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    Fresh Wind Blowing: Living in God's New Pentecost
    Fresh Wind Blowing: Living in God's New Pentecost
    Fresh Wind Blowing: Living in God's New Pentecost
    Ebook118 pages2 hours

    Fresh Wind Blowing: Living in God's New Pentecost

    By Steve Harper

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    About this ebook

    A fresh wind of God's Spirit is blowing on the earth today, and as in times past, God is inviting us to raise our sails and move forward with the power and direction that reflects our commitment to God's will. Some are calling it "a new pentecost," but whatever name is given, we are living in a time when we have an opportunity to connect with God's renewing work. One specific manifestation of this movement is "the new monasticism." This book is an invitation to explore it and embrace the dynamics it contains.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCascade Books
    Release dateOct 28, 2013
    ISBN9781621899921
    Fresh Wind Blowing: Living in God's New Pentecost
    Author

    Steve Harper

    Steve Harper, PhD, is vice president and professor of spiritual formation at the Florida campus of Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of numerous magazine articles and has written twelve books, including Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition and Praying through the Lord’s Prayer. Dr. Harper and his wife, Jeannie, live in Orlando, Florida. They have two grown children and two grandchildren.

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      Book preview

      Fresh Wind Blowing - Steve Harper

      Fresh Wind Blowing

      Living in God’s New Pentecost

      Steve Harper

      2008.Cascade_logo.pdf

      FRESH WIND BLOWING

      Living in God’s New Pentecost

      New Monastic Library 13

      Copyright © 2013 Steve Harper. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Cascade Books

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      isbn 13: 978-1-62032-657-2

      eisbn 13: 978-1-62189-992-1

      Cataloging-in-Publication data:

      Harper, Steve.

      Fresh wind blowing : living in God’s new Pentecost / by Steve Harper.

      x + 76 p. ; 23 cm. —

      New Monastic Library 13

      isbn 13: 978-1-62032-657-2

      1. Spiritual life—Christianity. 2. Monastic and religious life. 3. Church. I. Title. II. Series.

      BV4501.3 .H37 2013

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      Introduction

      If I could send you this book in the form of an invitation, I would do so. That’s the way I thought about it as I wrote it, and I hope it’s the way you can read and respond to it. An invitation is based on something significant, and the sender hopes that the receiver will say yes and become part of what the invitation offers. As you will discover very soon, I believe God is at work on the earth today in a significant way. There are some places where this is more easily seen, but it is a fact that all of us must take into account. There is a fresh Wind blowing. We are being invited to raise our sails and allow the Spirit to empower and direct us.

      Three streams in my life have converged to create this conviction. The first stream is the contemplative tradition. About ten years ago I began to read more directly in that literature, and doing so revived a hunger in me for a simpler and more contemplative way of living. One way that I acted on this desire came in 2009, when I stepped down as the vice president of the Florida-Dunnam campus of Asbury Theological Seminary and became a full-time faculty member. Subsequently, my wife and I have been able to renew the pace of grace in our lives. We have prayed that God’s fresh Wind might fill and direct us. We have put our little boat into the water and are trying to be faithful to a more contemplative life that is emerging. We further deepened that commitment at the end of 2012 by retiring completely from the seminary.

      The second stream is what some today are calling a new pentecost. I have joined with a growing number of people in believing that we are living in a significant kairos time. This conviction has taken me further into a classical Christian spiritual formation that is ecumenical in nature and that gives particular attention to the holy-living tradition. Following this stream is providing me with the joy of increasing my connection to the great cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1) and of establishing my formation in a liturgical way.

      The third stream is the new monasticism. This too is a revival of a classic way of life, but it is being expressed in fresh ways in this generation. To be a monk is to be singular (monos)—that is, to live for God alone, but not necessarily in a monastic cell. A growing number of men and women are committing themselves to live as domestic monks—people who live in the world through a variety of vocations, but do so in relation to a rule of life, common vows, mutual accountability, liturgical worship, and compassionate service. I make no claim to be involved in this movement to the extent to which some others are, but the past few years have given my wife and me opportunities to embrace the vision reflected in the new monasticism.

      These three streams come together in this book. They have come together before in church history. They can be found in a variety of movements and spiritual orders. I find them underlying my own Wesleyan tradition through the life and work of John and Charles Wesley in early Methodism. I am writing to invite you to join me in a more contemplative way of living—a way of living that moves in response to the Holy Spirit and finds expression in a life of Christian discipleship that incarnates the two great commandments.

      I must confess that I feel about myself somewhat the way I felt about Thomas Merton when I first discovered his writings more than forty years ago. He was described as one of the leaders in the civil rights movement. I wondered how he could be so viewed, given that he lived within the walls of a monastery. He was not literally on the cutting edge of the movement, and yet (paradoxically) he was. It was only as I immersed myself in Merton’s life and work that I discovered he was a voice speaking into the movement from the margin—offering what he once called conjectures of a guilty bystander.

      I see myself that way in writing this book. The bulk of my life has not been lived on the cutting edge of a new pentecost or a new monasticism. And by temperament, I have not embraced what most people mean when they speak of the contemplative life. I have lived inside the walls of mainline Protestantism and further within what some perceive as the ivory tower of the academy. I have done all this as an ordained member of the clergy, which itself makes up only a tiny percentage of the Christian population.

      But as I have done so, I have become increasingly convinced that things must change. And more, I have been blessed to see that they are changing. I have decided to join in. But at this stage of my life, all I can do is hope to be a voice God will use to speak this message to some people who have yet to hear it. I write as a bystander—even a guilty one. But perhaps God can use even that in the larger scheme of things. I pray so.

      I have chosen to extend this invitation through a series of meditations, not traditional chapters, so that you can ponder its message, rather than simply read for information. My hope is that this kind of reading will be like a key that opens the door to wider and more personal considerations on your part. If you feel an inclination to join with me in this kind of journey, I invite you to read on.

      one

      A New Pentecost

      God doesn’t visit the earth occasionally. The Spirit continues to hover over us, perpetuating creation and bringing about new creation. Similarly, Jesus does not visit his Bride—the church—intermittently. We are in constant communion. The church is being continuously renewed. The Spirit is breathing Life into the Body of Christ all the time. This is easier to see when we look back into history than it is when we stop to survey the life of the church in a particular moment. But it is so. The Bridegroom is madly in love with the Bride. We are never separated.

      But as with any marriage, there are times of particular and special renewal. There are seasons of refreshing. In human relations we call it marriage enrichment. In the Christian faith we call it kairos moments—occasions when God’s time defines and directs our human time. I believe we are living in such a time. I believe we are living in a time when God is doing a new thing on the earth. I believe we are living in a new pentecost.¹ I hold this conviction thanks to the insights of others whom I trust, as well as my own observations in the Body of Christ.

      But this conviction raises the unavoidable question, what does it look like to be part of a new pentecost? As prayerfully and carefully as I can, I want to offer a response in the form of a contemplative journey in the pages of this book—a journey that will bring us more fully into the ways of God that are unfolding in our lifetime. God is no respecter of persons. No one needs to miss a firsthand participation in what God is doing in our day. Some of you may be living in actual locations where evidences of a new pentecost are more easily seen. But what I am describing in this book is not limited to living in a particular place; it is an experience with God that can be lived anywhere in the world. I am writing to say to you, no matter where you may be, Raise your sails and let the fresh winds of the Spirit fill them and take you in directions that will bring new life to you and, through you, to the world.

      The Environment of a New Pentecost

      To say we are living in a new pentecost requires us first to understand what this means. It requires us to look at the first Pentecost from a different vantage point than is sometimes the case. There may have been as many as a million visitors to Jerusalem for the Day of Pentecost, but there were only 120 believers in the upper room. This means that only one hundredth of one percent (.0001 percent) were directly involved in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

      This is not where the story of Pentecost typically begins. We call Pentecost the birthday of the Christian church, but very few people in Jerusalem even knew it had happened. Many people probably walked beneath the windows of the upper room as the tongues of fire fell and the rushing wind blew, totally unaware of what was taking place upstairs. But it was the fulfillment of what Jesus had promised in Acts 1:8 when he said, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

      Furthermore, when Luke wrote that the believers were all together in one place (Acts 2:1), at least part of the reason for the gathering was that the future of Christianity was by no means certain. There is evidence that

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