Communion
Managing the Meal
Part 8 of 8
Communion is typically served within the context of other church services. One of the objectives of doing this is to promote member participation. Still, there is little asked of the participants, other than showing up at church regularly, and partaking of the received elements (bread and wine or grape juice).
The “means of grace” in Communion is not something supernatural in the elements. The means of grace is in the nourishment and, more importantly, in the unity and community that is experienced through the Communion, and in the applications that radiate from the numerous Communion ideas. The effort that goes into Communion is integral to the means of grace. The fullness of the design and practice of Communion ends up revealing the nature of God, as well as establishing appropriate practices in the church’s ongoing internal relationships.
Churches have been putting together potluck (or pot-Providence, if you must) dinners for millennia. It is not difficult thing to expand this tradition a little. For churches that do not have access to a meeting room large enough to accommodate the entire congregation, Communion can be practiced in small groups. Group sizes could be determined by the sizes of available houses. This means most groups would be limited to 10-20 people. Is this a bad thing? Not at all; it is a wonderful opportunity for individuals to get to know one another. The compositions of these groups should be mixed and rotated so that everyone in the congregation would eventually spend personal time with everyone else in the congregation.
It would not be difficult to arrange for an Elder or a Deacon, or a Vestryman, or whatever the church leaders in your denomination are called, to be present at each separate assembly, should that be deemed critical to church protocol. This suggestion may have pastors sweating. (“You know that making any decision in my church is an exercise in herding cats. You want to send this crew out to lead Communion services?”) Well, Christ was willing to send out the Apostles, and we know what they were like, so there is precedent. No doubt, it was crucial for the Apostles to spend years with Jesus, but it was also crucial for the Apostles to be sent, not only for them to accomplish their assignments, but also so they would become what they had been called to be. But it is not necessary to create designs fraught with weaknesses.
A solution is available for both the lack of teaching about Communion and to address the range of skills inherent in any group of church leaders. The solution is the use of liturgies. The exercise of preparing the liturgies would be highly beneficial for the officers in every church. Denominations will likely want to preside over any liturgical designs, but this inclination should be resisted, if peaceably possible. Perhaps denominations could provide models, or provide document review (though not a review churches would have to wait for). It is better for the health of churches when local leaders wrestle with God’s revelation and God’s heart, not merely meeting to address church business issues. The benefit of liturgies is that they can be written, examined, discussed, and re-written until there is consensus and confidence that they fairly represent God’s Word.
Communion should be represented by a collection of liturgies that emphasize and clarify Communion’s various truths. For example, liturgies could be prepared for the following subjects:
The death of Christ. This liturgy should reflect on the uniqueness of his life, the specifics of his death, the purpose of his sacrifice, the resurrection, and his resulting Lordship over all creation.
Christ, the Bread of life. This liturgy should focus on how humans fully depend on Christ’s provisions: our creation, the supply of our physical needs, the supply of our spiritual development, the supply of the true society.
Identification with Christ. This liturgy should emphasize the implications of identifying with Christ, emphasizing obedience to him, as well as service. Consider how this identification is both individual and corporate, the result being mutual identification and support.
The theme of the feast…from the Passover to the Feast of the Lamb discussed in the book of Revelation.
Another option is to use the eight subsections of Section 6. Briefly, they are: Christ’s suffering; Christ’s innocence; Christ’s conquest; Christ’s ongoing work; Identification with Christ; Identification with the Church; Church in the world; and Celebration feast. No doubt, there are other ways to organize the key lessons of Communion. The main thing is to bring the depth and beauty and fullness of Communion to the congregations.
The liturgies should be rotated so that each perspective is presented. Pray, enjoy the meal, and then end the time together with the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In this way the Sacrament will be enjoyed in the way that it was intended to be.
As a concluding point, I would like to express concern about the wobbly health of the Christian Church in the West. Much of this has to do with how the Church has allowed itself to become an accessory to western culture. I don’t mean this in the sense of being an accessory to crime (though a case could be made for that, I suppose). What I mean is that it has become an accessory like a beige handbag for a pink dress, or a red tie for a gray suit. The accessory is the unnecessary add-on. The Church needs to reestablish itself as the core of culture. Those not in the Church will not concede such a concept, of course, but those in the Church should feel it in their habits and in their bones. My sense is that this was Jesus’ intention from the beginning for Communion. Communion is about worshipping Jesus as Lord, and it is about creating the culture of Church.
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