Sunday, October 30, 2005

Methobloggers on Communion

Tim Sisk recently e-mailed every Methodist blogger and asked for his/her view on and experiences with the sacrament of communion. Just check out his main page and keep on scrolling down.

Great job, Tim! Clever idea.

1 comment:

Betty Newman said...

Well, I'm not the pastor, but lay leader, so maybe I can throw my 2 cents in?

Seems that every preacher has his/her own way to do communion. We've had it quarterly with real bread (my Mother used to bake the communion bread) and we've had it monthly with the "styrofoam" wafers. (As much as I hate the wafers, I hate the little square crackers even more. There's nothing more ridiculous than watching a pastor say "This is the body of Christ broken for you" while trying to "break" one of those things!)

Seems when it was monthly, more often than not, it was just an excuse to only preach 3 times that month as we never got a sermon with it - just straight from the book, eat your wafer, drink the juice and go home. I hated it.

Our "pastor before last" did it a variety of ways, with a variety of sermons/devotionals. I loved it.

Now we have an energetic young man who is brand new and still has the "fire" still burning (oh, that the flame will not go out!)

We have real bread, broken and handed out by the pastor (after making a "big deal" of cleansing his hands - gotta keep all the folks happy, ya know!)

Then one of the laity holds the cup for dipping. One month I held the cup and shared the words, "This is the blood of Jesus shed for you ---" and said each member's name. It was a VERY humbling experience.

We go through a line, taking the bread and cup, then take time at the altar as we desire.

MUCH more meaningful this way.

Betty