CCN News

Today I have finished the Autumn edition of CCN news for handing out to all and sundry. Here it is for download.

There is a great little article by Catherine White on her trip to Zambia over the summer - a must read!!

[The first one is here]

CCN News

Today I have finished the Autumn edition of CCN news for handing out to all and sundry. Here it is for download.

There is a great little article by Catherine White on her trip to Zambia over the summer - a must read!!

[The first one is here]

CCN News

Today I have finished the Autumn edition of CCN news for handing out to all and sundry. Here it is for download.

There is a great little article by Catherine White on her trip to Zambia over the summer - a must read!!

[The first one is here]

The Lord’s Supper

Last week I attended the Salt and Light Theological Forum. The topic this time was ‘The Eucharist’ - or, in fact, whatever you want to call it, given it’s various names in various church traditions. So we spent a whole 24 hour period discussing the ins and outs of Eucharistic practice as rooted in the Gospels, seen in the Early church, varied through history and practiced in our churches today. To be honest, it was great! It is amazing how much ground can be covered and how much learning can take place when people share their thoughts, reading and experience and allow the conversation to develop [and disagreements to be 'worked' through!].

It could be that I also particularly enjoyed it because I presented a paper on the NT church. For the benefit of those who can’t be bothered to download it here is my paper’s ‘conclusion’:

Conclusion
The common meal was a central part of the gatherings in the early church. Luke’s references to the breaking of bread, even without explicit references to the bread and the cup, seem to correlate with Paul’s references to ‘the Lord’s Supper’ in Corinthians and the evidence of the celebration of ‘love feasts’ in Jude and later church fathers. The common meal, celebrated from house to house and ‘on the first day of the week’, served as a time of joyful thanksgiving to God for their new life in Christ.

The meal stood in a direct contrast to other banquets that were held in the surrounding culture, and provided additional framework for the theological significance of the meal. The church was to see the Lord as the host of the meal, as opposed to an idol, or any of individuals amongst them, hence the way that the meal was practiced should reflect what it means to be God’s people. The meal had a didactic and enacting function - the way it was administrated reflected the reality that it was celebrating. Hence abuses of people, mainly through self interest, at the meal were abuses against the Lord, as the host, and now also the body represented by the people there. Further, the Lord is the sacrifice that the participants are sharing in and sharing the benefits of, and forms the basis for the fellowship together and with Christ. The breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup were significant aspects of the meal, that caused this to be a reality.

In relating the meal to the meals of Jesus both pre and post his resurrection, the meal is rooted in their understanding of Jesus. In the words of institution the meal retained a sense of the Jewish Passover, and functioned in a similar manner, as “remembrance through reenactment”. The meal had more meaning than a fellowship tea. In the participation of the meal in the presence of Jesus, they were formed as the new people of God, under a new covenant in their Lord, Jesus. This corporate identity is the primary focus, with individual interests perverting the very act that should reinforce their corporate identity, as it forms community identity and behaviour through remembering and response to the new covenant.

The joyful sharing of a full meal was not ‘remembrance’ in the sense of a thanksgiving service after a funeral. It was the celebration of sharing a meal with the risen Lord, as his body, benefiting from the action of his sacrificial death and anticipating the great end-time Banquet that will take place when He returns.

If you are in anyway intrigued by that, then feel free to read the whole thing here: Eucharist in the Early Church.pdf

So where did we get to in our conversation. Here are a couple of my highlights:
- people felt that ‘the Eucharist’ [to keep the same terminology!!] has a woefully low place in our churches, most probably because it has lost meaning, and we have treated as a displosable aspect of our gatherings. This is in contrast to the early church [and other traditions since] who met for “the breaking of bread” [Acts] and “the Lord’s Supper” [1 Corinthinans] [what those latter two mean of course will require a reading of my paper ;o)]
- we have been shallow and narrow in our own understanding of the Eucharist and not taught about it/around it/on the basis of it. We add meaning to the Lord’s supper by focussing on an particular aspect of it each time, constantly seeing it as a window into God’s big story.
- The Eucharist has a place in both large gatherings and small gatherings. The small gatherings easily function as an extended family meal [cf Passover and Shabbat]. In the larger gatherings we could focus a whole gathering around the action of taking the bread and the cup - it being the central climatic feature of a gaqtehring to which everything else builds.
- This act is central to the Christian narrative, centering the community on Christ, forming the community as one people, and shaping a Christ-like community as demonstrated in the cross. This acts forms a counter-cultural community.

And lots more, but this post is already too long!!

Let me know what you think!!

The Lord’s Supper

Last week I attended the Salt and Light Theological Forum. The topic this time was ‘The Eucharist’ - or, in fact, whatever you want to call it, given it’s various names in various church traditions. So we spent a whole 24 hour period discussing the ins and outs of Eucharistic practice as rooted in the Gospels, seen in the Early church, varied through history and practiced in our churches today. To be honest, it was great! It is amazing how much ground can be covered and how much learning can take place when people share their thoughts, reading and experience and allow the conversation to develop [and disagreements to be 'worked' through!].

It could be that I also particularly enjoyed it because I presented a paper on the NT church. For the benefit of those who can’t be bothered to download it here is my paper’s ‘conclusion’:

Conclusion
The common meal was a central part of the gatherings in the early church. Luke’s references to the breaking of bread, even without explicit references to the bread and the cup, seem to correlate with Paul’s references to ‘the Lord’s Supper’ in Corinthians and the evidence of the celebration of ‘love feasts’ in Jude and later church fathers. The common meal, celebrated from house to house and ‘on the first day of the week’, served as a time of joyful thanksgiving to God for their new life in Christ.

The meal stood in a direct contrast to other banquets that were held in the surrounding culture, and provided additional framework for the theological significance of the meal. The church was to see the Lord as the host of the meal, as opposed to an idol, or any of individuals amongst them, hence the way that the meal was practiced should reflect what it means to be God’s people. The meal had a didactic and enacting function - the way it was administrated reflected the reality that it was celebrating. Hence abuses of people, mainly through self interest, at the meal were abuses against the Lord, as the host, and now also the body represented by the people there. Further, the Lord is the sacrifice that the participants are sharing in and sharing the benefits of, and forms the basis for the fellowship together and with Christ. The breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup were significant aspects of the meal, that caused this to be a reality.

In relating the meal to the meals of Jesus both pre and post his resurrection, the meal is rooted in their understanding of Jesus. In the words of institution the meal retained a sense of the Jewish Passover, and functioned in a similar manner, as “remembrance through reenactment”. The meal had more meaning than a fellowship tea. In the participation of the meal in the presence of Jesus, they were formed as the new people of God, under a new covenant in their Lord, Jesus. This corporate identity is the primary focus, with individual interests perverting the very act that should reinforce their corporate identity, as it forms community identity and behaviour through remembering and response to the new covenant.

The joyful sharing of a full meal was not ‘remembrance’ in the sense of a thanksgiving service after a funeral. It was the celebration of sharing a meal with the risen Lord, as his body, benefiting from the action of his sacrificial death and anticipating the great end-time Banquet that will take place when He returns.

If you are in anyway intrigued by that, then feel free to read the whole thing here: Eucharist in the Early Church.pdf

So where did we get to in our conversation. Here are a couple of my highlights:
- people felt that ‘the Eucharist’ [to keep the same terminology!!] has a woefully low place in our churches, most probably because it has lost meaning, and we have treated as a displosable aspect of our gatherings. This is in contrast to the early church [and other traditions since] who met for “the breaking of bread” [Acts] and “the Lord’s Supper” [1 Corinthinans] [what those latter two mean of course will require a reading of my paper ;o)]
- we have been shallow and narrow in our own understanding of the Eucharist and not taught about it/around it/on the basis of it. We add meaning to the Lord’s supper by focussing on an particular aspect of it each time, constantly seeing it as a window into God’s big story.
- The Eucharist has a place in both large gatherings and small gatherings. The small gatherings easily function as an extended family meal [cf Passover and Shabbat]. In the larger gatherings we could focus a whole gathering around the action of taking the bread and the cup - it being the central climatic feature of a gaqtehring to which everything else builds.
- This act is central to the Christian narrative, centering the community on Christ, forming the community as one people, and shaping a Christ-like community as demonstrated in the cross. This acts forms a counter-cultural community.

And lots more, but this post is already too long!!

Let me know what you think!!