Communion at Home

Well friends…we’ve never been here before! 

So we will adapt. 

Realizing these are extraordinary times, we’ll pray for grace to make appropriate accommodations to our community’s worship practice. 

This Sunday, we’re live-streaming our “gathering” to be experienced by our church community in our homes.

Part of this Sunday’s experience will be the celebration of communion. I will be leading our celebration, consecrating (setting apart) the elements, and inviting you to serve one another wherever you are. 

Since we cannot gather as a whole community around one physical table, we’ll receive Christ’s body at the same time around tables all across the region.  

Nearly all of us have served communion to another during the last year at Emmaus. That’s what I’m inviting you to do this Sunday in your homes. 

In our tradition, a pastor oversees the celebration of communion and asks God to “consecrate” or “sanctify” or “set apart” the bread and cup to be, for God’s people, the body and blood of Christ. Then the people serve one another. 

We’re preserving this pattern in a way that fits this unprecedented season, when we are prohibited from gathering but can still be connected in real time through technology.   

Two important words of instruction: 

Be as intentional as possible.

Prepare a small amount of bread and wine/juice for this purpose.  Use what you have.  A simple bread/cracker and wine/grape juice is ideal. It’s totally appropriate to use just bread if wine/juice is not available. 

Be as respectful as possible.

Serve one another and receive communion reverently, as you would in church, remembering Christ’s suffering and expecting to experience his grace. Please be sure to consume or return to the earth any left-over bread/wine. Since we’ve set it apart for a sacred purpose we don’t throw it into the trash. 

May we continue to experience God’s real presence together through the sacrament of holy communion.