Communion? Or just a crowd?
A call to worship.
Themes
Living communion • Worship • Performance • Church • Nearness of God • Ascension • Salvation • Dependence • Repentance • Self-assertion • Participation in Christ’s life • Individualism • Persons-in-communion
Apart from Jesus Christ, a church has no life. We would be nothing but a crowd, a flash mob of sinners, weak, fearful, self-protective, and divided.
Scripture reading
Matthew 18:20 Ephesians 2:19–22 Colossians 1:15–20 John 17:21–23
This call to worship1 is a protest against the religious lie that God’s nearness is somehow measured by our mood, our excellence, or our spiritual momentum. The churches we attend are not gatherings of like-minded people; they are a living communion established and maintained in Jesus Christ, who is present, right there, in the middle of it. The church is to be anti-performance because Jesus’ presence is anti-distant. The Father is not “somewhere else.” Christ wasn’t trapped behind time and space after the Ascension. Salvation is not simply “Jesus and me”; salvation is communion because God Himself is a communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So our worship is not an upward reach; it is our being lifted, through the Spirit, into Christ’s own worship of the Father, where unity, holiness, and confidence are not produced by church competence but simply received by us as participation in His life.
Jesus said this to His disciples about the church: For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them. Paul wrote this about the church, You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and you are members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. For by Him all things were created— all things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. And finally, Jesus prayed for our communion. He prayed, I ask that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us… I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one.
Prayer
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ— You are Holy; You are living; You are near. We’ve come together this morning not to perform, not to manufacture in ourselves some kind of spiritual feeling, but to receive what You have already given to us in Christ. We confess, Father, that our hearts can easily misunderstand this place— this little gathering of a few people, gathered here in Your name, together as one body. We reduce it— this living communion, lit into existence by Your Spirit— we reduce it to something manageable— a meeting, or a service we evaluate, or a gathering of like-minded people, a place we “attend”, an organization we keep running. Forgive us for thinking this assembly of Your people is our creation, or our possession, or our achievement— as though You are somewhere other than here, and we must somehow achieve Your presence by our effort. Forgive us for acting as though heaven were way, way far from here, and with it, the ascended Jesus, as though time and space have somehow gotten in between us, as though You, Father, God of Eternity, were different from the face we see in Christ. Father, thank You for not leaving us guessing about who You are. Thank You for the Son, who is of one being with You— so that when we look upon Jesus, we are not looking at anything other than You— Your truth, Your holiness, Your tenderness, Your saving will. He is the eternal Son made flesh— fully God and fully man— not divided, not confused, not temporarily wearing a human suit, not distant from us— but united fully and completely to our humanity so that it can be fully and completely healed from within. And thank You for the Ascension: not the Son escaping this earth or leaving our humanity behind, but carrying it, fully and completely, into Your very life— so that our salvation is not a dream, not just a word picture, or a theological idea, not a ladder we must climb, not merely a completed transaction checked off a divine to-do list— but an Ascension so that our salvation would be a living communion with You, established in Jesus Christ Himself. And so we confess that apart from Jesus Christ, Your Church has no life. We would be nothing but a crowd— a flash mob of sinners, weak, fearful, self-protective, and divided. Apart from Christ, we cannot produce holiness. Apart from Christ, we cannot conjure Your presence. Apart from Christ, we cannot keep ourselves alive. We live only by Christ. So teach us to live dependent and repentant. Teach us to live as Your people. Teach us that we must decrease, that we are not the center, that we cannot replace Christ with our competence, or our charisma, or our programs or systems or control. Put to death our self-assertion, and our anxieties, and our need to “make it work.” And instead, give us joy and confidence and gladness, to know that although this church is nothing in itself, it is real in Christ. You have given us a true place— not in our strength, but in Your Son. You have joined us to Him by His Spirit. You have made us His Body— not as a metaphor, not as religious poetry, but as a living participation in His life. So we’ve come here today not to reach up to You by our striving, but to be lifted up by the Spirit into the Son’s own worship— to join the prayers Christ is already praying, to receive the peace Christ is already giving, to live from the communion Christ has already secured. Holy Spirit, come and make this true among us. with the mighty reality of Your presence. Open our ears to the living Word. Turn our eyes outward from ourselves to Jesus. Break the spell of our isolation and our individualism. Deliver us from the fantasy that we are autonomous selves. Make us persons-in-communion— as those who have been addressed, and forgiven, and gathered by grace. Father, make us— this assembled group of people— what it truly is in Christ: not an organization, not a marketplace of spiritual services, not a performance— but Your very dwelling place through the Spirit; a people built together upon Christ the cornerstone; a community gathered into the “new and living way;” a fellowship held together because He is the Head. And Father, as we worship, make us one— as You are in the Son and the Son is in You— so that our unity with each other would not be mere friendliness, but a sign that Jesus Christ is alive, and present, and reigning, and gathering His people. We come, then, in full assurance— not because we are strong, but because Christ is faithful. Not because our church is impressive, but because Your Son is Lord. Not because we have climbed to heaven, but because heaven has opened to us in Jesus. Receive us, Father, in Him. Center us in Him. Hold us in Him. And let Him increase among us. We ask all this to Your glory, through Jesus Christ our great High Priest, in the communion of the Holy Spirit, one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— now and forever. Amen.
1
This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on January 11, 2026.