We ask only one thing: that the Holy Spirit come to us and establish among us the government and reign of God; that nothing else count for us but only this one thing, the Spirit of the coming kingdom of Jesus Christ. Him we entreat to step into the life of this community, so that from here he may stream out and radiate into the whole world, into the hearts of all men; a hidden and mysterious working of this very Spirit who speaks his word from heart to heart and from soul to soul, who carries his message onward, reveals his life, proclaims his prophecy, and manifests his reality.
- Eberhard Arnold
- Eberhard Arnold, November 1918 From an EssayWhen poets describe their experience of the powers that move in their inmost hearts, then they speak about longing. If we allow only a few rays of hope from the poets to work upon us, we will be deeply moved by the indissoluble connection between mankind and longing. Even the smallest selection of the poetic outpouring of human longing will confront us with their deepest content: the longing for God and for unity with God. At the deepest level, they have recognized that the essence of all longing is the cry of the soul to God.
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The power of heaven, as the authority of the Holy Spirit, is at work in a church of the new creation. It lives in her as a promise of the sunny days to come over an earth growing cold. In the midst of an aging world, the church, impregnated with eternity and filled with the future, gains strength for God and his kingdom through the Spirit. The church receives eternal and infinite majesty as a first beam of light from the future. Going forth from the throne of God’s rule, the Lord of light fills the church eternally.
- Eberhard Arnold
The purpose of our gathering for prayer is to call upon God to come to us and implore his Spirit to come down, to call Christ into our midst, not only for ourselves, but for the great events in the wide world. The reason we live in community is so that we may come before God with the power to pray and so that thereby world history may take a decisive turn, through the return of Christ, right through the end-time.
- Eberhard Arnold