The Warmth of a Welcoming Spirit

It was Carolyn who spotted it.

I hadn’t noticed.

When we looked through all the words people came up with to describe what’s special about Highbury someone noticed no one mentioned God and Jesus.

I had thought to myself that that was something to do with the way we asked the question.  What’s special to you about Highbury?

We then wondered whether you could actually ask the question differently.  And that would make for a very interesting time of reflection.]

What’s special to you about God?

What’s special to you about Jesus?

Then it was that Carolyn pointed out something she and Pete had spotted.

Actually, the words we came up with reflect the way we think about God.

Take all those words we came up with suggesting that Highbury is welcoming.

Accepting, Welcoming, exuding warmth, all are welcome, friendly, warm and friendly.

Those are all words you could apply to God.

We value this spirit of welcome because this is the God we believe in.  The God we believe in, made real to each of us in Jesus is an accepting God who accepts us as we are.

The God we believe in is a welcoming God who welcomes all no matter who they may be.

The God we believe in is friendly, speaking through Jesus, not only to those closest followers of his long ago, but also to us, I call you my friends.

And take one more of those words and phrases.  Warmth.  We thought of it as what for us makes this place, this fellowship special.  Warmth.  And I love the phrase someone came up with ‘exuding warmth’.

Where does the warmth come from?  Where does this welcoming spirit come from?  If we want to build on this warmth of welcome, if we seek to exude warmth, where does that warmth come from?

Today is a day when we have been invited to think about the wider fellowship of churches we are part of in the Congregational Federation.  One of the things that makes us special as a fellowship of churches is that there is no organisational structure to tell us what to do, to organise us, to instruct us.  We are a fellowship of churches sharing a passionate faith together, pooling resources together.

On Tuesday we had our usual team meeting and then welcomed a team of mission support workers who work in the different areas of our Congregational Federation.  They were meeting together to pool ideas, thinking, resources to help work at developing and building up our churches.

One initiative launched last year is to build up community work in our churches, and imaginative initiatives in mission and in outreach.     We have put forward Hy-Speed as just such an initiative to support.  Last night one of those folk who had been here on Tuesday visited Hy-Speed to report back.   It’s great to have been short-listed and to wait to see whether we gain an award.

Among the group of folk coming together on Tuesday was Brian Grist who has been this year’s President of the Congregational Federation.

As his year began he invited us to think of the Holy Spirit and the power and the strength of the Holy Spirit in our own lives and in the life of our churches.

With the help of a woodworker known to Jill Stephens from the Derby area a sculpture was put together in parts made up of flames.  Each flame has been sent to each of the Areas of our Congregational Federation and within our Area it has been journeying round the churches.

It arrived here from Frampton on Severn.  We are invited to remember that church in our prayers.  Set in the beautiful village of Frampton, our church has played a key part in the village community for many, many years, and for the last 21 years or so under the ministry and leadership of John Hunter and latterly also Nick Gleich.  Anticipating retirement, John trained on our training course and then took up the ministry of the church as he retired as Principal of one of the constituent colleges of what was then Glos Coll.  He has been chaplain at Ley Hill Open Prison for all that time.  The church itself has developed a community service.  Recently they have had to cope with a massive outbreak of dry rot and they are now building up their work once again with a newly re-furbished church building.  It’s great to remember that work in our prayers.

We pass the flame on to Longney.  A small chapel in the Severn Vale between the ship canal and the Severn, Longney keeps going with small congregations but very faithful people – it’s the church I support more than any other taking afternoon services there once or twice a term.  When I join them next Sunday afternoon they will be joined by friends from the Parish church in a joint service.  A rural community that 25 years ago had about a dozen farms around in the locality, it has changed beyond all recognition, now having a many-thousand acred farm, managed by a handful of people in place of the individual farms.  Tensions have been great as a farming community has changed into a commuting community.  Our prayers are with them in the changing face of the countryside communities around us.

In all three of those churches there would be a warmth of welcome.

As Brian wanted us to pass round this flame it was so that we could share in prayer together … but he also wanted us to think of something else.  The flame is symbolic of the flames of the Spirit as the disciples are touched by tongues of fire.

Brian wanted us in this year to think especially of the way in which the lives of each one of us, the lives of our churches together can be enriched, strangely ‘warmed’ by the presence of this power from beyond ourselves, unseen yet so very real, the power of the Holy Spirit.

I pricked my ears up  when I heard that was to be his theme.

It rings a bell for us here at Highbury.

It was exactly 150 years ago in 1862 that our own Andrew Moreton Brown, who gives his name to our Moreton Brown Room, wrote round to all the Ministers and Churches in the then Congregational Union.  He wanted people to unite in special prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

What difference does the Holy Spirit make?

Acts speaks of tongues of fire.  Fire gives off a warmth.  I want us to think for a  moment of warmth.

Think of those moments when you feel a warmth.  Not in the temperature of a building, but deep inside.  There are some occasions that leave you cold.  Somethings can send a chill down your spine.  But some things are strangely warming.  You warm to someone.  You are strangely warm deep inside.

The warmth of our welcome is not dependent on the warmth we can generate, any more than the love we share with others is something we can whip up inside us.

The warmth of our welcome will be such as to touch other people when it wells up inside us as God is at work deep within us.

The Methodist Church was founded by John Wesley, an Anglican Minister. Following a difficult and discouraging mission trip to America, he questioned his faith. In 1738, at the age of 34, John Wesley attended an evening worship service in London which moved him deeply. In his journal, Wesley described his "Aldersgate experience:" 

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.  

How does such a heart-warming happen?

Let’s pray with expectation.  But then let’s claim the promise of God in Jesus.  This Holy Spirit is something given to us by Jesus Christ.

He makes those wonderful promises that appear in John 14.

Just as he is about to leave his disciples he promises that he will not leave them alone, but he will send another Advocate, another Counsellor, another Helper, another Comforter to be with them forever.  Even the Spirit of truth.

It is a wonderful promise.  And something for us to rest in.  To claim.  Not with a spirit of anxiety.  But with a warmth of welcome.

And then this Spirit that is such a power from beyond ourselves will help us in our groaning in prayer, be alongside us as Paul is convinced in Romans 8  – and ultimately it is that presence deep within that assures us of a love from God that nothing in all creation can separate us from.

As we receive this flame and pass it on.  May we feel the warmth of the Spirit deep within our hearts, may we welcome the warmth that it gives, and may others sense in us a warmth of welcome that comes from God himself, from the God who as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is love.

The Warmth of a Welcoming Spirit

I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.  

We hear again the words of Jesus and take to heart the promise he gives …

 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, to be with you for ever.  This is the Spirit of truth, 

May my heart be strangely warmed.  May I trust in Christ alone.

The Comforter  will be with you for ever… he abides with you, and he will be in you.

May my heart be strangely warmed.  May I trust in Christ alone.

I will not leave you alone.   I am coming to you.  The Comforter, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

May my heart be strangely warmed.  May I trust in Christ alone.

The Comforter will remind you of all that I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 

May my heart be strangely warmed.  May I trust in Christ alone

I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.