Listening for the Spirit

Cheryl Goodman-Morris reminds us that the Spirit blows as she wills, and we must needs keep that in mind as live into Christian community: What if the process of creating a fresh church could come to us in a radical, completely unorthodox new way? What if we remembered to let the Spirit find us instead...

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Cheryl Goodman-Morris reminds us that the Spirit blows as she wills, and we must needs keep that in mind as live into Christian community:

What if the process of creating a fresh church could come to us in a radical, completely unorthodox new way? What if we remembered to let the Spirit find us instead of us trying to manufacture it? Ruth Stone, the poet, writes that as a girl, she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape like a thunderous train of air, shaking the earth beneath her feet. She would run like crazy to get to the house and a piece of paper. Grabbing a pencil, she would catch the poem by the tail just as it passed through her body, writing as fast as she could to get it down. She knew if she didn’t, it would move beyond her and find somebody else who was ready to receive it, and there it would be born. What if catching a new vision of what the church could be was like that? What if we could just show up with open hands and open hearts, roll our sleeves up, and say, “We’re ready, God, whenever you are. We’ll do our part, but we also need for you to do yours. Let the wind of your spirit blow where it will. We’re ready to sail.