The Reverend Philip Banks writes:

July 2008

“Where are you headed?”

The Holy Spirit has, it seems, been ‘working overtime’ at St Peter’s! Ordinations. Confirmations. Parish Pastoral Assistant. To name but a few things that we are celebrating at the moment.

It is indeed wonderful to be able to rejoice with Judith on her Ordination as a Priest amongst us; with Paul White on his Ordination and family move to Canterbury; with the twelve adults from our church being Confirmed this month; and with Graham Smith as he is commissioned as our new Parish Lay Pastoral Assistant.

For me, as Parish Priest, it is a delight to see so many people in our church family being touched by God and inspired to commit themselves to the Way of Jesus in very different ways – serving each other, the church and the community in which we are set.

As people who trust in God and belong to a church family, we can find meaning and purpose in life – God call us into friendship with him and into a Christian way of life, knowing that there is life beyond this life. This knowledge can bring great strength in times of difficulty: light in darkness, healing for our hurts, and forgiveness for sins.

But life suddenly also becomes more challenging: for we need to look further at what God is like and what his purposes for our life might be. And somewhere near the surface should be a question about what God is prompting you to do with your life – both in the ‘big’ questions (work, relationships, etc), as well as in the normal round of our existence and daily living.

 “The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone born of the Spirit”. So speaks Jesus to Nicodemus (John 3:8). And so speaks Jesus to you and me today: we must be people open to the promptings of the Spirit. Do we take time to listen to the voice the Spirit within us – or are our lives so crowded, that we crowd out the Spirit which seeks to blow within us? The Spirit has prompted us ‘people of God’ down the ages (for instance from the abolition of slavery 200 years ago to the work of Christians in the church today in issues such as world debt relief, women’s ordination and the environment) and prompts us now. And we won’t necessarily be expecting the direction that God wants to lead us in – hence Jesus’ words to Nicodemus.

I suspect that, ten years ago, those with whom we are celebrating in our church family – being Confirmed, Commissioned or Ordained – had no idea that God’s Spirit would prompt them in this direction. What is God calling you to do and to be?

Fr Philip Banks

Picture: Church ‘Holy Spirit’  banner by Sr Mary Stephen, supplied by www.mccrimmons.com