A Watching World

Several years ago I read the book, It Takes A Church To Raise A Christian. This morning we met the author who is also a pastor at San Clemente Presbyterian Church. I was glad to have the opportunity to speak with him briefly after the service.

Let me say, first of all, it was wonderful to worship together as a family. Secondly, we all found the worship meaningful, especially communion. Interestingly, when I asked Bolsinger what was most foundational to this church's efforts of hospitality and community building, he said, "weekly communion." Bolsinger claims that the church became significantly more connected and more committed to being faithful witnesses to a watching world when they ate and drank more often at the Lord's Table together. He suggested that in a service without partaking together in the Lord's supper, without the stark reminder that we, together, are the Body of Christ, one could leave with the impression that personally hearing and applying "the message" was the goal of the service. His thinking is that in a service in which communion is celebrated, it is unlikely you will leave with that more individualistic view of worship and, beyond that, the church. At the same time their church began to think hard about their witness to a watching world. These are certainly things worth thinking about.

In Bolsinger's book, I liked the challenge for churches to think in terms of the shared life of the three persons of the Trinity,as a bases for our shared life and our commitment to unity and shalom. In his book, Bolsinger writes, "We must- by the way we live together- affirm the reality of who God is as Divine Communion, and model our lives on God's life. That 'witness by living together' calls forth a spirituality to be lived out in our larger communities. We are not only messengers of the gospel; we are, by our lives together, the very mission of God who is at work in the world."

To a watching world may our shared life together (as churches and the church) faithfully show the loving outstretched arms of God, who graciously invites us all, as frail, broken, flawed objects of his love, to be nourished at his table and to remember and believe that the body and blood of our Lord Jesus, our Immanuel, was given for the complete forgiveness of all our sins. Thanks be to God!