Yesterday, as I was reflecting on Pentecost, I drove across the Tennessee River and happened to catch a glance of a marina with yachts, fishing boats, speedboats, and few sailboats.  And near the marina, I glimpsed a picturesque scene of a few sailboats gliding across the backwater as they were powered by a gentle breeze.

As I reflected on the work of the Holy Spirit, I was reminded of the words of my friend, Reggie McNeal, author of Missional Renaissance: “The Spirit is a work in the world, and it’s the job of the church to get on the same page as the Spirit, not the job of the Spirit to get on the same page as the church.”

As we navigate the chaos of a changing world, including fluctuating church metrics and shifting cultural norms, a fresh wind of the Spirit is blowing.

My first notions of the spirit world did not come from the Bible but emerged from a book about Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, a southern folklore written by Kathryn Tucker Windham and Margaret Gillis Figh.  Among this collection of stories, there is the tale of Jeffrey, a mischievous spirit who first made his presence known in the Windham home in October 1966. Jeffrey was alleged, “At irregular and infrequent intervals, to clump down the hall, slam doors, rock in a chair, frighten the family cat, move heavy pieces of furniture, cause electronic equipment to malfunction, and hide objects.”

When I was in Mrs. Gibson’s fourth grade class, I chose this book for my first ever “book report.”  This book highlighted thirteen of the best ghost stories from small town Alabama. To this day, when I drive through the square of one of those quaint Alabama communities I look to see if there is a face in the courthouse window.

As a child growing up in the Bible Belt, I associated the ghost in the courthouse with the Holy Ghost in the church house. Evangelists who visited our community preached passionate and lengthy revival sermons alternating almost schizophrenically between asking, “Have you received the Holy Ghost?”, and warning us to, “Beware of quenching the Holy Ghost,” as though this supernatural apparition could invade our bodies or condemn our soul, depending on your extemporaneous emotional response to the sermon.

Growing up in the Baptist church, I learned more about the Holy Spirit from our confessional statement, the Baptist Faith and Message (1963): The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables men to understand truth. He exalts Christ. He convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. He calls men to the Saviour, and effects regeneration. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the spiritual gifts by which they serve God through His church. He seals the believer unto the day of final redemption. His presence in the Christian is the assurance of God to bring the believer into the fulness of the stature of Christ. He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evangelism, and service.

As I continue to study the Bible and reflect on the Spirit, I think I have grown a little in my thinking and in my understanding of pneumatology. I appreciate my somewhat Bapti-costal childhood, but when it comes to my early impressions of the spiritual things, let’s just say that I still have a lot of unpacking to do. Even the name “Holy Spirit,” which occurs in most English translations except the King James Version, is much more friendly than “Holy Ghost,” the former connoting holiness and the latter evoking more of a sense of spiritual haunting.

When I move beyond the religious folklore and as I deal with my own early ghostly notions of the third person of the trinity, the biblical narrative helps bring much needed clarity to my understanding of the Holy Spirit.  Prior to the unfolding of what we now call “Holy Week,” Jesus began to prepare his disciples for his own departure by acknowledging that he would be going away, and yet he assured them, “I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you” (John 14:18).  Although the incarnate Jesus had been with them in bodily form, now Jesus was explaining that after the time of his physical departure, his Spirit would come to be present with them in a most fascinating and yet mysterious sort of way. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16-17).

As I revisit the account in John’s gospel of Jesus foretelling of the comforter and encourager yet to arrive, I am consoled that Jesus’ closest followers didn’t “get it” either in the beginning.  I resonate with the anxiety and the perplexity of the disciples when Jesus started talking about a terminal point in his ministry, an unspecified incident yet to come which would alter and transform their relationship.  They must have sensed by Jesus’ veiled hints that some crucial experience was looming in the not-too-distant future, but they could not have imagined the significance of these proceedings. They could not have anticipated the brutality of his eventual execution, and obviously, they were astonished and surprised by his unexpected resurrection.

Prior to his death, Jesus had been their mentor. They even called him, “Rabbi.”  He had shown them a new way to live, a life not based on status or perfection, but a self- worth founded on God’s love and a value system grounded in God’s grace.  Jesus accepted them in their imperfect human condition without prerequisite, and nurtured within them a lifestyle trending toward simplicity and service.

When he spoke of his pending departure, they must have wondered, who will lead us now?  Will we return to “business as usual”?  Who will teach us about God’s ways and expectations?

That to me seems to be the role of the Holy Spirit.  This advocate about whom Jesus spoke is now assigned to Christ followers to navigate our steps, to keep us affirmed by God’s love, to steer us toward a lifestyle of service and simplicity, and to protect us from legalism by keeping us grounded in grace.  Paul so believed in this spiritual linkage, he wrote to the Romans that “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” (8:16)

Although my early impressions of the Spirit were more ghost-like, I now embrace the Holy Spirit as the spirit or personality or presence of God at work in the world today .  And this Spirit is not floating around obliviously in the cosmos but takes up residence within a temple of human flesh.  The Spirit of God that hovered over the waters in the creation story now occupies a human habitat in the redemption story.

And the Spirit is not a “show-off” with the demeanor of an exhibitionist showcasing bizarre feats. Rather, the Spirit prefers to work clandestinely, deflecting attention while always prompting people toward God and the Jesus-kind-of- life.

The Pentecost event is an integral part of biblical history. And now, we observe Pentecost to celebrate the coming of the Spirit, the birthday of the church, and the globalization of the Christian faith. However, just as we cannot duplicate the resurrection or re-enact the ascension, we cannot recreate the phenomena of Pentecost.  Our God is not the god of repeat performances but is a God who is always seeking to do a new thing. The Spirit is filled with creativity and innovation and persistence.  And just maybe, the Spirit is initiating an original story within you.

In his book, Thinking About God, Fisher Humphreys, describes the Spirit as One who “brings life and vitality into the experience of the Christian and the church. He vivifies us. He makes Christian living dynamic as well as decent.”  I understand the activity of the Spirit to be a work of fostering unity, not division; a work of inspiring creativity, not repressing it; and a work of re-visioning the future, not preserving the status quo.

In Acts 2, Luke describes the advent of the Spirit as “a mighty rushing wind.”  I live on the Gulf Coast where the breeze is continual, but the speed is variable. The Spirit resembles the wind, a force that cannot be conjured or micromanaged. The wind blows and though we cannot dictate its direction or mediate its velocity, we can choose to raise our sails.

(Barry Howard is the retired senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida.  He currently serves as a coach, consultant, and columnist with the Center for Healthy Churches.  He enjoys golf, reading, and gardening.)