Where is God’s presence manifested today? In Ephesians 2:21-22, Paul talks about the church saying “In (Christ) the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

We are now the dwelling place of God. We don't find his presence in a temple built with stones any more, like when the glory of God filled Solomon’s magnificent temple. The temple Paul is referring to is far, far more glorious, made of living stones - his people, and it stretches across the world. Isn’t that amazing! The church is now where God wants to manifest his presence and his glory to the world. But what do you know of the manifest presence of God?

When my wife, Emma and I became Christians, it was at a small baptist chapel, in a place called Biggin Hill, just south of London, in the middle of no-where. Biggin Hill was the sort of place you would drive through to get to somewhere else. There was no reason to go to Biggin Hill. But in he early 1980’s all kinds of people, particularly young people like me and Emma, art students at the time, were traveling to Biggin Hill every Sunday morning because of what was happening in this small baptist chapel.

We weren’t even believers at the time, I was a total pagan, but we went with some Christian friends and we kept going back. There wasn’t even enough seats for us all. We had to sit on the floor along the back wall of the building. What was it that attracted us? It was presence of God.

A few years before, this handful of faithful, bible believing believers had got filled with the Holy spirit and they started exercising spiritual gifts in their meetings, tongues and interpretation, singing in the Spirit, prophesy, visions. People would share a revelation, and it was like God was speaking to you direct, revealing things in your heart, that no-one else could have known. It was scary at times, it was so accurate. It’s like it says in the bible in 1 Corinthians 14:24 "if an unbeliever comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convicted that he is a sinner...for the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, saying, "God is really among you!"

That was our experience, it was real, there was no hype, it was supernaturally natural. I had nothing to do with church before then, but I was drawn because I knew this was authentic. I mean we were nervous at times going to church because you really didn’t know what was going to happen, no-one did, but God seemed to just show up as we began worshiping. And it wasn’t just the worship, when the gospel was preached, stuff would happen. People were converted and baptized, including Emma and myself; people were healed physically and emotionally and set free from addictions; people were filled with the Holy Spirit and would prophesy. It was awesome. Scary at times, but awesome. The church grew and grew and started five other churches in the surrounding towns. I went to lead one of those churches.

Now what do you make of that? I am thankful to Seth for writing his blogs about the baptism in/with the Holy Spirit. I personally believe that sound doctrine and good theology must include the work of the Holy Spirit in the church today, as I have described above, and as evidenced in the New Testament. Sadly, in the past, many churches concluded that the gifts of the Spirit ceased with the early church, but that view was not based on good biblical exegesis. Today, therefore, an increasing number of church leaders in this country are now concluding that the Holy spirit can still work like this today, they embrace the theology, but there would still be very little evidence of these gifts being exercised in their churches. One church leader told me that they leave that for their small groups. But the reality is, unless the leadership are teaching into this, providing a biblical framework and leading by example, then it’s not going to happen.

One of our newer members recently wrote to me saying: “I wish I could "uninstall" the negative info my brain has taken in about the Holy Spirit over the years.  In my experience, the Holy Spirit (and, specifically, the gifts of the Spirit) has been largely treated like the elephant in the room.  I feel like I have been missing out on a lot.”

It is my intention to address this issue and to talk about the gifts of the Spirit over the next few blogs that I write. Please write in with any specific questions, I would love to hear from you.

 By Ian Ashby

The date is drawing near for the launch of our evening meetings at North Church in Market Square. Anyone who has been inside the 500 seater building will know how beautiful it is. It reminds me a little of Spurgeon’s Tabernacle in London, albeit on a smaller scale. C.H. Spurgeon was a nineteenth century church leader who is considered to have been one of the greatest preachers in Christian history. People flocked to his church in their thousands. His church was probably one of the world’s first ever ‘mega-churches,’ and his weekly published sermons, which sold for a penny each, still remain one of the all-time best selling series of writings ever to be published. Thousands were converted under his ministry.

Having had the privilege of studying at Spurgeon’s College, the pastors seminary in South London, I got to hear many stories about the great man. Some of the most memorable were the amazing ‘words of knowledge’ that he seemed to have, if that is what they were. As he preached, he seemed to have insights about people sitting amongst the thousands in his great congregation. Whether you want to call these insights a gift of the Spirit or not, they certainly seemed to be supernaturally inspired by God. Was Spurgeon a charismatic!? Consider these incidents recorded by W.Y Fullerton:

Many times the preacher has been guided to say things that seemed almost uncanny in their applicability. He once said that there was a man in the gallery listening to him with a gin bottle in his pocket. It so happened that there was such a man, and he was startled into conversion. A woman of the city who had determined on suicide came in with the crowd to hear a last message that might prepare her to die. The text "Seest thou this woman?" arrested her. The discourse changed her heart, and she confessed Christ as her Saviour.

There was a man who regularly attended the tabernacle whose wife consistently refused to accompany him. But one evening, when her husband had gone to the service, her curiosity overcame her obstinacy. That she might not be recognised she put on some very plain things and, quite sure that she would be unknown, pushed her way in with the crowd. The text that evening was "Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another?" The result was that her prejudices were overcome and she began to attend with her husband. He told Mr. Spurgeon about it, his only complaint being that the preacher should compare him to Jeroboam.

A man was won for Christ because the preacher pointed to him and said, "There is a man sitting there who is a shoemaker; he keeps his shop open on Sundays; it was open last Sabbath morning. He took ninepence and there was fourpence profit on it; his soul is sold to Satan for fourpence." The man was afraid to go and hear Spurgeon again for fear he might tell the people more about him, for what he said at first was all true. But at last he came, and the Lord met with him.

One Sunday evening Mr. Spurgeon, pointing to the gallery, said, "Young man, the gloves you have in your pocket are not paid for." After the service a young fellow came beseeching him not to say anything more about it, and the circumstances led to his conversion.

Who knows what God might do in Portsmouth? I am no Spurgeon, but our God is the same God. We pray that he may fill the building in Market Square with seekers and worshippers. May many encounter him through the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.