COMMUNION… INSPIRING OR BORING?

I love communion…which is a long way from how I used to feel about the celebration of the bread and the cup. To be honest, in the early days of my faith, there was no way that I would have put the words “celebration” and “communion” in the same sentence. The way I experienced it was BORING!

But, it wasn’t meant to be and it doesn’t have to be. According to Jesus Himself, it’s intended to inspire…to inspire us to remember.

As a pastor, I’ve taken this seriously. We don’t approach communion as a throwaway …as an unconnected tack on to our already full weekend services. On the contrary, when we celebrate communion, it is the point, the entire focus of the service. And, we don’t just mindlessly repeat the same service over and over and over again. We’re trying to wake people up to the vital reality and life-defining importance of Christ in their lives. We’re not trying to dull them spiritually through mind-numbing redundancy. We’re trying to sharpen them spiritually by taking them deeper in their understanding and experience of the power of the cross…of Christ’s sacrifice for them.

We do this by focusing the entire communion celebration on different aspects of Christ and what He did for us…can do in us…if we genuinely depend on Him. We do this by seeking to build on what Jesus did in giving us the bread and the cup…we attempt to use tangible things to bring to life the intangible. We’ve given people post-its to write their burdens on and then encouraged them to let go of them as they stuck them to the wall. (What a beautiful site…church walls full of burdens representing people free of them.) We’ve given nails to pound into the cross; party favors to remember their victory in Christ; cheap little erasable slates for them to write their sin on and see it disappear; etc. As the above video shows, this week we used suitcases to picture the baggage we carry in life…the baggage that, in Jesus, we no longer have to carry. 

We want to invest the creativity God has given us to inspire people to remember…Jesus died to set them free!

So…if you’re a part of NorthRidge, I encourage you to make our New Life Communion services a “not to miss” part of your life. If you’re a pastor, I encourage you to take a new look at and a new approach to how you lead out communion in your spiritual family. If you’re a believer, remember…there’s nothing in all the world more worthy of celebrating than Jesus…and what He’s done for…and wants to do in you. Celebrate Him today by living for Him.

I’d love it if you shared some of your thoughts on or experiences with communion.