WASHINGTON (ABP) — While the annual observance of Pentecost is not one that has a long history with many Baptist churches, there’s a natural fit between the holiday’s emphasis on the international nature of the church and the traditional Baptist focus on global missions.
Throw in increasing multiculturalism in many churches in the United States, and you have a holiday from the ancient liturgical calendar that modern-day Baptists can take to with gusto, Baptist leaders from across the country say.
Tongues of flame
Members of Washington’s First Baptist Church prepare to begin the congregation’s processional hymn on Pentecost 2009 by carrying the flags of various nations. (FBCDC photo)
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From Oregon to Oklahoma to the nation’s capital, Baptist churches will celebrate Pentecost Sunday — which, in the Western Christian tradition, falls on May 23 this year — with international-flavored commemorations of the familiar story of the original Day of Pentecost. In Acts 2, which takes place shortly after Jesus has promised his followers a comforter and ascended to heaven, the Holy Spirit descends on the earliest Christian congregation with a rush of wind and tongues of flame. This causes the early believers to understand each other despite their speaking a panoply of different languages.
“At Broadway, we are going to do a reading of the Pentecost text using four to five speakers of other languages who are members of our congregation — Spanish, Japanese, Cambodian and others,” said Brent Beasley, pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. “At one point they will all speak at the same time in their languages, creating a Pentecost-type effect.”
At the First Baptist Church of Portland, Ore., the celebration “includes ‘Voices of Pentecost’ — members who each speak the words, ‘Jesus Christ is my Savior and Lord’ in another language, after which everyone says it together,” said church member Rob Knauerhase, in response to a written query. “In addition to our Spanish and Cambodian (native language) departments, we generally have an assortment of native or second-language speakers (French, German, Swedish, Greek, Japanese, Telugu (Southern India), Latin, and so on).”
From left to right, First Baptist Church of Washington members Josh Pierce, holding the flag of South Korea; Rei and John Linam, holding the flag of Japan; and Don Proia, holding the flag of Italy, prepare to participate in the church’s Pentecost processional last year. (FBCDC photo)
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The First Baptist Church of Washington — which has long hosted visitors and members from across the globe who pass through and settle in the nation’s capital — adds a striking visual element to its Pentecost celebration. The highly liturgical congregation begins every Sunday service with a processional of choir, pastors and lay readers down the church’s center aisle. But on Pentecost, the procession is augmented with flagbearers carrying an array of flags representing several dozen nations.
Many of the flagbearers are natives of the nations whose banner they carry or have some other connection — such as diplomats or military officers who were stationed there — to those countries. Some wear clothing traditional to the nation they represent, and all wear banners identifying the country whose flag they carry.
The flags are then taken to the balcony level and placed in holders that ring the sanctuary, providing throughout the service a visual representation of the worldwide movement that Pentecost sparked.
“On this Sunday we will celebrate the church’s ongoing oneness, her continued diversity, and unrelenting focus on God’s mission to the whole Earth,” wrote Jeffrey Haggray, the church’s pastor, in a May 18 newsletter column. “I think of Pentecost as the church’s ‘coming out’ celebration, because the movement that was organized, nurtured, tutored and commissioned by Jesus of Nazareth had its very public inaugural ceremony on the Day of Pentecost.”
Every Sunday a Pentecost
The sanctuary of Washington’s First Baptist Church framed by international flags on Pentecost. (FBCDC photo)
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At the First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, Pastor Tom Ogburn recently wrote, every Sunday seems like a Pentecost celebration. He noted that the church now hosts congregations of Spanish speakers, Arabic-speaking Christians from southern Sudan and Burmese refugees from multiple ethnic and language groups.
“In many congregations these various churches and fellowships would be content to worship and serve apart from one another,” he said, in a May 3 blog post. “FBC OKC has chosen to embrace another model. While we are distinct congregations, we are one church family together. The first Sunday of each month the congregations worship side-by-side in a service that now includes elements from the five shared languages the congregations use in their unique worship services.”
Ogburn continued: “While the church bounds do not yet include people from every nation under heaven, our version of living Pentecost has so shaped us that it taken us from the streets of Oklahoma City and carried into ministries across the globe. It has also given us a little glimpse into what God is doing in the global church and a small taste of what it means to be a part of the Kingdom of God. I am glad for the movement of the Sprit and for the opportunity to serve in the midst of a living Pentecost.”
Multiculturalism and mission
Brent Beasley
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Broadway’s Beasley said that, as Baptist churches become more multicultural in their composition, Pentecost will likely increasingly become a celebration of the church’s mission to the wider world — and the ongoing work of God in breaking down barriers.
“The Holy Spirit wind of God at Pentecost upended previously settled understandings of who is in and who is out, who is clean and who is unclean, who is worthy to proclaim the gospel and who is not,” he said. “The original Pentecost was a day when, because of the Spirit, people who didn’t share the same language, people of different socio-economic backgrounds, male and female, young and old, came together in a worship experience. Seems like a perfect day for a diverse congregation to celebrate its diversity as well as its unity in the Spirit.”
But that unity does not come easy or simply, Beasley added.
“When it comes to Pentecost, often when we think about the Holy Spirit, we think about the Spirit as comforter and bringer of peace — and the Spirit is that,” he said. “But Pentecost calls on us to think about the Holy Spirit as a disruptive force, a wind that blows in unanticipated and unbidden into our lives and blows us in new directions.
“We often think of the Holy Spirit as a peaceful dove, but Pentecost reminds me of the Celtic Christian’s image of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose — which is a big, noisy, ornery bird.”
Broadway notes the ongoing nature of God’s mission for the church by using Pentecost Sunday to collect the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions Offering.
Neville Callam
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Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, said in a May 19 Pentecost message to BWA supporters across the globe that, even in a world that shrinks every day due to technology and economic advances, border-crossing missions work is just as necessary now as it was on the original Pentecost.
“Today, international travel and migration have changed, sometimes radically, the composition of human communities. This has intensified the church's awareness of the need for engagement in mission at the local level. However, it has not diminished the need for Christians to cross frontiers in order to share the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ,” Callam said. “As we commemorate the first Pentecost, may our zeal for the worldwide mission of the church be renewed and may we, in humility but with confidence, proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God so that knowledge of the glory of God will fill the Earth.”
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Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.