Pentecost — the Church’s celebration of the start of new communities of Christ-followers. This Sunday, June 12th, many churches collect a special offering for the New Church movement among Disciples. In the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the early church is described with a few crisp qualities:
- They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
- Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.
- All who believed were together and had all things in common;
- they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.
- Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
New churches don’t just form out of nothing. Lots of love, care, and gifts go into these new communities. Gifts of money, prayer and energy that other congregations can often share. One of these new communities in our region is Open Source Rochester in Rochester, MN.
Feel free to use this video when talking about new churches forming in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2smJD0K0An8
Thanks to Rebecca Haney of Open Source Rochester for the video. And extra-special thanks to Amy Spangler-Dunning for creating this video. (Amy is a member of the New Church Unit for the region.)