Well, I learn something new all the time. This is the first time I've heard of taking the bread and dipping it in the cup.
I know the NT accounts speak of Jesus' taking the sop and giving it to the disciples, but I thought that was during the Passover meal, not the Lord's Supper.
GL, how did your church arrive at this practice? And, is the bread dipped into a common cup?
Our church is a 10-year old plant, and the founders were young (but educated, most having graduated Southern Seminary) when they stated. Admittedly, at the advent of the new church, the attitude was one of rebellion -- against the "dead church" that we most often see -- and of creativity and an embracing of the arts, including music, visual arts, written arts, etc. Those same leaders looked at a lot of the history of the church, and they began to incorporate elements into the worship service that met needs and were expressly biblical in nature -- sort of a clean canvas in a way -- yet also building on the foundation that God has given us down through the ages.
We have since repented of that rebellion, realizing that so many of God's churches have gone the way they have simply because of tradition, without ever really looking to see if what they were/are doing matches Scripture or the grand history handed down to us through the ages. We work with multiple-multiple other congregations through networking, prayer, joint service projects, seminars, etc., to help lift up as many as we can.
Back to Communion... We settled on an eclectic mix of old and new. We are a liturgical church, in that we follow a traditional liturgy, have public readings, a call to worship, a benediction, etc., but we are also free in that expression, and the actual liturgy can (and does) change from week to week and season to season in the church calendar (something else we have restored). In examining the Lord's Table, the leaders realized that the way most Baptist churches served Communion had nothing AT ALL to do with the way the Table was shared in the Scriptures, so they just figured out a way to accomplish what the Scriptures demonstrated. Can you imagine what Jesus would say about those little pre-packaged cups of juice and a thin wafer that do not tie the elements of the service to anything ACTUAL in life?
We take a cup (actually two cups, one with wine and the other juice for those who's conscience cannot allow alcohol use) and bread, and people coming to the table, taking (breaking) the bread, and dipping it in the common cup -- just as in the Scriptures. The words of communion are spoken over everyone who takes the elements, "This is the body of the Lord, broken for you..." and "This is the blood of the Lord, shed for you..."
It is a meaningful time, and we celebrate the table in EVERY service of Sojourn gathered. The Communion time is our altar call. It is when we reflect on the message, the Scripture we have heard and read together, the prayers, the psalms, spiritual songs, and hymns we have sung together, and the call to "take Christ" and to live the gospel.
We do a lot of things different -- and a lot of things the same as the church down through the ages -- and it is working. Not because it is "weird" or "historical" or perhaps "trendy" or "hipster" but rather because every element of our "gathered" worship is intended to draw us closer to the Lord and to each other -- God's intended purposes in the gospel. We are reaching people whom many said could not be reached and our growth is spectacular, all while holding to a higher standard of covenant relationship, and a higher standard of biblical exegesis and instruction than many other congregations. For instance, our project as a body for Lent is to memorize Romans chapter 8 together as a church. Imagine most church leaders asking their people to memorize an entire chapter of the Word... It would be time to search for a new pulpit! Yet, we do things like that regularly and the congregation just keeps growing as Christ leads lost souls to us (and yes, we are "Reformed" in our theology, but not in our "culture").
