Happy New Year, family! Since the end of the pandemic, we have been on a journey as a fellowship of embracing annual themes to guide all our camps, events, initiatives, and communications:
- Come Home (2022)
- Invite (2023)
- Belong (2024)
If the themes sound relationally and missionally focused, that was definitely on purpose! Come Home and Invite marked the last two years of the Missional Health phase of Formission for our fellowship. Belong marked the transition year, renewing the covenant as a fellowship towards healthy leaders in healthy churches, leading towards a healthy movement. It was all about belonging to God (My Health), to each other (Mutual Health), to the local church (Ministry Health), and to His mission (Missional Health).
What does reunion mean to us as leaders in the fellowship, and why did we choose this family word to kick off My Health again for 2025-26? Reunion is really a word that has two complementary thematic meanings.
First of all, 2025 is going to be a year Re:Union, regarding our union with Christ. In John 15, Jesus makes this startling pronouncement, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” There is no other starting point for Christian spiritual formation than union with Christ, because He is the source of all health, goodness, virtue, unity, and vision. In short, He is abundant, full, eternal life. Cut from the trunk, the branches are simply kindling.
Before we talk about strengthening relationships, building unity, discovering and growing in our giftings, recovering the priesthood of believers, joining God in mission, anticipating and entering his coming kingdom, we must start with the foundation. If we are not spending time being with Jesus, we can’t hope to become like Jesus or to do what Jesus did.
John Stott writes, “The expressions “in Christ,” “in the Lord,” and “in him” occur 164 times in the letters of Paul alone, and are indispensable to an understanding of the New Testament. To be “in Christ” does not mean to be inside Christ, as tools are in a box or our clothes in a closet, but to be organically united to Christ.”[1] If there was one step we could encourage all Pentecostal people to take this year, one resolution that we could make together, it would be to commit to spending quality time with Jesus. We really do believe that apart from Him we can do nothing. Conversely, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13).
One of the foundational characteristics of Pentecostals historically has been our value of waiting on God, or tarrying. From Azusa street to the early spread of Pentecostalism in Newfoundland and Labrador and beyond, we have always understood ourselves from the narrative perspective of the disciples in the upper room, waiting for the promised gift of the Father, not just together physically in one place, but of one mind and purpose. Prayer is the most productive, unproductive time that we can spend – perhaps especially if we spend it together. When is the last time you really paused and spent time enjoying God with others, actively waiting on Him in community?
Reunion in its more common use has to do with gathering as families, or about things becoming unified again. As we gather weekly for worship, at camps and events throughout the summer, or at pastor conferences biannually, we want to reemphasize that we have a shared identity and purpose as Pentecostal people. Whenever we gather, we should feel like we have the most important thing in the world in common: we are a Spirit-filled family in Christ. Every opportunity to come together should feel like a family reunion that anticipates the great reunion that is our blessed hope: the coming of Jesus and the reunification of all things in heaven and on earth under Christ (Ephesians 1:10).
Like any family reunion, we recognize that God has brought together a group of very diverse, very different people and called them the PAONL. Every reunion has its awkward moments and perhaps even scuffles. Different PAONL churches have as many different flavours as the communities that they serve or the people who serve in them. Remember that God has called people from every tribe, tongue and nation under heaven to be a part of His family, and there is beauty in the diversity. Like sunlight through a prism, the gospel shines with a different brilliance when it is expressed through different generations, cultures, towns and personalities. I step back in awe at the brilliance of the God who imagined and brought and is bringing all this to pass. You officially have your invitation to Reunion 2025. Can’t wait to see you there!
References
[1] John Stott. “In Christ: The Meaning and Implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Knowing & Doing, 2007. https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/KD-2007-Summer-In-Christ-The-Meaning-and-Implications-of-the-Gospel-of-Jesus-Christ-276.pdf. Web. Accessed Jan 6th, 2025.
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