Dear Beloved Community,
Each year that I have had the honor to serve as your pastor, we have experienced full and mighty Pentecost weekends. I recounted that in my blog last year, remembering a string of the Spirit’s transforming presence in our church from one Pentecost to the next: new choir robes, paraments, Bibles and hymnals, new staff, and new vision for our facilities; a Sunday worship in the breezeway, from home during covid, back in person after 14 months away in 2021, and even the last worship before closing down the Sanctuary due to a falling piece of decorative plaster!
If First on Fifth has anything to say about it, Pentecost isn’t just metaphorical. On this annual reminder of the birthday of the church when God’s Spirit fell indiscriminately upon all flesh, we experience the fiery, essential breath of the Spirit that finds no corner untouched. Each year, it seems we are reborn anew.
This weekend, we’ll celebrate the work of God at Pentecost, and again, we’ll do so by participating in the acts of congregational living that stretch all the way back to those first Christians.
We’ll bless our friend, Jill Knight, and ordain her to the gospel ministry on Saturday at 4pm. God has long begun a good work within Jill, and it is our joy and privilege to share in the worship of ordination that sets Jill apart for ministry.
We’ll send forth our friend, Zack Jackson, on Sunday morning to serve the good folks of University Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and thank him for his years leading among us.
We’ll call our friend, Kyle Caudle, who comes to us no stranger, with a unanimous recommendation from the Associate Pastor search committee, Personnel Committee, and Deacons, considering his gifts in youth, missions, and adults as we vote upon his candidacy as our next full-time Associate Pastor.
And then we’ll feast together in our church picnic that night, because breaking bread in Christian community is as biblical and Baptist as it gets.
Blessing, calling, sending, feasting – these are among the gifts of the church at her best. The church – our church – is God’s church, never shying away for the chance to be reborn again and again.
Together in God’s work of Love,
Pastor Emily
Ps- Don’t forget to turn in your Deacon recommendation forms by Sunday!