8 Ways to Encourage the Flow of the Holy Spirit J. LEE GRADY for Charisma Mag
I’m grateful for my friend Quentin Beard, who pastors one of the fastest growing churches in South Dakota—Sioux Falls First Assembly. Because Quentin wants his congregation to experience the Holy Spirit, he scheduled a special weekend of meetings so that people could be baptized in the Holy Spirit, get healing prayer and receive personal prophetic ministry.
The day before the event, I asked Quentin if we could have a larger-than-normal bottle of oil on the altar near the stage. Most churches just have a small cruet or vial of oil; I wanted more, so one of the church’s pastors filled a half-gallon bottle. The quantity of oil was prophetic in itself, because the Lord visited us in power. Many people were filled with the Spirit during those three days.
Are you hungry for more of the Holy Spirit in your church? It’s time to stop limiting His power.
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Everywhere I go, I hear pastors asking how they can we encourage the freedom of the Holy Spirit in a church culture that has become increasingly scripted, scheduled and controlled right down to the nanosecond. The essence of Pentecost, which came “suddenly,” was its unpredictability. But there seems to be no room for God’s sudden surprises when we already have our sermons planned out for the next six months.
Here are eight practical things we can do to encourage the freedom of Pentecost in our churches:
- Teach about the Holy Spirit often. The Holy Spirit was rarely mentioned in the church I grew up in, so we never expected Him to do anything. Yet He is described in the second verse of the Bible as “moving” upon the surface of the newly created world (Gen. 1:2), and He has one of the last messages in the Bible (see Rev. 22:17). He moves and He speaks throughout the Scriptures! But we must invite Him to move and speak by giving Him the place He deserves.
