Holy Communion as a Strategic Plan for Church Growth

Word among established parishioners was that the death knoll for our parish was now ringing. This was it. The life-support system was about to be unceremoniously unplugged. And who would have thought it? After all, they brought in a young minister to turn things around, to get the contemporary service going, to give the young folks with shorter attention spans what they wanted-shorter sermons and shorter services. But now this: Holy Communion each and every week, and sometimes even more. Breaking ninety-five years of tradition, the Divine Service at Grace Lutheran Church extended in length by 50 percent. The average service time was now the same as a feature film and without the titillation of modern technologies.

Weeks passed, and then months, and some of our veteran members couldn't figure it out. The church was steadily growing. And it wasn't the statistical development that was the principal topic of conversation; rather it was the growth and maturity of parishioners. Love, peace, and joy had taken up, what seemed to be, permanent residence in what was once a house with discord.

What accounted for the transformation? It was nothing other than the benefits of the gospel proclaimed and administered to those who became eager to receive them in faith. No gimmicks. No programs. It was just the promises of God being made efficacious by the Son and the Spirit.

It began with a prolonged Sunday school series (for the entire family) on the power and profundity of God's Word in and through the Divine Service. Basic principles were laid down and reiterated over the space of several months. These principles were posited to train our people to think and act biblically with respect to a theology of worship, not a style of worship. Our weekly mantras included the following:

• Our Lord speaks and we listen, for his Word bestows what it says (Isa. 55:11).
• The Eucharistic liturgy (Acts 2:42), as a divine gift, let's the Lord have his say.
• God is present for you in the promise of the gospel and in the Sacraments.
• God wants us to receive his promised gifts in Christ through faith.
• A promise cannot be received but by faith and faith is that worship that receives the benefits that God offers.
• Everything in worship bespeaks a theology: know what's being said.

I worked on expanding the horizons of communicants by explaining and employing a wide spectrum of terms for and about the Lord's Supper. Designations such as "Eucharist," "Sacrament," "holy," "mystery," and others helped to enrich their understanding and appreciation of the "Sacrament of the Altar," but also helped to connect their "eschatological wedding feast of the Lamb" with the broader "communion of the saints." This was no innovation, but exactly what our Reformation confession taught: "The people are instructed more regularly and with the greatest diligence concerning the Holy Sacrament, to what purpose it was instituted, and how it is to be used, namely, as a comfort to terrified consciences. In this way, the people are drawn to Communion" (Augsburg Confession, Article XXIV).

Immediately, the elders of the parish and I began to see the mystery and power of Holy Communion as believers were drawn to it. God was present and active in our midst through the means by which he was imparting grace and bolstering faith, and our people wanted in on that action. Where once the Lord's Supper was delegated to the fringes of pastoral theology, now it suddenly became the hinge on which it turned.

We discovered a neglected dimension of Holy Communion in what the Holy Spirit accomplishes on the horizontal plane when Christ feeds his people with his body and blood. The elders and I witnessed this phenomenon firsthand on occasions when reconciliation between parishioners was necessary. As we proceeded according to the pattern of Matthew 18:15ff, it was Holy Communion that seemed to naturally follow the word of absolution to a penitent member. And when the Eucharist was celebrated on such occasions, reconciliation became tangible. Personal absolution beckoned a share in that which engenders corporate absolution, namely Holy Communion in the One who accomplished for us the great work of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-19). Once a person was right with their formerly offended brother, partaking of the Lord's Supper communicated to all parties involved that things were well with God, with one another, and with the entire assembly of believers. Everyone felt welcome in church.

Through the Lord's Supper, "being at one" became a visible reality. The cup of forgiveness was actually shared among those who previously could not share a good word together. Now they were enjoying a meal, breaking bread with Christ himself in their midst. Communion, it turned out, had an uncanny effect on making reconciliation or restoration a rite of passage, an event, a kairotic moment infused with meaning through its healing and restorative nature, for all who partook of this divine gift of our Lord's body and blood.

Holy Communion brought other unexpected benefits. It demolished post-Enlightenment ideals concerning the "self" plaguing our church; ideas that subverted Christian discipleship and biblical understanding of being human. Where once it was the "self" defined by radical individualism and autonomy, now a dyadic principle was at play: the meal common to believers established a familial commonality. Holy Communion, the "with-union" meal, was powerfully and graphically restating parishioner identity on both vertical and horizontal planes as brethren in Christ. Alienation for younger members and isolation sometimes endemic among seniors was contraindicated by the Sacrament (cf. 1 Cor. 10:17). The Lord's Supper said to our teens and collegians, "The Lord is right here with you"; and to our seniors it said, "You have a family and it's all those who share this bread and wine with you. You're never alone." For me, it reaffirmed the importance of actively promoting the use of the common cup, of sharing in Christ's blood from a treasured chalice (rather than disposable individual cups). The permanence of cherished Communion ware more readily reiterates the New Testament teaching of what it means to be "in Christ" rather than worthless plastic products heading for the landfill.

The identity-making power of the Supper links modern individuals-otherwise branded by the conventions of pop culture, death culture, and so forth-to the people of the Passover story. Together, we relive the great story of the accomplishment and application of forgiveness granted to us, while judgment passes over us and we share in the meal that is the Passover Lamb, Jesus the Christ. On tables and altars in San Diego, Sheboygan, and Saskatoon, the story is therefore made real and communicants enter into the new humanity-defining, epoch-making drama. In other words, since we live and move and have our being in a narratable world, and since the fallen world is constantly challenging or denying the Bible's narrative, it behooves the church to utilize the most powerful and graphic means available to proclaim the real story-the real voice of God in his Word and the real presence of God in his Sacrament. Robert Jenson put it this way:

In effect, the church could say to her hearers: "You know that story you think you must be living out in the real world? We are here to tell you about its turning point and outcome."…If we are in our time rightly to apprehend the eschatological reality of the gospel promise, we have to hear it with Christ the risen Lord visibly looming over our hearts and with His living and dead saints visibly gathered around us. Above all, the church must celebrate the Eucharist as the dramatic depiction, and as the succession of tableaux, that it intrinsically is. How can we point our lives to the Kingdom's great Banquet, if its foretaste is spread before us with all the beauty of a McDonald's counter?

Holy Communion thus placards before mankind the turning point of the world's story-the crucifixion of the Son of God-and its outcome: God's kingdom rule of grace and mercy in our midst. Word and Sacrament ministry replicates the metanarrative of Holy Scripture for us in the here and now. During the Lord's Supper, our people were not only hearing about this true-to-life-narrative, they were experiencing it as a real presence, which was elsewhere obscured or denied. In Communion, the metanarrative came to bear on our narratives; its overarching and defining story filled our stories (be they ever so mundane or inane), infusing them with dramatic meaning and coherence-especially through the reconciliation of the tension of living simil iustus et peccator. Jenson's point is that something this epic, this divine, cannot easily accommodate itself to fast-food mentality, but requires that we sit down for dinner with the family. Because the story is far grander than our moment, life necessarily slows down during Communion and sanity is reintroduced, even if only for the space of thirty minutes around the Table.

In the corporate setting, three things need to be connected pastorally to Holy Communion so as to enlarge and heighten the impact of the great drama it displays: preaching, music, and mystery. First, the sermon must bridge what takes place in the high point of the gospel reading and the gospel feasting. Once we have heard the real voice, the sermon must prepare the people for the real presence. Good, biblical preaching encourages and invites its baptized auditors to receive what the present Lord comes to bestow. As one element of gospel proclamation, the sermon will explain how the gap between the cross of twenty centuries ago and sinners today is right now bridged by Christ's ongoing bestowal of the fruits of his cross in Word and Sacrament and thus direct believers to the Lord's Table.

However, there can be bad preaching. Even still, the weekly administration of the Lord's Supper safeguards the proclamation and dissemination of the holy gospel when the preacher fumbles the ball, for whatever reason. And, so, while Christ may be forgotten or neglected in exposition and declaration, he cannot be so in consecration and distribution.

Second, musical selections will leave an enduring impression on the Communion event. Within our respective Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian hymnals there are a laudable assortment of theologically rich and stylistically appropriate Eucharistic hymns. Songs such as "Eat This Bread" and "Hear, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face," or "O Lord, We Praise Thee," sing this gospel-drama into our hearts, minds, and lives. In order to retain the humanity of the service in terms of our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, such music should always be live, not taped. Naked voices, children present at the Communion rail, and pastoral distribution should be commonplace during a Lord's Supper that bespeaks of this celebration as a family event, possessing warmth and dignity mingled with joy. Music will do much to dispel inappropriate sterility or irreverent silliness.

Third, labor to retain a sense of mystery. This is done by respecting, in one's posture and presentation (that is, circumspection and ceremony), the holiness of the Eucharist. Lose the mysteriousness of your Communion practice and the Sacrament becomes domesticated, trite, a show-and-tell device at best.

The impact of this cannot be underestimated in terms of Communion's formative power on a parish-indeed, on the individual Christian's worldview and welfare. In Holy Communion, the forgiveness of sins moves from the one-dimensional forum of declaration into the realm of three-dimensional manifestation. Grace becomes tangible, sensational, eventful. Just as the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord are the real facts from which all discipleship originates, so too the Lord's Supper serves as a common source for Christian reality and experience of God's real voice and real presence. Here, too, God intervenes and counteracts our propensity to look within for answers, strength, or the cure, where instead we find disillusionment, despair, and deceit. Set before us, set outside of us in the Eucharist, is the reality of Christ. Here, in this event, the Lord is the active, objective one.

What comfort the Supper brings to the hearts of believers, especially since we cannot go back to the cross. To be sure, the forgiveness of sins was achieved on the cross, but yet it is not given out on the cross. "What Jesus won on the cross, he now comes to distribute in the Sacrament, as also in the Gospel where it is preached." Luther explains this important point in his tract, "Against the Heavenly Prophets":

If now I seek the forgiveness of sins, I do not run to the cross, for I will not find it there. Nor must I hold to the suffering of Christ as Dr. Karlstadt trifles, in knowledge or remembrance, for I will not find it there either. But I will find in the sacrament or the Gospel the word which distributes, presents, offers, and gives to me that forgiveness which was won on the cross.

However conceived in Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed theologies, all acknowledge that the sacramental presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper differs from the general presence-the omnipresence-of Christ in the world. It is one thing for Christ to be present somewhere. It is another thing for him to be available to us here. Luther means to emphasize the reality of God's presence with us, amidst the messiness of life or its sometimes story-less trappings. We can be assured that we will find him where he has told us to look for him-in Word and Sacrament.

The Lord's Supper is especially personal, because it is always "for you," the baptized believer. Pastoral emphasis on the "for you" clause of the words of institution falls in line with the purpose of the Eucharist as a sacramental gift and not a sacrificial offering: "These words, 'Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sin,' show us that in the Sacrament forgiveness of sins, life and salvation are given us through these words. For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.'" Since we never contribute anything toward the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, the communicant can relax about being welcomed as a sinner. The Supper is for the sinner. And that is because the Lord's Supper, as an institution of Jesus Christ, is a source of apostolic gospel, and it is the gospel that saves, sanctifies, and glorifies (1 Cor. 1:30).

In terms of exercising pastoral care in persona Christi, I learned that looking the recipient in the eye and using his or her first name during distribution intimately underscored the "for you" dynamic of Holy Communion: "Take and eat, [Sophia, John, etc.]. This is the body of Christ given for you."

The "for you" benefits are especially prized when one is left in a frail or terminal condition. Received orally, it is evocative of much of the medicine we receive today. The Reformers and the Puritans frequently likened the Lord's Supper to a pure, soothing medicine that sustains and vivifies both soul and body, arguing that "where the soul is healed, the body has benefitted also." Martin Luther liked to say that the Sacrament was a precious antidote against the poisons in our systems: "For here in the Sacrament you are to receive from Christ's lips the forgiveness of sins, which contains and brings with it God's grace and Spirit with all his gifts, protection, defense, and power against death and the devil and every trouble." The eyes of my homebound parishioners and those confined to hospitals and rehabilitation centers brighten when I enter for a visit. However, their eyes positively sparkle when the visit is accompanied by the Eucharist. Medicine that counts for eternity is being administered and, what is more, the sure hope of the resurrection comes to bear directly on their situation. United to Christ in Holy Communion, they are profoundly reassured that as he is, so they shall be (1 John 3:2). Not on a few occasions have I heard homebound communicants thank out loud both the Savior and the pastor for visiting.

Given the regular course of life, seniors are more acutely aware that Holy Communion remains something of a preview. There is a greater feast to come, not as a replacement of this meal but as through the intensification of it. This facet of the Supper serves as a great comfort and weekly monument for them that here is a God-given institution that maintains continuity from this life to the life to come. For those who are grieved by the death of a loved one, Holy Communion evokes the third article of the Apostles' Creed and confesses a "communion of the saints" as part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I have one dear member who, after over sixty years of marriage, lost her husband. Marcia comes to Communion not only to enjoy the presence of Christ but also to be reconnected with her husband in the communion of saints. Likewise, the only real comfort I could offer parents who recently buried their three-year-old son was to teach them how the Lord's Supper unites not only past and future in the present, but also all the baptized in Christ with one another. As we think of the death, a sense of remoteness in time is inevitable. All sorts of ideas are devised to overcome this sense of remoteness. But the Sacrament of the Altar makes the sacrifice of Christ ever-present because the body given unto death then, and the blood shed, is the same as that which we receive now, yet without re-presenting (repeating) the act of atonement. So, too, death is dispelled and shown to be a conquered foe when the resurrected one, Jesus Christ, brings heaven and its occupants to be in our midst even now through Holy Communion.

This is an event of extraordinary pastoral intimacy, tenderness, and divine ministry. One must therefore be careful not to "over-fence" the Table and thereby discourage those who need the forgiveness of sins from the very means of receiving it. While respecting your tradition's parameters concerning "closed communion," remember that Christ is inviting. He welcomes his people to receive gifts from his hand and with his good word. An unduly austere regiment of fencing can prove to be equally prohibitive to God's welcomed people as it would be for unwelcomed unworthy persons (per 1 Cor. 11:27-29). After all, unlike those outside the covenant community, Christians sin not only against God's law but also against his grace in Christ. But here Jesus is nevertheless specifically inviting his simil iustus et peccator people to come to his Table and dine with him, on him, because in the Eucharist God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is doing something. Not only is there a performative speech-act that reaffirms justification by grace through faith, but there is also the placarding of Christ as the object of faith.

Conversely, withholding the Sacrament should have a profound effect on the unrepentant. Being prohibited from Eucharistic intimacy with Christ bars one from an objective source of absolution, indeed, of life and salvation. The effectiveness of the "bands" or excommunication will likely correspond with the level of the parish's taught eagerness to receive and to reverence the means of grace.

In Holy Communion, we can have a captive audience in a unique forum in which, like the sermon, the auditor's response is passive-a reception in faith. We would do well to take care and time to ensure that boring repetition and sloppy distribution practices do not hinder parishioners' experience of the promise-making God active in their midst as the promise-keeping God. As with rich foods and choice wines, expect a Communion setting that bespeaks the finest meal of God, such that persists from one life to the next. Where faith and hope give way to love and where preaching and baptisms cease, yet the Lord's Supper persists as long as the kingdom of God. Since this is the case, pastors should not withhold from their congregations this objective and efficacious means of grace any more than they would withhold the sermon or the reading of the Scriptures. In Holy Communion, then, we find God's church growth program for the body of believers that may or may not yield numerical fruit, but which always promises to bring the fruit of the gospel in the lives of those who receive it in faith.