How to do “Long Communion.”

It’s that good.

The kind of good you want to make sure you get to share it with others.

It’s the kind of good that makes you want to talk about it so much…too much?

This communion…this communion in community.

A warm spring day with men seeing just how far they can make each other run into the field after what is clearly  a home run.

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Laughter is all you hear until someone yells,

“Head’s up!!!!!”and women shriek and everyone covers their head.  But no one gets hurt and the ball rolls into the horse pasture.

Wives furrow their brows and men are taken back to a time on a playground where they are glad

they caught that girl’s attention.

Kids with dirty faces toddle back from making mud pies in the sand box.

I stand on the deck taking it all in and then from in the house, I hear…”do you have grape juice?  or are we using this wine?…which crackers?”

This communion together so good…no one wants to miss it…even if  they have to leave early.

“Communion!!!” the call goes out like a dinner bell.

On this warm spring night the whole earth is filled with His glory….and we celebrate that!

This is all Worship.

Baseball mitts fall in a thud on the deck as the boys turned back into fathers and husbands gather benches in a circle.

Doc explains it to the ones who have never taken communion this way…. he waits patiently while we joke about how this is Loooong Communion.

“grab a seat it will be awhile”….

“this is no shot at a bar”…

It took some getting adjusted to…but now I listen to it and it feels right…

I watch Doc’s eyes as he waits for the last repeated joke…his wife pats his leg and he continues…

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“….He told us to go and make disciples but so often we don’t know what to say when someone shares a struggle …we don’t know how to disciple them… we don’t know how our problems line up with how He handled things…how He went through it.  So we share our struggle…and the person next to you shares how that lines up with the gospel. So you share with them the gospel.”  He taps the ends of his fingers together in his doctory way.

Looking over to the ones new to this concept, I can see that moment when you first hear it and you feel like you want to back out…

too much sharing!…and what exactly is  sharing the gospel?…

“I like to think of it like this,” I interrupt… “you know when He sat with them and said ,’Do this in Remembrance of Me’…every time we take our problems, or those lies, and we show them the Truth…we are in remembrance of Him…all that He did…but sometimes in our struggles we need someone else to come along side of us and tell us the Truth….”

 I know it sounds more formal…it’s one of those things you sink into.

“and then you celebrate it with communion…all that He did… all that has been provided to us”.

and we begin.

In this Long Communion…

where we share,

we share the sacred.

You can feel it as it is shared…as we speak in Remembrance of what He did.

One by one we are girded stronger not by sharing our struggles but by receiving His truth

the Holy falls on the deck …while little girls  chase chickens.

He stands in our midst  and babies try their first bites of cantaloupe and people share how they want to meet Him more…everyday.

We are filled up more and more…our hole-y places turned whole…. turned holy.

All in Remembrance of Him.

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More on this type of Communion:
We are all a Messy Kitchen.

~My list of thanks on this Monday is practically listed above…but how about a few more~

1. People who want to show me they want this as much as I do.
2. Men hitting home runs in the back yard.
3. Strangely finding out my sixth grade math teacher is reading my blog…luckily she wasn’t my grammar teacher! yikes. (Waving to you)
4. A filling PFW….completley different then the others… but totally what we needed.
5. Babies with drippy chins of cantaloupe.
6. My friend’s awesome gluten free bread…who knew it could be that good!
7. People getting the opportunity to let the fuego out….and you know who you are! 🙂
8. Crazy friends who pray for “more sex for everyone in our group” with funny grins on their faces… I mean, who does that? People who have read this book!
9. Warm days where the kids can run and everyone can eat stacks of bar-be-que chicken.
10. Praying  just with my husband and opening our eyes to seeing our children sitting at our feet with heads bowed.
11. My brother and his fiance making it here for Family dinner and communion…a great surprise!!!
12. Someone named Brie who I never met before, coming up to me just to encourage me. Perfect timing. We are always provided for.
13. A straight shooting visitor to our group who told me “you would be crazy to think you wouldn’t have opposition…welcome to being in ministry”.  Yep, you are right.
14. This concept of a Throne Room Experience…He wants us there! The overflow will be amazing!
15. windows open…house aired out…warm days ahead!
16. Happy to report this trick is still working on any  asthmay or allergy related coughs!  So wonderful!  Sleep is good!!!
17. going in on Sunday morning deflated then hearing….”What we are seeing on Sunday mornings here is a result and run off from what they are doing here on Saturday nights.”  tears.and humbled.