Ten Minutes for Teachers
May
27, 2007
Vol. 9, Issue 3
Worship
Texts: John 14:8-17; Romans 8:14-17; Ps. 104; Acts 2:1-21
Worship
Theme: Breathe
Other
Texts: Genesis 11:1-9
Pentecost
Sunday:
Pentecost Sunday allows us to recognize the coming of the Holy
Spirit, the birth of the church and the (re)commissioning of the disciples to
witness unto the whole world. To
celebrate this glad day, we are inviting children in Sunday school to carry
streamers of orange, red and yellow.
This will occur during the reading of the sermon text (Acts
2:1-21). If you are teaching this Sunday,
please bring your class into the sanctuary at 9:15 so we can practice.
Hymns
for this Week:
We also hope to acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s role in our
life together through our hymns and anthem this week. We will sing Let Every Christian Pray, Breathe on Me, Breath of God and Spirit of the Living God. And the choir will bring a beautiful anthem
titled The Lone, Wild Bird.
Devotion:
I wonder if Jesus’ disciples wondered how they were going to fulfill the
command to “make disciples of all nations.”
Most of them were Galileans and Galileans were “notorious for being
monolingual.” The whole world stood before them, and the
were no sets of cd’s, no community colleges or ESL (Egyptian Second Language)
courses to teach them. How were they to
teach if they still needed to be taught?
Where were the words going to come from?
This is precisely why the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-21 is
such a glorious, encouraging moment.
Acts 2:1 tells us that on “the day of Pentecost … they were all together
in one place.” All. Together.
One Place.
Now, note: the people
gathered in Pentecost were all together, but they were not all alike. As
we quickly discover, they were from all over the place – from different
cultures, speaking different languages, having different political hopes.
So, Pentecost reminds us that what is really required is
simply to come together – differences and all.
The “how” part … that’s God’s part.
As the popular expression goes, God equips those who are called not
calls those who are equipped.
When we gather for worship this Sunday (and all Sundays), we
gather all together, in one place. But
we are not all alike. We come having
experienced unique joys and struggles; we come with unique hopes and
fears. But, together we are, and we wait
for God’s Spirit to move again – to descend upon us and do a marvelous,
unifying work of peace and power.
Something
to Chew On:
Language is critical to our ministry. How we communicate determines a great deal
about what we communicate. You
invariably experience this on Sunday mornings whether you are teaching a class,
listening to a teacher or participating in the liturgy of worship.
And like the early Church, we are wholly dependent upon the
Holy Spirit to make sense out of our words.
As you prepare to teach, pray that God would take your own words and
make good sense of them. Also try to
listen as you pray for ways you can make God’s Word more accessible to your
audience. Finally, meditate upon Peter’s
reference to Joel (Acts 2:17-21). Allow this to be a prayer for your class, our
church and the church all over the world.
Prayer
for the day:
”Holy and amazing God, send your Spirit to renew our lives and the life of the
church. Open our hearts and minds to
witness to the acts of the Spirit in our midst each day. Amen.” - Seasons
of the Spirit: Ages 12-14. Pg. 81.
Beginning next week, Ten Minutes
for Teachers will not be published. Keep
an eye out for a revised edition of TMFT in August of 2007.
