All of our preparations and activities this past week and a half culmintated in our Pentecost party. Sunday marked 50 days after we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus. And 50 days after THAT day was when the Holy Spirit came, giving power and boldness. That was the day that the disciples boldly proclaimed the good news of Jesus and over 3,000 decided to follow Jesus. The church was born.
The boys helped gather balloons and finish the crowns. Candles were lit!
And a meal was shared.
The highlight for the evening was of course the ‘birthday’ cake and singing. The boys also sang one of the two songs they had learned.
We have been talking about how the church is “who” not “where.” This is difficult because our terminology really can mislead. We refer to the building as the church or the Sunday morning meeting as church. But what we need to really understand at a deep level is that those who believe in Jesus are the church. Sunday morning is simply the gathering of the church.
To reinforce this, I taught the boys a song that I learned as a child. I only remembered the chorus and first two verses, but was excited to discover that there was more, including a verse directly relating to Pentecost.
Wobbles, courtesy of a certain 2 year old who wanted to ‘watch’.
We are the Church from Heather Haupt | Cultivated Lives on Vimeo.
We Are the Church
Words and Music by Richard K. Avery and Donald S. Marsh, 1972
Chorus:
I am the church, you are the church;
we are the church together.
All who follow Jesus, all around the world.
Yes, we’re the church together.
Verses:
The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple,
The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple,
the church is not a place, but the church is the people.
We’re many kinds of people, with many kinds of faces,
all colors and all ages, too, from all times and places.
And when the people gather, there’s singing and there’s praying,
there’s laughing and there’s crying sometimes, all of it saying:
At Pentecost some people received the Holy Spirit
and told the Good News through the world to all who would hear it.
I’m excited to explore this again next year. There are so many different aspects to mediate on – the history of the early church, the Holy Spirit (fruit, gifts, filling, power, comfort), the Jewish feast of Pentecost or First Fruits. So until next year…
Pentecost was, no doubt, a very special miracle! It really isn’t the starting point of the church though. What about Noah, Abraham, Daniel, and Job? Weren’t they part of the “who” of the church? Look into doing a Jesse Tree devotional at Christmas time. When we do ours we always learn so much about the story of Jesus through the Old Testament as well as the New.
It is the start of the Christian church. It is when the Holy Spirit came and indwelled the small gathering of new believers and propelled them to share the Good News so that thousands of people were added to the body of Christ that day. It represented a shift from Judaism because they now recognized Jesus as the Messiah. This in no way diminishes the role of Noah, Abraham, Daniel, Job or the countless others who in faith looked forward to the coming Messiah. We love to study the Old Testament and mark the Jewish feasts. Pentecost merely recognizes the beginning of a new era – the era of the Christian church.
Hello Heather:
We are a peruvian family. This is our firt Pentecost party and we give thanks to God for having found your web. We love your crowns.
God bless you.
Javier Lavado and Family
I’m so glad. I love how the world wide web makes the world seem just a little bit smaller! 🙂
Thank you for sharing your link, Heather.
I love the crowns!