At Renovatus Church, there’s this liturgy we say every week before Communion:

“This is the Table, not of the Church, but of the Lord.

It is made ready for those who love Him, and for those who want to love Him more.

So come, you who have much faith and you who have little.

You who have been here often and you who have not been here long.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed.

Come, because it is the Lord who invites you.

It is His will that those who want Him should meet Him here.”

The first time I heard that invitation, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. And, wanting to meet Him, we came.

Today was our last Sunday at Renovatus.

This is not how I had expected this chapter to end, but I know in my heart that He met us here.

Not only in the bread and the wine but in the words and the music, in the waters of baptism, in the faces of those beside us in the pews. He met us in the happiness, and in the deep pain. Maybe most of all, He met us in the arms of those who welcomed us to Charlotte, the arms that are carrying us now at the end.

When I look at Renovatus, I see the Body of Christ — broken for us.

And I’ll always be grateful.