Simple things to do to prepare your home for Pentecost

We are well conditioned to prepare our homes for Christmas and Easter, but we are not so comfortable at preparing our homes for other significant events in the Christian Calendar.

This Sunday we have another significant day in our calendar, Pentecost. This is the service where we attend dressed in red, and the church building is beautifully dressed for that occasion, resplendent in the liturgical colour of red. Some years it has been decorated with streamers, balloons, or  fire coloured buntings.

But this year, many are still not allowed in their church buildings. So don’t let this Sunday pass by as just another date. Celebrate.

With the church buildings closed it has been the year to really come to grips with the church being the people not the building. In Acts 2 we are told that being able to speak in many tongues not just fulfilled prophecy but allowed many to hear it. So help people continue to hear the message by decorating your home and sharing with your family the fulfilment of this special promise.

So here are some simple ideas to have this day at home.

1. WEAR RED
2. Turn your red string Christmas lights back on
3. Decorate your home with red or orange streamers, flames, swirls. I made my flames  by drawing a flame shape, adjusting it until I was happy with it. cutting it in the middle of the base to about half way up. Then cut a smaller shape in a different colour, red, orange or yellow, cut down from the middle of the flame, then put the smaller flame at right angles to the larger flame.

To make the swirl I used a paper plate and cut in a circular manner until the centre

Hang a mix from air conditioner units, trees, doors, etc

4) Make a Bunting or instead or red, orange and yellow flags, make flames out of paper and attach them to a piece of string or coloured thread.

5) Create a Pentecost display, made from candles, or red leaves

6) Make a special treat such as Patty cakes or a cake topped with candles or jelly in three colours red, orange and yellow.

7) Set the dinner table with red tablecloth and/or napkins, and red candles. Instead of a formal grace. Say a thank you pray such as

Thank you God for keeping your promises

We know we can trust you.

Amen

Let the youngest ask questions during the meal about what Pentecost means, and have the eldest respond.

8) Listen to some favourite songs, but sung in another language, or turn on one of the multi-lingual radio stations and listen for a while.

Blessings

Wendy L.

Advertisement

Sunday Reflection: Pentecost

I know it’s been said in a few places, but isn’t it nice celebrating a day of faith that consumerism isn’t a part of. The liturgical colour of red, dresses the church up, but many congregations go all out to make it both a liturgical and physical experience, with sights, sounds and movement bringing us into the day.

During the week, even though our congregation would be worshipping away from “home” our church was decked out in its Pentecost colours for all to see who visit our buildings but don’t make it into services.

We worshipped in one of our neighbouring denominational church’s, and the sight and sounds added to the experience. We were given red balloons that were released during the first hymn, the noise as they popped on spiky objects as they rose to the roof was powerful. The experience, echoed through the Acts reading, giving the words experience and depth.

Most members of the three worshipping communities wore red, in all its hues and in many varied ways. I trotted out my flame jumper and red stockings for its annual parade.

It was a visual experience.

Outside the few remaining red leaves clung precariously to the trees they had clothed since Spring. It was as if the environment was contributing to our all senses Pentecost experience. Making it a legitimate immersive experience.

Today is sensual.

We use all our senses to worship today and it is also one of the most inclusive, not just because the two texts of Acts often called the Day of Pentecost and the Genesis Reading, known as the tower of Babel story, concentrates the significance of languages uniting rather than dividing us, but the messages today are understood by all ages in many ways, including being able to “read” both of these stories through our senses. The day is a truly intergenerational experience.

Now I could go two ways with today’s post, I could dwell on the importance of everyone hearing the word and take the opportunity to point you toward some resources that are multi lingual.

OR I could go into how we can take this experience of Pentecost and extend it beyond the bounds of the church, and into our homes, which is what happened on that first Pentecost day.

So today I will take both options.

Here are some multilingual resources for children

Max 7 https://www.max7.org/en

Sovereign Grace Music https://sovereigngracemusic.org

Bible gateway https://www.biblegateway.com

Illustrated Children’s Ministry https://www.illustratedchildrensministry.com

Thy Kingdom Come https://www.thykingdomcome.global/resources

 

Most Australian states are enjoying a long weekend to mark the Queen’s Birthday. Many families take the opportunity to grab a quick break and visit relatives or just to relax, so they may miss this significant event in the Church calendar. There are so many ways of incorporating a Pentecost day into family time.

Wear red

Have a cake, with candles and retell the story or read it from a one of the story book Bibles or read the story the Day that God made Church. See last week’s blog for some reading suggestions. https://wordpress.com/post/thecrossinmybackyard.wordpress.com/669

Set a table in red.

At dinner talk about those things that “set us on fire” what are we passionate about. Think about ways that you could tell others about Christ so that they will listen.

Use a colouring in page such as Illustrated Ministries as a placemat and let them colour it in during or after dinner.

Go and play in the autumn leaves.

So, it’s too late this year.

Hopefully I’ve sown the seeds for thinking about how you can extend the church experience into the home.

Blessings

Wendy L.

An Australian Pentecost

I love the excitement of Pentecost, the children get involved in the story, they love the craft activities or wonderful colouring pages, and they especially like being involved in the procession showing off their craft and reminding the congregation of the Pentecost motifs of Fire and Wind.

The children, don’t ask the disturbing questions, they let the story take them. I am reminded of a statement I read on Sparkhouse blog https://blog.wearesparkhouse.org/preschoolers-learning-through-play/

a few weeks ago that play teaches symbolism. They are learning the fundamentals of faith formation, they are already on their way to metaphor.

I love being upside down (that is in Australia) at this time of the year. My part of the country is shedding it’s imported clothes as the leaves change, and fall from the European trees. I see Pentecost around me and sense it’s coming enactment. The red leaves dance in the wind, sometimes shacking down around me like a veil, and I wonder what it might have been like for the disciples in their grief and confusion, then I anticipate that the Holy Spirit is here with me, I don’t have to wait, I don’t have to work out what it all means. I have the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the leaves dance through the rain and I’m reminded that God is with me, hasn’t left me. Winter is coming. I don’t have to fear the cold loneliness, I have the Holy Spirit, and so each year at this time I ask myself. How have I used this gift this year and what else should I be doing?

My world is closing down, but I’m not alone. Pentecost makes perfect sense to me down here.