"This cup represents the New Covenant," I proclaimed one dreary January Sunday as I looked out across my dwindling congregation. I lifted our most prized possession: a shiny, simply molded silver chalice with a dent on its lip.

For more than a hundred years, this cup had been lifted by countless pastors. Through a Civil War, two world wars, three floods, a fire, and two scandals, this tarnished silver chalice had helped hold us together. Generation after generation had gathered at this table to celebrate Communion, to drink from this cup. One generation handed it to another, and with the cup came a promise, a hope, and a responsibility.

But I wondered if it could hold us together now.

Struggling to survive in a declining neighborhood, burdened with a building we scarcely could afford, we were near death. And I had exacerbated a bad situation. A young pastor, fresh from seminary, I had surely asked too much too soon. An old, crusty congregation, they surely gave too little too late. They desperately ...