Dear Friends,

Pentecost is the day when the Christian Church celebrates God’s outpouring of the Holy Spirit as recorded in the 2^nd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the New Testament book we often just refer to as “Acts.”  It is the story of the birth of the Church and a rather strange birth it was.  Waiting in Jerusalem for “power from on high” as Jesus had told them (Luke 24:49), the apostles experience the outpouring of God’s Spirit in a sound like “the rush of a violent wind” and through the appearance of “divided tongues, as of fire” that rested upon each of them (Acts 2:2-3).  They began to speak in other languages and people began to hear of God’s mighty acts in their own native tongues.  It was a scene of chaos and of wonder and was so outside what was expected that many gathered there just assumed they were all drunk!

The Day of Pentecost, an ancient Jewish harvest festival, a day that had been celebrated the same way seemingly forever, was turned into something unexpected and unusual. It really was the beginning of the Christian faith turning the world upside down!  For me, Pentecost is a time to be reminded that God is in the business of change, of doing things in new ways and of pouring the Spirit upon people in order to transform lives in the name of Christ.

While we can’t go back and experience the first Pentecost, we can celebrate it in ways that are different from that which is usual and maybe even different from that which is “normal.”  This Pentecost, May 11, we are going to celebrate the outpouring of God’s Spirit in ways that will be different from our usual ways of worshiping and maybe even different from what we might think normal.

Some of us speak the language of traditional worship and some of us speak the language of contemporary worship.  On Sunday, May 11 at 11:00 a.m. we will all gather in one place for a time of worship and celebration and we will hear of God’s mighty deeds in our own language of worship!  Our choir will be singing, our praise band will be playing, the organ will be playing and all of us gathered together will worship!  We will sing songs that are familiar and ones that are not.  We will pray prayers together and hear the proclamation of God’s Word.  We will share in a Holy Meal and we will celebrate the many ways in which people hear the Word of the Lord.

 Faithfully,