Special music by the chancel choir.

Birthdays can be a lot of fun. Granted, some may not want to be reminded of the many years that have already passed, but they give us an opportunity to celebrate the gift of having that person in our lives. This week, we celebrate the birthday of the church. This is a time when we give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit that was experienced by the disciples in Jerusalem marking the milestone of the birth of the Christian church. And we are more and more grateful as the years go by.

In this week’s passage, we will reflect on what happened on that first day of Pentecost and how it changed the disciples. On that special day they transitioned from being a group of frightened men and women huddling together out of fear in an inner room to a body of Christ that boldly proclaims Christ message throughout the world. Join us Sunday as we celebrate the birthday of the church, consider where we have been, and think about where we go from here.

Special music by Joe Lykins.

Prayers of the People by Debbie Pallack.

Special music by the chancel choir.

One year, my kids gave me a session in an escape room for my birthday.  If you like puzzles, escape rooms are a lot of fun.  You and your guests are led into a small room filled with puzzles and riddles, and then you are locked in the room with your “team.”  In order to escape the room, you have to solve the puzzles that direct you to a hidden key that lets you pass through a side door.  In the room I went to, we solved the puzzles in the room only to discover that the door we unlocked opened into another puzzle room which we had to solve.  It turns out there were three consecutive puzzle rooms before we reached the end of the event.

Our passage this week is filled with twists and turns that remind me of navigating the escape rooms.  While Paul and his entourage were preaching the gospel in one of the towns they were traveling through, they were followed by a woman who constantly shouted praise for their ability to teach people how to be saved. But scripture tells us that Paul eventually became so annoyed with the woman that he exorcised the spirit that gave her the ability to perceive their gifts and tell the future.  It turns out the woman was a slave who was being exploited by her masters who charge money for people to speak with her, so they became angry when she lost this gift. The owners had Paul and Silas arrested, but this only led to the conversion of the jailer who guarded them.  Join us next weekend as we reflect on the twists and turns of Paul’s experiences and how the twists and turns of our own lives can be lead to unexpected freedoms.

Prayers of the People by Brandon Coz.

A fascinating art form that gained popularity in the 1990’s is the stereogram. These are three-dimensional images masked by various patterns. At first glance, the pictures look like arbitrary arrangements of shapes and colors. But if you carefully look at the picture in a special way, focusing the gaze of your eyes beyond the picture, the three-dimensional shape suddenly comes into focus. The three-dimensional image is always there, but you can only see it if you look at the picture in a unique way.

This week, we will consider Jesus’s response to the apostle Judas’s question (note this is not the same Judas who betrayed him), “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus explained to his disciples that he will be in the world, just as God and the Holy Spirit are in the world, but the world sometimes does not recognize him. Although his presence may not be obvious at times, he is always here. Join us Sunday as we reflect on perceiving the presence of Christ in the world and what we can do to find that image of God around us.

Special music by the chancel choir.

Prayers of the People by Pastor Jon Flint.