Thomas Campbell wrote The Declaration and Address of the Christian Association in 1809. On Oct. 4, 2009, Stone-Campbell churches will gather for the Great Communion celebration in honor of Campbell's document and his passion for Christian unity. Photo: Disciples of Christ Historical Society

Guest article by Robert Welsh
President, Council on Christian Unity

INDIANAPOLIS (7/6/09) — “It only happens once every 200 years.”

That’s how Doug Foster, director of the Center for Restoration Studies at Abilene (Texas) Christian University, issued an invitation to members of the Disciples' General Board this past April, as he urged all Disciples to join the Great Communion Celebration scheduled for Oct. 4, 2009. 

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Campbell wrote The Declaration and Address of the Christian Association — a document that became a foundational text for the Stone-Campbell Movement.  In that document, Campbell declared that “the church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one . . .”  He also stated, “Division among Christians is a horrid evil, fraught with many evils.” And he called the Lord’s Supper “that great ordinance of unity and love.”

Each of these themes —  the oneness of the church, the repudiation of division, and the essential place of the Lord’s Supper as an expression of love among all followers of Christ — has marked our life as a community of faith and as a movement for wholeness and unity in the midst of division and fragmentation in our society and world.  

One hundred years ago, a Centennial Convention took place in Pittsburgh, Pa., to commemorate the publication of the Declaration and Address as a founding text for the movement.  On the final Sunday of the 1909 convention, a “great Communion” service took place at Forbes Field with some 30,000 persons joining in receiving the Lord’s Supper together.

Five years ago, conversations among members of the Stone-Campbell Dialogue and the board of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society began to explore ways to acknowledge the bicentennial of the Declaration and Address and to recall the 1909 “Great Communion” event.  A 16-member task force was named with representation from each of the three streams of the movement: the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the Churches of Christ.  

This task force determined that rather than trying to have one large gathering like that in 1909, a more appropriate celebration would be to encourage members of the three streams to come together in their own neighborhoods, villages, towns and cities — all across the U.S. and Canada and around the world — to share together on the same day in worship and sharing at the common Table of our Lord.

In thousands of local settings — from Abilene, Texas to Adelaide, Australia —  the Great Communion Celebration is an opportunity to bear witness to God’s gift of unity in Christ and to God’s gracious love poured out for the sake and salvation of the world.

Several “easy-to-use” resources for planning a local event on Oct. 4 are available online at www.greatcommunion.org.