Remembering community and Communion

August 29, 2007

By John W. Kennedy

Last summer I attended my 30th high school reunion in my small hometown in Iowa. While there I had the opportunity to visit the church I attended when I worked at my first newspaper job in the 1980s.

I hadn’t been to the church in years. Fortunately my pastor, Jim Cecil, is still there. Of the four communities I’ve lived in during the past quarter century, Pastor Jim holds a special place in my heart. He was a great mentor to a new Christian, both as a pastor and a friend. He is a powerful preacher, has a good sense of humor, is tenderhearted, and remains an eager learner.

This is the church where I was filled with the Holy Spirit and the place I served as a deacon while still in my 20s. I remember going to the church to pray weekdays before work. Jim would already be in the prayer room interceding. Now Jim is in his mid-60s, plunging into a sanctuary construction project in his 23rd year at the church.

Visiting after so many years I saw some familiar faces, but also many new ones, especially young couples with small children.

The service featured freedom to not only raise hands, but also to dance and sing in the Spirit. At first the informality of the service seemed a bit jarring. Over the years I’ve grown accustomed to well-choreographed services while sitting in comfortably padded pews. I became disconcerted by the babbling children, some of them wandering from relative to relative during the service.

Near the end of the service an informal Communion time occurred. The elements weren’t passed along in gold-plated trays during solemn silence. Instead, families went up to a table and took Communion together, celebrating with great exuberance as music played. This church always has been a place where former drug addicts, recovering alcoholics, and the poor are welcome, and they worship the Lord not in frivolity but in gratitude.

Soon I got over my concern about the lack of decorum and realized this might be exactly the way Jesus would do it. To Jesus, Communion was all about relationship.

“And he said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God’ ” (Luke 22:15,16, NIV).

Jesus told His disciples to let the little children come to Him (Luke 18:16). He improvised when He preached, instructing crowds to sit on the ground (John 6:10). He didn’t need ornate buildings with stained-glass windows and towering steeples.

Afterwards the church had a picnic and softball game. I watched in amazement as Jim related so well to men 40 years younger than himself. I hope I’m so in tune with young people when I reach Jim’s age.

John W. Kennedy is news editor of Today’s Pentecostal Evangel.