A Large Portion
As I was putting my 11-year-old son to bed one night, we finally got around to talking about what had happened at church that morning. When we went forward to take communion, he used only one hand to break off the bread. As a result, he ended up with an exceptionally large piece—causing me and the administering elder to break into smiles.
Your Body
I like to write out my thoughts before I type them. But when I use an old pen that rolls roughly across the paper, my thoughts thump along in fits and starts. When I can’t squeeze the ink out, I can’t squeeze the words out, and I quickly toss the pen aside for a better one. A free-flowing pen opens my mind, and the words often come pouring out as fast as I can write them.
broken for tim?
While away from home on a lengthy work assignment, I attended a church quite different from my one back home. For instance, my adopted church observed communion (the Lord’s Supper) every time they met. Instead of the pastor or elders serving, ordinary members of the church shared responsibility for distributing the bread and wine.
you choose Q: what does it mean for the elders to administer the Lord's Supper?
Q: In the Westminster Confession of Faith it states that the sacraments are to be administered by ordained ministers. Elders are to shepherd, govern and protect. I’ve been thinking a lot about this in terms of the Lord’s Supper. But what does it mean for the elders to administer the Lord’s Supper? Does this mean simply explaining what we are…
June 10, 2013
What does taking communion (The Lord’s Supper) mean to you? Why is it so important?
blind eyes & burning hearts
If you want to humble me, all you need to do is hand me one of those Where’s Waldo? images—the ones where you attempt to locate the numerous places where the character Waldo blends into the scenery. I can stare at them for hours with little result. When someone finally points out Waldo’s location to me, it’s embarrassing to see him—right there in plain view! As theologian Stanley Hauerwas has said, “We do not see reality by just opening our eyes.”
a beautiful community
In his book A Good and Beautiful Community, James Bryan Smith quotes an early Christian document known as the Letter to Diognetus (AD 120–200): “Though they are residents at home in their own countries, their behavior there is more like transients . . . they obey the prescribed laws, but in their own private lives they transcend the laws. They show…
one meal, one body
Have you ever wondered why Jesus taught His followers to eat His “body” and drink His “blood” during the Lord’s Supper? The Jews misunderstood the idea (John 6:52), and the early Christians were even accused of “cannibalism.” Couldn’t Jesus have described this special meal with less controversy? Not really.
Jesus’ original meal with His disciples took place on the evening…
why take communion?
Recently I was the guest speaker for the worship service in a church on Communion Sunday. When the pastor asked me to oversee the taking of Communion, I did it the way my home church does it. The pastor later told me that it was not the "usual way" they did it. He also said, however, that it was good…
