First Presbyterian Church

1002 Fox Avenue, Lewisville, Texas 75067 (972) 436-6578

World Communion

World Communion Sunday is celebrated in Christian congregations around the world, annually, on the first Sunday in October.[1] World Communion Sunday was originated in Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, by The Rev. Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr, in 1933, the darkest year of the Great Depression. The storm clouds of Nazism and Fascism hovered all over Europe and threatened the entire world. As a faith response to these concerns, a group of leaders at Shadyside Presbyterian Church sought to do something both real and symbolic to proclaim that God is God indeed, in spite of politics, economics and future shock. World Communion Sunday grew out of the Division of Stewardship at Shadyside Presbyterian Church. It was their attempt to bring churches together in a service of Christian unity—in which everyone might receive both inspiration and information, and above all, to know how important the Church of Jesus Christ is, and how each congregation is interconnected one with another.

It was during the Second World War that the World Community Sunday caught hold, because we were trying to hold the world together. World Wide Communion symbolized the effort to hold things together, in a spiritual sense. It emphasized that we are one in the Spirit and the Gospel of Jesus Christ."[2]