“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.”
~ James 1:26
Dear friends,
There is so much going on I need to share with you! But I don’t want us to miss the spirit of what is happening in our congregation right now, so stick with me.
Briefly, here’s what’s happening in the coming days and weeks: Light Up With Pride (6/2), our New Community Group Interest Lunch (6/5), Pride By The Beach (6/11) and Pride Sunday (6/12), the Shameless Parenting Webinar (6/15), our next Nature Gathering at Guajome Park (6/25), our Annual Congregational Meeting (6/26), and the Blue Theology Summer High School Excursion (7/17-23).
Please click the links above and sign up for something! Showing up, getting to know each other, and building genuine friendships is an essential part of being in community together.
In my sermon last Sunday I argued that Christ’s ascension in Acts Chapter 1 was necessary. Jesus knew that if he remained, his followers would never grow up and learn to be empowered, themselves, by the Spirit of God. Specifically, he said:
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
~ Acts 1:8
It turns out, Jesus was referring to Pentecost, that event in Acts 2 where the Spirit of God empowered ordinary people to live in and witness to a different kind of community. The confused, frustrated disciples didn’t know it in Act 1, but that fuller expression of a divinely empowered community is where they were going.
I believe that is where we are going, too.
It’s time for OSC to learn what it means to be a Spirit-empowered community. By that, I don’t mean we are becoming “Pentecostal”, at least not in the heavy-handed-name-it-and-claim-it-prosperity-gospel sense. I can tell you from first-hand experience that those kinds of theatrics are a counterfeit of the real thing. Real Pentecost is genuine, generous, honest-to-goodness love that flows graciously from encountering the mystery of God and makes a material difference in the lives of others.
Last Sunday we learned that this is precisely what the Apostle James meant by his famous line, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). The “works” James refers to aren’t heroic acts of worship or piety that earn God’s favor. Rather, they are the works of care, compassion, and mutual aid that animate authentic community. In a word, love is the “work” of faith. Love is the Spirit that quickens the body of Christ.
I am more convinced than ever that the world desperately needs churches who practice a quality of community that is characterized by the power of love rather than the love of power.
I believe that is where we are going.
Starting on June 5, Pentecost Sunday, we will begin a new teaching series called “The Art of Community.” Immediately after church we will host a lunch for anyone interested in being part of new Community Groups and Interest Groups that we are hoping to launch at OSC toward the end of the summer.
I am excited to walk the next leg of our journey together and see where the Spirit leads! I hope you are too.