CommYOUnion

I was digging through that old slim drawer in the sewing cabinet that is my Google Docs and found this little article I wrote for our church blog years ago. It is on brand for the Sacrament series I have been writing. I must have written it just after I discovered the glories of the Babylon Bee. Note, this was before I was aware of those communion cup/wafer combo meal deals we have today.

Louisville, KY – FaithNOW! megachurch in Louisville has solved its problem of lengthy communion lines with a smartphone app that allows you to partake in the Lord’s Supper from your pew.

The media team’s Mark Bennet, creator of the groundbreaking communion app CommYOUnion, promises to put the “you” back in communion by revolutionizing how the church partakes of the sacrament.

“Every fourth Sunday, the communion lines would stretch out across the parking lot,” Bennet recalls. “We were going well into the evening, and the band playing the invitational was cramping up, passing out. Our bass player got rhabdo. People were jostling in line, throwing elbows. One woman broke her coccyx diving for the last piece of gluten-free cracker. It was apocalyptic.”

This was not the first attempt the church has made to mitigate the communion chaos.

“First we tried communion referees, but the frequent whistle-blowing really took you out of the experience,” lead pastor Jaz Michaels stated. “Next we brought in some cattle chutes but they were such a hassle to move in between services. And the deacons using the cattle prods seemed to be enjoying it. Now you can enjoy the broken body and spilled blood of the Lamb from the comfort of your own pew, and communion is over before you can say Chris Tomlin!”

A free version of the app can be found in iTunes and Google Play. 

CommYOUnion was designed with the understanding that reflection is an important part of the experience, so the app is programmed with a mandatory 60-second timer before the user can press the “Eat Me” or “Drink Me” buttons. The app conveniently searches your browsing and text history from the past week to remind you of all those odious websites visited and rude texts sent so you can repent right then and there. “We don’t want anyone eating or drinking his own judgment. Even if it is virtual,” Michaels added.

The app is user-friendly and intuitive. “We didn’t want it to be flashy or anything, because, that’s not what this is about. It’s about sharing a digital meal with your Savior,” Bennet reports. “Also, one of my favorite things is after you tap the “Drink Me” button, it makes that cute little clicking sound the plastic cup makes when you try to get it into that little hole in the pew in front of you. I love that sound,” he added.

The denomination in the app defaults to Baptist, but CommYOUnion allows the user to choose from a range of all the quirky communion peccadilloes American denominations have to offer. If you are Lutheran, the juice will change to wine, so long as you confirm in the pop-up that you are over twenty-one.

Bennet and his team are also working on a Catholic version of the app, YOUcharist, which includes a “transubstantiate” button and a quick reference to the Catechisms of the Catholic Church, to see if that sin you are thinking of is classified as mortal or not. “We tried to think of everything,” Bennet exclaimed.

Has the app been successful? “Are you kidding me?” Bennet exclaimed. “This thing is spreading like leaven through dough!” CommYOUnion Premium is now available for $9.99/month for an ad-free experience.

Faith NOW! Church is reportedly now working on drone-assisted, in-seat baptisms and text-based excommunications.