What is world communion?

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.

This Sunday is World Communion Sunday in The United Methodist Church. This begs the question: What does the UMC mean when it talks about "world communion"?  We will look at three different answers in this post.

On the most practical level, World Communion Sunday is one of the six Sundays of the year that the UMC has designated as denomination-wide Special Sundays, where special offerings are collected to serve specific ministry purposes in the church.  The offerings from World Communion Sunday are split.  Half goes to scholarships for ethnic minorities in the United States; half goes to the Central Conferences outside the United States to be used for educational purposes.  This happens through three programs: the World Communion Leadership Development Program, the Ethnic Minority Scholarship Program, and the Ethnic In-Service Training Program.

On a second level, one might think about the "communion" mentioned as the sacrament of communion.  Since World Communion Sunday is on the first Sunday of the month, many United Methodist churches will be celebrating communion this Sunday.  World Communion Sunday thus becomes a chance to think about how people all over the world are celebrating communion on the same day.  This sacrament unites us on levels of both practice and theology.

This leads us to a final notion of world communion: "communion" as being joined together, as the etymology of the word would suggest.  On World Communion Sunday, we celebrate how the church around the world is joined together as one.  In the UMC, we are joined together by denominational structures and organizational and financial considerations.  We are also joined together in a spiritual sense, though.  As Jesus prayed in his petition to God for unity among his followers, "As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us." (John 17:21)  We Christians are all united because we are all part of Jesus and God the Father through Jesus.  Therefore, we are connected to one another.  We might also think of the body analogy in 1 Corinthians 12 here.

The 1 Corinthians 12 passage reminds us of a corollary of this interpretation of world communion: we are joined to people who are different from us.  Perhaps that difference is, as this blog frequently highlights, a difference of culture and nationality.  Perhaps that difference is, as much of the rest of UMC blogosphere has been talking about, a difference of theology or views on sexuality.  That difference can take other forms as well.  The bottom line, though, is that if we're connected to Jesus, that also means we're connected to fellow Christians, even fellow Christians that we may not agree with or like or want to be connected to.  Yet this too is a sign of grace - that God's love, God's fellowship, God's communion is greater than we are, that the Spirit overflows our boundaries and runs into the entire world, bringing the good news with it.

Plan Now: World Communion Sunday is this Sunday!

This coming Sunday is World Communion Sunday.  While this program is interdenominational in nature, United Methodists have long been active participants in this effort to promote the oneness of the body of Christ around the world.

There are many ways in which a congregation can celebrate World Communion Sunday.  One way is to incorporate some of the music and liturgy ideas included in this extensive list of worship resources for World Communion Sunday compiled by the General Board of Global Ministries and this list compiled by the General Board of Discipleship.  Worship using elements of traditions other than one's own can not only be a refreshing change of pace for a congregation, it can remind us of the breadth of cultures included in God's people.

Another important way in which congregations can participate in World Communion Sunday is to contribute toward the World Communion Sunday special offering.  This offering goes to support World Communion Scholarships, the Ethnic Scholarship Program and the Ethnic In-Service Training Program.  These important programs help develop leaders for congregations around the world, as can be seen in this story about one such leader in the United States and Mexico.

In keeping with the spirit of this blog, another possible way to celebrate World Communion Sunday is to reflect on or discuss as a group what it means to be in communion with others around the world, both other United Methodists and other Christians in general.  Look through the archives of this blog to get ideas or starting points for such discussions.  Such conversations can help us think about how to take the principles of unity we celebrate in worship and practice them in our common life together.