Acts 2:1-21

   Pentecost is the “birthday of the Church,” the day, according to the Acts passage, that the Holy Spirit filled the disciples, changing them, changing the course of history, even changing the world.  Based on the power of that experience, Peter gets up and gives a sermon, and at the heart of it he quotes the prophet Joel’s promise that God’s Spirit plants dreams in all of us – young and old, male and female, slave and free.  All Christians, through the power of the Holy Spirit, have been commissioned to be dreamers.  Peter is saying that even though the people listening to him thought the time of the prophets was over, in fact, God gives the power of the prophet to everyone, to “all flesh.”  The power of the prophet is not foretelling the future, not reading crystal balls and tea leaves as we sometimes think, but speaking truth to power, and dreaming, holding up the dream of what could be, what is actually possible even though all the voices of fear and scarcity and cynicism say it is not.  That’s a pretty astounding power, when you think about it, and it’s given by the Spirit to every one of us.

   It’s interesting that being called a dreamer isn’t necessarily a compliment these days.  Often it means someone has lost touch with reality. But a dream powered by the Holy Spirit has a firm handle on reality, although that gets tricky: what is real, and what isn’t? Let me explain what I mean with something near and dear to me: The state of the American Church.  Lately church leaders are inundated with articles, blogs, books, and social media posts with titles like, “Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore,” “The Death of the Church,” “The Five Ways the Church Shot Itself in the Foot,” “The Fifteen Ways the Church Is Going to Hell in a Hand Basket,” “The 257 Million Things Millennials and Gen-Z’ers Would Rather Do Than Go to Church,” “Why No One in His Right Mind Under Age 90 Will Ever Walk into Your Church,” and “How COVID Destroyed Your Church.” Okay, I made up some of those titles, but not all of them.

   You could start thinking that’s reality.  You could start thinking we just have to face the facts.  Okay, then, let’s face the facts but let’s face the real facts: Somebody does want to go to church.  I’m in church every Sunday, and I’m not sitting alone in a sanctuary. And I’m not 90, not yet, nor are many of the people sitting around me.

   Church leaders, church members, church goers: I invite you to remember, allow, and expect the power of the Holy Spirit, poured out on all flesh.  I invite you to dream.  All the assumptions, all the stories that people are telling themselves, the many things “everyone knows” about the future of the church need to be called into question by some active dreaming that invites the Spirit to help us see possibilities we hadn’t seen before.

   I invite you to dream, beginning with what you really do know.  We really do know that many people are busy on Sunday mornings.  Kids’ sports, dance classes, and birthday parties are on Sunday mornings.  People hike, visit relatives, and sleep in on Sunday mornings.  So why fixate on Sunday mornings?  I dream of a church that measures success by hearts transformed and lives touched, not by counting people in the pews on Sunday morning.  I dream of a church that isn’t defined by what members practice when they gather together, but by how they live when they’re apart. 

   We know that people used to participate in church because it was considered the respectable thing to do.  Which is ironic for two reasons: Jesus was pretty close to the opposite of respectable his whole life, and he saved his harshest critique for religious hypocrites.  I dream of a church that celebrates that the people who find their way into the church today aren’t there for show, or because they think they have to be there.  I dream of a church that rejoices that people are there because of a genuine desire to explore what it means to be disciples.  I dream of a church that welcomes people who are struggling with questions. 

   Another thing we know is that Jesus’ ministry was to heal, to transform the world one person at a time, one heart at a time.  I have a dream of a church that embraces healing, and that doesn’t care whether that healing happens through some other religious tradition or through secular practices such as Twelve Step groups, meditation, psychotherapy, or self-help, just as examples.  Healing of the individual leads to healing of relationships, and then to healing of families, and then schools, and then communities, and then economic structures, and then nations and then the planet – beginning with one person at a time.  I read an article in which a Christian blogger was receiving hate email telling her she isn’t a Christian because she meditates, which according to her detractors, isn’t Christian.  But Jesus said, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”  I dream of a church that joins hands and links arms with people of other faiths and of no faith, people doing the work of healing and justice.  I dream of a church that says, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

   Do people want a church experience that’s something other than a one-way discussion?  What is possible that hasn’t occurred to your congregation because you’re so used to doing things the way you do them?  I’m not talking about organs versus guitars; that’s an old, worn-out argument.  I’m talking about more radical change.  I’m talking about aligning ourselves with like-minded people to accomplish God’s work.  I’m talking about changing our language and the way we tell stories so we don’t exclude people.  I dream of a church willing to hear God’s revelation to us through our culture and world, recognizing that the church doesn’t control the voice of God.

   There’s an old story about a shoe factory that sends two marketing scouts to an undeveloped region in the global south to study the prospects for expanding business.  One sends back a telegram saying, SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES.  The other writes back triumphantly, GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY STOP THEY HAVE NO SHOES.

   Which story are you telling yourself?  Are you allowing God to dream God’s unlimited possibilities through you? 

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.