SUNDAY SERVICES:

When Paul runs into some disciples in the city of Ephesus, he kicks off the conversation with, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart? Did he get inside you?” (Acts 19.2 MSG)

And then, a chapter later, he says, “We met on Sunday to worship and celebrate the Master’s Supper” (Acts 20.7).

With the Holy Spirit in us, Sunday morning church can be, well, something more.

Is confirmation for you? Read on to learn about confirmation: what it is, what it's for, and whether you should be confirmed.

What is Confirmation?  

Confirmation is a service for those of us who were baptized as infants to make our own, mature and public, decision to follow Jesus with the blessing of the laying on of hands by a bishop.  

The laying on of hands is for the imparting of the Spirit to serve; to minister as Jesus did.

I got confirmed at the age of nine.  My reason was clear and simple, I wanted to be an acolyte, wear a red cassock and white surplice, and serve at the altar on Sundays.  

But that’s not a good reason to get confirmed.  

A good reason to have a bishop lay hands on you and pray for the Holy Spirit to strengthen, empower, and sustain you is for an equipping to do ministry.  

It’s the way God has always done it.

Pentecost - What’s it all about?  

I remember my first step.

Pentecost: My First Step

Okay, here’s the scene:

I was the lone clergyman in a rather large New England church. I had spent two years at the post. 

I was fixing coffee and hard-boiled eggs for our monthly clergy meeting, which was for priests from local churches.

You need to know that the eggs symbolized these meetings, which were usually filled with hard-boiled and stale arguments about high and low churchmanship.

I heard the speaker mention the Holy Spirit.

Seriously, I thought, I spent three years studying in seminary and two years as a curate in this New England church. Why had I not heard of this Holy Spirit before now?  

Shall We Shell?

My wife Barb is an avid sheller and gifted shell finder. I'm her assistant. Of course, Sanibel is notorious for its shells, but then, we are not in the shell hot zone of Sanibel. 

We stay at a place called ''Tween Waters. It's between Sanibel and Captiva Islands. 

That's' not to say the shelling there isn't good. It is...just not as good.

 Not to grumble, but we have oodles of glass containers, even a rather large one shaped like a fish, all around our home filled with seashells. We even have framed shells on our walls, along with prints of shells framed on the walls.

We are beach people.  

Today, the last day of our five-day vacation together, we walked and talked about how shells remind us of just how great our Creator is.

Dear Members of New Covenant,

Dear Members of New Covenant,

Last week, standing in the rain, I watched a young man work mightily to instill the basic skills and commitments of world-class soccer players   into the rain-soaked heads of eight small children. They were all much more excited about playing in the rain. Much more excited than the  line of parents waiting for practice to come to its soggy end. Soccer practice is new to me. Watching practice is new to me. There is much to learn.