Eastertide Adult Education: Resurrection, Community, and the Coming of the Spirit

Eastertide Adult Education: Resurrection, Community, and the Coming of the Spirit Sundays, April 19 – May 24, 2026 · 9:00–9:45 a.m. · Adult Education Building

About This Series

Beginning on the Third Sunday of Easter and continuing through the Day of Pentecost, St. Bartholomew's adult Sunday School class will explore the Eastertide lectionary through conversation, close reading of Scripture, and short films from The Work of the People — a widely respected collection of films for spiritual discovery and formation. Each session is led by Father Joseph Shippen, Rector of St. Bartholomew's.

The series runs six sessions across six Sundays, tracing the movement of the Easter season from the disciples' first bewildering encounters with the risen Christ all the way to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Along the way we will spend time with some of the most beloved and challenging passages in the New Testament — the road to Emmaus, the Good Shepherd, the farewell discourses of Jesus in John, Stephen's martyrdom, Paul at the Areopagus, and the great prayer of John 17.

This is an ideal series for anyone who wants to go deeper into the Easter season, to understand what the church is actually celebrating across these fifty days, and to connect ancient Scripture to the texture of daily life.

You Are Welcome Here

Each session in this series is self-contained. You do not need to have attended the previous week, and you do not need to attend every session. Come when you can. If you have never attended adult education at St. Bart's, this is a wonderful place to start — the format is conversational, the questions are open, and there are no wrong answers.

If you would like to settle in before the class begins, come at 8:45 a.m. There will be coffee, and plenty of time to visit before we get started. The class runs from 9:00 to 9:45 a.m., leaving a comfortable quarter-hour before the 10:00 a.m. service begins.

About The Work of the People

Each session will open with a short film from The Work of the People, a remarkable library of films for spiritual discovery and transformation. The Work of the People brings together theologians, contemplatives, poets, and practitioners — voices like Richard Rohr, Parker Palmer, Juanita Rasmus, Ilia Delio, Kallistos Ware, and John Philip Newell — in short, substantive conversations about faith, Scripture, and the life of the spirit. The films are thought-provoking without being academic, and they consistently open up rather than close down conversation. They serve as the doorway into each session's discussion.

The Six Sessions

Session 1 — April 19: The Road We Did Not Recognize Third Sunday of Easter · Luke 24:13–35

We begin with one of the most cherished stories in all of Scripture: the road to Emmaus. Two disciples walk seven miles from Jerusalem, joined by a stranger who opens the Scriptures to them as they go. They do not recognize him until he breaks bread with them at table — and at that moment he vanishes. Their question afterward is one the whole church has been sitting with ever since: "Were not our hearts burning within us?"

This session invites us to reflect on the places in our own lives where the risen Christ has been present without our recognizing him, and what it is that opens our eyes to see. The Acts reading for this Sunday — Peter's Pentecost sermon and the crowd "cut to the heart" — shows us that recognition always leads somewhere. Those who truly encounter the risen Christ find themselves turned around and sent.

Session 2 — April 26: The Voice We Learn to Follow Fourth Sunday of Easter — Good Shepherd Sunday · John 10:1–10

Good Shepherd Sunday is one of the great gift Sundays of the church year. Jesus speaks of himself as both the gate and the shepherd — the one whose voice the sheep know, and who calls them each by name. It is a passage about intimacy and trust, about the difference between a voice that leads toward life and the voices that scatter and destroy.

This session pairs John 10 with Acts 2:42–47, the luminous description of the Jerusalem community's common life: devoted to teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. What does a community shaped by the shepherd's voice actually look like? We will spend time with that question as it applies to our own life together at St. Bartholomew's. The Psalm appointed for this Sunday is the 23rd — one of the most prayed and most loved texts in all of human history.

Session 3 — May 3: The Way, and the Cost Fifth Sunday of Easter · John 14:1–14 and Acts 7:55–60

"I am the way, the truth, and the life." These words of Jesus from John 14 are among the most quoted in the New Testament — and among the most debated. What does Jesus mean by naming himself the way? This session holds that claim alongside one of the most dramatic passages in the Book of Acts: the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who dies with a vision of the Son of Man and a prayer of forgiveness on his lips.

The juxtaposition is intentional. The way Jesus names is not merely a metaphysical claim. It is a pattern of life — visible in Stephen's death as clearly as in Jesus' own. First Peter's image of "living stones" being built into a spiritual house gives the session its closing movement: we are not called to walk this way alone, but together, as something being built.

Session 4 — May 10: The Spirit Who Will Not Leave Us Orphaned Sixth Sunday of Easter · John 14:15–21 and Acts 17:22–31

In John 14, Jesus promises that he will not leave his disciples orphaned — that the Spirit of truth will come to be with them, and indeed within them. This is a remarkable promise, and it arrives in the context of Jesus' imminent departure. The disciples are afraid of being left alone. Jesus tells them they will not be.

This session pairs that promise with one of the most extraordinary scenes in Acts: Paul at the Areopagus in Athens, standing before the philosophers and intellectuals of the ancient world and finding a way to speak of the God who raised Jesus from the dead. He begins not with Scripture but with what they already know — "in him we live and move and have our being" — and moves from there toward resurrection. First Peter's call to "always be ready to give an account of the hope that is within you" brings the question home: if someone asked you today to give an account of your hope, what would you say?

Session 5 — May 17: The Prayer That Holds the World Seventh Sunday of Easter · John 17:1–11 and Acts 1:6–14

The Seventh Sunday of Easter falls in the liturgically unusual space between Ascension (which occurs on Thursday, May 14) and Pentecost. The disciples have watched Jesus depart. They do not yet have the Spirit. They return to Jerusalem and do the only thing left to them: they pray together.

This session is contemplative in character. We will spend extended time with what is often called the High Priestly Prayer — Jesus' great prayer in John 17, prayed on the night of his arrest, asking that his disciples may be one as he and the Father are one. It is a prayer for unity, for protection, for joy. We will also sit with the image of the early community gathered in the upper room — men and women together, devoted to prayer, waiting for something they cannot yet name. This session will open with a period of silent prayer in the spirit of our Friday Centering Prayer community, and will invite reflection on what it means to wait well.

Session 6 — May 24: Fire, Wind, and the Birth of the Church Day of Pentecost · Acts 2:1–21 and 1 Corinthians 12:3b–13

We close the series where the church's story truly begins: Pentecost. The disciples are gathered in one place when the sound of a violent wind fills the house, divided tongues of fire appear, and they begin to speak in languages they have never learned. The crowd outside is bewildered. Peter stands up and explains what is happening in the words of the prophet Joel: "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh."

This is a celebration session. We will read Acts 2 with the energy it deserves, and then turn to Paul's great meditation in 1 Corinthians 12 on the gifts of the Spirit — many gifts, one Spirit, one body. The session will close with an invitation to name what gifts we have seen in this community across the Eastertide season, and to consider what the Spirit might be calling St. Bartholomew's toward in the season ahead.

Why Eastertide Matters

In much of Christian culture, Easter is treated as a single day — a Sunday of lilies and alleluias, followed by a return to ordinary life on Monday. But the church's tradition insists on something richer: Easter is fifty days, a great season of sustained celebration and formation that does not end until Pentecost. The Sundays of Eastertide are not afterthoughts following the main event. They are the church's extended meditation on what the resurrection means — for our lives, our community, our sense of who God is and who we are called to be.

This series is an invitation to live inside that meditation together. The readings appointed for these six Sundays are among the most beautiful and challenging in the entire three-year lectionary cycle. They deserve more than a single hearing on a Sunday morning. Come and spend some time with them.

Practical Details

The class meets in the Adult Education Building from 9:00 to 9:45 a.m. each Sunday. If you would like to arrive a little early, please come at 8:45 — get a cup of coffee, and you are warmly invited to visit before we begin. There is plenty of time after the class to make your way to the 10:00 a.m. service.

No preparation is required. No books to buy, no homework to complete. Simply come.

Questions? We would love to hear from you. Contact us at admin@saintbart.org or (803) 279-4622.