Comments on: How do you find Jesus in the neighborhood?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 17:25:41 +0000

Beautifully written. I could (and probably should someday) do a whole sermon series or weekly meditation on these thoughts. Perhaps mentioning an aspect of this each time communion is taken.

Thank you for making more tangible the reality that God is at work. It’s not “just” a spiritual sense that God is at work… there are real things that are happening. And a means by which we can discern these things.

Something challenging in a shared, open, eucharist is to increase (or maybe more rightly recognize) the reverence and spirituality of communion while at the same time decreasing its formality.

By: Jane

Jane — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 02:10:48 +0000

Oh this calls to my heart – “porous at the edges” an “open table”.

By: Jon Strother

Jon Strother — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 21:22:03 +0000

In frontier America the camp meeting movement carried another name: “sacramental revival.”
One historian noted that those gatherings were porous as well, noting that in some gatherings perhaps more souls were conceived as were saved. John Wesley claimed the Eucharist to be a “converting means of grace.”

By: Michael Frost

Michael Frost — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 21:00:07 +0000

In reply to Matthew. Yes! Paul’s advice on another tricky issue regarding worship — speaking in tongues — assumes that unbelievers would be present (hence he recommends translation occur). So I think it was assumed that early worship gatherings were held in public spaces (or semi public spaces like shared courtyards etc) and were porous at the edges.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 19:31:55 +0000

“All were welcome to join.” Ok, you may have just revolutionised my world a bit there. I think I’ve always been stingy in my heart with the concept of communion in thinking that it’s only for Christians but simultaneously very embarrassed by its exclusivity. The way you just explained that though seems to help me, in that the physical act of someone in the neighbourhood seeing a communion meal out of their window (or curiously following the music) and then approaching the table in view of everyone in a way seems itself an act of faith and expression of hunger for God. The meal isn’t happening anywhere else but with the Christians, so I can keep my idea of exclusivity if I want to, but the invitation is always to an open table. Ok, did I miss the point?