Pentecost commemorates the descent of the Spirit on the followers of Jesus, seven weeks after Easter.

“I’d like to suggest that Pentecost reminds us—invites us—as progressive and moderate Christians to embrace a holistic spirit-centered faith that leads to life-transforming actions.

Pentecost is about the intersection of mysticism and mission. In the Acts 2 narrative, the disciples—I suspect both women and men—experienced heat, light, and wind, and were driven out into the street to share the good news of the Risen and Saving Christ. Their missional venture led to a mass mystical experience. The disciples spoke in “other tongues” and Passover visitors heard the good news of healing and salvation each in their own tongue. Mysticism was involved in both giving and receiving on that Pentecost day.

Ecstatic from their encounter with the Spirit, Peter and his followers proclaim a democracy of revelation that includes old and young, male and female, and slave and free. God’s Spirit transcends human-made boundaries. Poured out on all flesh, God can be experienced in dreams, visions, prophetic words, and preaching. In fact, there is no absolute vehicle for divine communication. God comes to all and through all modalities. Further, a democracy of revelation eventually leads to an ethic of equality, stretching the early church beyond its Jewish roots. If you can experience God’s Spirit, then you deserve to be treated as a child of God with full-fledged status as a sister or brother in the faith.” ~Bruce Epperly, Mystical and Missional: A Spirit-Inspired Pentecost

Pentecost: Celebrating the Gifts of the Spirit

Begin your meal by holding hands and saying to the person on your right: "You are the temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells within you."

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Liturgy For A Celebration of Pentecost

Pentecost is perhaps the first festival appropriated from an ancient tradition to serve the purposes of the new Christian Way.

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