I grew up independent Bible and Baptist Churches that served communion once a month. I believe I was in sixth grade when I got to partake of communion the first time at Bethany Bible Church. I have distinct memories of holding on to the tiny bit of the pre-cut wafer bread and the little plastic cups filled with grape juice. We would wait until everyone in the church had a piece of bread and then we would all eat it at the same time. Likewise with the cup (me and my siblings always tried to drink down the last drop of the tasty juice in the cup). We’d then put the cups in the little holders on the back of the pew in front of us.

I also remember having discussions in my youth regarding Roman Catholics and others who took communion weekly. It seemed strange to me that they did it weekly and that we only did it once a month. The story I was given was along the lines that if communion was done weekly it would simply become a rote tradition and lose its meaning. We did not want that to happen to us. So this is what I carried into my adulthood.

In August of 1991, I returned home to Phoenix after 4 years in the Marines and 1 year at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. I was so happy to be home. I returned pretty broken and beat up spiritually (most of it my own doing). I immediately started attending Open Door Fellowship. It is a church that I had know since high school. I used to go to their youth group with a couple of my best friends. Open Door was like the Bible churches I grew up in a number of ways, but in other ways, very different. First of all, it started in 1973 as one of the original “Jesus People” churches in Phoenix. They were a bit more relaxed, people wore jeans to church! But there other things as well.

One of those is the fact that they practiced weekly communion. This immediately challenged what I had been taught in my youth. I had never gone to, or even heard of a “Bible Church” that did this. But, as God was working through them significantly in my life, I went along with it. And at first, it was the Bible teaching and the people God that used to bring me healing. But after a while, when I fully let my guard down, I began to experience something powerful during communion. I don’t think I was able to articulate it fully then, but I knew something was happening.

I also read through the Essentials of Open Door. In their Essential statement on Worship, they state this:

We observe the Lord’s Supper as a central part of our weekly worship, with all of the elements of the service leading to communion.

I gave that lots of thought and reflection. Open Door was a church that certainly enjoyed music. It was full of gifted musicians and singing was a key part of Corporate Worship. It also took preaching seriously. Sermons went a minimum of 30 minutes and often lasted 45. But according to their stated convictions, neither of these these were the “central part” of worship: it was Communion. And that is what I was experiencing. Communion became a powerful event for me in which I believed that I was meeting with Jesus…at the cross. As I ate the bread and drank the juice, reflecting upon Christ’s death and His shed blood for the sin, I felt the love and grace of God pouring upon me. I felt as I was truly communing with Jesus.

All of this was preparing me for the Canterbury Trail. In early 2000, a year or so before I was introduced to Robert Webber, I started worshiping at a Lutheran Church in our neighborhood. I have never forgotten the first time I took Communion there. I went forward and knelt at the altar rail, which was a first for me. Then the Lutheran Pastor came to hand me the wafer. As he did, he looked me in the eye and said, “This is the Body of Christ, given for you.” I came undone in that moment and tears streamed down my face. I truly felt like God Himself was speaking to me and telling me He loved me.

I eventually became Anglican and connected to the Reformed Anglican definition of Communion. The 39 Articles state that the Sacraments are indeed symbols, but not merely symbols.

Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace and God’s good will towards us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm, our faith in Him.

And Article 27 states:

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves, one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith

All of this to say that Communion is special and it is a mystery. And while I don’t believe that there is an actual change in the physical objects of bread and wine, I do believe that God uses them to impart grace to us, when we partake of those objects by faith. I am thankful for the gift of Holy Communion and that God has blessed me and the Church with this Sacrament.

Shane+