Reckless Love at Christmas

Do you know what I love about Christmas? Well, I can list quite a few things: the music, the advent celebrations with the local church, giving gifts to each other out of love, and just getting to be with friends and family over the season. However, I also know that Christmas can be very stressful (I currently work part-time in the retail and wholesale industry, so I can attest to that); it can also be depressing with the loss of loved ones over the years. But I want to focus more on why Christmas is significant to me.

Basic: Holy Spirit

In continuation with my Basic Series adventure with my college n' careers group, we watched the third video: Holy Spirit. This video talks about who the Holy Spirit is and some thoughts on why the Holy Spirit we read in the New Testament doesn't seem to be present today in our churches. Here are just a small amalgamation of some thoughts my group mates and I after viewing the video.

Is it just me, or have we sort of cheapened the person of the Holy Spirit? What I mean is, why is it that we talk about the Holy Spirit when we're in church, and we have this predictable nature with our services that nothing about it seems to be supernatural, if natural at all. Why doesn't the presence of the Holy Spirit not appear or sound similar to something like what the Apostles experienced in Acts?