Communion Stories...

On Monday during my 1 Corinthians lecture we had an interesting discussion around 1 Corinthians 11 and Communion and the different ways we celebrate it depending on context, church culture, environment etc. I really appreciated my lecturer's handout 'Thinking About Communion' as it challenged me to define communion for what it was, not what it has been only in my experience. I decided to be practical about this and lead a celebration of communion in my small group this week as an extension of what we talked about in class. I have a small accountability group of myself and 3 others and so I sent out a text asking if they would like to celebrate communion and asking one to bring some liquid (of any description!), another to bring some bread and another to bring chocolate.. just because every small group meeting needs chocolate. I did some research and found so much information on the web from different churches on how they celebrate communion. Here is what I pooled together from various sources and roughly how the night went...

-We started with a time of sharing on the last time we had communion. What was it like? How was it served? What did you remember feeling towards communion on that day and what does it normally mean to you?
(The last time I had taken communion I had been organising it and so I spent the morning rushing around finding 12 people to distribute it. I took mine up the back of church after I made sure everyone else had received it. Sounds selfless but I didn't think too much about taking it myself! One of my group is a tech guy at church and so remembered quickly taking the communion elements before the service moved on to the next thing; another is a musician and so shared feelings of having to also take it quickly so she could be up on stage to 'play the communion song.' Interesting...)

-Next I read from the 'Thinking about Communion' handout on the different terms people use to describe communion and, finishing with 'Re-enact what Jesus did' we read from Luke 22:14-20.

-Then I had found on the Saddleback Church website a succinct summary on how to prepare yourself for communion using 'self examination, re-commitment, restoring relationships.'
http://www.saddlebackfamily.com/membership/group_finder/faqs_smallgroup.asp?id=7509#q_02
We talked about each of these three things and shared which one we struggled with the most. I shared a thought that my lecturer had about how 'remember me' is not just a reminder to remember what Jesus did in breaking the bread and in his death but also a reminder to make room for Him in our present lives, 'remember me now.' We agreed it was easy to do the first part but harder to consistently keep up the second part!

-Next we took the bread and the drink and I shared a prayer for each element that I found on this website..
http://www.freedomsring.org/fta/chap15.html
After each one we had a moment of silence.

-After taking the elements we moved on to the rest of our night where we share with each other what we are struggling with, and we pray for each other.

I also found this website quite helpful..
http://www.christianitytoday.com/smallgroups/articles/buildcommunity.html

All in all we had a really good discussion on Communion and how we approach it and what it means. I wanted to share this with you all so that you could share with me how you participate in communion. Let's share stories! I want to encourage you to challenge yourself through the chapter in 1 Corinthians on the celebration of communion.