Preach Magazine Issue 3 - Preaching and the Holy Spirit | Page 12

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INTERVIEW

What I do think is important is that
those who are serving in leadership
roles within the context of corporate
celebrations have a sensitivity to the
prompting of the Spirit. When I was a
child, I used to go to a church where
everything that was going to happen
‘in the service’ was outlined on a news
sheet, and planned way before the
event ever happened. On reflection
it seems to me now that while quite
clearly the presence of God was there in
the corporate worship, there probably
wasn’t a huge amount of room for
the spontaneous promptings and
movement of the Spirit.

JS I was present when you were

prayed for by John Coles and David
Pytches, as you took over leadership of
the New Wine network. It looked like a
pretty intense experience for you. Are
you able to describe what was going in
on those moments?
It’s very difficult to put into words
something that was so powerful. I had
this incredible sense of the grace of
God and the goodness of God. I had an
overwhelming sense of his love and his
grace in my life, that he should have
taken me from where I’ve been and
where I’ve come from and positioned
me in such a way that I’m able to serve
in the church in the way that I do.
Yes, there were some physical reactions:
I found myself bowing down – whether
it was the sense of the weight of God’s
presence on me, or the weight of the
responsibility that was being passed to
me, I’m not quite sure; but what I did
sense was a burning deep within me of
God’s love and God’s strength and God’s
encouragement, and that reminder
that he who calls is faithful.

JS Would you ever tone down your

physical reactions to the Holy Spirit
(or encourage others to do so) in the
presence of those who might find them
disturbing or even frightening?
That’s such an interesting question,
and I think I take my model from Peter
on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit
fell, and there was extraordinary
reaction. Rather than trying to draw
a veil over it, he pointed to what
was happening and sought some
explanation in the light of Scripture.

LWPT8693 Preach Magazine - Issue 3 v3 REPRO.indd 12

PEOPLE ENCOUNTER THE PRESENCE OF GOD AND THE MINISTRY
OF THE SPIRIT IN ALL SORTS OF DIFFERENT WAYS – THROUGH
PREACHING, THROUGH PRAYER, THROUGH PRAISE, THROUGH
SACRAMENTS, AND DIFFERENT FORMS OF LITURGICAL WORSHIP.

It seems to me that the Spirit is about
life, he is the presence of Jesus and he
brings the life of Jesus to those who are
the recipients – whether it’s through
gifting or through fruit. And people’s
response to encountering the powerful
presence of God can be broad and
varied. If in the midst of our corporate
settings there are things that are
happening that draw the attention of
others, then we will try and bring some
explanation to what is going on. In
reality, my experience is that those who
are outside of the church often don’t
have a problem with that at all; in fact
they rather expect God to do things if
he’s going to be involved in the mess and
the pain and the brokenness of people’s
lives. More often than not it is folk within
the church who wrestle and struggle.
It is important to explain what is
happening. If somebody was being set
free from something powerful, it might
produce a disturbing sound, yet at the
same time it is possible to explain that
a beautiful thing is happening as one of
God’s children is being set free to step into
the inheritance that Jesus has for them.

JS My personal take on what makes

the New Wine conferences and events
distinctive from some others I‘ve
been to is the expectation that we will
experience God, that we will meet
Jesus through the Holy Spirit. That is
exciting! And it can also lead to some
pretty weird and not always wonderful
human behaviour. As a leader, how do
you hold in tension a desire to allow
God to work however he will, with the
responsibility of keeping in check mass
hysteria and chaos that has nothing to
do with God at all?

You’re right, I think that at New
Wine one of our distinctives is the
expectation that we will experience
God through the ministry of the
Spirit, whether it’s through the
worship, through the teaching or
those moments after the preaching
when we wait on the Lord and we
minister to one another.
Funnily enough, after years of being
in and around New Wine, I’ve never
really experienced mass hysteria
or the chaos that you describe. I do
expect people to be excited if they’re
on the receiving end of healing, or
to be deeply moved if they’ve been
set free from some oppressive force,
or for people to express some sort of
emotion if they’re receiving healing
for some deep emotional pain. But
that’s a far cry from what might
happen if revival were truly to fall
on this nation. It’s what I would long
for, and what we at New Wine would
long for – to see men and women,
young and old, around this nation
encountering the powerful presence
of God, being on the receiving end
of transformative experience; and
as they themselves are transformed
and changed by this encounter, that
they would become agents of change
and play their part in advancing the
Kingdom.
One of the huge responsibilities that
we have in le