“What now?” This is a question often asked after something exciting has happened. After Jesus rose to life again, Acts 1:3 says, “He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” The subject of Jesus’ conversations with His disciples after His resurrection was the Kingdom of God. This is what was important to Him, the Kingdom of God. Yet in verse 6, the disciples seem to be concerned with a human kingdom, Israel, when they ask, “Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” To this, Jesus deflects their question and makes His famous statement in verse 8, saying that they will be empowered by the Holy Spirit and become His witnesses throughout the world. And this is just what we see in the remainder of the book of Acts, His followers become witnesses to God’s Kingdom come, all because of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

This summer at Mosaic we are going to consider the Holy Spirit who empowers the church to bear witness to Jesus. We will do this by looking at the book of Acts, and ask the questions: Who is the Holy Spirit, What does the Holy Spirit do, and what does it mean for us? And, throughout the summer we will be reading the book of Acts together. Each week, we will read the section of Acts on our own and then join together on Sundays to hear and discuss a passage from that section. Through it, our hope is to grow together, learn and experience the Spirit together, and feel the empowerment of the Spirit as we head out in service together. Join us this Sunday we kick off this summer discussion.

Here’s the reading plan for the summer:

*Week of June 23: Acts 1-4

*Week of June 30: Acts 5-8

*Week of July 7: Acts 9-12

*Week of July 14: Acts 13-16

*Week of July 21: Acts 17-20

*Week of July 28: Acts 17-20/Catch up

*Week of August 4: Acts 21-24

*Week of August 11: Acts 25-28