Bone of His bone.
A call to worship.
Themes
Communion with Christ • Church • Called into being • Reconciliation • Sanctification • Participation • Healed humanity • The body of Christ • Belonging • Triune life • Knowing God • Communion • Isolation • Loneliness • Hospitality • Mission • Strangers • Ministry
Knowing God is not knowing words about Him; it is communion with Him.
Scripture reading
John 17:20-23 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 Ephesians 5:31-32 2 Peter 1:1-4 James 1:18
This call to worship1 pulls us out of “church as event” and into church as communion. It is a defiant refusal to let “church” shrink into a religious meetup. God does not merely inspire a community; He creates one by giving Himself. He speaks a people into being by the living Word. He gathers them by the Spirit. He makes communion with Christ an enacted, public reality. Because God truly became human in Jesus (no illusion, no half-measure), our humanity is taken up, healed, reconciled, and included. It is so included that we can pray “Abba!” not as a prayer technique but because we actually, truly belong to Him. From there, everything else is consequence: forgiveness becomes a shared practice, loneliness is broken open, strangers become family, hospitality becomes sacrament-shaped life, and the church becomes the visible “earthly form” through which Christ continues to reach out and love the world.
Jesus prayed this for us. I pray that all of them (that is, us here in this little church) may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they—those right here in this gathering, 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. Paul said something similar when he wrote: Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ… We were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body… God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be… You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. Is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf. A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. And Peter said something similar when he wrote: Through His own glory and goodness, Jesus our Lord has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them we may become partakers of the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world. And James wrote: Of His own will, the Father brought us forth by the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of a new creation.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, it is great to be back again with Your people… Your people!— not a loose voluntary association of some individuals who have decided to be together. No. We are more than that. We are a divine creation rooted in Your very own nature. We exist as Your people, together here, not as a result of our preferences, but because You have spoken, and You have called us into being by Your living Word. We’re not a church because of this building and the practiced music and the prepared sermon. We are a church because here You give Yourself to us. You address us here. You forgive us here. You reconcile us here. You sanctify us here. Through Your Word and Spirit. Sure, those things happen in other places, Father, but here they are a shared reality. Here they are publicly announced and practiced together. And so here is where it forms us and transforms us into a reconciled community. And so it is here that You are shaping all of us together into communion with Christ and with one another. When You, God, became human in the person of Jesus, it wasn’t just an appearance. You united yourself eternally with our human nature so that it could be entirely fixed, completely healed, absolutely perfected, perfectly cleansed, and unquestinably reconciled with You. And so now, we’re just a simple group of people, drawn into that healed humanity, becoming bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, becoming the body of Christ, physically and spiritually connected to Him. We are becoming the earthly form of His very existence, and the visible way He continues to reach out, touch, and love the world. We have become so united with Christ —so united with Christ!— that we are brought into His own communion with You, Father, by the Spirit. In His very nature, the Son lives in communion with You. And now by grace, we too are included! We are included in His communion and fellowship and friendship with You, Father, and that is why we can pray, “Abba.” Because we belong, now, in communion with You. And so here now, this little church becomes the public space where this participation with Christ Himself, this communion with You, takes shape. It takes shape in our worship, in our prayer time, in our forgiveness of each other, in our mutual service together, in our table fellowship, in our common mission. We are a Spirit-gathered participation of believers in the Son’s communion with You, Father. We are Christ’s body, living wholly from Him, and reflecting in a creaturely human way, Your Triune communal life— reflecting it by being in communion with all these people sitting around us here. Knowing You is not knowing words about You; it is communion with You as it is reflected in our communion with each other. We cannot know You, truly know You as You are— a communion or persons, a communion of love— without knowing You in the togetherness of our personal relations and friendship and communion with one another here in this little church. In Christ, we participate in communion with You, Father. So let it be expressed here with each other. May Your Holy Spirit break open any isolation and loneliness that is here, and may He form our true selves in communion with Your people. Make us and re-make us, as You do, in relationship, first with You in Christ, and with one another by Your Spirit. And help the communion we share here to spill outward. Make it visible to others. Help us to be a living preview of what the cross of Christ achieved— a preview of former strangers becoming family. Help us to share in Christ’s priestly ministry. Help us to pray for others, to carry their burdens. Help us to practice hospitality— the most basic way our communion is expressed— in the making of space, in the hearing of stories, in the sharing of food, in the expression of Christ’s welcome. Amen.
When God took action to make Himself known, He did not give us information about Himself. He gave us Himself. Go deep with this essay.
God does not send us data. He gives Himself.
God gives Himself to be known. And it’s personal. Really personal.
This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on January 18, 2026.