Baptism In The Holy Spirit Intro

Hello everyone. It is a privilege to be with you all. My name is Alan and I have the honor of being the Chi Alpha Director alongside my wife Lauren for Wichita State University. About 9 years ago God radically captured my heart while I was attending college at Seward County Community College. I had previously accepted Christ into my heart in High School, but it wasn’t until College that I really started to live for Him. Now, I remember one strong prayer I laid before Christ around the time I rededicated my lie to him that he would bring alongside me strong, passionate, authentic believers. He did. There was a girl named Natalie who I had in my 8am government class (rookie mistake). But she suffered through that morning calss and after class we would talk through different questions we had about the Bible and Jesus. For the purpose of tonight, I actually want to highlight another friend, a brother if you will, who came into my life shortly after praying my prayer to God. His name was Bradley. Now, I thought Bradley at first was going to be a complete baseball jock who was too cool for Christianity. But, instead I found out that he was a pastor’s kid who had a passion for seeking after Truth and wanting to share his faith publicaly. Over the course of the next 7 months, our friendship blossomed to brotherhood. On one particular night of immense worship. You guys know what I am talking about? I am talking about one of those times in a service, or conference, or retreat where you are just praising God so intensely with other people and you can feel God in the room

Well, in this particular night, it was a bunch of us college students worshipping together (and we were all from different denominations, Catholics, baptists, methodists, etc), when Bradley pulls me aside and whisppers in my ear words that never left my heart because they started a ripple effect of curiosity. He said “Alan, I really feel led to speak in tongues tonight. I really want to speak in tongues but I am scared to do that in front of everyone.” You guys know what he meant by that? Some of you might. But if you are like me, I had no idea what that meant. So he and I had established a strong relationship by then that we were able to talk through what exactly he meant by that statement. Over the next several months I was led on a journey to seek and discover what exactly it meant to speak in tongues and a phenomenom we refer to in the Christian world as the “Baptism in the Holy Spirit.” So tonight, I want to spend just a couple of minutes introducing you to this experience and phenomenon with the goal that at the end of this talk, you are just as curious and passionate as I am to seek after the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. So let’s start out by talking about what this baptims is, then discuss Biblically where we see this originate from, and conclude by discussing the reasons to seek after it.

What is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit