Blessings to you, loved ones.  My prayer for you this week is that you will have a deepening intimacy with the Holy Spirit, that through communion with Him you will find peace, joy, and purpose.  Keep reading for your weekly chronicle.

I hope you all were blessed by the celebration of life that we had for Pastor David on Sunday.  With some distance between us and the fresh grief of his leaving us, we were able to laugh together in a final corporate remembrance of the man we all knew and loved.

This Sunday churches around the world will remember the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit made His dramatic debut in that upper room in Jerusalem, filling the disciples who were praying there and causing them to loudly proclaim the “mighty deeds of God” in languages they did not know.  It was a momentous occasion that seems to have set an expectation for what was supposed to happen in the early church. Many churches today draw from this and other accounts in the book of Acts to build their traditions and theology.

What happened in that room, and why is it significant?  Does it instruct us today in matters of salvation and worship?  Should we be speaking in tongues, or did that practice fall from God’s favor sometime in the first century AD?  What does it mean to be “filled with the Spirit?”  We’ll read Acts 2:1-8 and then put some context around it as we seek to understand what God did on that day and what it means to us.

I have shared much of this before, but I think it is important to talk about it now as your pastor.  I want you to hear and understand the biblical foundation for things we might do differently in the future.

Love you all,

Larry