Wilmington churches come together for World Communion Day

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY)–World Communion Day has been a tradition on the first Sunday of October for near a hundred years. Two local churches wouldn’t let the coronavirus keep them from continuing that tradition.

Members of the Grace United Methodist Church and the St. Stephen AME Church have been coming together for four years now to hold a joint service on Word Communion Day. This year it looked a bit different with COVID-19, but it didn’t stop them from holding a drive-thru communion.

“This day were joining in the special sacrament of the church with so many from all around the world,” says Grace United Methodist Senior Pastor Tal Madison. “That’s something that just binds us together and I think this is a reflection of us being bound together. That we’re joining together to do this here locally.”

Thomas Nixon, who is the senior pastor at St. Stephen AME church, says while it may not have been inside the church like they have been accustomed to it was still a perfect day to worship.

“We think about the life of Christ as he ministered and was on earth, he was never confined to a building,” Nixon says. “So, I think it’s important for us to not allow COVID, the pandemic, or other issues keep us from coming together as a body of Christ. To worship him is far greater than the building itself.”

The group says they wouldn’t want it any other way though, still getting the opportunity to come together in the name of Jesus as one family right here in the Cape Fear.

“We were all one church way back when,” Madison said. “So, just to reunite and keep sharing life together we just think is a good and wonderful thing. Sharing life together is just the way it aught to be.”