'All the great figures in Acts are people of the Spirit', writes William Barclay.

Filled with the Spirit, Peter addressed the sanhedrin (4:8). When there was a need for new workers, the instruction was to seek out seven men of honest report and full of the Spirit (6:3). Stephen was full of faith and the Holy Spirit (6:5)... Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit at the beginning of his ministry for Christ (9:17, 13:8). Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith (11:24). The criterion by which the early church judged a person was that person's relationship to the Holy Spirit... It is even said of Jesus himself that God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power (10:38)... Had it not been for the guidance of the Spirit, the church might well have remained nothing more than a sect of Judaism... The real test of a church lies not in the statistics which an ecclesiastical yearbook can convey, but in the presence or absence of the Spirit. () Anne: this block of material was moved from another place. please put this endnote: ( ) William Barclay, The Promise of the Spirit, London: Epworth, 1960, pp. 55 ff.

One of the saddest things that can happen to churches over time is that they become institutionalized. There is something inherent within every religious and political movement as it tends towards inertia, dogmatism, and legalism. In his brilliant book The Go-Between God John V. Taylor notes that spiritual growth does not come 'from hearing and submitting to extraneous regulation'... 'Where Christians are still thinking in the traditional ways, they may... grow less and less distinctively Christian.' Spiritual dynamism comes from trusting the Holy Spirit rather than an imposed discipline. () John V Taylor, The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and the Christina Mission, London: SCM, 1972, p.159.

The Pharisees will always be with us. From motives of protecting the accoutrements of the Faith from contamination, they imprison it within structures and laws and dogma. So the church becomes throttled in its own institutionalism. 'Listening to the Spirit' is replaced by listening to the constitution, or tradition, or creed. It's only in the young churches (like Antioch in the first century, and many third world churches in our times) that you find a minute like this one.

Jurgen Moltman makes the same point. It is easy, he says, for a church to settle down into a comfortable orth- odoxy, with decision-making structures in place, constitut- ions formulated, activities planned for this or that purpose, and all we are doing is rearranging old wine-skins. Or we reduce salvation to justification by faith and forget that 'Through justification the unjust person is led into the history of the Spirit... becomes obedient in hope and the practice of divine righteousness... Liberation leads to the liberated life. Justification leads to the new creation.' () ()Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, London: SCM, 1977, p.36. Anne: another footnote. Please adjust other numbers in main copy and list of endnotes. Thanx (And erase this note!).

The picture often used to describe this state of affairs is that of opening of the church's windows. The fresh wind of the Spirit comes into the stuffy place and blows all the papers around. The elders scurry about collecting them again, organize everything as before, and close the windows. So the Spirit takes his leave...

Discuss: It is very difficult to fight institutionalism. How do you plan to do it in your church?