If you are a part of the Mill City community, you may have noticed that we have started celebrating communion together every Sunday after the sermon as we transition into worship.

We are going to begin having the Prayer Team available every Sunday as well during the second worship set.

Why?

Because unity takes practice.

Jesus specifically prayed for US before He died:

“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message (that’s us!), that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

-John 17 (emphasis mine)

Jesus prayed that we would have unity with God and with each other.

That doesn’t just happen by accident. It just doesn’t.

One of the many ways we try to take Jesus’ words seriously is by participating in practices.

Practices, rituals, disciplines, expressions, rhythms – call them what you want. But the essence is that we don’t just stumble into supernatural unity in the Holy Spirit.

We have to be intentional.

There are many ways to be intentional – as individuals, families, missional communities, and groups of friends. When we are all together, for the short hour and 15 minutes a week, these are two exercises that help us practice unity.

Communion:

We have unity with God when we remember Jesus through the bread and the cup at the communion table. It reminds us that because of Jesus, we get to be “in” Christ. Us in Christ, just as Christ is in the Father.

Complete unity.

It’s at the table we remember that none of us are better than the person next to us. There is nothing any of us could do to get God to love us more or less.

We are all in need of what Jesus did for us. He was so compelled by love and this radical vision of unity that He gave everything.

If we can have unity with God, then there is hope for us to have unity with each other – “Brought to complete unity,” as Jesus puts it.

Prayer:

All of this is impossible without remembering God’s grace and praying for God to move.

We must call on the Holy Spirit to continue the work of leading us into complete unity.

There are also so many other areas of life where we could see impact if we allowed someone to pray for us. Prayer doesn’t just change US; it is effective and allows for Kingdom breakthrough that has a ripple effect.

So we will celebrate communion every week, remembering God’s grace and receiving it anew.

We will offer prayer every week, not “if you need it” but “BECAUSE we need it”.

We have an opportunity to make every effort to seek unity. Let’s go for it!