Conference Minister's Corner - 6-10-2025

This past Sunday, I was blessed to worship at the Gower Street United Church in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The occasion was the Centennial Celebration for the United Church of Canada. (I have been the Conference Minister representative to our Full Communion Partner relationship with the United Church of Canada for the past four or so years.) Preaching at the service on Sunday evening was the Reverend Dr. Jerry Pillay, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches.

At the end of his sermon, Dr. Pillay told a little Pentecost story that really stuck out to me. The story was about a fierce storm that hit the American Midwest. After the storm, people discovered there was a piece of straw that had become deeply imbedded into a stone column. Researchers came to see how this could be possible. What they discovered was that the piece of straw was just a normal piece of straw with relatively little strength of its own. The column was a normal column with no inherent flaws that would allow such a thing to happen. This phenomenon was created solely by the strength of the wind.

Because the arrival of the Holy Spirit is accompanied by rushing winds in the Pentecost story, wind and the Spirit are often associated with one another. As we step away from Pentecost this weekend, I would encourage us to continuing pondering just what the winds of God’s Spirit can accomplish. I think, as those who live in our secularized world, we can undervalue what the Holy Spirit is doing among us. After all, the Spirit only has ordinary things like you and I to work with. But when caught up in the Winds of the Spirit, even ordinary things can do the unimaginable.

Gordon