Formations: "What Now?"                    April 12, 2026

A minister I know was once visiting his adult children at their church. This was the Sunday his little granddaughter stayed in “big church” for the whole service rather than going to preschool worship.

As my friend tells it, his granddaughter was mesmerized by the whole experience: the ushers passing the offering plates, standing for the doxology, listening to the choir anthem, everything. (He didn’t mention her opinion of the sermon; I’m inclined to believe her parents had provided crayons or some other distraction for the less engaging portions of the service!)

Finally came the benediction. The pastor prayed, and at the Amen, everyone opened their eyes. 

And into that brief silence before the postlude, my friend’s granddaughter shouted, “What now?"

My friend saw a sermon in that question. When the service is over, when we are dismissed to go back out into the wider world, what now? What will we do with the things we have heard and experienced?

I can’t help but imagine the disciples in those first weeks after the resurrection waking up and asking themselves, “What now?” 

Peter and John’s “What now?” was to continue their custom of going to the temple to pray. On their way to one of those prayer meetings, they encounter a lame beggar, and Peter stops to offer him healing in Jesus’s name. 

The whole crowd is filled with wonder at this miracle. Peter takes the opportunity to preach to the crowd about the One in whose name such wonders can occur.

It wasn’t enough for Peter to bask in the afterglow of resurrection glory. He had heard and seen a truth too wonderful to keep to himself. It was a story so amazing that everybody ought to hear it. And not just hear it: this story had the power to transform human lives. 

Peter and John had experienced something—Someone—who turned their lives around. It shouldn’t surprise us that they wanted the world to know.

Darrell Pursiful is the editor of Formations. He is an adjunct professor at Mercer University and an active member of the First Baptist Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia.