Creating Community

Thanks for your comments on community in church. I am going to be posting more about Christ, culture, community, and church over the next few weeks. But here is some food for thought...

One of the ways that we can add community back into our corporate worship is to restore the Lord's Supper to its rightful place. The Lord's Supper was used as a communal meal by the early church.
- Acts 2: 42, 46-47: "Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people."

- Acts 20:7: "On the first day of the week we came together to break bread..."

I think the most telling argument is found in 1 Cor. 11:17-34. We find Paul telling the Christians in Corinth to wait for one another before they eat their meal and take the Lord's Supper together. For Paul, the community aspect of the Supper was the most important. It was a time for ALL of the believers to gather together to eat, fellowship, and rejoice in their Savior.

I think the Lord's Supper holds a key ingredient for our need for community. It is a ready made time for our community with one another and with God. As Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper he did so in the setting of a meal (the Passover) surrounded by his friends. "Do this in remembrance of me..." The dicsiples' carried on this meal tradition throughout their history. However, we have often now made it a time of silent reflection, a time when people are to sit still as a stone and think about their sins and their Savior. OR we completely sing over the whole time period, barely taking time to reflect on the importance of what we are doing. We rarely speak to anyone else during the Lord's Supper (except to say "Here" or MAYBE to say thank you as the tray is passed.)

What if, instead, we spent some time focused on the communal aspect of what we are doing. We, the Body of Christ, are partaking of the body of Christ. How can we do this in a way that both glorifies God AND creates a sense of community among our brothers/sisters?

This application is not foreign to the Restoration Movement. In an article written by Alexander Campbell, he describes the perfect worship service: it involved singing, praying, and standing around a table and having a communal meal as people talked together. They would discuss what God had done for them, their faith, their understanding, etc. For Campbell, worship was a gathering of the community to worship God and to edify one another.

What are your thoughts? Can this work? Have you ever seen this done? What are some ideas you have?