Okay, I have precisely five minutes to blog this morning before leaving for Loughborough and Open Heaven Church.

Today the reading comes from Psalm 50:5 and uses the words “Gather to me my consecrated ones.”  Whitefield is returning from America in late 1738 to find that the Wesleys have built strongly on what had been started a year ago.

In an “upper room” in Whitechapel, on New Year’s Day 1739, there is a great out-pouring of the Holy Spirit – like a Methodist Pentecost. For some of us that may seem like a crazy fantasy – could such things really happen in the Methodist Church.  But the point is that that is what the Methodist Church was like and what it was born of.

Wesley describes in his journal, “the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch as many cried out for exceeding joy and many fell to the ground.”

This is an appropriate passage for today as I travel to Loughborough to meet with other leaders who are helping with the work of Pioneer Connexion.  May this be a gathering of “consecrated ones”, may there be an out-pouring of the Spiri; Lord, equip us for your work and teach us to expect great things of you and of what we can do in Your name.