Dear Friends

Although I am an elder, I have always struggled to understand the concept of the Holy Spirit.

I accept God as my Father, who created the world and all things in it. I happily say my prayers to Him and worship Him. I love Jesus and accept him as the Son of God. The Gospels are the most worn pages in my Bible, and I never tire of reading about Jesus, his teachings and his sacrifice for me. In one of his sermons, George said that in biblical times, a carpenter was actually a builder. So Jesus worked in the construction industry like me!

But the Holy Spirit has always been a bit of an unknown quantity. I am a person who likes doing things. My motto is to “Bite off more than you can chew, then chew like mad”. So the Holy Spirit arriving and making the people talk in strange languages, instead of making soup for the poor or fixing the houses of the widows, seemed a bit pointless to me.

This Pentecost I have realised how stupid I have been. It was recently explained to me that the Father is the Thought, Jesus is the Word and the Holy Spirit is the Deed. It was the Holy Spirit who turned the cowering disciples into brave preachers of the Gospel. Filled with the Holy Spirit, they started our Church and spread the message of salvation. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to act and the ability to be an instrument of God’s love.

On Pentecost Sunday the sanctuary was adorned with all of the hard work of those who contributed to the Jersey Drive. What wonderful evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in our church. Thank you God for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

God Bless you this week.

Rob Couperthwaite