Small Talk

Small Talk

May 2016

It’s the season of the Spirit! What is the work of the Spirit? It’s everything and anything! The Spirit can be, and is, the great agent of possibility.

In a few weeks, PACC will gather to worship and celebrate the Rite of Confirmation with seven of our young people. It’s no accident that that will happen on Pentecost, May 15th.  Please lend your spirit to welcoming PACC’s newest members and to celebrating this milestone in their lives.

Pentecost literally is a red-letter day, so yes, if you can wear red to worship, great!  Pentecost often is called the birthday of the Church, so yes, there will be cake! It’s the Spirit’s big day and it’s a big day for the Confirmands.

It’s a time when they say, “We are at a point in our faith journey where each of us is ready to say publicly, “I believe”.

It’s a time when we, as a church and as the Church say, “We respect your faith journey and we welcome you as brothers and sisters in Christ”.

No one gets to this point without shepherds who, along the way, have listened, talked, and prayed for, about, and with them. These seven young people have had loved ones who have cared for them and guided them a whole life long.  What a great blessing that is!

They’ve also each had someone from this congregation serve as a mentor in this Confirmation year.  These young people and their mentors have talked about some of the big questions of faith and of life. They’ve forged a friendship. That’s important because Confirmation is a big day, but it’s just one day in a faith life. These seven pairs have paved the way to walk together as people of faith far beyond May 15th.

On Pentecost, the Spirit blew through the place where Jesus’ disciples were gathered, fired them up, and moved them into the world.  That is the greatest hope, the most daring prayer, and the biggest challenge for any Christian: go out into the world and let it see that I follow the Living Christ.

We cheer at a basketball game: that’s spirit. We marvel at the 100-year-old who is as feisty as ever: that’s spirit. We wrestle with a challenge and trust the heart and gut about what to do:  that’s spirit. We know, or want to know, that there is something deeper, broader, wiser, and more resilient than we are, and we want to rely on it: that’s Spirit.

We know what it means to ‘have spirit’. God’s call to each of us, to all of us, is to allow the Spirit to have us too: go out into the world and let it see that you follow the Living Christ.

Faithfully,
Jill
The Reverend Jill H. Small

Author: Mark Tuttle

Husband, father, web master