Are there certain days of the year that you particularly look forward to? Christmas? Your birthday? Thanksgiving? Can I share with you one of my favorite days of the year that you might find a little bit surprising? I love Pentecost! After Easter, it is my favorite Sunday of the year.
If you are not familiar with Pentecost, it is a special day in the life of the church when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Christian Church. At Rock Church we mark this special day with a joyful, Spirit-led time of worship. As a part of this service, every year that I have been your pastor (that’s getting to be a LONG time!) we include in this service the welcoming of new members. At times we have also included baptisms.
This year, as a part of our Pentecost services we are going to offer both. There will be the opportunity for immersion baptism at all of our locations. We will also be welcoming new members at all locations. There are very few spiritual experiences in this life that compare to immersion baptism. And there are few steps we take in life that are more meaningful spiritually than to stand before our church family and publicly profess our faith in Christ through the membership vows.
There is some preparation that goes along with both baptism and membership. For baptism, there is a brief orientation that we do ahead of time to be sure those being baptized understand the meaning and significance of this important step. For membership, there is a class that we ask everyone to attend.
Pentecost falls on Sunday, June 9th. If you would like to be baptized on Pentecost, please reply to Lynette and she will connect you with one of our pastors for the orientation. If you would like to receive membership, you can also email Lynette. We will be offering the membership class at two, or perhaps three, locations depending on the number of people who wish to receive membership. The class will be on Sunday June 2 in the afternoon and will run about 2 hours.
To go along with the Pentecost celebration I will give you a sneak preview of our new, very exciting, upcoming series. Beginning June 2 we will begin a new series entitled “Supernatural” where we will be digging deep into the things of the spiritual realm. This is going to be an amazing series, you will not want to miss a single week.
We will also have a special message coming up this Sunday for Memorial Day that I know you are going to want to hear. If you happen to be traveling this weekend, but sure to tune in on the livestream.
God bless,
Pastor Steve