but as "baptism-in" the Holy Spirit, released, scary-tongues, prophecy and all that Holy Spirit.

O Lord, yes please!