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St. Hilda's  by the Sea Anglican Church
   A Living Invitation to All to Connect with the Divine spacer
 
                          INCLUSIVE AND INNOVATIVE

       An Inclusive Communion

We at St. Hilda's offer Communion to all spiritual pilgrims.
Below are two articles that help explain why we and other churches find this practice a generous Christ-Like Hospitality.

  The Case for Open Communion  (from the May 2011 edition of the Anglican Journal)
http://www.anglicanjournal.com/nc/news-update-items/article/the-case-for-open-communion-9707.html
  Towards a Generous Hospitality (from Christ Church Cathedral)
http://www.cathedral.vancouver.bc.ca/2011/09/12/toward-generous-hospitality/

These are some of the invitations to Communion we use at St. Hilda's:

1)   The Kingdom of God is like a seed planted in a woman's heart, slowly, silently, stretching it beyond family and friends, church and nation until one day that heart bursts open revealing a table that is as wide as the world and as warm as an intimate embrace.
Around this table everyone eats and no one is stuffed, each drinks deeply of love unearned.  Come now to this feast of our Emmanuel.

 

2)  The table of bread and wine is now to be made ready.  It is the table of company with Jesus and with all those who love him.  It is the table of sharing with the poor of the world, with whom Jesus himself identified.  It is the table of communion with the earth in which Christ became incarnate.                                                        

So come to this table you who have much faith and you who would like to have more; You who have been to this sacrament often, and you who have not been for a long time; You who have tried to follow Jesus and you who have failed.  Come, it is Christ who invites us to meet him here.

 

3)  There is often a moment, when everything we profess to believe, fades in the light of heaven; when all creed and custom and tradition and theology, is left outside, and the holy floods in pulling us towards the doorstep of heaven.  This is one such moment.

So my friends; the simple invitation is this; Come by this table, God is expecting us.

 
Our Final Commissioning   -  Eye contact and a smile

While reciting the words below, members of the congregation are encouraged to turn and smile at all those with whom they can make eye contact.
                                    Glory to God
Whose power working in us,
Can do infinitely more
than we can ask or imagine.  
Glory to God from generation to generation,
in the Church and in Christ Jesus
For ever and ever.  Amen