Serving in the Communion Service

One of the monthly events I most look forward to is the Parkminster Communion service, which happens on the first Sunday of every month. Sometimes I participate like all the congregants, and other times I get to serve by anointing with oil those who choose to be. This past Sunday I received an email sometime on Saturday to serve and I responded immediately with a “yes”.

I take on the role of an anointer feeling both the joy of being together with other believers, and feeling compassion for them. As they walk towards me after receiving the bread and cup, I try to remember their name. When they stop in front of me I speak their name before I begin to pray for them, while making the sign of the cross on their forehead with the oil from a tiny jar. While I typically don’t know their concerns, I know the God who loves them and I know He desires them to be healed. It might be a young married woman who desires a child, a teenager who’s struggling with their sexual identity, an adult dealing with physical pain or a discouraging doctor’s report. I often pray for the men I anoint that God would empower them to be the men that he has called them to be, filling them courage to be bold for Him.

Now and then I get to anoint those in my family, and especially Corinne. This Sunday, nine days after major surgery, I discerned that I should pray that God would continue to hear her far beyond what she could expect or imagine. I prayed that He would give her a bigger healing than she could ever expect.

In so many of the Bible stories, Jesus takes an event and makes it into much more. He takes the funeral of Lazarus and makes it into a resurrection. He creates a feast with extra food to spare for a weary, hungry crowd from 5 loaves and 2 fishes. He takes a wedding that’s short on wine and treats its participants to a finest of wines. In the same way, I want to believe, for each one that comes forward, that God desires a healing, an experience, a life that’s full of abundance, beyond their wildest dreams. That’s why don’t turn down the opportunity to serve His people through the communion service.