So,
What does Pentecost mean to you?
Have you ever felt so full of the Holy Spirit that you decided it was completely okay to go and do something for God that was completely crazy?
One of my personal calls to mission and ministry is funerals. Yes, I know a call to mission to do funerals is a strange call. And yes, I know they are part of my job as pastor.
But what you may not know is that many pastors during the time of COVID have been unwilling to provide leadership at funerals, or they are unwilling to do a funeral service for a person who is not a member.
But God made clear to me that every person who wants a funeral that celebrates the resurrection, even if they were not a traditional church person, ought to have one, and that I had been uniquely gifted to be one who in willing service of behalf of Jesus Christ, could provide that service for them.
It's not much, but I can share with you that many families are deeply moved that someone would come and honor their loved one. And I have met some wonderful, amazing people of faith because of that willingness to open up the door and go!
What is your calling?
Remember, these disciples have been for the most part been pretty well separated from the larger Jerusalem community. They had been listening to Jesus teach about the meaning of the resurrection for forty days, and then had been on their own after Jesus’ ascension, waiting on the Holy Spirit’s power.
Now the Spirit came, and the question of what to do next was moot! They immediately got going!
Last week John Goldsmith and I were talking about our online worship and how we are always searching for ways to make ours better and at the same time more authentic.
One of the things we both do is look online to see what other churches are doing, to see if perhaps we can see something that makes sense for our situation.
One of the challenges though it that often we are finding churches that are very large, do worship in a very different style, and really are set up as video stages rather than a church sanctuary like ours.
And to be sure, they are doing a great job in their setting. But that doesn’t help us see new ways to do better what we could do in our setting. So, if you are scrolling around and see a church like ours that is streaming worship, send us a link so we can go and see if we find some good ideas there!
But keep in mind, the evidence for the Holy Spirit’s presence in a church is never how good the worship is, how good the gatherings are, how tasty the food is, if they have any, or how deep the fellowship. Those may all help the church in doing what they have been called to do.
But the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the faith community, is it witness outside its doors!
Any church can do worship. Some do it better than others, I suppose.
One person on Social media recently asked cynically if it was really worship if you didn’t have a lighting director and a hazer going in a pitch-black worship center?
But a hazer and lights doesn’t tell you how dynamic the Spirit’s presence is in the church any more than how big the baptismal font is. Because what the Spirit does is simply to empower what Jesus has already told us to do…
Go!
We have marching orders, as it were, to go into all the world and share the gospel, beginning in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then to the world.
That is, we are to start in our own backyards!
Not stopping there, of course, but for sure starting there - just as the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem did.
Filled with the Spirit, they opened up the doors and began to share with the people just outside of them the amazing good news that Jesus was alive! They talked to them in languages they understood best. They shared their experiences, the Lord and Master they had followed, told the story of his death and resurrection and invited them to come and follow too.
They told them that Jesus had reconciled them to God!
They told them that they were now accounted as God’s own beloved children!
Even if they had been notorious sinners! Even if they were women! Even if they were orphans or slaves! Even if they were foreigners! Or their skin was a different color than theirs! Or even if they were gay or straight, or single or married, or working or unemployed.
Or they were sick, or demon possessed, or they were Samaritans or Romans or Pharisees or Priests, or Republicans or Democrats or even if they were prisoners!
What mattered was that they were outside the door, and the call to God’s people now and then always is…
Go!
Lee Runnalls and I were talking about the 165th Anniversary of the First Presbyterian Church of Otisville and Lee was noting some of the things we have done as a church family since the 150th anniversary in 2005.
Over those fifteen years it has been a lot!
And Lee is looking for some pictures, one or two, of each of those events so we can record them in an organized fashion for posterity, and then we marveled how many of the things we have done were for those outside our doors.
The Deacons 5K, trips in mission to Haiti and Texas and North Carolina. The Food Pantry and Thanksgiving Baskets. Flood Buckets. And so much more.
When the Holy Spirit comes in power, you will go.
Even in the days of COVID-19.
Because we are On Fire with the Holy Spirit!
And all God’s people said, Amen!
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