Names

Each Sunday we assemble around the book and around the table. That’s what we do as Christians because it’s central to our identity and so important for our discipleship. And now and then it’s also important for us to think about what we’re doing.

We do together at worship what the church needs to do, what it hungers and thirsts to do to be the church. These deeds aren’t done by one individual and then another but by the whole assembly. The body of Christ is proclaiming itself to be the body of Christ. The body of Christ is identifying itself, remembering itself, preparing itself to live as Christ all week long.

When we come into this worship space, we don’t come to pray alone for an hour or so. We come to place ourselves beside brothers and sisters and to give all that we have to the work of the church: to listen to God’s loving word, intercede, give thanks and praise to God, take and be the communion and then go.

Here the church makes its identity known, telling the world who it is by doing what it does best—inviting the hurt and hungry, the least and littlest, to a living word and a bountiful meal where God is worshiped.