Communion Tin
I think we made an accidental discovery today. We're between series right now. I call it a buffer Sunday :) We just finished Wired For Worship and we kick off The Wild Goose Chase next week.
We decided to revolve today's service around communion. One of the things we did was hand out communion tins on the way in because I wanted people to hold onto the communion elements while I talked about the significance of communion. We put a piece of bread and vial inside the tin.
I have a simple goal everytime we celebrate communion: I want to come at communion from a fresh angle. I'll post this week's evotional, but today's communion focused on the fact that communion is the way we go back to where it all started. It's a pilgrimage back to the foot of the Cross.
Here's a picture of the communion tin we used. We gave people the option of hanging onto the tin if they wanted a tangible reminder of what we talked about today. For what it's worth, changing up the way we serve communion can make people think twice about what they're doing instead of just going through the motions.
We decided to revolve today's service around communion. One of the things we did was hand out communion tins on the way in because I wanted people to hold onto the communion elements while I talked about the significance of communion. We put a piece of bread and vial inside the tin.
I have a simple goal everytime we celebrate communion: I want to come at communion from a fresh angle. I'll post this week's evotional, but today's communion focused on the fact that communion is the way we go back to where it all started. It's a pilgrimage back to the foot of the Cross.
Here's a picture of the communion tin we used. We gave people the option of hanging onto the tin if they wanted a tangible reminder of what we talked about today. For what it's worth, changing up the way we serve communion can make people think twice about what they're doing instead of just going through the motions.
12 Comments:
Leave it to another pastor to ask for a shortcut . . . but that looks like a great idea and the elements fit perfectly . . . mind posting the sources for the materials????
Let me see if we can track it down. We've also used canvas bags to hand out the elements.
i really liked doing communion this way today. but you might want to warn about the vials being a little tight in the tin.
Donald Miller in his book "Searching for God know's what" talks about communion. And he said he thought the disciples would be a little perplexed to see us sitting around or lining up to take communion and everything being so quiet and somber. He said he thought the disciples would have a huge cup of wine, and a loaf of bread and sit around and tell Jesus stories.
I thought about that for weeks. We do a once a month service called Encounter and we always take communion and like you, I am always looking for a way to make it fresh and different. This week we had loaves of bread... a lot of bread... and we had big cups of juice... and we sat around and we ate and we remembered Jesus, and we told our Jesus stories. We laughed, we cried, we celebrated. It was an awesome night.
Hey Mark.
I'm a Pastor of a church in Florida, a 7 year old church plant in a beach community. Another pastor from here and I are thinking about coming to DC in February... we would love sit down with you if possible.
Sit around and tell Jesus stories. I love it :)
Let me know when you're in DC. I'd love to connect.
Mark
got linked to you from tony morgan's blog and the pink shirt saga.
i love what you have to say about communion - keeping it fresh (figuratively) (literally is a must).
thanks for what you're doing and for writing about it. i'll keep tuned in to your stuff for sure.
and thanks to tony for the reference to your blog.
I felt like I was transfigured back to the cross during Communion at NCC this weekend. It was a powerful experience of God's love and grace all over again. Thank you Jesus for loving me!!!
We (NCC) got the vials/tins at specialtybottle.com. We've also done the vials, tins and put them in small cloth bags(associatedbag.com).
Robert - We did a teaching on communion last weekend at Upward Bound Retreat and then ate a meal and shared in communion (told stories of what God had done in each others lives). One of the most powerful communion experiences I've ever had!
Joel Schmidgall
Not trying to be a pain, but what sizes were the tin and vials? Thanks.
This week's communion service was by far the most meaningful I've ever been to, despite the fact that I thought the tins/vial were super neat.
My church in Cali did communion once a month and while I wanted it to mean something - a lot - it didn't realy. This week was a whole different experience ... you talked about going back to the beginning, something that I've heard you talk about many times ... but I had never connected it with communion before. Thanks for that.
Thanks so much for NCC. It has single handedly revolutionized my faith and willingness to put myself on the line. Y'all have helped me find a renewed sense of passion, and not just for life, but for Jesus. That's what counts.
Amy
Art,
The tins are pretty close to the actual size pictured, but you can email Joel@theaterchurch.com if you want exact dimensions.
Mark
I want to thank Rob Pooley for what he wrote! I've added my own thoughts to my own blog today after reading his comment. It's really made me think about "remembering Jesus".
Post a Comment
<< Home