Pentecost is the one major Christian festival that has so far escaped commercialism. No one has yet come up with a way to market Pentecost. There are no bunnies or bonnets for Pentecost as there are for Easter. No one goes out and buys a new Pentecost outfit for a Pentecost parade. It is not a feast that draws families together for great meals like Thanksgiving. Restaurants do not advertise special dinners for the Pentecost season as they do for Lent. And, of course, Pentecost doesn’t hold a candle to Christmas. There are no pre- or post-Pentecost sales in our stores. Advertisers do not have a countdown telling us how many shopping days are left to Pentecost. Radio stations do not play Pentecost music and the real evidence is that television networks do not run Pentecost specials.

There is a gift for Pentecost, however, Jesus promised it to his disciples–and to his present-day disciples. It’s sort of a going-away present, for Jesus promised it when he was warning his followers that he would be leaving them. The gift is a divine Presence that would come into their lives, to help them, counsel them, guide them, comfort them, and create a community that could surmount all barriers.

Pentecost is one of those festivals common to both Judaism and Christianity. It is one of the three great celebrations of Israel, along with Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles (also known as Sukkoth). It celebrated both the Spring harvest and the giving of the Torah to Moses. The followers of Jesus also adopted Pentecost as it was historically the celebration of the gift of the Spirit of Christ to all of his followers and the creation of the Church. The signal of the coming of the Spirit was the ability of the disciples to communicate the gospel to people of many cultures and languages in their own tongues.

The disciples and their listeners understood each other because they were talking about the basic realities of life. Love and loyalty, need and failure, sin and salvation, hope and freedom–these things are common to all humanity regardless of race or nationality. How tragic it is that so often we Christians waste our opportunities by talking about lesser things, things important to us but often meaningless to others, things like doctrines, styles of worship and local traditions. No wonder others do not understand us! We communicate best when we speak of the common questions of life: God, sin, death, Christ, sacrifice, love.

Pentecost reminds us that the first gift of God to the church as a whole is the gift of speaking—clearly, understandably, convincingly—in the languages and idiom of the world, whether it is one of the 2,796 different languages spoken around the world today, or the unique lingo of adolescents.

If we expect the world to listen to us, we are going to have to re-learn the lesson of Pentecost. We will have to stop expecting everyone else to learn our church-talk (repentance, salvation, redemption, sanctification and all those other religious words) and begin again to talk with people about the basics of life and death, hope and fear that everyone understands. And we will have to re-learn the second lesson of Pentecost—that life in the Spirit is a party, a celebration of joy. The first followers of Jesus were having so much fun that some people thought they were drunk.

So during Pentecost, which lasts from Sunday until late in November, let’s remember to laugh, sing, talk and listen to the voice of the Spirit in the words and the wishes of everyone we meet.

Described as “An Uncommon Worship Gathering, The Anchor is: A Little More cowbell, guitar & drums, more flip-flops and shorts.  Learn More at the Anchor Site. Less about a sermon, and more about conversations and messages and questions.

We’re all on this faith journey together, so each week someone different shares the main idea and it could be with a video, or a teaching, or even a skit.

All-ages and all faiths are welcome. It’s decidedly Presbyterian, with a lot of Island Style.

The name “The Anchor” comes from the verse of Hebrews 6:19, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure…”

We like to say that living on an island, we have a unique understanding of how the changing sea is so much like our daily life – sometimes calm, sometimes stormy. Having an anchor, especially the strongest one imaginable, is the only way to weather those storms.

Welcome to Our Church

A monthly column for the PC(USA) by the GA stated clerk

by the Rev. Gradye Parsons
General Assembly stated clerk

LOUISVILLE — Each year, the Mavericks Surf Contest attracts the top surfers in the world. The competitors watch the Mavericks’ Web site until they see the words, “It’s on.” They then have 48 hours to get to the designated beach and compete for the prize money.

This year, the beach was Half Moon Bay in northern California. The surfers had to be towed out to the starting point because the breaking waves were so monstrous in size. Lifeguards zoomed around on jet skis to watch over the competitors.

Naturally, many spectators came to watch the excitement. Some observed from the bluffs; others, from the shore. Many of those who stood and watched from the shore were injured when a couple of the giant waves made it all the way onto the beach and crashed upon them.

An insightful bishop from the American Methodist Episcopal Church observed with interest that no active surfer was hurt while in the middle of riding a board on those huge waves. It was only the passive spectators on the unmovable shore who were injured.

We are facing a wave of change in our communal life of faith. It seems logical that the safest way to weather that change would be to observe it from the unmovable shore of “We’ve always done it this way.”

But could it be that the safer, though perhaps scarier, place to thrive in this change is in the middle of the wave?

In Danielle Shroyer’s study guide for Phyllis Tickle’s book, The Great Emergence, shewrites:

“Perhaps surfing is an apt metaphor for the kind of dual action required of us. Though we may choose our surfboard, our spot in the ocean, and the wave we take, we are not, in the end, able to control the movement of the ocean. We cannot determine the tide, or the length of the wave, or its intensity. It is our duty to ride it, and ride it well, in hopes that we arrive safely (and, with a little luck, gracefully) on the shore.” — (Reader’s Guide to The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, Baker Publishing Group, 2008, p. 20)

Surf’s up. It’s on!

February was also the month for Presbyterian MidWinters at Mo Ranch and this year we split our group into two weekends, with 20 Senior High Students and 8 Middle Schoolers. Port Aransas has a “rowdy reputation” for worshipping, singing and generally blazing trails of leadership, and these weekends were no exception.The theme of both weekends was, “Be Doers of The Word, and Not Just Hearers” and it’s been interesting to see the application as we came back to the real world. Changes, both radical and subtle, are everywhere. Many thanks to all those that participated in the “Butler Auction” to raise money to send the kids to this special event. We hoped for $300 and were blessed with over $2000!

Before our Winter Texan Friends leave us, we have a treat – Uncle Phil’s Diner – a 50′s Style Dinner Theater – with sassy employees, stylish decor and live music from the Desotos to jive and jitterbug the night away. All the proceeds from this event go to fund our May Retreat to Mo Ranch which this year includes our “Senior Send Off and Blessing.”

Finally this quarter, our youth group has formed a team for this year’s Relay for Life, a one night event to raise money and awareness to make cancer obsolete! Look for more information soon on our marathon weekend event with a car wash, rock-a-thon and bake sale.

As always, thank you for supporting your CPC Youth Group and please join us any Sunday at 12:30 for live music, food and a great message.

The children in a tiny church were putting on the annual pageant. One boy would be the shepherd, a single angel would announce the birth of Jesus, a small girl was chosen to represent the Magi. They practiced and practiced until everyone had the story ready to perform for the congregation. When it came time for the Magi’s entrance she majestically swept up the aisle, all draped in garage sale jewelry and robes made up of odds and ends of fabric collected from the remainders box at the local discount store. Pausing and bowing before the infant’s crib she announced, “Greeting baby–I bring you gifts–Gold, Circumstance and Mud.”

Out of the mouths of babes. Isn’t that exactly what life brings us: gold–the precious moments of life, joys and hopes and relationships; circumstance–all the happenings and places we find ourselves, often through no choice of our own; and mud–the rough patches where we sometimes get ourselves stuck. Gifts of life in all its varied hues.

Epiphany, the church season that begins on January 6 with the celebration of the Magi, and ends with Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent, reminds us that God appears (that’s what the word epiphany means) to us in all of life – in its gold, in its circumstances, in its mud, with the gift of God’s presence.

Except. Along the way, less than two blocks from the hospital, the baby decided that it was time to be born. Right there, at a stop light, within sight of the emergency room. Mom said, “It’s happening,” Dad reached one hand out to catch the baby and flip her up onto her mother’s lap while steering with his other hand. And then he turned into the hospital parking lot, complete with a new child and a great story to tell.

Mary and Joseph started out on their trip to Bethlehem under orders from a foreign emperor, in order to fulfill a civic responsibility to enroll in the census and pay the family tax, it was important that they be on time. But somewhere along the way the urgency of that trip changed, the government’s timetable was superseded, and the purpose of this journey was radically altered. Suddenly they were no longer on their way to Bethlehem to pay taxes, or to avoid getting in trouble with the law. Now they were on their way to Bethlehem to have a child.

The urgency of their arrival is obvious, seeking a safe place to give birth is all that concerns them now. It is seen in their approach to the inn, whereas previously they might have been willing to camp out to save a little money (Mary’s gift to the Temple shows that they were a poor family). It is seen in their willingness to accept the hospitality of a stable, in all likelihood no more than a shallow cave where the animals were penned.

As they began their journey they may have seen it as something of a honeymoon. They might have stopped on the road, to have a picnic or to watch a beautiful sunset, perhaps even to explore a new trail along the way as newly- weds are apt to do. But now the child has set the agenda–he will be born now and his parents will just have to deal with it. Now they are in a hurry, now they are focused on making it all the way to Bethlehem.

I know there is still much to do, last minute cards to write; presents to buy, wrap and send; cookies to bake, turkeys to buy, parties to attend. I know that there are many distractions, but it is time to lay them aside. If you chase down every side trail that comes along, you will still be on the road when Christmas comes; and you will not make it all the way to Bethlehem. And it is in Bethlehem that we will meet Jesus.