Pentecost Blog Carnival

After all the good reading that the Lenten Blog Carnival generated, Kerry (of A Ten'o'Clock Scholar) and I decided that there need to be a few more carnivals. After all, Lent is not the only season in the church year!

Easter having already passed, we decided to kick off this new set of blog carnivals with a Pentecost Blog Carnival. This one will be hosted here at Homemaking Through the Church Year, and the next one will be hosted at A Ten'o'Clock Scholar.

Here's how it will work:
-Write a post about Pentecost. It can be about how you celebrate it with your kids, or about resources for celebrating, or about prayer for the season of Pentecost, or about the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. (See below for a list of prompts for writing about the Third Person of the Trinity.)
-Send me a link to your Pentecost post (jessica *dot* snell *at* gmail *dot* com) by May 27 (the Wednesday before Pentecost).
-Optional: post an announcement about the carnival on your blog, so that more people can find out about it an contribute. Feel free to steal the nifty .jpg picture at the top of this post.
-The Pentecost Blog Carnival will go live here on Pentecost Sunday (May 31) - come and see the link to your post, and read all the other great posts. Pray, celebrate and thank God for his good gifts!

For those of you who want some ideas for your posts, here's a few prompts:

Pentecost Prompts
The longest season of the church – Ordinary Time – comes after Pentecost. The implication is clear: most of our lives are lived in the long, green season of the Holy Spirit. The church exists now, after Christ has left, yes, but after the Holy Spirit has come. Jesus did as He promised, and sent us a Comforter.

I had a professor who told us once that if the Holy Spirit is sometimes hard to see or hard to talk about, it is because he is like this: he is like a man standing behind a blackboard, on which he has written the name JESUS, and all you can see of him is his hand reaching around the board to point at the name. The Holy Spirit does not draw attention to himself, he draws attention to Jesus.

These prompts, I freely admit, were mostly stolen from the hymn “Come, Thou Holy Spirit Bright”, a hymn whose tune I don’t know, but whose words I read often. You may not need them at all, but if you want something to spark your thoughts about Pentecost, please feel free to use them.

-How does the Holy Spirit bring light to our lives? How does He convict us, and keep us from keeping our dark corners hidden?
-How does the Holy Spirit inspire us to help the poor?
-Christians often experience both blessings, and the prompt to bless others. How has the Holy Spirit, in your life, prompted and inspired this cycle of generosity and care?
-Our bodies are said to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. How do you make the third Person of the Trinity welcome in your person? How do you, as it were, practice hospitality here? Do you think about your actions in terms of “not grieving the Holy Spirit”?
-How does the Holy Spirit bring peace to you?
-How does the Holy Spirit aid you in your vocation?
-How does and has the Holy Spirit brought you rest?
-How is and has the Holy Spirit turned your sufferings into gold?
-By filling our hearts, we find that the Holy Spirit drives out whatever else was there. Do you find that His presence in you leaves no room for lesser things, for sin? Talk about that experience.
-How has the Holy Spirit helped you to discern? Helped you learn wisdom?
-Have you found your judgment improving, the longer you have been a Christian? Your love growing warmer? Have you been able to love people, and known that it was not your own love, but God’s love pouring through you? Meditate on this.
-How has the Holy Spirit helped to heal you?
-Has the Holy Spirit convicted you of sin?
-Has the Holy Spirit reminded you of the Father’s forgiveness?
-How has the Holy Spirit helped you fix your eyes on Jesus?
-How has the Holy Spirit helped you to be part of the church? Think of how such a strange variety of people have been knit together in one Body, and of the Holy Spirit’s role in that.
-How do you see the Holy Spirit’s role in guiding us in right belief (orthodoxy)?
-How has the Holy Spirit lead you into joy?
-The presence of the Holy Spirit in us is the promise of the life to come. How does the Holy Spirit in you affect how you view death? How make you sure of Heaven?


I'm looking forward to reading all the posts!

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell