Greetings All,
It has been a while since I posted in here, but your recent emails have caused me to call back in and have another look!
I thought I would put forward the subject of Communion for discussion.
I cant speak for others of course, but my experience of communion is something like the following. Every second week the Communion Table is prepared, the deacons distribute both pieces of bread and grape juice in plastic thimble cups. The bread can be ordinary white bread through to unleavened bread or biscuit depending on whose job it is to get it ready I suppose. Most people including children take the emblems, be they members or not, people are given a moment to examine their lives and perhaps there relationship with God and then the members often have a short prayer corporatley or the Pastor or an Elder will lead a prayer with a focus on forgiveness of sin. As the emblems are taken often the scripture will be read concerning scripture references to the body and the blood of Christ. Often then a hymn or P&W song will be sung and the glasses will be collected and the next item on the meeting lead will begin.
I am not sure if a similar situation to this is what happens in your fellowship or the churches you have belonged to in the past, but with some minor modifications this is pretty much how it has been done in those that I have attended in the past as well as today.
Yet here is the thing, I cant help thinking sometimes that the whole thing is a made up ceremony and one that perhaps not intentionally has led to the reintroduction in churches for the need for a priest or even simply a ceremony that is supposed to make people closer to God?
My observation is that I just don't see the early church doing the above scenario. My understanding is that its more likely to be bread and grape juice shared in an actual meal at the time of the Passover as opposed to this ceremony that modern churches have created.
Secondly I have an issue with the idea of praying over a piece of bread and a cup of grape juice and believing that this is the opportunity to seek God's forgiveness of sin and that the taking of those items is symbolical of that having taken place. My understanding is that there is no point in any born again Christians life where they can be sin free until they commit a sin and then the process needs to be redone again. That to me screams Jewish Law and Catholicsm. Its my view that when a person is born again that God forgives every past, present and future sin at that point and the reason that God gives me eternal life is because of the action of Christ on the cross to be the final sacrifice that covers me for all of it.
Still that is just me, very interested to hear your views on the theology of the communion service and what happens in your own church and how you find it?
It has been a while since I posted in here, but your recent emails have caused me to call back in and have another look!
I thought I would put forward the subject of Communion for discussion.
I cant speak for others of course, but my experience of communion is something like the following. Every second week the Communion Table is prepared, the deacons distribute both pieces of bread and grape juice in plastic thimble cups. The bread can be ordinary white bread through to unleavened bread or biscuit depending on whose job it is to get it ready I suppose. Most people including children take the emblems, be they members or not, people are given a moment to examine their lives and perhaps there relationship with God and then the members often have a short prayer corporatley or the Pastor or an Elder will lead a prayer with a focus on forgiveness of sin. As the emblems are taken often the scripture will be read concerning scripture references to the body and the blood of Christ. Often then a hymn or P&W song will be sung and the glasses will be collected and the next item on the meeting lead will begin.
I am not sure if a similar situation to this is what happens in your fellowship or the churches you have belonged to in the past, but with some minor modifications this is pretty much how it has been done in those that I have attended in the past as well as today.
Yet here is the thing, I cant help thinking sometimes that the whole thing is a made up ceremony and one that perhaps not intentionally has led to the reintroduction in churches for the need for a priest or even simply a ceremony that is supposed to make people closer to God?
My observation is that I just don't see the early church doing the above scenario. My understanding is that its more likely to be bread and grape juice shared in an actual meal at the time of the Passover as opposed to this ceremony that modern churches have created.
Secondly I have an issue with the idea of praying over a piece of bread and a cup of grape juice and believing that this is the opportunity to seek God's forgiveness of sin and that the taking of those items is symbolical of that having taken place. My understanding is that there is no point in any born again Christians life where they can be sin free until they commit a sin and then the process needs to be redone again. That to me screams Jewish Law and Catholicsm. Its my view that when a person is born again that God forgives every past, present and future sin at that point and the reason that God gives me eternal life is because of the action of Christ on the cross to be the final sacrifice that covers me for all of it.
Still that is just me, very interested to hear your views on the theology of the communion service and what happens in your own church and how you find it?
