I have mixed feelings about traditions. On the one hand, I think they can be a positive thing. They can create lasting memories in families for generations to come. But I believe that the best traditions are those established without rules. When you suddenly find yourself longing to do something with somebody just because you always have and you couldn’t imagine NOT doing it. Traditions should never be used to make someone feel guilty for not participating and (GASP!) breaking tradition!
I could really get on my soap box about this, but in today’s post I want to look at church traditions. And one in particular: Communion.
I received my first communion when I was 13. The church I belonged to at the time told me when I was ready. It was less about where I was in my relationship with the Lord, and more about where I was in school. As soon as I graduated 8th grade, I was “Confirmed”. This was basically a religious rite of passage in which I stood up before the entire church and told them I was going to follow Jesus.
I don’t remember being asked if I wanted to do this or even if it was how I really felt. It was just “tradition”.
After confirmation I was allowed to partake in communion. The little country church I attended offered it once a month. My main focus on those Sunday’s was to wear something cute since we walked up front to receive the bread and wine.
My spirituality was impressive, wasn’t it???
The church we joined after moving to Georgia held communion every week. This meant only one thing to me. I needed some new outfits!!!
Fast forward to my current church. The church that I dearly love where the Word of God is the only thing offered up week after week. Do we have communion? Yes. But it’s so special and so intimate to our Pastor that he wants us to grasp exactly what communion means.
A few times a year I’ll walk into the sanctuary and see that all the seats, which are usually facing the front, have been moved into a square shape. We all face each other. Those are communion Sunday’s. Our Pastor will ask us questions. What is God doing in your life right now? What has He saved you from? How are you serving Him?
We discuss these things with the people sitting around us. We share, laugh, and cry. We then have communion together, as one body of believers. Just like the fellowship that was present at the Lord’s Supper.
I still struggle with getting the full effect of what communion is all about. I really think it has to do with taking it before I was ready and going to churches that didn’t set it aside as something special, but instead treated it as just another part of the service.
What about you? How do you view taking the Lord’s supper? What is your experience with traditions within your church? Good or bad? Do you think they create deep rooted meaning or does the repetition lead you to simply go through the motions?
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4 Comments
I’m with you as far as being told by my church when I was “ready” for my first communion — in 2nd grade! — and my confirmation — in the 8th grade. I know now that I wasn’t really ready, but on the other hand I can see that planting that seed in the young me was probably a good thing. I receive communion every Sunday now and it is a constant reminder to me of God’s presence. I hear the words “Do this in memory of me” and, true, some Sundays that hits home more than on other Sundays. But I still appreciate the constancy of it.
I’ve felt some of the same things as you have. Especially in the church’s Mike and I have served in where communion was tacked onto the end of the service.
In the church we serve at now, communion IS the service, and it makes such a difference in how it “feels” if that makes any sense. Our Senior Pastor does a good job each time with emphasizing the significance of what Christ did on the cross to purchase our redemption and how in participating in communion, we are worshiping.
Having spent the first 20 years of my life in the Baptist church and the last 32 in liturgical churchs with weekly communion, I find things to like and dislike with both ways of celebrating communion. Either way must be done well, by a Godly minister or priest for whom it goes deep into their soul and is not just rote or routine and that can make all the difference. That said, my favorite way is still with a big earthy loaf of homemade bread, torn into pieces and shared and real wine given in rememberance and honor and grace for Jesus.
What a lovely bleissng for us as well. Thank you for sharing this delightful paraphrase of one of my favorite encouraging and comforting Bible verses. I can’t tell you what a joy it was for me to read it three times. Have a blessed week.