What to Expect in the Outpouring

Since September 2023, New Life has experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our weekly Sunday gatherings that has reshaped our regular service format.

Our gatherings have transformed into dynamic encounters with the Spirit of God. This season has been marked by profound experiences of God's presence and power, touching the lives of everyone in our community, from the youngest to the oldest.

Encounters Across Ages
Wonderfully, individuals across all ages have encountered God in profound and life-changing ways. Children as young as four have had open visions of Jesus, illustrating the boundless reach of God's love and presence. Similarly, many who have never before felt God's presence or stepped into a church have met Him in ways that have altered the course of their lives forever, resulting in them accepting Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

One such person, who had never been to church before, and who spoke very little English, experienced a "Presence" unlike anything that he had met before. This Presence highlighted areas of his life that he was not living rightly. This young man made a decision to turn his life around. Later on that morning he surrendered his life to King Jesus.  

There have been some comical moments. On two separate occasions, visitors to our city were dropped off at the wrong church by taxi drivers. Both of these individuals were deeply impacted in life-changing ways.

A Tapestry of Responses
In the presence of God, our congregation responds in a myriad of authentic ways. Some find themselves lying face down on the ground, while others kneel. Some sit quietly in their seats, enveloped in the presence of God. We encourage everyone to be true to their personal response and encourage you to lean into whatever God is doing among us or directly within your heart. Scripture encourages people to "seek the Lord while he may be found" (Is. 55:6). In this season where He is making Himself particularly accessible, don't hold back in your response. Yield yourself to Him.

The Awe of God's Presence
It has been hard to accurately describe what our services are like, except to say that God orchestrates these gatherings! The entire occassion are like a corporate Divine encounter that God invites us to step into and participate in.

The Apostle Paul's description of dynamic spaces where hymns, teachings, revelations, and personal expressions of faith freely flow, comes close (1 Cor. 14:26). We have often found a particular focus or emphasis that emerges in the course of our gatherings. I haven't preached a formal prepared sermon throughout the outpouring, although there are often extemporaneous sermonettes given by the team. The times are always deeply Christological (Christ-focused). Not surprisingly, we have discovered that Holy Spirit is really good at glorifying Jesus (Jn. 16:14).

This outpouring has also been deeply marked by a profound sense of the awe of God. God's majesty is often so overwhelmingly tangible that our only valid response is to silently behold Him (Rev. 8:1). These times of "Holy Hush" are profound, and as one person aptly captured, in our culture today silence and stillness is an absolute sign and wonder. Many have come out of these times with a deeper love and commitment to God. Others have found a profound freedom or experienced emotional or physical healing.

Stewarding the Divine
Our Core and Worship Teams play a crucial role in navigating our services. Their role is not to direct the proceedings but to comprehend what God is doing and help people step into and respond to whatever God is doing in a given moment.

Is this Revival?
This is a hard one to answer, for one, revival is not a word that you find in the pages of the Bible. Also, people mean so many different things when they talk about revival. For me, I understand revival as a way of describing a sustained "in-breaking" of the Kingdom of God. It is like the tap of the Kingdom gets turned on over a community or region in different ways, such as people coming into life-giving relationships with God, or people being spiritually renewed and rejuvinated, or communities at transformed.

The common hallmark of the many different expressions of revival is the manifestation of glory. Glory is the one word that comes closest to describing God in a single word. People who have experienced revival always reflect that the glory of God is unmistakably present. They describe a very tangible, undeniable, wonderful sense of the Spirit of the Living God presencing Himself in the midst of what is taking place. We certainly have that going on in our gatherings.

Regardless of whatever you want to call what God is doing in this outpouring, we are humbled and so very grateful. Week to week we pray that God will not lift His hand off us in the way He has been moving. However, we didn't start this, and it is not ours to "bottle" and possess. We just walk in absolute consciousness that we are living in a special moment in our church's history, and that we will lean into whatever God is doing.
 
Join Us on This Divine Journey
We have tried to comprehend the why and the what of the outpouring. A wise-leader counselled us to not overly think it. He explained that God is brooding over us, and that when God is brooding mode, our role is not to evaluate. All we know is that God is birthing something new in this day that is vital for the mission we are called to of revelation, liberation and restoration of Jesus and His Kingdom.

Regardless of your age or spiritual background, there's a place for you here to explore, experience, and discover more of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Come and taste and see that God is good (Ps. 34:8)