Our experience of the Spirit

Matthew Hosier has written a helpful article reflecting on the 1994 Toronto Blessing / PMOTS (‘present move of the Spirit’). He explores the extent to which our experiences of the Holy Spirit are culturally mediated, and goes on to relate this to current UK movements that identify 1994 in their roots:

The danger in my pointing this out is that I will be accused of claiming these experiences are ‘merely cultural’. Not at all. Rather, that we need to be wise in distinguishing what is from God, what is deception, what is imperative, what indicative, and what is our culturally mediated response.

Twenty years on, I’m not sure I have an adequate answer to the question ‘1994 – What was that all about?’ I believe God was in it, but that there were excesses, and that the form PMOTS took reflected other cultural trends evident in western society at the time.

I don’t think the point here is to question the degree to which our experience of the Spirit is ‘genuine’, but to recognise that the way we experience the Spirit’s work in our lives is not done in a cultural vacuum. I’d be interested to know the degree to which moves of the Spirit break down aspects of (often church) culture that are blockers to the work of the Spirit in our lives.

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