Sunday is World Communion Sunday. This day we are reminding ourselves we have brothers and sisters in Christ around the world! We know this in our “head” but often we tend to act as though our church family is just where we gather each Sunday worship and weekly fellowships.
Here is simply where “we are planted.” The goal is to both bloom here but scatter “seed” to all the reaches of earth. In turn, we receive and learn that cultural and language differences actually enrich us saints and sinners here in Middle Tennessee!
For example, I cherish my early, brief 1979 missional time in Haiti and preaching in tiny Montserrat. I marvel at how at “home” I felt in attending alone a UMC service in Burlington, California (a state often thought by many to be a “world” unto itself!).
And how much joy I received, while being at home in the mid-Eighties on Christmas Eve with sleeping 1 and 3 year olds in bed, catching the Pope in Italy celebrating Midnight Mass.
Another time of experiencing our international Faith was when I helped serve communion with a student hospital chaplain from Romania, a Pentecostal minister studying in the USA.
We have been given a Great Commission to “go into all the world…..and make disciples.” And the faithful from all around our globe help make ME a growing and maturing Christian who happens to reside in Murfreesboro TN!
To God be the Glory as we receive the Bread of Life and drink from the Cup of a New Covenant this Sunday worship knowing millions do the same “planted and blooming” from Australia to Zimbabwe, nations A to Z and all in between!
Bring a neighbor this Sunday!
Blessings!
Pastor Barry