'An Independent Baptist Church'

WEEKLY COMMUNION

Should Communion, as an ordinance, be observed each week?

Most churches observe communion on a monthly, quarterly or even yearly basis, very few observe the Lord's Supper every Sunday, even though this does seem to be the Biblical and correct way of observing communion.

According to Acts 20:7 the early church met every Sunday ...the first day of the week... to break bread and observe the Lord's Supper or Communion. The bread and grape juice symbolize Jesus' body and blood that was sacrificed for us. Early church historians corroborate that the early church observed the Lord's Supper every week, on Sunday, for the first four centuries! The following early church historians and writers attest to this in their writings: Barnabus (AD100); Innatius (AD107); Justin Martyr (145AD); Irenaeus (155AD); and the Edict of Laodicea (4^th Century AD).

From this we see that the early Christians understood that Communion was to be observed EVERY Sunday. This makes sense.

Communion is to be a specific time on the first day of each week. We are to pause and reflect on how Jesus died for us ... and then realize that He is coming back again. According to 1 Corinthians 11:24-30 we as believers are to 'Examine ourselves' and confess any sins that we have committed recently that might have broken our fellowship with The Lord. If we don't confess the sins, the Lord may have to send chastisement, or even premature death, if the matter is not taken care of by that child of God!

This confession of sins privately to the Lord during the Communion service has nothing to do with our salvation, since all of our sins were forgiven at Calvary, the moment we trusted Christ as our Saviour ... even sins that we hadn't committed yet ... were all paid for by Jesus.

However, as believers we can still sin and our fellowship can be broken with the Lord and we can lose our joy and hapiness.

Communion has to do with FELLOWSHIP not SALVATION.

A weekly observance of Communion makes sense, because matters are still fresh in our mind that occurred during the last week. If a church observes communion every quarter or even each month, how could we remember what things we have done that might be displeasing to the Lord three weeks ago, let alone 3 months ago! This is the reason Jesus taught that communion should be observed in your local church every Sunday.

Now, we believe these elements in the Communion service (The Lord's Supper) are symbolic ... with the grape juice representing Jesus' blood, and the bread representing His body. We reject the Roman Catholic teaching of Transubstantiation which teaches that when the priest says the magical words during mass, the bread and wine actually turn into Jesus' real flesh and blood! The words the priest says are the words we have today as 'Hocus Pocus" ... No Kidding! In this process in Romanism, Jesus is actually crucified over and over again each time the mass is performed. We reject this teaching as unbiblical.