Third Service and First Communion
In week 2 of this madcap journey of starting a church I had to preach 3 services. This is getting to be a habit. Next week I am preaching 2 services. Only one is my community, but the other communities are nice.
Anyway, the first service was a very liturgical service and it was fun to wear the stole for my UCC neighbors and preach and serve them their communion, the second service was a contemporary one and having cut my teeth in evangelical culture, it was like wearing an old shoe. But then came the third service.
It was a pot luck. No music, no program, no order of service. Just people eating food and getting to know each other. Then, after a point, I broke out the elements of communion and explained that communion happens during a meal and that when Jesus told us to do this in remembrance of him, perhaps it was more than a bit of bread and wine…maybe we are God’s hands and feet and maybe we need to find ways to be broken and poured for each other and others in this new humanity we embrace. It was a moment filled with beauty and love and a young man nicknamed curly with facial piercings and baggy pants said it best. It was like the beginning fo family and less like church and more like sitting around a camp fire. What curly grasped is what community should be and I learned something from his perspective and unbridled enthusiasm by what he saw and felt that day.
