Prelude and Coda

Today was Pentecost Sunday. For those whose faith tradition doesn’t follow the traditional church calendar. Pentecost Sunday is the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost as told in Acts chapter 2. The sermon this morning was stellar, and at the end of the service our church said some goodbyes as some are graduating and leaving for good while others are going for the summer.

Goodbyes are a common part of life at Crosspoint Fellowship. In the nearly 8 years I have been a member, I have seen dozens of people enter and leave our fellowship because our community attracts people who ask questions or need a respite for their faith life. The result is Crosspoint is usually filled with college students and seminary students, and that typically means transition in a few short years. This year is no different, a couple who have served in leadership for 3 years are off to pursue the ministry to which they have been called, another member will be off to Paris and another of to Africa. Odd as it may be to most churches, it is what defines “normal” at Crosspoint.

The beautiful thing about this type of normal is that it exemplifies what happened at Pentecost. The whole world, represented by the plethora of nations in Jerusalem, was unified by the coming of the promised comforter, The Holy Spirit. Everyone heard the sermon offered by Peter in their own language. The Gospel message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, which defeated death, was available to all equally, and the visitors who were added to the number took that message with them as they went. Such is the life of Crosspoint. People from various walks of life are unified by One Holy Spirit and take the Gospel with them as they go out from our community.

In order to reflect this idea f unity on Pentecost Sunday, I opted to bake bread for use in communion. This isn’t an abnormal thing at Crosspoint. We have a number of folks that enjoy baking and sharing it with the community and communion bread is one of the many items that gets made. What was a little different was that today I baked a gluten free loaf of bread.

I don’t normally bake gluten free, and one friend even asked me not to perpetuate the myth of gluten allergies by baking gluten free this week, but I baked gluten free bread this week for the purpose of expressing our unity in the One Holy Spirit. Whether or not there is such a thing as a gluten allergy is irrelevant in my mind. We have people who come to our church that don’t eat gluten; who take communion from a plate each week that is different from that of the rest of the community. I figured if ever there was a day everyone should be partaking of the same loaf, it was Pentecost, and so I baked gluten free bread for the first time.

In order to make the bread, I scoured the net for recipes. Once I had found one I liked I headed for the store where I discovered that buying all the ingredients was not economically expedient, so instead, I found a gluten free bread mix. I don’t normally hock items on my food blog because I would prefer it be about the food, but this mix was pretty awesome and the recipe was very easy. And since I had people asking about it, I’m giving the shout out to Pamela’s Products Gluten-Free Bread Mix & Flour Blend. The bread came out awesome. During the hour that it rested after mixing, the yeast really went to work and by the time the cooking was done, the loaf was luscious and golden brown. It was far better than I expected.

Best of all, our community had the chance to visually express the unity we have in the Holy Spirit by partaking of a common loaf for a people equally called by God.  Ironically, none of Crosspoint folks who maintain gluten free diets were in church today. I guess it really is the thought that counts.