Happy Birthday Church

We may not know exactly who all was there that day but whoever they were the NKJV tells us Acts 2:1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all in one accord in one place. How they got a hundred and twenty people in a Honda is a mystery to me. But right there in that one little phrase is the secret to a church that is going to succeed and that is that were moving in one direction. If a church is to go forward then everyone needs to be aimed at a common goal. One of my favourite books as a child was Dr. Doolittle and one of the amazing animals in Dr. Doolittle’s menagerie was a Push Me Pull You, kind of looked like a horse with a head on either end. And it was constantly pulling itself in directions that it didn’t want to go. And sometimes the church is like that. Being with one accord doesn’t mean that we always have common consensus, but it does mean that we have co-operation.

The time will come that we will begin with earnest our building project, whoever Earnest is. Not everyone will agree that we need a building of our own, we won’t all agree on the location or what it looks like or the colour carpet we put down, however if we are to move ahead then even though we don’t all agree on every little detail we will have to cooperate if we are going to get the job done, we will all need to be in one Accord, although personally I’d prefer a Camry.

We need to have a common goal, do we want to be a small intimate church, do we want to be a large church of three to four hundred or do we want to be a mega church that will have an impact not only on our immediate area but on the other churches in the area as well as the churches in the denomination. What is our desire and what is our goal?

These men and women knew what they wanted, they wanted the Holy Spirit. After all that is what they were promised in John 14:26 But when the Father sends the Counselor as my representative—and by the Counselor I mean the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I myself have told you.

And again in Acts 1:8 Jesus told the apostles But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power they had already experienced failure on their own, that’s why they went back fishing. They were promised power and that power is what they were waiting for.

And so there they were, waiting and probably enjoying each other’s company when it happened, it was incredible. I mean you wouldn’t have believed it unless you were there. What happened oh sorry, Luke tells us about it in Acts 2:2-3 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm in the skies above them, and it filled the house where they were meeting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them.

And so there they were, in one accord, 50 days after the crucifixion celebrating Pentecost as all good Jews were and two things happened. The first was that a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and secondly what appeared to be tongues of fire came to rest on each of them. Neat huh, bet that would shake things up in your average Wesleyan church wouldn’t it?