Spirit Haunted

When we long to see God act

When Paul first came to Ephesus he asked a pointed question of the Christ-followers he found there. He wondered if they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed. Surprising, to us, they confessed to him that they had never even heard of the Holy Spirit.

It’s worth asking a form of that question of ourselves. For sure, I’ve heard of the Holy Spirit, and my theology is clear that I have received the Holy Spirit. But has my awareness and clarity made any difference at all in the way I live and pastor?

This is the question that was being asked of churches when I came of age as a Christian and as a pastor. The “Charismatic Movement,” a resurgent interest in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, was crossing denominational lines bringing deep spiritual vitality to some, and troubling stratification and controversy to others. This movement both renewed and split churches as it pressed upon us all the question of whether we were taking to heart, really, the possibilities presented by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the church.

Not surprisingly, as this wave of interest in the Holy Spirit crashed against the church, many looked to John Stott to give a careful and Biblical response. Tim Chester in his book Stott on the Christian Life summarizes Stott’s cautious embrace of the movement’s heart along with his concerns.

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Chester adds the surprising claim that “If [his] arguments seem familiar to you, then it is almost certainly because the people who influenced you were influenced by people who, in turn, were influenced by Stott. . . . Though Stott’s was by no means the only voice, it was one of the most significant.”

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It’s been many years since the movement was a topic of such hot debate. We’ve gone on to run our churches with predictable and measurable methodologies, and as a result we may speak of the Spirit with a deference that may be more verbal than vital. The necessary, and haunting, question will not go away: does our awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit make any difference at all in the way we live and pastor?

Our churches are unquestionably Spirit-endowed. God gifted the whole church with His Spirit at Pentecost. But to have a thing and to avail oneself of that thing are not at all the same. The Greenwald household is cookbook-endowed, but we eat pretty much the same thing every night. Our cookbooks look lovely there on the shelf underneath the television, but they have no impact on the way we live. To be endowed and unchanged misses something vital.

Scripture pushes a step further, speaking of our being Spirit-filled. If this means that our churches become places of lively, God-infused and spontaneous vibrancy, then absolutely, we want it! We want to see God’s power in the conversion of the lost and the healing of the broken. But when we don’t see these things happening, we judge ourselves not to be Spirit-filled, and cast wildly about to discover what’s wrong with us. Stott urges us to be more charitable here. The evidence of the Spirit’s active presence, he reminds us, is more moral than miraculous. The Spirit primarily produces fruit, not spectacle. There is more happening by the Spirit’s work in our churches than may meet the eye. We shouldn’t be overly hard on ourselves. We should look for and appreciate what the Spirit is doing.

But, however, there are times when the most we find we can hope for is to be Spirit-haunted. There are times we see no movement, no life in our churches. The dead bones around us refuse to come to life, and we exhaust ourselves trying to make them do so. We know this isn’t the way things are supposed to be, and we sense there must be something more to ministry. But that power, we imagine, has abandoned us. The Spirit is gone; the glory has departed.

But the Spirit doesn’t abandon us. He lingers. He haunts us. These desires for something more are his work. He visits us in our longings and blows gently on the cooling embers of our hearts. In his grace he reminds us that we can ask him for more. His presence seeps into us, warming us to pray for a more complete and full dependence upon him, that we might see done what we long to see done. We know there is more. We long for more.

It is a grace to be Spirit-haunted.

My good friend Steve calls himself a Pentecostal, aligning with those who made much of the Holy Spirit before making much of the Holy Spirit was cool. Steve isn’t of the crazy sort. Rather, he’s one who believes that God does stuff. For me, a Presbyterian who is tempted to try to carry the whole weight of the church on his own inadequate shoulders, this is refreshing. The idea that God might yet do something haunts me in a good way and builds longing in my heart.

So, yes, I’ve heard that there is a Holy Spirit, and yes, my theology is clear. But I, for one, need him to continually haunt me, to gently remind me that he is here. That he is present. Ready to be called upon. Ready to do stuff, stuff that I long to see.

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Tim Chester, Stott on the Christian Life: Between Two Worlds (United States: Crossway, 2020).

1. Stott's response the Charismatic movement is preserved here: Baptism and Fullness: The Work of the Holy Spirit Today (United States: InterVarsity Press, 2021)

2. Chester, page 152, 153.