In all my Christian years, I had never served communion until earlier this year. Park Church serves communion weekly, which is a different theology than the Methodist Church who serves once a month. I'm not one to focus on small theological debates, like how often to take communion, but it has been mind changing to observe this passage weekly. The timeliness of communion is irrelevant, it it not my intention to blog about when it's "right" to take communion. Moving forward, the leaders in our community group asked Mike and I, along with another couple, to serve communion one Sunday evening.
We are still considered a new couple at our church (although everyone there is new as the church is only 2yrs old - an Acts 29 church plant from TX) and when asked to serve I thought, "No one is even going to know who we are". Clearly, we are just going to look dumb at the front of the church while everyone wonders why these clowns are serving the body and blood of Christ. We hadn't even attended the church for a year! I obviously had my doubts. However, I can guess you probably know the ending to this story, as the Lord uses every opportunity to create humility within our hearts.
Humility lesson #1 - Serving communion to a body of believers with your Husband is incredibly intimate. To be in sync with your soul mate while completing a task that is so overwhelmingly vital seemed almost heavenly. As people would take a piece of the bread from Mike, then dip it in my chalice I thought 'You can't have one without the other'. How true of a marriage to your husband and of our relationship with Christ. It is the underlying idea behing marriage, right? To serve Christ together. And the body without the blood is, nothing. Christ gave us both (His whole life) so that we could be free of sin. Talk about humbling.
Humility lesson #2 - There is something extremely holy about holding that chalice as people dipped their bread into my wine. As I watched our congregation file in line in front of ME to receive one of the holiest moments in the Christian church, I cried. Can you imagine? Me, crying, while trying to hold the chalice and say "the blood of Christ, shared for you". I'm not much of a multi-tasker, but I hope people felt the presence of the Lord as I did in that moment. It is so humbling, to be the one that holds these precious gifts and then serve it to your fellow brothers and sisters. I think I probably experienced one of the most intimate moments of my Christian life.
In all my years in the church, at camp, and throughout the many "church" things I've done, no one had ever asked me to serve communion. I think the Lord was waiting for the right moment so that my heart would be ready to receive and understand the meaning behind such a sacared moment. And I am so grateful.
And speaking of the right moment, I am currently in quite a doubting phase. How quickly life can change. For example, I really thought Mike had this particular job sealed this past week after his in-person interview. I just knew that we were going to get to stay around the Foothills area, I could get a new job closer to where we live now, we could buy a home, settle down, heck! We could actually know what our purpose was here. We could stay in our church, now that is comfortable. I totally thought this job was the "right" moment. The "right" thing for us. Psyche! How frustrating after so many "no's" - doesn't my husband deserve just one "yes"? We've been in this job battle for over a year now, battling money, place, happiness, etc. Can you see my doubts? And now we start from ground zero. Hoping that the Lord will open the right door for us. Ack! Life.
The visit from Mike's cousin and his fiance was great! Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies make Autumn fun! Especially noting that Winter is next. Ken and Becki have planned a short trip up here for the week before Thanksgiving! Have I mentioned we like visitors? Amazing!
Love you! Love wins!
