Daniel Ray, Regent student and UBC employee, spoke from John 17:20-26 on Jesus’ petition to the father on unity, or as Daniel refers to it,“the conversation at the centre of the universe.” Daniel noted that the Christian world presents many faces, sometimes with great differences between them. In his first church position in California, he encountered tremendous effort and work devoted to unifying services and projects. Everywhere, though, the subtext was that we are not already in unity. Daniel noted our own congregation - inter- Mennonite - also reflects this view. It took a peculiar comment from Daniel’s charismatic friend Josh, who decided to go to more ecumenical churches in town “because of Unity”, to bring this subtext up to the surface for exploration. It wasn’t until Darryl Johnson took a class through John 17 where Jesus speaks intimately to the Father about himself, God and us, that Daniel saw this subtext was ill-founded, though properly desired. In this conversation, Jesus’ desire, fervently expressed, is for our unity, the unity of all believers, and through that relationship, we discover that we actually “are” in unity. It is not to be striven for or sought, because it is already present, whether we notice it or not. We may not feel it, we may not even know it sometimes, but we are already in unity. All that remains is to act out of this unity. A big matter to live up to, and the heart of what Josh went looking for. Daniel says that in this text, we see that it was always there, all along. [AP]

Passage:
Communion: No
Ecumenical or Event:
Potluck Lunch: No
Congregational Meeting: No

Speaker: Daniel Ray
Worship Leader: Kevin Hiebert
Song Leader: Eric Hannan
Pianist: Ruth Enns
Usher: Erika Hannan
Zoom Coordinator:
Children's Feature Leader:

Bring Flowers: HENRY & HILDA HILDEBRAND
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