I used to feel that proms were an American rite of passage unsuited to British culture. The idea that sixteen-year-olds needed a huge ball to celebrate leaving school struck me, an introvert who hates dancing, as futile, expensive and unnecessary.

The form of proms may leave us uncomfortable (and the expense can be ridiculous, which is why the ‘Prom Perfect’ scheme pioneered by Alison Sykes of the Salvation Army and the Dearne Area team whereby outfits and accessories donated by people can be hired at a fraction of the cost is a brilliant idea), but the notion of ‘rites of passage’ is crucial to our ongoing development. I still find the terminology of many of these events (‘graduation’ from nursery to school, for example) irritating, but the sentiment of formally acknowledging transition and change is hugely important.

Richard Rohr calls these transitions ‘releasing the loyal soldier’, referring to a Japanese ceremony at the end of the Second World War whereby all soldiers were honourably discharged from the army back into communities to be ‘men, fathers, hushands first and foremost’, rather than soldiers. There will inevitably be ‘rites of passage’ in our lives: the birth of a child acknowledged in a dedication ceremony, the transition of a child to school, baptisms, marriages, funerals and so on. But sometimes the transitions are less welcome: divorce, the painful loss of bereavement, illness. At each significant stage or hurdle of our lives, we need acknowledgment and maybe even some formal ‘event’ to help us to let go and to move forward. We need markers, like the stones collected from the River Jordan to mark God’s miraculous parting of the river to enable the Israelites to enter the Promised Land after 40 years in the wilderness.

Altars were the Biblical sign of remembrance, of marking God’s significant actions in our everyday lives, and were helpful ways of acknowledging what had happened and choosing to remember God’s intervention in our personal situations.

However we choose to mark these significant milestones in our lives, we need to be moving forward in God, which will, at times, involve a painful letting go of the past in order to embrace all God has for us now. Only as we are prepared to let something ‘die’ will we be able to experience the flourishing of new life and growth.

Stephen spoke tonight on the feeding of the five thousand, one of the many miracles performed by Jesus when He was on earth. After a busy day of prayer and ministry, Jesus’s disciples were ready to send the crowds away to eat, but Jesus gave them the challenge, ‘You give them something to eat.’ (Luke 9:13) This seemed an impossible task, given they only had five loaves of bread and two fishes, but Jesus took this offering (one boy’s lunch, according to John 6:9), prayed to His Father and blessed the food before breaking it and asking HIs disciples to distribute it.

The fact that this small amount of food fed not only five thousand men but also the women and children present and there were twelve baskets of leftovers tells us this was a miracle, beyond natural explanation. When we pray, God often answers in miraculous ways. He can do amazing things as we pray, though we need to let Him do the work!

Our loaves and fishes were made out of chocolate and did seem to go much further than we expected!

Dave spoke this morning from Matt 13:47-50, another of the short parables of Jesus which reminds us there will come a day of judgment when the righteous and unrighteous will be separated. A parable about nets to a group of people for whom fishing was a daily reminder of life must have resonated with local people. There were different types of fishing practised in the area (using a line and hook as mentioned in Matt 17:24 or one person using a net), but a common type of fishing was to use a dragnet, where two or more men would use the net to collect fish. In this parable, we see all kinds of fish were collected in this manner and these would be separated (good from bad) later on.

Matthew 13:47-50.

Jesus spoke much about judgment and hell (see Matt 8:12, Matt 23:33, Mark 3:29, John 5:29) and it is necessary for us to take this subject seriously. Jesus said, ‘If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.‘ (Mark 9:23) The reality of hell and judgment was something Jesus spoke about frequently, stressing that what is required is a response now to God’s open invitation to repent and be born again (see John 3:16-21). God does not want anyone to go to hell (see 2 Pet 3:9, Ezek 18). He offers us a way to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ (2 Cor 5:20-21), but we need to have ears that hear God’s warnings. Not only is it imperative that we follow God on the narrow path that leads to eternal life, it is also imperative that we take this message of reconciliation and hope to the world which is largely ignorant of and indifferent to God’s ways.

We’re now in April and there’s lots happening at GPCC!

Today we have services at 10.30 a.m. and 6.00 p.m., with the evening service being our monthly ‘Little Big Church’ where there’ll be songs and stories for children during the service.

This week will be the last week before the Easter holidays for our Monday youth (8th April) and Parent & Toddler group (12th April). Come prepared for Easter activities and chocolate! We’ve been getting new equipment for both groups, so come along to check out the new table tennis tables and pool tables for youth and the new play equipment for toddlers! We’ve been blessed to have Lisa and her team from the Dearne Family Centres helping at our Parent & Toddler group over the last few weeks, so she’ll be leading craft activities again this Friday between 9.30 a.m. and 11.00 a.m. There will then be two weeks off, with Monday youth resuming on 29th April and Parent & Toddlers back on 3rd May.

Midweek meetings (prayer meetings/ Bible studies) will continue on Thursdays (11, 18, 25 April) where we’ll be continuing our studies through Acts and coffee mornings will be on Saturdays between 10 a.m. and 12 noon (13, 20, 27 April).

On Saturday 13th April there will be the opportunity for our church children to watch an Easter film called ‘The Lion of Judah’ at 5 p.m. Food will be provided.

Next Sunday (14th April) we’ll be at Cherry Tree Court in the morning at 10.30 a.m. and at Market Street at 6.00 p.m.

On Good Friday (19th April) we’ll be having a fellowship meal at 5 p.m. and a service to remember our Lord’s death at 6 p.m. On Easter Sunday (21st April) we’ll have services at 10.30 a.m. and 6.00 p.m. as usual.

On Wednesday 24th April, ‘Churches Together’ will be running another Family Fun Day at GPCC between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Easter crafts, games, stories and activities will be on offer, along with free lunch.

On Tuesday 30th April there will be a ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting at the Salvation Army at 10.30 a.m. All welcome.

William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army (whose motto ‘Blood and Fire’ reflect core beliefs in the death of Jesus Christ and the fire of the Holy Spirit), wrote the hymn ‘Send the Fire’ in 1894. The first verse speaks of his longing for the fire of God in his life through the Holy Spirit:

‘Thou Christ of burning, cleansing flame,
Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!
Thy blood-bought gift today we claim,
Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!
Look down and see this waiting host,
Give us the promised Holy Ghost;
We want another Pentecost,
Send the fire today, send the fire today!’

The line ‘we want another Pentecost’ begs the question ‘is that possible?’ Many have claimed that the events described in Acts 2 were ‘one-off’, never-to-be-repeated, events. They believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the supernatural miracles described in the book of Acts were simply to ‘launch’ the church, so to speak, and are not needed today. To crave another Pentecost, to talk about the need to be baptised in the Spirit today or to speak in tongues, is regarded by many as unnecessary and even heretical.

As a Pentecostal church, we obviously don’t agree with that interpretation of the Bible. We believe that we are still living in the era of Pentecost, in the times when God pours out His Spirit on all people (as prophesied by Joel in Joel 2:28-32). When Paul talks about tongues and prophecies ceasing, he says that will be ‘when completeness comes’ (1 Cor 13:9), when Jesus comes again. We don’t think we’ve reached that point yet and so we believe that the church today needs the Holy Spirit to be effective in living and witnessing for Christ and therefore we echo William Booth’s sentiments.

Does that mean we will see tongues of fire or hear the blowing of a violent wind? Not necessarily, for the Spirit will come in His own way and in His own time. But the New Testament speaks of Him as the guide, the teacher, the living water and the power behind our witness (see John 14:16, John 16:12, John 7:37-39, Acts 1:8) and speaking in tongues and the gift of tongues are mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament (see Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:6, 1 Cor 12:7-11, 1 Cor 14:1-25). We should, like William Booth and those early Pentecostal pioneers, seek the fire of the Holy Spirit and His power in our lives today, for we need Him desperately if we are to have any impact on our community and see people won to the Lord. The signs and wonders described throughout Acts (Acts 5:12, Acts 6:8, Acts 8:6, Acts 14:3, Acts 15:12) are needed in our churches in our times. Let’s seek God together, as these disciples did (Acts 2:1), for the blessing of the Holy Spirit to be poured out afresh, not for our sakes, but that others may see and hear the wonderful works of the Lord and thus be saved.

The third of the supernatural phenomena associated with the Day of Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit was the ability to speak in other tongues (or languages) as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:4) The crowd’s reaction show us that this was definitely an unusual experience (they were ‘amazed and perplexed’); Galileans had the reputation for being uncultured (see John 1:46, John 7:52) and clearly had a pronounced accent (see Matt 27:63); historians tell us they struggled to pronounce guttural sounds like K and G and tended to ‘swallow syllables’ as they spoke, so it was all the more astonishing that they spoke in many different languages to the crowds gathered in Jerusalem for the holy festival and were understood by all.

The purpose of this supernatural experience was to alert the people to what God was doing, for people clearly heard the disciples ‘declaring the wonders of God’ in their own languages. (Acts 2:11) This led to opportunities for witness, as Peter responds to the question ‘What does this mean?’ (Acts 2:13) It’s no coincidence that God should choose this method of witness; Jesus is described as ‘the Word’ (John 1:1) and, as John Stott says, “Ever since the early church fathers, commentators have seen the blessing of Pentecost as a deliberate and dramatic reversal of the curse of Babel.” There, the pride and ambition of humankind led to the confusion of different languages (when I used to teach French, I always tackled the question of ‘why can’t we all speak the same language?’ by referring back to Genesis 11!); here, speaking in tongues led to the blessing of the gospel reaching all nations (and the list of nations covered harks back to Genesis 10 where we see the scattering of Noah’s descendants). This multilingual witness coheres with the universal offer of salvation in the church’s message and its consequent worldwide mission and reminds us that the Holy Spirit is given to us so that we can be witnesses, not so that we can hoard blessings ourselves. Howard Marshall reminds us, referring to the crowds gathered in Jerusalem, that “their presence and participation in what happened constituted an indication of the worldwide significance of the event.” Without the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, the church really would not exist!