United around the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, thousands of Christians representing multiple generations, denominations, and races recently spent the Labor Day holiday in a unique way – celebrating communion.
And for the next 40 days, these believers will individually remember the Lord’s Supper before celebrating it together at Communion America, a first-of-its-kind observance at the National Mall.
They were gathered for a Communion America simulcast, which encouraged Christians to pray and fast during the lead-up to Oct. 9, when 56 tents representing each state, Israel, Gen Z, First Nations, and Adoration will host round-the-clock worship through Sunday, Oct. 12.
In the live broadcast, ministry leaders encouraged people to register for the event and to give financially to the historic, free gathering that coincides with a prophetically significant Jewish holiday, Oct. 6-13.
Gathered online across three time zones and the nations, Christians celebrated communion near the conclusion of the 2.5-hour simulcast, Come To The Table Live | A National Communion Revival Broadcast, as California Pastor Bill Johnson led them in honoring the body and blood of Jesus.
“There are moments when God is unfolding an effectual, fervent door. I believe this communion revival is one of those open doors,” said David Bradshaw, who opened the global communion celebration.
Bradshaw leads a day-and-night worship, prayer, and mission ministry, Awaken The Dawn. It is collaborating with other well-known leaders and ministries that desire to gather around the table of the Lord, his body and blood. Bradshaw believes those elements will deal with shame and heal America because that is God’s heart for Communion America.
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Falling on the Feast of Tabernacles, Communion America also represents a continuation of what God began with women who gathered on the mall last year.
Laura Allred, who convened A Million Women, said the gathering was marked by unity of denominations and movements that blessed the nation. “I am so encouraged by the unity across the Body of Christ. It is an answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17,” she said.
She believes unity among ministries in building the Kingdom of God – rather than their brands – makes them unstoppable partners in harvest.
The communion table is the Lord’s idea, leaders say, because He has revealed it to so many of them, independently.
The leader of a worship and prayer ministry, David’s Tent DC, remembers reading Luke 24 with three men one morning when the Lord impressed on them the idea of setting a banquet table on the mall. The chapter in Luke tells the story of Jesus’ disciples’ blindness to him, even as he walked with them on the road to Emmaus. Later, when Jesus broke bread with them, the disciples’ eyes were opened to see him.
“We began to pray that the church of the United States of America would begin to break bread together and that the revelation of Jesus would fall on our nation,” said Jason Hershey, who has led prayer and worship in D.C. for 10 years.
***Click here to register for Communion America
Hershey, who leads David’s Tent DC, saw in his mind’s eye a banquet the length of the National Mall, like a communal table with people on either side having dinner together.
At the same time, a ministry partner also saw a table lining the center of the mall. About 30 days later, in the spring of 2021, a female member of the ministry also saw the table in visions, saying, “God’s heart is to call the American church to the table of the Lord.”
Bradshaw, who hosted 1,700 worship teams on the mall in 2017, is also convinced Communion America is God’s idea because every age, race and denomination is responding to invitations to the table.
Hershey feels like God is calling his family to once again build ministry on intimacy and connection with him and each other. “I find it so interesting that Jesus chose the Passover Seder – the most intimate meal for Jews – as the context in which he brought forth the idea, ‘do this in remembrance of me,'” Hershey said.
Communion America is specifically reaching for Gen Z with a unique gathering before and during the main ministry. Catalyst is a pre-Communion America intensive into deeper things of God for Gen Z. On Friday night, Gen Z will lead an evening rally.
A Gen Z ministry leader, who is a Millennial, remembers a Christian gathering, The Call, that marked him. “I feel like Gen Z is going to have this moment with Communion America,” said Brian Barcelona, who leads Gen Z For Jesus.
Another Gen Z ministry leader and co-founder of California Will Be Saved, Joel Mott, believes communion resonates with everybody. “I think God’s doing this right now on a mass scale across the Body of Christ. We just took communion with 3,000-plus people on the beach, where we preached the Gospel,” said Mott.
Freedom and deliverance marked that gathering. “A girl walking on the beach heard the whole Gospel message. She said, ‘I was going to kill myself today.’ We’re seeing this every place we go because we’re honoring the blood of Jesus,” Mott said.
Intercessory prayer leader and author Dutch Sheets is also excited about Communion America, especially after seeking the Lord about the gathering. Praying into it, Sheets discovered communion is first pictured prophetically in Genesis 14, where Melchizedek brought bread and wine to Abraham.
Sheets believes God is reminding America through communion that all the nations belong to him. “When we celebrate that victory meal there on The Mall, we are coming into agreement with what Jesus did on the cross, declaring to Satan he cannot have America,” said Sheets.
He believes Communion America is one of the final stages to launch into a Third Great Awakening here and revival around the world.
Speaking from a church in New Hampshire, revivalist Lou Engle said Communion America represents a breakthrough in a 22-year-old dream of revival around the blood and body of Jesus.
In 2009, Engle had a dream set in Redding, California, where Pastor Bill Johnson leads Bethel Church. He asked Johnson in the dream, “Where can you catch fish in the Sacramento River?” In the dream, Johnson said, “You can catch fish where the river turns red.”
Still dreaming, Engle ran down to the river where it turned red. Fishermen were all along the banks catching fish. “I woke up and the Lord spoke to me the words, ‘I’m releasing the river of this sacrament, the river of the blood, and when it’s proclaimed, salvation is going to break out.'”
“I call the dream the ‘redding’ of America,” Engle said.
From Redding, Bethel’s Johnson led the global audience in communion. “I believe that the Lord rejoices and celebrates every time we do this. There are so many aspects of partaking of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. It is so profound. God shows up and manifests in such a profound way,” said Johnson.
He pointed out that the Book of Ephesians talks about how Jesus’ death effectually breaks walls of division between Jews and Gentiles. In unity around the body and blood of Jesus, believers experience healing in broken relationships among them, Johnson said.
***Click here to register for Communion America
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