Rolling out with those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer is the longest and perhaps most difficult season of the church calendar. From May 27 until Nov. 23—24 Sundays in all—the Church is in a season simply known as “after Pentecost.” During this time we are challenged with following the spirit-filled witness of the earliest Christians as they sought to make sense of Jesus’ gospel in a world without his physical presence. While maintaining the energy of Pentecost for six months is truly a task, the events surrounding this mysterious day and season have much to offer churches seeking to be ancient-future witness for Jesus Christ in the 21st century.
Alex Gallimore
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Perhaps our greatest learning from the Pentecost event comes from the very moment God’s spirit is poured out upon the people. The text says, “When they were all together in one place” (Acts 2:1), Pentecost happened. They were not scattered, they were not divided, they were not separated between disciples and non-disciples or by nationality. They were all together in one place when the spirit of God arrived on the scene.
If we are to become a Pentecost people, a people who move in our world and act as the very presence of God to everyone we meet, we must come together in one place. We must lay down the petty differences that divide us and unite for a common purpose and common goal: to share the love, peace and hope of the gospel to a world that desperately needs it. This is not to say that we will not have differences and must always agree with one another. As Baptists we understand that soul and church freedom always leads to differences of conscience. Still, we must never let our differences prevent us from working together in the building of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Peter, quoting the prophet Joel, also offers a few words of what we might expect if our communities of faith have come together in one place to truly be spirit-filled witnesses of Jesus in our world. There are three important signs we cannot overlook.
First, when the Holy Spirit comes into a place and moves us into action, who are we to quench the spirit and limit anyone from sharing their experience and take leadership positions? Sadly, we are still fighting “gender-wars” as Baptists, which I have seen clearly in the high number of my female colleagues still looking for their first post-seminary position. If we are going to be the people the world needs, we must take prophetic action and acknowledge the equal callings of all of God’s people. Furthermore, we must allow the spirit to lead us to the others, male and female, who stand at the margins of our communities trusting that they too are the bearers of the words of God. When the spirit comes, communities who have had their own Pentecost moments understand that everyone, their sons and their daughters (2:17), have something to say.
Second, when churches come together and experience a moment of Pentecost, the younger generations will have visions for how their faith can meet the challenges of their world (2:17). In fact, the Pentecost narrative tells us that when the Holy Spirit comes, the greatest hopes and dreams of previous generations become one with the new visions for church and cultural life of the emerging generations and God uses them to do truly magnificent things. Spirit-filled churches committed to renewal and being continually relevant in their community are those who find ways to connect and revitalized their old stories with the passions and visions of the next generation.
Finally, what can we expect if we allow the spirit to make us one? What if we listen to our sons and daughters, the dreams of the founding and visions of the emerging generations? Our text is clear: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (2:21). Every individual seeking to be a person of the spirit shall experience the presence of God in their life. Every church that merges the voices of the old as well as the new shall experience renewal, and every person in our community who sees the love of God in and through our spirit-filled witness shall cry out, and be saved.
So may we become a spirit-filled people who follow the movements of God in our world and may we bear witness to the gospel in everything we do, knowing that we walk alongside the very presence of God. May we become aware of that presence and allow it to shape us into the people we have been called to be.
Alex Gallimore ([email protected]) is associate pastor for youth at Piney Grove Baptist Church in Mount Airy, N.C.