Standing for the Bible- I have never seen this done. Although in quite a few CofS churches the Bible being processed in.

Standing and Sitting
In all of the CofS and PCW churches I have been in people stand to sing, and sit for everything else. People remain standing after the final hymn for the blessing. It is becoming more common for people to turn and say The Grace (The Grace of your Lord Jesus Christ...)

bb

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nicole -- are these teensy cups plastic or glass?

Anyone, when one makes one's communion in the pew with the small cups, does the vicar consecrate a large vessel of wine-juice that is poured out into the cups, or are the cups pre-poured and consecrated all at once?

As a Minister in the URC (which comes out of the English Presbyterian tradition along with the congregationalists and the churches of Christ) we nearly always use little glasses of (more than likely) unfermented wine. Sometimes I will use a chalice, but generally my congregation prefer glasses.

The glasses are filled before the service & are consecrated in the service. The bread can either be by broken loaf, or prepared slice cut up!
There are places along the pews for the congregation to put their glasses in when they have finished.

Most churches no longer have the communion card thing, that went out years ago - people would have to justify why they were not in church for the Lord's Supper....

Another strange presbyterian tradition is the beadle, but I discussed that in the other thread. At the same church that had the beadle, the elders of the church meet with me before hand and grilled me on the content of my sermon. That's never happened bfore, although I don't think that is perculiar to all Presbyterian churches.

The same church reminded me that since it was not a communion Sunday that nothing could be placed on the Table, no hymnbooks for the preacher, no nothing. They were quite insistent on it.

In some churches in the Netherlands, the Lord's Supper is conducted in an "upper room', separate from the main assembly room and furnished with tables, similar to the Presby practice described above. Possibly this is an old Calvinist custom designed to frustrate Papalist gazing at the altar.

just to say I deleted daisymay's redundant post, above.

Also, thank to daisymay for providing that useful information over here!

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Originally posted by LouiseF:
or prepared slice cut up!

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Hovis?

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Originally posted by Greta:
the communion table was carried down the center aisle from the narthex

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Greta, help us out. What happened to it the table after they brought it in? Did it go all the way up to the front (was there a chancel?) or left mid-way along? Did the people gather round it?

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Originally posted by Stephen:
How long's the sermon Siegfried?Evensong and Sermon with us lasts an hour whereas A Sung Eucharist lasts more like 1.25 hours....

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We too have the little racks. The bread is brought out to the congregagtion by the deacons.

I think that there's a theological reason for that.

We eat the bread as we get it, and keep the wine until everyone has some, then we drink together.

Like the presbyterians, it's not really wine. I'm not sure what it is, actually. The stuff we use is disgusting.

Cynically, I suspect the reason many non-conformist churches use small cups for the wine is that without the alcohol it would be less hygienic to share the chalice - though the silver has antiseptic properties too. I agree there can be something good about all receiving together but I've only come accross that once - at an ecumenical Maundy Thursday service - though at one Methodist Church of my acquaintance they go up to the rail but wait til every one has the bread, or the cup til they eat/drink.

Re the contents of said small glasses, the youth of our Church have been known to mutter on many occassions, 'After all, Christ did turn the water into Ribena'

It might be non-alcoholic wine, or as the makers call it, sacramental raisin-flavour cordial. Definitely disgusting (but then so is a lot of "real" communion wine, IMNSHO)

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Like the church (somewhere in the Pacific - I forget where, but anyway, this is a BMS story if that helps) that had no access to wine of any kind and had to resort to coconut milk.

It works, it's valid. It's not the wine itself, anyway, but what it signifies.

I shall describe that happened before and during communion in my parents church.

The week before the Elders went around their 'districts' (local geographical areas) with the communion cards. I believe that in the distant past you were not admitted to the service if you did not bring your card. There was also something about if you were absent from 4 communion services then your name was put on the "lapsed member" list. (That would then effect the amount of money the church needed to send to 'central office'.)

The communion services were held twice a year.

The preparation for communion consisted of some of the elders getting out the silverware and giving it a good polish. The pew-cloths were taken out of storage, then washed and lightly starched. The cloths themselves were a strip of high quality, sparkling white cotton, about 25cm/10" wide, and ran the length of the pew.

We had several 'common cups' and used pre-sliced white bread cut into cubes. Although at the afternoon service they used individual cups.

The Elders would all sit at the front of the church, gathered around the communion table. They would get it all first, and then the plebs. The bread was sent around on silver plates, and the grape juice followed it in silver goblets. They zig-zagged across the pews, with the Elders take in the elements from one pew to another. The best bit was the 'top-up' elder. He followed the 'goblet' elders and topped up with more juice when needed.

Re wine and what it's served in -
special communion wine C/E, which must have preservative, we just had a home communion for my very poorly Dad, and the wine was not only nice to drink, but had obviously been opened for some time.

I have been to 2 Free (inter-denominational) churches here in France and Switzerland ..
1st had pitta bread (to be as close as poss to unleavened .. always found that difficult when I had to go straightaway and sing during communion, so usually only bit a tiny piece off)

2nd and current church serves brioche which is passed around and you break off yourself.
1st church served whine from stone chalices
2nd serves grape juice from plastic cups! (in silence). I must admit I prefer some sort of "word" during receiving communion.

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I've always been lead to understand that small receptacles were
introduced for communion wine in the early days of Methodism to
prevent the poor, for whom good wine would be a rarity, having a good
glug and finishing it off too soon. Not sure how accurate this is though.

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Use of grape juice by United Methodist predecessors began in the late 19th century. Before then there was no way to preserve unfermented grape juice. Then, shortly after Louis Pasteur first pasteurized milk, a Methodist communion steward in Vineland, N.J., named Welch, began pasteurizing grape juice for the Eucharist.
Other congregations heard about his invention and ordered grape juice from him. People also started drinking it as a beverage. The Welch family kept expanding their grape juice business and founded the company that still bears their name.

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Originally posted by daisymay:
And what about "The Right Hand of Fellowship"? as a bizarre ritual? ...I've also experienced the giving of the Right Hand of Fellowship in Baptist churches.

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I really like the RHOF. It's cool.

We do it all the time, when someone is received into membership, and when one is made a deacon.

In the frontespiece to St Percy's Great Work, houseling cloths are shown, and they were certainly used at Primrose Hill before World War 2. Curiously enough, they are also shown in the ultra-baroque "Pictures of the English Liturgy" (Vol 2) by Martin Travers, although they are being used here in a way which St Percy would most definitely NOT approve!

The last time I had communion in a Presbyterian church we used plastic.

But growing up, the little cups were of glass. It used to be unnerving to pass these enormous brass trays filled with cups down the pew. They always rattled, and if a congregant was trembly, the racket was incredible. I was always afraid I was going to drop the whole shebang.

In the church I was baptised in, the Dutch Reformed church, the "pews" were very long strings of molded plastic chairs with a larger central block, and two shorter blocks on either side, separated by an aisle from the main block. They used to have several common cups, which the elders would pass along the rows (and only wipe at the end! urghh!). I still remember the smell of strong alcohol - but I don't think it was port (which is what Anglican churches here use commonly. Some places use the cheapest stuff they can find - they do at the cathedral. Other places, like St Mary's, ask people to donate bottles of the stuff... So generally its pretty good.). They used to precut the cubes of bread, and the silver platter would be passed along the rows. As in some places described, you weren't allowed to partake until you'd said your Profession of Faith at the age of 16-18, for which you attended Catechism classes for several years. So as a child (about 4-5) I remember sitting there while the platter and the chalice were passed over my head...

And we weren't allowed to talk or move. And there was a profound silence we were not allowed to break... The church used to be so full on communion Sundays that they had to put chairs in the porch (actually outside the building).

I am not about to declare the things posted here as travesties... No, need dictates use, eg in the case of the coconut milk.

However, I did attend one absolute travesty committed by some Sydney Anglican Vangie loonies I happened to be on camp with.

They decided to have a "pilgrimage" to an open air "chapel" hidden in some mangroves on the bank of the nearby river. Here they used slices of white bread passed around and torn apart, and *red cordial* (in I think, large plastic cups) for a primitive "communion" service. These are the advocates of lay presidency - and I could not have imagined a less reverent scenario. no doubt those who attended thought it "fun".

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Is wine more symbolic? How can something be more symbolic, anyway?
Like the church (somewhere in the Pacific - I forget where, but anyway, this is a BMS story if that helps) that had no access to wine of any kind and had to resort to coconut milk.

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I think things can be more symbolic - though I can't think of a specific example. Think is I've always prefered wine over grape juice but when it came to writing the post I realised I couldn't explain why.

Re: Cocunut milk, as someone else has said need dictates uses, bread and wine are preferable but in a situation where it is completely impossible others things can be used, another example was in Japanese POW camps where they used rice because that's the staple they had. However, in extremis cases don't mean that rules can be thrown out anyway. I mean is the fact that you don't want to go shopping on a Sunday an excuse for using unusual elements? For a start why hadn't you thought ahead and bought things in advance?

Bread (unleavened) and wine (fermented) were what Jesus himself used and certainly in the case of unleavened bread this has deeper symbolism than leavened because it takes us right back in salvation history to the exodus.

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Originally posted by Nunc Dimittis:
I am not about to declare the things posted here as travesties... No, need dictates use, eg in the case of the coconut milk.

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By no means.

What do you use if you have no access to wine? You have to use something.

The act is SO much more important than what you use, anyway. It's all symbolic.

And, in fact, even if you believe in transubstantiation - which I don't, but I have no problem with those who do - what difference does it make? It's the blood of Christ anyway.

What the stuff looks like and tastes like is immaterial.

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They decided to have a "pilgrimage" to an open air "chapel" hidden in some mangroves on the bank of the nearby river. Here they used slices of white bread passed around and torn apart, and *red cordial* (in I think, large plastic cups) for a primitive "communion" service. These are the advocates of lay presidency - and I could not have imagined a less reverent scenario. no doubt those who attended thought it "fun".

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You know what?

My wife used to go to a church where that's how they always do communion.

I used to work there. I really like that.

And it's always reverent, and it's always warm, and it's always simple, and it's never, ever kitsch.

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No no no! Give me my bells smells, and genuflections any day.

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Originally posted by Carys:
Re: Cocunut milk, as someone else has said need dictates uses, bread and wine are preferable but in a situation where it is completely impossible others things can be used, another example was in Japanese POW camps where they used rice because that's the staple they had. However, in extremis cases don't mean that rules can be thrown out anyway.

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I was saying in that context it was not Communion, but something quite other, a novelty, an amusement - and it was not respectful. In any case the "elements" weren't consecrated, well, not in a recognisably Anglican form (and all the people there were Anglicans), and not by an ordained or licensed minister.

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Originally posted by Nunc Dimittis:
In any case the "elements" weren't consecrated, well, not in a recognisably Anglican form (and all the people there were Anglicans), and not by an ordained or licensed minister.

But in saying that I get off the topic, and into far more controversial ground. And I know there are plenty of people here who see no problem with lay presidency, so I'll shut up and go back to my bells and smells!

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Fair enough. My apologies for being somewhat ratty, Nunc. I was in a bad mood this morning... and I have been getting a bit defensive lately.

It of course depends upon what you mean by 'consecration'. We'd ('we' as in nonconformist protestants) would argue that the prayers and scripture said over the bread were that very consecration.

The communion service has (to us) no extra supernatural significance (other than the presence of the Holy Spirit) - we simply 'do it in memory of (Him)' as commanded by scripture as a wholly symbolic declaration to ourselves and those around us of who we are.

Unlike Anglicans and Catholics, we do not believe that the bread and wine are anything other than normal bread and wine - just as the water with which one is baptised is just water.

[tangent: Van Helsing would have been in real schtoock if he'd got his holy water from a Baptist baptistry rather than an Anglican font... no good at all. Dracula would have just got wet and stuff.]

Anyway, to us, it's the act that is symbolic and what it signifies, which is why nobody tends to bat an eyelid if the elements are - if necessary - substituted. The only significance these things have is symbolic.

Who's right? Who's to say?

Better theologians than me argue this one until they're blue in their little theological faces. Personally, I like the fact that its significance is symbolic. It brings it closer to me - it means that these things are not limited to church themselves.

Oh, and as for lay presidency - you have to understand that lay presidency is not a matter of debate in NC Protestant churches - it's the accepted norm, mainly because of the doctrine of the 'priesthood of all believers' (which comes from interpretations of a couple of the Pauline epistles and Hebrews IIRC).

In fact, it's not really a matter of 'lay presidency' at all - since nobody in the church is a lay person as such.

It occurs at this point that many people here have no idea about the difference between clergy in different denominations...

So, in the interest of interdenominational dialogue:

Baptist ministers are only made Baptist ministers after a combination of courses in theology and a few years' experience in 'the field'. Once they've filled the requirements, the Baptist Union performs a lengthy process of accreditation, at the end of which is a service of ordination (funnily enough, one of our pastors finally got ordained a couple weeks ago).

In this service, the new 'rev' affirms his faith and his calling and receives the prayers of his peers - there's nobody really above a minister as such, except in terms of experience or in administrative terms - like David Coffey, for example, who's just a minister, really, equal to the other Baptists in Britain, while at the same time being the chair of the BUGB.

Accreditation is quite simple, really, but it takes ages and, as I said, requires field experience as the assistant to a more experienced minister.

Oh, and you need the approval of a congregation in a democratic vote. That's why British Baptists (I can't speak for them anywhere else) have so many meetings - there's a solid core of belief in the will of the Holy Spirit being made manifest in the church business meeting.

(Or previous pastor was originally an AOG Pentecostal, and had a real problem with the idea that everything had to be voted on. He kept going on about churches being 'delivered from deacon possession').

A church will have twelve deacons. A deacon has to be a baptised member of the church over the age of 25, in membership for a period of time specified by each church (either 6 months or a year), and needs to voted in by the church meeting in a secret ballot. They stay on for 3 years, and then need to be re-elected. My own church has a two-term rule (like the US presidency), but I don't know if this is common or not.

Deacons will be the people who serve communion to the seated congregation, and will lead it if the minister's not present.