Podcast Summaries

Dynamic risk assessment and go for it. Right, so whilst they're doing that, let's just quickly get our bearings. So as a congregation, as a church, that's really good, as a church, we are reading our way through the book of Luke, the gospel according to Luke. I've been so grateful to all of those who have taken a couple of chapters and who have spoken to us over the last few weeks. It's been really good fun. This week, we are in chapters 14, 15, and 16. Who's read them this week? That's nobody, okay, so the idea is that as a church, we read these chapters in the weeks before, and then we unpack them on a Sunday, and then we keep going in our home groups as well. And so we are doing a series on being empowered by the Spirit. How's it going? Good, nice and tight. So we're doing a series on being empowered by the Spirit. We're asking what does it mean for us to be empowered by the Spirit? And in order for us to get our head in the right space and in order for Chez to finish what she's doing, we're going to basically read the whole of Luke chapter 16 today, and we're going to be reading two parables of Jesus. So we're going to start by reading the first one, which helpfully enough starts in chapter 16, verse 1. And what we're going to do is I'm going to read the beginning. This is so distracting, isn't it? I should have thought about this. We're going to read this first parable, and then I'm going to ask you to tell me how it ends, okay? So we're in Luke chapter 16, verse 1, and it says this. Jesus told this story to his disciples. There was a certain rich man who had a manager handling his affairs. One day a report came that the manager was wasting his employer's money. And so the employer called him in and said, What's this I hear about you? Get your reports in order. You're going to be fired. And the manager thought to himself, Well, now what? My boss is going to fire me. I don't have enough strength to dig ditches, and I'm too proud to beg. Ah, I know how to ensure that I'll have plenty of friends who will give me a home when I'm fired. And so he invited each person who owed his boss money to come and talk about their situation. And he asked the first one, How much do you owe my boss? And he said, Well, I owe 800 gallons of olive oil. That's a lot of olive oil. And he says, Quickly, take my eraser. Rub out 800. Write 400. Just say that you owe him four. And then he talked to the next person. And he said, How much do you owe? And he said, Well, I owe him 1,000 bushels of wheat. And his reply was quick. Take my eraser. Rub it out and write 800 instead. Now, this is now your turn. What do you think Jesus says next? Because I'm not going to lie. This is one of the strangest parables that Jesus ever tells. And if you know the correct answer, just do me a quick favor. I'm not looking for the correct answer here. What do you expect Jesus to say when there's this really dishonest bloke who's, like, totally swindling his boss and going around behind his back? Take 30 seconds with those people you just said hello to and answer the question. What do you think that Jesus is going to say next? 3, 2, 1, go. You all right? Yeah. OK, good. OK, lovely. So I want to hear from you guys. No correct answers, please. What do we expect Jesus to say next? Put your hand up if you've got an answer. Yes. Don't do that. That's a really unfair, unjust thing to do. Yeah, don't do that. That's unfair. That's unjust. Anything else? What do we expect Jesus to say here? Yeah. He would say to the manager that he had to reimburse his master for what he'd written down. Yes, very good. Reimburse your master everything that you just swindled him out of. Anyone from back here? Any thoughts? No? I think we're all, that's what we expect Jesus to say, right? It's like, do the right thing. Reimburse the master. Should we find out what Jesus actually says? So Jesus goes on to say this. The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And then he goes on to say, and it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light. Here's the lesson. Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends, and then when all your possessions are gone, you'll be welcome to an eternal home. What the heck, Jesus? What the heck are you saying here? Like, does that strike anybody else as strange? Is it a surprise that preachers, including myself, swerve this all the time to be like, Jesus, this is a super strange thing to say. Like, I thought we weren't supposed to copy the world. I thought we weren't supposed to be dishonest. Luckily, Jesus then goes on. And the next thing he says is, if you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest with little things, you will be honest with greater responsibility. And if you're untrustworthy with worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you're not faithful with other people's things, why should you be faithful with things of your own? So whilst Jesus is saying a whole bunch of stuff here, one thing that is certainly true is that he's being super provocative, right? He's got our attention. He's told a story. He said something super strange. We're all paying attention, aren't we? And we're all thinking a little bit about our money. And he's giving his followers a moment to think about how they are using their resources, their money, and their wealth. And we're going to be asking the same questions today. We're going to be exploring this idea of empowerment and what it means to be empowered when it comes to our relationship with money. And what we're going to do is we're going to end today with an opportunity to give some of our money over and above what we would normally give to some amazing projects. But first, James, you've been tied up very well. I have. You look very good. Excellent. What I would like you to do now, please, is I bought some chocolates for everybody. Could you just hand out these chocolates? No problem. Seriously, there's enough for everybody. Can you just hand them out? Yeah. I've bought these so you could bless people. Oh, here he goes. He's actually going to go for it. He's going, OK, he's going for it. OK, fair enough. Was I not meant to do that? No, you weren't. You weren't really supposed to be able to do that. But we'll have a conversation later. It'll be very good. I can't do it, Daniel. Oh, James, you can't. Thank you very much. Give James a round of applause. He's going to head back to his seat now. There you go. You can have those. Take one and pass them back. Thanks, James. There might be an opportunity for you later to get yourself one. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Harry Houdini over there. He's going for it. Well done. So we are talking, as I said this term, about empowerment. And just as James was empowered by me to be generous with chocolate, how did James do in terms of being generous with the chocolate? Poorly. Not great, right? Not great. Even though he really wanted to. Like, in reality, my empowering of James came to absolutely nothing because he was bound with something which restricted him. And today, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be exploring that very same dynamic. Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they want to empower us, each one of us, to do great things. But the reality is that many of us live in a state of being bound up. And before we can be empowered by Jesus, first we need to be freed by Jesus. And so in order to explore this dynamic, we're going to read the second parable. These parables are teaching stories. Jesus used them to communicate his message all the time. And in chapter 16, we kind of get a bit of a parable sandwich. We've read the first one. We're about to read the second one. And then in the middle, there's a really key teaching of Jesus that we're going to use to kind of unlock both of them. And so we're going to move on to the second parable, which we read in Luke chapter 16, verse 19. Jesus said, There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen, who lived every day in luxury. Now, quick aside, whenever Jesus told one of these teaching stories, one of these parables, I'm pretty sure that he was hoping that the listeners would think about a person that they knew that really fit that category well. What he's trying to do is either get us to think, I know a person just like that, or Jesus is trying to get us to think, oh, God is just like that. Or more likely, he's trying to get us to look at ourselves and say, ah, maybe I'm a little bit like that. So that's what Jesus is trying to do there. And so we're talking about a rich, wealthy person, someone who lives every day in comfort. And so a really quick show of hands. Who here in the room would say, I am

This is not an easy time to be living in the world. And whenever we talk about money, only we can really contextualize it for our own circumstances. However, this is not just a message for those of us who are a little bit better off. I think what Jesus has to say to us about money affects all of us in some way. And so, as I say, I think that we should identify ourselves with the wealthy man. But let me just kind of quickly demonstrate what I mean. Can I borrow you now? Is that okay? Could you come up here? Thank you. So what I'd like you to do is, I would like you to... This is Emily, who is my wife, which is why I'm embarrassing her. Sorry. I don't need the rope this time. Thanks, I'm all right. What I'd like you to do is, I would like you to rate Emily for me, please. I'd like you to... Let me finish my sentence, for goodness' sake. It's International Women's Day. I am way off topic today, then. Okay, so what I'd like you to do, I want you to imagine for a moment that we have a representative proportion of the world's population here in the room. There's 100 people, from the richest person to the poorest person, we have 100 people. And Emily is one of those people. Now, what I would like you to do is tell me, where do you think Emily would come in that lineup, from the wealthiest person over here to the poorest person over there? What position does Emily come in? Now, we don't need to give any context. Just look at her, how she's dressed, the hair, and I want you to give me a number. So again, 30 seconds, talk to the people around you, and I want you to come up with a number. This is great fun, isn't it? I'm so glad you're here. So, on your marks, get set, go. So, what number would Emily be? Give her a number between 1 and 100. 1 being the richest, 100 being the poorest. Okay, I'm going to give you five more seconds. 5, 4, 3. Oh yeah, so 1 is rich, 100 is poor. Sorry, we're doing like first place. Sorry, everybody did it the other way around. Okay, so 100 is low. What? So, 1 is number 1. Who's in first place? So, we're talking first, second. Richest to poorest. First is the richest, second, 100 is the... Yeah, there's some layers of... yeah, that's right. Top richest. Okay, okay, we've got some numbers. What have we got here? Number 5 over here, we've got 3, third over there. Number 2, very good. Oh, that's 13, I beg your pardon. 13, 7.48. This group is the closest. So, the correct answer is that Emily would be roughly the eighth, roughly eighth place. So, there you go, give Emily a round of applause for being roughly eighth. So, if you want to do that yourself, there's a really nifty little website called the World Inequality Database, and it will basically ask you a few questions about you, and it will plot you according to the world's population. It is fascinating. But what I wanted to do was to just demonstrate and give us a perspective really quickly that in an increasingly globalized world, when it comes to us in the West, we are wealthy. To give us some sense of perspective. And Jesus, because Jesus is telling a cautionary tale, as I say, about a wealthy man. And I think that what Jesus wants us to do is cast ourselves in that role. So, let's just bear that in mind as we dive into this parable. So, this is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. So, I'm going to read it out, and then we're going to unpack it. It should also appear up on the screens if you'd like to read along. So, Jesus said, There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury. At his gates lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Just save that mental picture for a moment. Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit behind Abraham at the heavenly banquet. The rich man also died and was buried. And he was taken to the place of the dead. And there, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side. The rich man shouted, Father Abraham, have some pity. Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I'm in anguish in these flames. But Abraham said to him, Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here and being comforted and you are in anguish. And besides, there's a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here and no one can cross over from us to there. Anybody heard or read that parable before? Yeah, a handful of us have, yeah. So what did we just see? What did Jesus just say? We saw a picture of somebody undeniably wealthy, somebody who lives in comfort, somebody with ample opportunity to help Lazarus, someone who really is just like us. I think, as I say, we are supposed to identify as that rich man. But we also see in the profile of this rich man somebody who gets it wrong, someone who fails to show Lazarus the kindness and mercy that he deserves and he suffers consequences for that. And as I say, this is a cautionary tale. So what are we supposed to be learning from this cautionary tale about the rich man and Lazarus? Shout something at me. What are we supposed to be learning? This isn't a trap, by the way. Nice and loud. What are we learning? Somebody just said generosity. Thank you to whoever just said generosity. What else are we learning? What should we be, what shouldn't we be? God sees everything. God sees everything. Yeah, good. Say again. Be kind. Yep, excellent. What do we see about the, what do we learn about particularly the rich man? What do we learn about him? What shouldn't we be? Greedy, selfish. Thank you. Anything else? Shouldn't be looking after number one. Excellent, thank you. That's all very true, isn't it? That's a good cautionary tale for us. We shouldn't be greedy, shouldn't be selfish, and we should be generous with our possessions. All good answers, but I think this actually goes a layer deeper than this. Because the question that I have is, what caused the rich man to ignore Lazarus? Because he did ignore him, didn't he? He did walk past him every day. So what was it that caused him to ignore? Was it just greed? Was it just selfishness? Was he just a nasty, bad man? I think to a certain extent, we'd like to believe that that's the case, that he was just a bad egg, that this guy was just a bad one, and we're not bad like that. You know, we're off the hook if that's the case. The cautionary tale is not for us, because we're never greedy, selfish, or nasty, are we? Maybe that's just me. I think there's something much deeper going on here. Because before Jesus tells this story, as I said, do you remember I said this is like a parable sandwich? We get two parables with a teaching in the middle. Before Jesus tells this parable of the rich man and Lazarus, he gives us this little nugget of teaching for context. And this rich man and Lazarus is unpacking that teaching. Jesus says in Luke 16, verse 13, No one can serve two masters, for you will either hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. So if we read this parable in the light of that teaching of Jesus, the rich man is someone who is enslaved to money, not just somebody who's greedy, selfish, nasty, but is actually enslaved. If we read that parable in the light of Jesus' teaching, the rich man cannot serve God. He just can't. Not doesn't, but actually can't. The rich man hates God, if we read this in light of Jesus' teaching. And all that God stands for, because you remember what Jesus said, you'll either love one and be devoted to the other. And what we see is this, that his wealth has utterly enslaved this man and made him into someone or something monstrous, into a caricature. Do you remember that little note about the dogs? The dogs coming and licking Lazarus' sores? It's quite an evocative mental picture, isn't it? I think what we're supposed to pick up from that is that the dogs noticed that Lazarus was there. And whilst their response to Lazarus was kind of icky to us, I think what we're supposed to recognise is that this man was laying at Lazarus' door day and night. And Lazarus walked past him every day and didn't see him. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you. The rich man walked past Lazarus every single day and didn't see him.

And yet the dogs did. I think what we're supposed to see here is that this rich man has been so enslaved by his wealth that he's become less than an animal. This is something which comes out in our Bibles again and again and again, is that when we kind of live in these patterns of sin and destruction, we become like animals. And actually what this parable is saying is this guy is even worse than an animal because he doesn't even notice the man who is dying on his doorsteps when the dogs do. Jesus is painting a grotesque picture of what it looks like when we allow money to have power over us. You know, this term we're talking about empowerment. And the reality is that whenever we think about money, whenever we talk about money, money always comes into our life with a power dynamic. The question that we should be asking ourselves, I think the question that Jesus would encourage us to ask is, do I have power over my money or does my money have power over me? I think it goes beyond asking, am I being wise and generous and prudent with my money? It asks instead, do I have power over my money or does my money have power over me? Jesus doesn't leave us much wiggle room here. If you remember, he said in verse 13, no one can serve two masters for you will either hate one and love the other or you'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. If we're here today and we claim that we love God, if we claim to follow Jesus, I don't think that we can wiggle out of this one. I don't think we can let ourselves off the hook. This is a cautionary tale that Jesus is telling about what happens when we become enslaved to money. The question that we should be asking is, am I enslaved or am I free? And I think that this actually goes one level deeper. Sorry about that. Because when we read the story, it's implicit within the story that the rich man was supposed to help Lazarus. He had a duty to help Lazarus. He had the riches to help Lazarus. He was empowered to help Lazarus. That is what's implicit in the story. It's a portrait of somebody who had the ability, the mandate and the power to bring life to a person, but instead brings death. And instead of money bringing freedom, the wealth has brought captivity. Money has robbed the man of his very humanity. We see the portrait of someone who was empowered to liberate, but instead lived in bondage. Jesus' language is so provocative. He says enslaved to money, doesn't he? Enslaved to money. Let's not forget that we're supposed to cast ourselves as the rich man. This is a cautionary tale for us. We are not off the hook. But Emily always tells me off when I get to this stage and I'm not preaching from a positive angle. So we're going to flip the pancake now and we're going to preach this from a positive angle. Guys, we are created to be liberators. Can I get an amen? We are created to be liberators. We are created by Jesus, by God, to be bringers of freedom and liberation into a broken world. Amen. Thank you. Very reluctant amen to that one. We are created to use our resources, our time, our energy and yes, our money to bring freedom. We've been designed and we've been entrusted. We've been empowered to bring freedom with our money and our wealth. That is what we have been designed to do. And there's a really ironic dichotomy here, isn't there? That money either enslaves us or it liberates others. And the question for us is, what will we choose for our lives? Money has the power to bind or release. It has the power to enslave or to liberate. And the way of Jesus is always about freedom and liberation. Amen. Okay, so we're going to take just a couple of minutes in those little groups. And I just want you to talk very freely about how does this parable land with you? Like, what was it about the parable that you found particularly provocative? What challenges you about the story of rich man and Lazarus? And do you recognize that idea of being enslaved to money? Do you see that in the world around you and the people around you? Do you maybe see it in your own life? So we're going to give this maybe three or four minutes of discussion. I'm not going to ask for feedback this time, so just go for it. If you don't feel comfortable sharing, that's absolutely fine. Hopefully there's some extroverts in your group who will compensate for that. But just have a quick conversation in your group and just talk. Do you recognize this dynamic? How did the parable land with you? And then we're going to bring it all back together and tie it all up. Okay, 60 more seconds. Make sure everyone's had a chance to share if they'd like to. Okay, let's try and bring our conversations to a close if we can. I've been eavesdropping on some of you guys and some good stuff being said. Okay, in a moment the kiddos are going to come rampaging back in again and we're going to be really pleased to see them when they do. There will be a moment to respond, a moment to celebrate with communion as well. But before we do, I just wanted to give us some really practical ways that we can respond to this message. Because we are talking about money today and as I said at the beginning, we're going to give three ways that we as a church, three things that we can do to give some of our money away to be generous, to kind of step into this dynamic a little bit. There's a lot of boominess. Have we got a mic live somewhere? I don't know. It's not that one. It might be one of those two. Okay, sorry. Thank you all. So we're going to respond in a couple of different ways. Yeah, three opportunities to give to stuff. But before we kind of go into that, I just wanted to say, like, it's really easy to miss the point in a message like this. Like, what Jesus is trying to get to here is some really deep heart stuff about our relationship with money and how we are relating and kind of who has power over who in that relationship.

Can I just give a really gentle encouragement at this stage? Don't just do the wallet work here. Like, there are opportunities to give. Don't just give some money. Like, do the heart work first, and then do the wallet work. Like, Jesus is offering to liberate us. He's offering to set us free from the stuff which is binding us down. And the reality is that we cannot bring freedom to others. We cannot live into that identity that Jesus has for us as liberators if we ourselves are still bound. Amen? And so, if you know that this kind of dynamic, if this speaks to you in some way, again, I can't contextualise it in your life. Only you can do that. If you would like to have somebody stand with you and pray with you, we would love to do that. And so there will be an opportunity to receive some prayer in a moment. So, like I say, don't just do the wallet work. Do the heart work as well. But there's also an opportunity to do some wallet work. Hooray! And so, we want to just make some opportunities to step into generosity and to use our money for that which God gave it to us for, to bring freedom and liberation to others. And so, there's three ways that we can do that as individuals and as a church. The first way is to become a financial backer if you're not already. I've got a little card. Here it is. Hooray! As Jez said, there's a card for everything. So, if you're not already a financial backer, we would love to encourage you to consider doing that. It's a fantastic way to make a start. Our advice to people whenever they're thinking about being a financial backer is to think about giving a percentage of your income. That's quite helpful because then if your income goes up or your income goes down, then the kind of percentage moves with it. The second thing is, try and make it a challenge, trying to give back to God generously as he has given to us. And one of the things that we do as a family and that we have done in the past as a church is to commit to increase that percentage as well because we want to be a family and we want to be a church that grows in generosity. So, it's a challenge to commit to increasing as well. And the fourth thing is, ask where it goes. Ask, well, when I give to Gloucester Vineyard Church, what does it get spent on? It's a really, really good question. And so, come tomorrow to the financial presentation and find out. Hooray! Everybody is welcome to the financial presentation because you have a right to know where your money goes. If you're already a backer, then every now and again, it's helpful to have that kind of little conversation in your household about, do we want to increase? Do we need to decrease? So, let this be a little trigger moment if you need to have a conversation or you'd like to have a conversation as a household, then this is a moment for that too. Okay, before we go on to the second one, we're going to invite the kiddos back in again. So, yeah, you guys can come on in. So, let's just welcome them back again and then we'll quickly wrap up with the final two. Welcome back, kiddos. It's really good to see you. If you could come in and find your grown-ups. We are just wrapping up. It is really, really good to see you. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Okay, kiddos, we are really looking forward to hearing from you in a minute after we've celebrated communion. So, if you wouldn't mind just finding your grown-ups and sitting with them for a moment. And if you could indulge me, I'm just finishing, if that's okay. Wow, look at these. These look amazing. You've done some amazing Lego houses. Okay, find your grown-ups. We're just going to wrap up. So, the second way that you can exercise this idea this week is to give towards the North Site launch. As a community, we are becoming a multi-site church. We are launching a new expression of our church in Innsworth in four weeks' time. We are totally ready for that. This is a really big faith step. This is the first site that we are going to launch. We believe that God has asked us to launch multiple sites in the future as well. So, this is the first site and we're going to launch the second site, is what I meant to say. But these sites and all subsequent sites are going to be places which bring hope and joy to new communities, that bring freedom to those in darkness and those in bondage and see the kingdom of God grow. So, we are encouraging, if you have the ability to give to the North Site launch, we would really encourage you to do that. If you come to the financial presentation tomorrow, you will see a wonderful graph which shows the money that has come in and the money that has gone out as a church. And it kind of goes like this, very sensibly over the years, diddly, diddly, dee. And then you get to this year and we've put our projected numbers on it and they suddenly switch over. And we're like, holy cow, we're going to spend so much more than we expect to get in this year. So, this is a faith moment for us, but this is a moment for us to step into the moment that we feel that God has invited us into. So, it's almost worth coming tomorrow just to see that graph. I love a graph, but there we go. This is a faith step. This is an opportunity to invest in the kingdom of God. So, in the weekly email this week, there will be a little button that you can press because I'm aware that none of us carry large sums of... I mean, is anyone carrying a large sum of cash right now? Probably not wise to identify yourself. Let's move on. There will be a little button in the weekly email with a really convenient link where you can do that if you would like to. And there'll be an opportunity to give big once if you have the ability to do that or to give a small amount on a recurring basis. Whatever works for you. So, that's number two. Please consider giving to the North Site launch. And the final thing, number three, Gloucester Vineyard Church this year is going to be going to DTI. Hooray! DTI does not stand for dress to impress. It stands for dreaming the impossible. DTI, Dreaming the Impossible, is a youth camp for kids who are year seven and older. It's a place where young people encounter Jesus and learn to follow in his footsteps. We are really, really excited to be bringing a group of young people this year from our church. And in our little youth home group, we have encouraged our young people to invite any and all of their friends who don't yet know Jesus to come along to DTI, which is very exciting. And they are taking us at our word. So, our young people have been inviting their friends to come along to DTI. And as a church, we want to back our young people, don't we? We want to back them up, don't we? Yes, two of you want to back up our young people. Let's try that again. As a church, we want to back our young people, don't we? Thank you very much. So, what we would like to do is if our young people are brave and go out there and say to their friends, Hey, do you want to come to this Christian youth festival where we're going to tell you about Jesus? We want to back them up by offering a free ticket to DTI. So, if you are able to give towards Gloucester Vineyard Church going to DTI, then we would like to give some fully funded places away to some kids who couldn't otherwise come so that they can encounter Jesus. Wouldn't that be amazing? That's what we want to see. And so, if you would like to give to that, you may also do so in exactly the same way in the weekly email. Now, a quick note. There might well be a discrepancy between... You're pointing at me. Oh, sure. Yeah. So, it's probably about £200 per ticket. That's for one kiddo. Thank you. That's really helpful. So, just a quick one. If lots of people give to the DTI thing and a very few bunch of kids actually want to come, any money that's given over and above will just get channelled towards the North site. So, that's just how we will handle that if that happens. Is that all clear as mud? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There'll be some stuff in the weekly email. Come and talk to me if you're not sure. I'm much friendlier than I look. So, why don't we all stand together and Embo, if you wouldn't mind coming back up again. We're just going to move into a moment of response now, which is how we usually end our gatherings. And we're going to worship Jesus. We're going to fix our eyes on him one last time. But we're also going to celebrate by taking communion together, which is something that we do each week as a church. When we celebrate communion, we take some of the bread, which is gluten and dairy-free, and we dip it in the juice to represent Jesus' body and his blood, which was broken and shed for us. And when we do that, we are identifying ourselves with him and we are identifying with the global church who will all be celebrating communion today. And this really is a moment for each of us to say yes to Jesus, whether it's for the first time or the hundred and first time. And so everybody here is welcome to take communion. You don't have to currently call yourself a Christian, but you do need to know that it is a moment of seriously saying yes to Jesus