Holy Fellowship

I've moved to Crozet for the summer to intern at a church, about which I am very excited! I was on my way back from Norfolk earlier this week and stopped at the Cokesbury store in Glen Allen. I came across small scriptural/devotional journals. At Annual Conference last week I acquired a UMC Book of Worship. On page #581, there is a "litany" for a Love Feast. The Love Feast or Agape Meal if you want to be technical is a centuries-old tradition. John Wesley himself experienced it when he was in the company Moravian Christians. They introduced him to the concept of a Love Feast, that is to say, a meal of fellowship modeled after the Disciples' meal time together. A suggested scripture is from Luke, it describes the Dinner miracle. A few weeks ago I was watching yet another sermon from Duke Chapel in which Sam Wells talks about a time when he met an elderly Anglican priest, whom he described as "the wisest person he'd ever known." The priest told Wells to set up a table and anytime he ate from it or did work, he should think of it as a sacrifice. More specifically, mealtime was a time of Eucharist. As Jesus commanded the Disciples, "Do this as often as you meet." In following this example, anytime that Christians fellowship together should be a "Eucharistic meal." In the company of others, when we celebrate our faith in Christ and use our time together as a witness to others. Maybe in those circumstances we can have a dinner miracle as the early Jews and Gentiles did, before "Christian" developed, and they experienced a miracle by Jesus. By celebrating this love feast, I am able to have a Discipleship experience through Christ and an honorarium to my heritage as United Methodist but also as an appreciate for my denominational Moravian friends. For modern a modern Moravian, coffee and sticky buns are used right in the middle of worship service. What a better time to celebrate this occasion we call a Love Feast!

Holy Conferencing

I've traveled to Norfolk, VA today for the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. The first night is always a Eucharistic service in memory of ministers and their spouses who have died in the past year. I learned that a minister acquaintance-friend of mine passed away in February. A time of remembering is very important. Grief isn't evil, even though it can be quite difficult. When I think about the remembrance that we give Christ when we celebrate the Last Supper, what grief did the Disciples feel? Maybe grieving and honoring the fallen saints is very Christ-like. Didn't Christ visit the fallen saints and bring them into the Kingdom? As painful as mourning and grief are, they're natural human emotions. Expressing them is difficult and I had a rather difficult time holding myself together. Maybe such is to be expected? I don't know. What I will say is that in the midst of the rewards and frustrations of Annual Conference, remembrance is always first - when we remember the life and purpose of Jesus and the commands and virtues of the Holy Spirit that we are given. As I attend the somewhat grueling meeting at The Scope, could be a time to "scope out" a memorial of the Wesleyan Heritage that shapes me as a Christian and what's important to me in my life as a Christian. After all, when we as Christians - specifically United Methodists - gather together, Holy Conferencing is meant to occur.