Why? So we need to get away from Lent- Easter thinking and start planning for Lent- Easter- Pentecost.

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2 In many churches if folks think about seasonal worship planning, they tend to focus on two major seasons that culminate in a single day. What would you guess those are? Advent, which culminates in Christmas. Lent, which culminates in Easter. I want to suggest first that if this is the way you think about our high holy seasons that you begin to adjust your mindset and the mindset of your congregadon. Why? Because our two high holy seasonal cycles are not dyads. They are triads. The Advent cycle does not stop with Christmas. Christmas is not a day. It is a 12- day season. And what does it stop with? Epiphany! Epiphany is a day, not a season. Likewise, the Lenten cycle does not stop with Easter. Easter is not a day. It is a season. It condnues for fijy days and culminates on the Day of Pentecost. Pentecost is not a season. So we need to get away from Lent- Easter thinking and start planning for Lent- Easter- Pentecost. 2

3 It is interesdng that the Sunday ajer Easter is considered a low Sunday, meaning we don t expect many folks to be in services. Is it possible that this is because we put so much focus on planning for Easter Day that we fail to consider what comes ajer this magnificent, life- changing proclamadon that is the center of our faith? Historically, the Great FiJy Days of Easter were far more important to the church than the forty days of Lent. The 50- day period of rejoicing dates back to the second century. We don t know why the shij to concentradng on Lent leading only to Easter occurred, or why so many churches condnue to put stress on Lent but not on the Easter season, especially in today s world! Because it seems like folks would love an extended season of REJOICING, maybe even more than a season of penitence. Imagine the possibilides: There is no call to fasdng during the Great FiJy Days. There is no giving something up for Easter. It is, rather, an extended period of, in the words of AugusDne, peace and joy. In the early church, during the season of Easter, people were invited to pray in a standing posidon, arms out, faces up, hearts lijed. That s called the orans posidon. (The hands folded and face down posture didn t come into popular use undl the church began to take on the trappings of culture, which called upon people to bow their heads in a posture of submission to kings and other dignitaries.) Let s try the orans posture! What would it be like if we invited our people to pray the Lord s Prayer in this posidon during the Great FiJy Days? What 3

4 If we are looking forward toward the day of Pentecost, it might be helpful to talk about the Day of Pentecost from a historical perspecdve. Pentecost is not so much about the birthday of the church, as so many think of it, as it is the culminadon of the Easter proclamadon that Christ is Risen! Not only is Christ risen, but he lives in and through the body of Christ on earth. He lives in us. He lives in the people of our congregadons as we work to transform the world in his name. In the early church, the Day of Pentecost was second in importance only to Easter as a holy day. All those other holy days and seasons that we pay so much a_endon to today (Christmas, for example) came along later. Pentecost finds its origins in a Jewish feast: You shall count undl the day ajer the seventh sabbath, fijy days; then you shall present an offering of new grain to the lord (LeviDcus 23:16, NRSV). SomeDme in the first century, the day came to mean for the Jewish people a feast of celebradon to commemorate the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Paul contrasts this Jewish feast day of remembrance to the coming of the Holy Spirit to form the church of Jesus Christ. He writes, Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in le_ers on stone tablets, came in glory...how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? (2 Corinthians 3:7-8, NRSV). 4

5 I thought it would be interesdng to offer an Easter series resource on living out our membership vows as United Methodists, because our membership in the church is rooted in our bapdsmal covenant. This resource makes use of the Revised Common LecDonary passages from the book of Acts assigned for Year C of the season of Easter and a booklet wri_en by Dr. Mark Stamm, professor of worship at Perkins School of Theology: Our Membership Vows in the United Methodist Church. It just so happens that there are seven membership vows and seven Sundays from the Sunday ajer Easter undl Pentecost, so it seemed like a great idea to try to bring the readings from Acts together with Dr. Stamm s fine work. It turned out to be much harder than I thought it would be. I have managed, although it required a bit of rearranging - - either of the order in which the vows are presented or the order in which the texts are presented. I have done a li_le of both to make this series work. So in places you will find that the text was assigned to another Sunday in the Easter season than the day I put it on, or the vows actually come in a slightly different order than how they are presented here. 5

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8 In 2008, these two vows were altered slightly. If you have not altered them in your church, it would be good to make those correcdons. The first was altered from the original language, As members of Christ s universal church, will you be loyal to The United Methodist Church, and do all in your power to strengthen its ministries? The second added the words and their witness to the end. 8

9 Each week in this sermon series, we give a_endon to one of these vows made at our bapdsm. And each week, we read a story from the witness of the early church found in the book of Acts and consider how those stories from the earliest years of the ChrisDan church help us or challenge us or teach us something about how we are to live as bapdzed disciples of Jesus Christ in our own Dme and place. 9

10 Ideally, you already have a worship planning team in your church and can use this resource to guide your worship planning for Easter or whenever you preach this series. If you don t have a worship planning team, Barbara Day Miller s Encounters with the Holy can help you get started. She shows you how to put a team together. This kind of planning can work in any style worship service. If you have never worked with a planning team, it can change not only your worship, but also your preaching. If you aren t interested in stardng a worship planning team, you could use this resource with an exisdng Bible study group or Sunday school class. In this situadon, you probably have a set format for worship; and you fill in the songs, prayers, Scripture lesson, name of sermon, etc. You would simply use the resource as a Bible study and a study of Our Membership Vows. As folks discuss the quesdons for each week, take lots of notes. Ask the group if songs come to mind that they think would fit with the topic or the Scripture lesson. If someone shares something that would make a great sermon illustradon or makes an insighmul comment, be sure to ask permission to use the idea or story in your sermon. You could even ask the person who told the story to share it in church as part of your sermon or as a witness. You could use this same pa_ern with a group of clergy and share ideas and plan 10

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