Super Natural Belief
“I love how this church cares for people and serves the community. I just don’t believe in all that supernatural stuff you talk about. I enjoy being part of your service projects, but whenever you see me in worship, please remember I’m only here to make my wife happy.”
After sharing this sentiment with me on his way out of worship, Gary—name changed to protect the innocent—slapped me on the shoulder and laughed.
Since he seemed to be in a lighthearted mood, I decided turnabout was fair play. I responded, “I find it super natural to believe that our incredibly big, incredibly complex universe comes from a power bigger and more complex than anything within it. And it seems to me that it would be super arrogant to think we cannot experience that power in our everyday lives simply because we cannot measure it in a laboratory.”}
The Activity of the Holy Spirit
For Christians, the supernatural power we experience in everyday life is the Holy Spirit. The second Basic Christian Affirmation that United Methodists profess states:
“We share the Christian belief that God’s redemptive love is realized in human life by the activity of the Holy Spirit, both in personal experience, and in the community of believers [the church].” —¶102, The Book of Discipline
At the foundation of our faith is the conviction that Christianity is more than a set of beliefs. It is a lived experience of the Holy Spirit’s presence—both within individual lives and within a community empowered by the Spirit.
An Adventure Guided by the Holy Spirit
We experience the Holy Spirit in countless ways. Sometimes it comes through a deep sense of “the peace that passes understanding” or a gut-level warning that keeps us from danger. Sometimes it comes through daily prayer, as we learn to become more attentive to the Spirit’s still, small voice. And sometimes it comes through a life-changing, ecstatic encounter with God’s grace, through which we come to know that we are forgiven, saved, and accepted by God—much like John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience.
When I was in my twenties, I invited several friends to lunch because I needed to make a confession. In just three years of full-time ministry, I had become so focused on sharpening the professional skills that I could tell I was relying less and less on the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
“I don’t want my life to be about my own skills and strategies,” I told them. “I want my life to be an adventure guided by the Holy Spirit.”
By the end of that lunch, we had made plans to meet regularly in a group that still meets today. We wanted to help one another remain attentive to the Spirit’s presence and willing to say yes to the adventures the Spirit might place before us.
A Community Empowered by the Holy Spirit
Church is the name we give to the community God creates to help people experience the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. When we gather for worship—to sing praises, pray together, share our offerings, read Scripture, and proclaim God’s Word—we often find that the Holy Spirit speaks precisely the word we need to hear.
Every preacher I know has hundreds of stories about people leaving worship to share a powerful message they heard through the sermon or a song. Often, the message they received was not the preacher’s central point or even a particular lyric from the hymn. Yet, in the act of gathering for worship, they heard what God was trying to say to them that day.
The same thing often happens when we serve together, share our faith, or study the Bible. How many times have you heard someone say, “I got more than I gave,” after completing a service project? Or how often have you had a simple conversation about faith, choosing your words carefully so as not to offend a colleague, only to have that person unexpectedly show up at church soon afterward and tell you how much they needed that conversation?
And who among us has not left a Bible study thinking, “I didn’t even realize how weighed down I felt before, but wow, I feel so much better now”?
Secular historians sometimes struggle to explain how the early church spread like wildfire throughout the Mediterranean world when most of Jesus’ first disciples lacked education, wealth, and political influence. They can identify important sociological factors: the church’s leadership structure, which emphasized spiritual gifts and merit rather than family background or wealth; its radical welcome of people across social divisions; and its care for the hungry, the sick, and the vulnerable.
But those factors alone do not fully explain how terrified disciples became fearless evangelists. Nor do they explain how people living thousands of miles away—people who had never met Jesus or heard him preach during his lifetime—came to stake their lives on the conviction that he was still alive.
As Christians, we have a straightforward explanation for the growth of the early church: the Holy Spirit.
Admittedly, our secular friends may not yet be convinced that we can prove this in a laboratory. But the truth is that our lives, our faith, and our churches simply do not make sense without it.
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Wil Cantrell serves as senior pastor of Concord United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
He is author of:
ATONE: The Difference the Cross Makes
From Heaven to Earth: Christmas for New Believers, Old Believers, and Nonbelievers