Living in the Spirit
May 30th to June 16th

The following description is from the Lutherans Connect post on their Facebook page.  You are able to access the devotions from their blog or their Facebook page.

Many of us would like to spend more time in prayer than we do, but often find it hard to make space for it in the day-to-day challenges of our lives. In the post-Easter and summer season it can become easy to fall out of spiritual practice as schedules change and faith communities wind down their programming. In the spirit of our previous Lenten and Advent online devotional projects, Lutherans Connect invites you to make space over the feast of Pentecost for daily reflection. As we have in the past, we will offer a daily meditation, bringing together scripture readings, poetry, music and reflections, from a range of ecumenical traditions. They will be posted each morning on Facebook and Twitter.

Our theme this season is “Living in the Spirit”.

Pentecost is the feast in which we remember the descent of the Holy Spirit on the gathering of apostles in the Upper Room. We associate this moment with the beginnings of the early church, but Acts 1 takes us earlier in the story, when the apostles were witnesses to the ascension of Jesus. After he is gone, they are confronted with the ‘what now?’ of pursuing God’s mission into which they have been called. In those early days before Pentecost, they are putting their hope in the promise of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus has said will appear and guide them. But what to do until then? In an unfriendly and even dangerous time, they find themselves in a vulnerable and frightening place.

We live in a time when our own gathering and worship spaces have become focal points of secular and religious anxiety and tension. In our home parishes, we are experiencing changing realities: structures too big for our budgets, losses foreseen, closures and mergers anticipated. In our wider world, we have seen the intentional destruction of sacred spaces because of racism, and the murder of people of differing faith traditions, while they are at worship. In continuing to live out our discipleship, how do we serve God amid such challenges, while also listening and living for the Spirit moving in our own lives?

To respond and reflect on these realities, Lutherans Connect will offer an eighteen day devotional, beginning on May 30, the day we commemorate the Ascension of Jesus, and progressing daily to June 16th, Trinity Sunday. In this way, Pentecost will fall in the middle of the story of the early church, instead of at the beginning. Can we be inspired to rest in the promise of the Holy Spirit, in the way that the apostles did? How can we prepare ourselves for a time of transformation?

Join us, as we think about what it means to build the realm of God in troubling times. Come Holy Spirit!