What Does The Service Of The Table Do?

The acts of worship at the Table of the Lord enact the story of how God in Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a sacrifice for sin, overthrew the powers of evil and left an example of life lived by love. Contemporary worship accents the joy of God's salvation and healing available at the Table.

Originally the church met in houses for the breaking of the bread (Acts 2:42–47). These celebrations, known as the Agape feast (Love feast), were full meals and were occasions of great joy because of the presence of the resurrection of Christ. Later, due to the misuse of the Agape feast, the apostle Paul instructed people to eat their meals at home and to remember the death of Christ when they gather for the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:23–26). In the history of Table worship there has always been tension between the sobriety of the Corinthian model, which emphasizes the death of Christ and the more primitive model in Acts, which emphasizes the joyous experience of his Resurrection. The Western church, both Catholic and Protestant, has had a long history of emphasizing the death of Christ without an adequate experience of the Resurrection. Consequently Table worship has been sober, meditative, and penitential (and, too often, dreary). Contemporary worship renewal recognizes the need to recover the experience of resurrection joy at the Table. This has been accomplished through the recovery of (1) the ancient Prayer of Thanksgiving, (2) the use of Communion songs, and (3) the Rite of Anointing. All three of these actions restore the experience of resurrection joy and communicate the presence of Christ's saving action among the people.