What is a church? The book of Acts is the very first story of the church. What is the big story of these texts and how do they still matter to us in the modern world?

SLIDES GEORGE READ IN OUR GATHERING

The great gift of Christianity is to be united while remaining oneself. - Teilhard De Chardin

The Eucharist invites us to gather as family.

Nothing is an island, not even a molecule or an atom. Everything is meant to be in relationship. The Eucharist honors that. The Eucharist is meant to form us into one body in a way that takes us beyond the differences of personality, ideology, theology, gender, ethnicity, history, social status, preoccupation, privatized agenda, and jealousy. Often, it alone has the power to do this. God gives us something we couldn’t give to ourselves: a common heart and spirit. The Eucharist is, therefore, both the sacrament that celebrates unity and the sacrament that cleanses us for it.  

—Ronald Rolheiser, Our One Great Act of Fidelity