Yesterday I attended a day at a church in Ripon where such subjects such as prophesy and the holy spirit were covered. I was primarily there to play keyboards, but rather than hide behind that (which I sometimes have a tendancy to do) I listend and participated in what was actually going on.
It’s no secret that I think that a lot of the time churches are freaky places and don’t actually do a very good job of communicating what it means to be a Christian in our world. I also think that sometimes (well, most of the time) a lot of christians don’t help things by being a bit.. well… abnormal.

So it was refreshing to hear the speaker, Gary Best from Vineyard in Canada speaking and being compleatly normal. He talked of his struggles in engaging with God and especially in dealing with some of the thinks regarding the holy spirit that might be likley to flip people out (falling over, laughing etc.)
There was a strong theme of community. For example, rather than expecting some kind of prophetic future predicition, or some kind of rebuke for how bad we all are, he suggested that we should spend time looking deeply at others around us and asking that we might know what to say to them in their situations.

Ever had an experence when you just know that someone is upset, or had a problem deeper than that which they are approaching you with? I know I have, and that to me is God prompting me to say something and try and assist in that situation.
How great it would and should be, gary said, if our churches were places where we could respond to the needs of the people around us and where we all could get involved in ministering to people.

He used the illustration of the seaguls in finding nemo to describe a situation where a group of people might be about to be able to experiance God but being ruined by that annoying “mine, mine, mine…” We should encourage others to engage in experiencing God and not worry if we’re not having the same experiences as they are.

Above all, I was struck by how non judgemental, normal and interesting the teaching was, and that’s something that it often missing.
Fair enough, people do poke fun (more than most faith groups I think) at Christians, and indeed there may be much to poke fun at. However, some Christians may be more normal that you think!