Memorial Day vs Pentecost
May 30, 2004
My pastor didn’t mention the word Pentecost once day. If I hadn’t mentioned it during the musical worship, and had one of our youth read the passage from Joel 2, no one would have known it was Pentecost. That seems totally weird to me. However, they threw me an amazing potluck after the service, gave me an incredible gift of money, and had me choked up (which is not something that I can remember happening before…I just don’t cry) when I was trying to say a few words after numerous people had shared about how they were going to miss me. My life, in many ways, is a paradox in Wendell. I love these people of the congregation in profound ways, and yet can’t understand how they’re content with some of their practices, theologies and views on certain issues.
Tags: Idaho, Ministry
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Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
May 30th, 2004 at 9:42 pm
im envisioning your life in wendell like kathleen norris’s in “Dakota”… strange life, right.
May 30th, 2004 at 10:30 pm
be sure to end well and as far as you can, be at peace with all men. Good luck to you.
May 31st, 2004 at 12:46 am
Very cool about the potluck and the gifts and all the kudos — but not so cool about the virtual omission of Pentecost (where it not for you). I remember commenting on your orginal post last September concerning patriotism.
Here’s what happened to me today. I chose to emphasize Pentecost over Memorial Day (although the later still received attention through our morning bulletin, our “art corner” and various PowerPoint “announcement” slides. Nonetheless, one of our leaders pulled me aside after the service and made it clear he wasn’t happy that more hadn’t been said during the service concerning Memorial Day. :(
I wouldn’t have changed a thing though. God really moved this morning (more deeply than we’ve seen in months).
Are we leaders within the Church willing to lose people over our decision to favor the Christian calendar over the American calendar? May God help us. Thanks for revisiting this important topic, Adam.
May 31st, 2004 at 1:29 am
Just the opposite out here. Pentecost was a big deal and definitely the theme for the day. The only reason Memorial Day was mentioned at all was that the church secretary made a big deal about it during the week. So, during the prayers for the family, we included memorial prayers.
We don’t do potlucks, apparently. Instead, we had a kitchen crew serving up ham and flapjacks.
May 31st, 2004 at 2:52 am
I love these people of the congregation in profound ways, and yet can’t understand how they’re content with some of their practices, theologies and views on certain issues.
You sound like one of the prophets, Cleave. Or Jesus, for that matter.
We emphasized neither Memorial Day nor Pentacost yesterday. We were ordaining two new deacons and the structure of the service was built around that. Coming out of a tradition that doesn’t emphasize the Christian calendar, I’ve added many of the traditional observances to our worship, but I don’t want to be bound to any calendar. For example, I didn’t preach to mothers on Mothers’ Day this year (although we did have mothers rise and pray for them during the worship).
Oh, and we did have a potluck. I love potlucks.
May 31st, 2004 at 3:35 am
Strangely enough, at my church Pentecost and Memorial Day got about the same amount of attention. It seems like my church is usually pretty patriotic, but today’s atmosphere wasn’t quite as red, white and blue (literally and figuratively) as it has been on other national holidays. Of course, it makes sense that we’d pay attention to Pentecost, given that it’s a spirit-filled Pentecostal church. Interesting how different denominations treat Christian and patriotic holidays….
May 31st, 2004 at 12:22 pm
one of the joys of serving under a pastor with world life experience (he was a pastor in Northern Ireland) is that we had a great pentecost sermon, emphasis, and not one mention of memorial day. We also had a Selah service with Jeff Johnson and Steven Lawhead. This of course doesn’t mean we don’t love America or the men and women who served, it’s just that we don’t feel it is appropriate to emphasize it during worship. We also don’t have flags in the worship center either, but that is another topic for another day
May 31st, 2004 at 12:31 pm
Dave - that’s something I’ve always wanted to do - and I heard it from someone else awhile back. One Sunday, take out the Christian flag from the sanctuary and see how many people say something. The following week, replace the Christian flag and take the US flag out. The person who suggested this said of course, you’re going to have more people who notice the US flag is gone…
But…that just begs the question: why do we need ANY flags in a worship sanctuary?
May 31st, 2004 at 2:31 pm
We didn’t do a lot on either. There was mention of Pentacost and a children’s sermon that touched on it, but we are in the middle of a short series on Leviticus - not as horrid as it sounds. And there was really just a small mention in the joys/requests type prayer time when we could mention the names of loved-ones who have passed - not even military loved ones.
We are not a very “patriotic” congregation, so I wasn’t suprised there was little emphasis on Memorial Day.
May 31st, 2004 at 3:22 pm
We pentecosted it up. Sort of. Our sermon series right now is on the Lord’s Prayer, and our pastor talked about the Holy Spirit’s role in prayer and Pentecost, etc.
No mention of Mem Day.
May 31st, 2004 at 7:28 pm
All we did was Pentecost. The priests wore these cool stoles that looked like pieces from a Mexican blanket with red as the dominant color and crosses embroidered on them. The kids clued me in to the meaning of red. “Red is for flames, Mom.”
During the Eucharist the priests donned these big red poncho things that they put on for that part of the service. They have a name, but I don’t know it yet. I’ll have to ask my kids.
The homily was only about the Holy Spirit. I completely forgot that it was Memorial Day weekend. We didn’t have flags. Just these cool dove thingies on the end of long poles that two of the procession helpers (acolytes?) waved around while we all sang.
All of the songs were about revival or God breathing on us.
If you think that the Roman collar attracts babes, you might look into the Episcopal denomination. Roman collars, color-coded liturgical calendar and you can get married (to a man or woman - well, almost). ;-)
Peace and blessings on your road trip,
Karen
P.S. We had a potluck too, but only because it was the 5th Sunday of the month and we always have a potluck on that day.
June 2nd, 2004 at 2:55 pm
i’m gonna try this again - last time i got knocked out…
we were at spirit west coast on sunday. i didn’t hear one word of pentecost. i just don’t understand it.
a few of us left the festival a little early so i took some of the boys to von’s and bought a small chocolate cake and red frosting. i thought the frosting got left at the store (really i found it in the back of the van the next day…curses), so i carved “Happy Pentec
ost” into the top of the cake with a plastic fork. (small circle cake - it didn’t fit all the way across)
we were so tired that most of the cake went uneaten, but i tried. now i know just how much work it is to be a youth leader. you have to be on all the time. we had 6 kids respond to the altar call the very first night. it sucks, but we didn’t have time afterward to really talk with them. we’re making plans to get with each of them this week - we were just so amazed at the response. most of them come every week, have been through confirmation and all of that, but didn’t really get it until they heard miles mcpherson speak. praise Him for miles…
June 5th, 2004 at 3:47 pm
Hmm. At my church, I actually forgot to mention Memorial Day. Way too much Pentecost for that. And since Memorial Day is not a holy day, I’m okay with that.
Now come the 4th of July (that is, the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time), it might be more difficult.