Key points:
- United Methodist bishops have found a new way to say “Happy Pentecost!” this year with an eight-week Bible study titled “Pentecost People.”
- The resource, with materials available in multiple languages, aims to help the international and multilingual denomination experience the renewal of the Holy Spirit
- While developed separately, the new resource also resonates with the denomination’s new vision statement unveiled on May 1.
United Methodist bishops plan to make this year’s Pentecost more than just a quick, red-festooned birthday party for the Christian church.
Instead, they hope to help United Methodists around the globe experience the Holy Spirit’s transforming and healing presence, just as Christ’s apostles did in Acts 2.
To that end, the Council of Bishops has released an eight-week Bible study titled “Pentecost People.” The resource — designed for use in the weeks following Pentecost Sunday on June 8 — aims to help the whole denomination move forward, after years of rancor, with a renewed sense of shared mission and a new vision.
“My hope is that we will feel inspired by the reclaiming of who and whose we are in Christ Jesus, being empowered by the Holy Spirit,” said Council of Bishops President Tracy S. Malone, who also leads the Indiana Conference.
Each week’s study includes Scripture readings, stories of faith in action, poetry by hymn writer Charles Wesley, questions for small groups and program suggestions. Each study also includes videos of short sermons delivered by eight of the bishops elected in 2022. In addition, Malone has a brief video to introduce the whole series.
Just like that momentous Pentecost some 2,000 years ago, the study aims to reach a multilingual audience. In this case, materials for “Pentecost People” are available in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and German.
Pentecost People
The United Methodist Council of Bishops have released “Pentecost People,” an eight-week program designed as a resource for the church to learn what it means to be people waiting for a new Pentecost.
See resource.
While developed separately, the resource resonates with the denomination’s recently unveiled vision statement: “The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly serve joyfully and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.”
As the vision statement notes, Malone said, the Holy Spirit enables United Methodists to live out their faith.
“We love boldly, we serve joyfully, we lead courageously, as we’re seeking to form disciples,” she said. “But we also know that it’s not our work. It is the one who is at work through us.”
Malone stressed that the whole program is the result of collaboration between bishops and other church leaders.
David N. Field, a United Methodist theologian and ecumenist, shepherded much of the effort. Field, who lives in Basel, Switzerland, is the Council of Bishops ecumenical staff officer for faith and order and theological dialogue. In his role, he provides staff support for the denomination’s Committee on Faith and Order and the bishops’ related leadership team.
Field said Faith and Order leaders developed the basic idea for the study in 2022 with plans for it to be a Lenten resource in preparation for last year’s General Conference. But after a tumultuous period of church disaffiliations and a history-making session of the denomination’s lawmaking assembly, leaders reconceived the resource to focus on Pentecost and church renewal.
He said the resource can be used in small groups, Sunday school classes and in worship. Pastors also can use the Bible readings and introduction to the theme in preparing their sermons.
“The whole program is designed to help focus congregations to turn from an inward focus to an outward focus on mission rooted in and nourished by an encounter with the Spirit of God in the worshipping congregation,” he said.
“We are asking congregations to dream what it would be like if they embodied God’s love in their life and witness in new creative ways and then actually began to take practical steps to do this.”
Bishop David Bard, who chairs both the Faith and Order committee and leadership team, sees serendipity in the release of “Pentecost People” so quickly following the new vision statement. He also sees the resource as a way for bishops to provide spiritual leadership to a changing denomination.
“It’s something that we as the Council of Bishops want to offer the church as a gift,” said Bard, who leads the Michigan Conference and co-leads the Illinois Great Rivers Conference. “We hope it’s used well with the new vision statement and hope it helps us all focus on moving forward.”
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North Carolina Conference Bishop Connie Mitchell Shelton, one of the bishops elected in 2022, suggested she and some of her fellow new bishops record videos for the series. The conference’s communications team, including Derek Leek and Chris Daniel, handled the videotaping and editing. The sermons were all taped during the Council of Bishops meeting in November 2023 at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.
Shelton is so passionate about the resource that she interrupted her pilgrimage following in Paul’s footsteps to answer United Methodist News questions.
“The multiple phases of production are a reminder of our intentional global shared life as Pentecost People!” Shelton said. “Identifying bishops to preach and recording their sermons was only the beginning.”
Bishops, theologians, communicators and translators, she said, all worked together to make the resource available for free.
Bishop Daniel W. Schwerin, who leads the Northern Illinois and Wisconsin conferences, presents the video for the first study. He preaches on the need to move away from "a dominance mindset" to one more in line with the concept of "ubuntu," a Zulu word referring to mutuality.
“I believe the church in the U.S. is in a culture suffering from an age-old battle between dominance and non-dominance,” he said. “And it is more like cruciform love to take steps of self-giving and generosity. People seem only to know how to move out of dominion impulses, but our body can give something to the world by modeling ubuntu steps.”
Even as the church calendar shifts from Easter and Pentecost to what is commonly known as “ordinary time,” Malone said she hopes United Methodists continue to live and flow in the Spirit. That way, she said, United Methodists can love, serve and lead in extraordinary ways no matter the season.
“There is no disconnect from Easter to Pentecost to ordinary time,” she said. “We’re Resurrection people, and we’re Pentecost people. We don’t turn off who we are.”
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
