Who serves Communion in your Church?

Deacons, quarterly.

 

Hello Angie,

When you say "who serves" communion, do you mean who prepares the plates of communion waffers and fills the little cups with grape juice, or do you mean who stands at the front of the church with the pastor and then takes the plates and moves them from pew to pew?

Anyway, at my church the deacons prepare the plates and fill the cups. Then they stand with the pastor and take the plates to the pews and move the plates from one pew to the next. However, I guess if you want to be "technical" the person sitting next to me actually "serves" the communion elements to me because they hold the plates while I pick up the elements. Then I do the same for the person sitting on the other side of me.

Oh yeah, we have a commuinon service once per quarter. Although, I would not mind it if we observed the Lord's Supper more often.

 

We do communion weekly. One of the clergy serves as the Celebrant (consecrating the elements) and then either clergy or deacons serve.

The congregation comes forward to receive communion, and we use wine on the pulpit side and grape juice on the lectern. We rotate communion liturgies, although the one from the Book of Common Prayer is my favorite by far.

Joshua

[ November 11, 2002, 02:14 AM: Message edited by: Rev. Joshua ]

 

Communion in our church is celebrated weekly, usually in the morning except on the 4th sunday of the month when it is in the evening. It is served by differing members of the church in rotation
yours, Jon.

 

Hello Joshua,

The terms you used and the method that you have outlined above sound very much like Roman Catholicism or at very least Anglican. Are you sure that you serve in a Baptist church?

[ November 11, 2002, 06:06 AM: Message edited by: BibleboyII ]

 

The deacons prepare the plates and fill the cups. Previously selected members (including deacons) of the congregation stand with the pastor (and an assistant, who may be a deacon, an intern, or a visiting missionary). The selected members take the plates to the pews.
We serve communion one a month, usually on the first Sunday.

 

The Pentecostal Church I was in had a weekly communion, Served by the Elders. It consisted of small plastic cups of grape juice and broken up crackers.

Seventh Day Baptists can take communion in any way a congregation feels led. Some have weekly communion and others have communion once a year on the Jewish Passover. There is a line of thinking that suggests that Jesus did away with the passover and replaced it with communion.

I think it is likely that the Deacons in the Early church organised the communion and also took it to the sick who were not able to be there for it.

 

Positive BibleBoy. We're very high church, so our worship has a very Anglican "flavor" to it, but we are definitely baptist. It was at a baptist seminary (Mercer) that I learned how to plan a liturgical worship service.

Joshua

 

The head of each home serves it in our homes
on Passover. If the home has invited guests,
and people usuallly do, it is till the head of the
home who does it. If there are several gusts
and more than one table, besides than the head
of the home, a head of each other table is
chosen, and each head serves.

The next night, in the synagogue, we have our
public seder; there, again, it is the head of each
table.

We have Passover once a year.

 

At our church we have communion weekly at the end of the service. The ushers pass out the trays with the bread and the juice. Everyone in the congregation takes communion together led by one of the assistant pastors from the pulpit.

Personally I feel that having it weekly deludes from its meaning and makes it seem more liturgical. I would prefer to have it monthly as part of a Sunday evening service.

In Christ
Tony

 

I have been a member of my church for 2 yrs 7 months now, and a few months back I missed on a sunday because I was sick and my husband said they served communion. So once in 2 and a half yrs...

I also thought that was only a Catholic thing..

 

We have communion annually.

It works like this.

One of us (usually me) grow the grapes, Either I or another of the Elders makes the wine . It is brought to the meeting house on the appointed day. After preaching services and concluded, three Elders are selected, one handles the Wine, makes remarks about its significance, the deacons then distribute two chalices to the members who are present. One chalice for the women, another for the men. The bread is done likewise.
After the bread and wine have been distributed, the third Elder makes remarks about feet washing, and then that part of the service takes place. After that is done, a hymn is sung and the congregation goes out of the meeting house.

Communion service day usually takes all day.

 

The Deacons serve the Lord's Supper under the guidance of the Pastor on every fifth Sunday, which, I believe, is quarterly. This is in the morning service.

Then in the evening, we have fifth Sunday Sing.

 

When I was pastoring (I'm doing full time doctoral work, which make pastoring too much right now), I would do communion twice a month with varied approaches (liturgical, contemporary, traditional for that church, etc.). The church that I attend now hasn't done it in 2 years. I really miss it! This is one thing that even done ritually is better than not doing it at all, in my opinion. There is just something about physically experiencing all of the richness of communion theology.

 

For what it is worth, every church has a liturgy, whether is be a high church, low church or something in the middle. At Southwestern Seminary (an SBC institution), I learned how to plan a high church liturgy. If you understand "high" church, you can do "low" church easily.

 

The LORD serves communion at our church (it is HIS table), but mere humans help with the distribution.

We observe Communion usually once a quarter (and special days like Maundy Thursday and Christmas Eve).

The deacons of our church assist the pastor with the serving (both men and women).

Can't wait!!