May 21, 2026

Pentecost
Along with Christmas and Easter, Pentecost is one of the three most important days of the Church year. Pentecost has sometimes been called “the birthday of the church,” a phrase that carries much more significance that its words imply. The Church is not just a gathering of like-minded people. Jesus followers already had that, even before the rushing wind and tongues of flame. The Church has a life all its own – God’s own life breathed into the community by the Holy Spirit. The Church is the very life and love of God walking through God’s new creation. On Christmas we celebrate God’s willingness to enter creation and become one of us out of love for us. On Easter, we celebrate Christ’s victory over death and the old created order of the world. On Pentecost we celebrate the Church’s eternal, unbreakable unity with God and one another by the power of the Holy Spirit and the empowered life of God that we are called to live. Pentecost isn’t a birthday party in the sense of counting one more year, nor a founders’ day like other institutions have. It does not count up from the beginning nor down to the end. Pentecost is a celebration of our incorporation into eternity, and that we have no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.

Formation
On Trinity Sunday, May 31, we’ll begin our consideration of the Episcopal Church’s teachings around the ideas of war, just war, pacifism, and everything in between. We’ll be using materials produced by the national church and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. As one might expect for any ethical discussion in the Episcopal Church, the answers are not black and white. I hope you’ll bring your own thoughts and join us!