A Wave of Joy

Photo by Rachel Lynette French on Unsplash

How do you sense the Holy Spirit in a worship service?

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity according to most Christian traditions - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When Christians gather to worship, we do so believing that we will encounter God in the service, during our worship, speaking to us, encouraging us, becoming real to us in some way. The Holy Spirit is central to this work. Paul describes how the Spirit works:

"Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, ^c Father.” Galatians 4:6 (NIV)

But how do you sense the Holy Spirit in a worship service?

This past weekend, we experienced the Spirit profoundly in our service. Our service was about encouragement and we had just had a moment of silent reflection focusing on encouraging verses from the Bible. The band began to play a song and invited everyone to sing. A young woman (underclassman in High School) led the singing. Her singing was beautiful. I said as much to our sound guy, and then it happened.

It was like a wave of joy. Like when something amazing happens, but it takes time to ripple through the crowd at a game. Think of the large crowd waves done at sports events. As they flow around the stadium, people wait for it to arrive and then join in on the action. This wave began like that, a ripple from the front row to the back, sending goosebumps along my skin and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. A few people started cheering in the middle, voices got louder as we sang that "we are who God says we are". The joy was infectious and people sang together louder and stronger through the rest of the song. As the song ended, people spontaneously applauded - not to the woman singing, or the band, but to God.

This is how we sensed the Holy Spirit on Sunday at worship. It has stayed with me throughout the day. It was a holy moment and I share it to say, thank you God for meeting us and answering my prayers for an experience with you on Sunday.

So, how do you sense the Holy Spirit in a worship service?