For a major founder of the movement that gave birth to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Alexander Campbell, communion had a bigger meaning than the kind of table that is in the sanctuary or a consistent part of the weekly worship service. He insisted that Christians should be breaking bread together constantly and that sharing at the Lord’s Table would help Christians remember what they held in common, rather than what divided them. But breaking bread together wasn’t all there was to communion. The word communion had to do with the church universal, with Christians recognizing that they, indeed, were family. For Campbell, the communion was the brotherhood of believers, the universal church at its best maintaining the unity Jesus prayed for in the Garden of Gethsemane.

While on Sabbatical during the summer of 2004, I settled for 2 ½ months in Bethany, West Virginia, home of Thomas and Alexander Campbell and a birthplace for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Most of the historic places are still there in Bethany—Alexander Campbell’s home (restored to what it would have looked like during Campbell’s day), the Bethany Church of Christ with its wood-burning stoves and simple box pews (est. 1831), Bethany College, the original printing house where Alexander Campbell printed his Millennial Harbinger publication, and Bethany Memorial Church where the modern congregation meets. The Lilly Endowment Grant for Clergy Renewal empowered me to fly in Disciples leaders and preachers and professors and church members from all over to spend a day each in Bethany and pose for a watercolor portrait. I put each person in one of the historic rooms and we talked about the Disciples of Christ. I also had one non-churchgoer in the mix, so that we could hear some of the perspective from outside of church circles.

Over and over again, I get the question: “Why THOSE people?!” or, put another way, “Why not paint ______? She’s done_______!”, or “Why aren’t you painting _____? He’s ________!” The reason has to do with the reality of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). As Disciples, we can name important person after important person because we have an idealistic belief in the beauty and significance of everyone. I could paint all 800,000 of us, but, actually, I couldn’t live long enough to do it. These people were chosen through a very unscientific process called intuition. The intuition of an artist. Some of these folks are people I only dreamed would agree to pose. Others are people who could not have imagined themselves in this number. But all are Disicples—clergy and lay, denominational and regional heads and members of Christian Women’s Fellowship—that is, all but one.

You might ask what is it that makes one person deserve this honor over another. The answer is: Nothing. This exhibit is not about what is deserved or merited. It is about what I (one person) think of when I ponder my faith tradition.

I think of a number of men in their 60s and 70s (too many to paint!), but I also think about the Disciples Churches popping up that speak different languages. I think of some of the people I have always wanted to meet, but I also think about the wonderful souls who teach Sunday School every week or who are trying to hold their families together. I didn’t get them all—not even a touch of how many there are our there. Just a very small number of people who struck me as appropriate in the setting of Bethany, where so much for us began.

There’s something of admiration for the Studs Terkels of the world in all this—Studs Terkel, Chicago personality, has, for years, connected to the most ordinary people and interviewed them. These ordinary monologues of ordinary people reveal extraordinary things about the world, about them and about us all.

As you stare into these faces, consider, please, the beautiful interiors of the people in your own church. Ask yourself, and them, these questions: “When are we at our best? When are we at our worst?”, and “How those who began our movement be surprised by us today?” Herein lays the true beauty—in the conversations this exercise might start, and the transformation of each small meeting into Holy Communion.