Toward Sunday

Birth Stories will be our theme this week as we conclude our worship series, This Christian Life.  Our worship series is inspired by the story telling curated by Ira Glass on National Public Radio’s This American Life. Each week we have looked at a theme related to the Christian life through the lens of several stories. The stories varied each week. Some were rooted in our own community’s story and some came from people far away. Some were humorous and some were challenging.  Many of our stories came come from the Book of Acts.

▪April 12:  Weighing What Matters (Acts 4.32-35)
▪April 19:  Inside Job (Book of Esther)
▪April 26: Crossover Tactics (Acts 4.5-12)
▪  May 3:  Unexpected Guides (Acts 8.26-40)
▪May 10: All Means All (Acts 10.44-48)
▪May 17: Waiting Sucks OR Forcing It (Acts 1.15-17,21-26)
▪May 24: Birth Stories (Acts 2.1-21)

This week in worship we will consider Birth Stories as we hear the story of Pentecost.

Take time and read the account of Pentecost in Acts 2.1-21.  Notice how God “initiates salvation” in this event.  Often we read about the Holy Spirit as an abiding presence of God.  This presence provides comfort and safety for those of us who seek to know God through the life of Jesus.  It is how many of us find our way toward salvation. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit moves differently.  It is the same spirit with a different energy.  Barbara Brown Taylor says it this way:  “This is the Spirit that blows and burns, howling down the chimney and turning all the lawn furniture upside down….ask anyone who was in that room on Pentecost what it was like to be caught up in the Spirit, and whether it is something they would like to happen every Sunday afternoon…..Pentecost is our reminder that there is another side to God’s Spirit-one that can set us on fire, transform our lives, turn the world upside down.  It is not predictable.  It is very risky and it is beyond our control….” [from Bread of Angels, Cowley Publications 1997, p. 67]