Thursday, December 16, 2010

How Often Should the Eucharist be Observed?

How often is too often when celebrating the Eucharist?
One of the biggest fears in the Church world is overrun. When you as a teacher, pastor, elder, deacon, leader find something that works in your church how do you use it enough to continue making it beneficial to your congregation(s) without overexposing the people to and nullifying its affects? I believe, in part, this is why you see special programs used only on the 4th or 5th sunday of a month. Besides the point of giving the people something to look forward to (message from someone else besides the senior pastor, luncheon after church, concerts, etc...) you don't want to burn your church out on these special events.

When you examine this issue it becomes easy to see why some of the mainstream denominations don't share Holy Communion but once every quarter on the calendar year. Church leaders know the importance of the Eucharist, whether its viewed as literal or figurative to his body and blood, but fear if the plate and glass is shared  every Sunday the grandeur that is the Eucharist will be reduced to a weekly religious duty or chore.

However, this reduction of the value in the Eucharist only occurs if the partaker allows it to happen. Leaders should not fear how often their church observes the Holy Feast because it is ultimately up to the person taking the wine/ juice and bread how significant the event will be. Events such as Bible reading, hymnal singing, and Sunday Schools carry on weekly without the fear of becoming a "religious chore", thus, why can't celebrating the Eucharist be as well?

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