The Circle Maker (Enhanced Edition): Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears

by Mark Batterson

On Sunday, July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed their lunar module, the Eagle, on the Sea of Tranquillity. The first thing they did was celebrate Communion. Because of a lawsuit filed by Madalyn Murray O’Hair, when NASA aired the reading from Genesis by the astronauts of Apollo 8, it decided to black out that part of the broadcast. Aldrin, an elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), took out a Communion kit provided by Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas. In the one-sixth gravity, the wine curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Just before eating the bread and drinking the cup, Aldrin read from the gospel of John: “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”