Holy Spirit Force

I occasionally write about religion in a broad sense but a friend’s dramatic encounter with the Holy Spirit over a decade ago is worth an airing.

I’ll start by providing some background on Mike: Christened and later confirmed in a small, Anglican Orthodox church before the days of Cafeteria Christianity and the Mega Church, his impression of the church as a child was God had to be extremely old given the ages of many of the congregation.

The environment was somber, reverend and quiet but he enjoyed observing the Eucharist, in fact, for him this was the highlight of the service.

The traditional wing of the Anglican Church has a history going back centuries and it has roots in orthodox beliefs based on the Apostle and Nicene creeds, recited week after week.

Mike is a reflective type but outside of The Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was too much of an enigma to wrap his mind around, as it was for most Anglicans at the time.

Mike married in that same church moved out of the area shortly afterwards and never attended another Church for close on twenty years.

Meanwhile, the charismatic renewal of the early nineties was affecting mainline Churches everywhere, as people began to experience and appreciate the role of the Holy Spirit, many for the first time.

Some years later Mike attempted to re-examine the faith of his childhood reading scriptures, the Anglican Book of Prayer, Christian apologetics and so on, while he was determined to find a church to take Holy Communion.

Eventually he found a small Anglican Community Church nearby and started attending services.

He found a lot had changed in his long absence, the Common Book of Prayer so essential to services in the past now almost obsolete: the music completely different and the services charismatic, something he had not experienced before.

To his surprise he found he enjoyed the changes, most of all he appreciated Communion was scheduled once a week opposed to once a month so he started attending more regularly.

The pastor of the Church an engaging preacher who everyone called Father Trevor happened to be an ex-Catholic and Mike found himself increasingly challenged on a spiritual level.

Many adult baptisms took place more than a few from other religious faiths something else Mike did not experience at his other Church.

One Sunday Fr. Trevor invited those desiring to experience more of Jesus to stand in their pews lift their hands in palms up fashion and close their eyes.

Mike complied, and in his own words, described what followed:

I felt a force, almost like an electric current; target me from some way behind then rush toward me, at which point I opened my eyes.

This energy passed through the middle of my body then exited at the other side before ‘turning’ and re-entering, this time from the front.