kleenex & tissues and the Holy Spirit from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

last week i went to hang with my friends at the nashville cohort. we had our annual, ‘what are you thinking about’ session. one of the questions had to do with the our understanding of the Holy Spirit and how to communicate to others what that is.

certainly as methodists we have our ‘strangely warmed‘ historic experience that we can be comfortable with a physical reaction in our bodies to the spirit’s movement, but for so many people our modern idea of the Holy Spirit comes from azusa street & the birth of pentecostal movement.

my odd connection in our conversation this day was to say, this is basically a kleenex & tissue issue. when you grab something to blow your nose what do you call that thing? many times you’d call it a kleenex.. however, kleenex is just a brand name for a tissue. however, we often don’t distinguish the two as different. they are one in the same. the tissue has been has a history longer than the kleenex, but we still mix the two. same thing with the Holy Spirit.. sorta..

we’ve allowed the pentecostal movement to lay claim to the Holy Spirit and brand it as what we often times know today. so there is a need to, as we talk about & experience the Holy Spirit, to let folks know that we are experiencing the ’tissue’ not necessarily the kleenex.