The question is: Do Methodist Churches admit Children to Communion? It is now an option for churches in the CofE, and once admitted at one church a child can not be refused at another.

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Originally posted by sacredthree:
I have one question and one thought.

The question is: Do Methodist Churches admit Children to Communion? It is now an option for churches in the CofE, and once admitted at one church a child can not be refused at another.

The thought is this: Regarding the Apostolicity of the Methodist church, if their was ever a candidate for having an Apostolic ministry it was John Wesley. If Paul or Priscilla or any of the other many Apostles in the NT, named and unamed, could ordain why couldn't he?

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To the question:
Our practice is pretty much the same as the Anglicans. The church council makes the policy, which the minister is bound by. In the end I suspect it comes down to the parents. In our church we have an open invitation to children, but only a few families actually receive, the majority still go up for a blessing.

So far though that has been the major issue to come up where I think the CofE needs to give.

So Weslian - and any other Methodists out there (seasick) - are there any other things where you think that Anglicanism needs to be prepared to change?

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I have to say that I'd like to see an end to the requirement to use authorised liturgy

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Again this shows the breadth of the denominations - certain chunks of the CofE would love this whereas others would be up in arms and I'll sit on the fence!

There has been a move away from only using the authorised liturgy over the past few years. There is now the concept of the 'Service of the Word' which gives a structure for a service - what it should contain - confession Lord's prayer, readings etc - but no written liturgy and there's a lot more - these or other suitable words may be used.

I like the liturgy a lot - and find it far easier to worship with it than without it - but I'm not sure that only using authorised liturgy is a deeply held belief and I could probably do without it. Though I do get annoyed with a church who use liturgy not authorised in their province regularly - but I think that is more to do with Church order than authorised liturgy per se. Currently authorisation is important so this church's ignoring of this is another example of its tendency towards congregationalism which is not the way the Church in Wales is governed.

Not always using authorised liturgy might also encourage people to think about liturgy and what it is. Bad liturgy or badly done liturgy - gabbled with seemingly no attention to what your saying for example - is probably worse than no liturgy. If your going to do something do it well.

However there is nothing stop you using other liturgies, as long as the main service is an authourised form.

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Originally posted by seasick:
The problem with the current use of the Service of the Word is that it only seems to be used in Evangelical establishments (though if anyone wants to give a counter-example, I'd be more than pleased to hear of it).

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andras said:
Putting aside for the moment the canonical requirements which insist on the juice of the grape and of bread, and assuming that the 'sitting around' isn't to suggest that you're doing this lightly, in what way exactly would the meanings be different?

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What I'm trying to say is that the way people act at the Eucharist often says an awful lot about their Eucharistic theology. This example perhaps wasn't the best as it had the same person each time.

To take another example, consider the exposition of the host at Mass:

Behold the Lamb of God, Behold him that taketh away the sins of the world.

This text in a slightly different form has found its way into a lot of liturgies - it appears in the Methodist Worship Book in a number of places (we used it on Sunday).

Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

In chapel here, at this point, the actions of the celebrant are generally the same as in places where the first one is used (i.e. holding up the host and chalice and showing them to the people) whereas in Methodist circles it's generally used as an invitation to communion. I think it's the actions here which betray the difference in people's thoughts.

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andras said:
Japanese prisoners of war and others in difficult circumstances have frequently held communion services using water and grains of rice - for example - and I'd never dare to suggest that these were not perfectly 'valid' - whatever that means.

That old high-churchman Malcolm Muggeridge used to speak of holding daily communion services at home for himself and his wife using wine and bread over which he himself spoke the Anglican words of consecration. Good for him, say I.

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Steve said:
Sorry - why is that a problem?

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I don't think we should have to give anything up for the sake of unity. Unity is an attitude of mind rather than practice - our practice should remain diverse, as it already is within denominations as well as between them.

I think this is very true - the variation between denominations now is generally at least as great as the difference between them. And Paul's attitude of 'going along with what the other person thinks in order not to cause them to be upset in any way' has an enormous amount to commend it. As Screwtape says somewhere, if this had been properly understood, the church would have been a hotbed of humility.

Weslian's point about the dire quality of non-alcoholic communion wine is spot on. It's the preservatives that make it so foul, of course.

We did use 'proper' grape juice at our church for a while until someone objected on the bizarre grounds that it's not 'real communion wine', and there have been a few occasions since then when it's been a fairly decent Merlot, but don't tell the Methodist church authorities about that! Mostly we have the awful non-alcoholic cr*p.(But we may have wafers soon!)

In answer to Carys' point about what Anglicans ought to change, I can only suggest that it's the persistent notion that they're right about everything, which some of us find rather intimidating.

Seasick said:

In chapel here, at this point, the actions of the celebrant are generally the same as in places where the first one is used (i.e. holding up the host and chalice and showing them to the people) whereas in Methodist circles it's generally used as an invitation to communion. I think it's the actions here which betray the difference in people's thoughts.

The Anglican Common Prayer service, thanks to Cranmer, neatly sidesteps the transubstantiation issue by proclaiming both 'The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ' and 'Take and eat remembering that..' (my wording may be slightly awry, but basically the two statements validate both the notion that the elements are indeed Christ's body and blood and the notion that Communion is a re-enactment or memorial).

I've been to Communion services at Church in Wales churches where the officiating priest used the then-current RC Mass service in its entirety, and others which were so 'low' that I felt unhappy because due reverence wasn't being paid to the sacrament. The variety of usage is, I think, an absolutely good thing, because probably none of us have quite the same doctrine of the atonement or of 'what happens' in Communion.

I have virtually no objection to what goes on liturgically in Anglicanism. I wouldn't want them to change, but I would want the same recognition for our liturgical practices:

e.g. varieties of clergy dress, from tea shirt to cope,
non-alcoholic communion wine and individual glasses,
using the written eucharistic liturgy as a guide and not a chain,
frequent use of extempore prayer,
the use of the lectionary as an option not a rule.

It strikes me that unity at local level is about full acceptance of our diversity, not cramming everyone into the same pattern.

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Originally posted by Weslian:
I think I am with Seasick in that what I would want Anglicans to give up is the sense that one can impose liturgical practice on a church by regulation.

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This may just be my non-Anglican background, but I fail to see any reason why liturgical practice needs to be imposed by regulation. I see the Church basically from the congregational level, and as such see the primary purpose of a congregation to minister to those who worship in that congregation and the community(ies) in which they live. If that ministry is best achieved by using a variety of liturgies or no liturgy then that is what should be used; likewise if that congregation is better for having monthly or quarterly communion rather than weekly, or using non-alcoholic wine then they are not being the Church in their area to the best they can be if forced from above to adopt a different practice than that.

If in some future union between Methodists and Anglicans, I feel the Anglican church should sieze the opportunity to free itself from the imposition of practices on congregations that may not be the best for those congregations.

As I said, my background is Methodist and now URC/Congregational (there being very few Methodist churches in Scotland), so perhaps there is some good reason for the imposition of liturgical practice that I fail to see.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
at the risk of sounding too me-too-ish, me too.

This may just be my non-Anglican background, but I fail to see any reason why liturgical practice needs to be imposed by regulation. I see the Church basically from the congregational level, and as such see the primary purpose of a congregation to minister to those who worship in that congregation and the community(ies) in which they live. If that ministry is best achieved by using a variety of liturgies or no liturgy then that is what should be used; likewise if that congregation is better for having monthly or quarterly communion rather than weekly, or using non-alcoholic wine then they are not being the Church in their area to the best they can be if forced from above to adopt a different practice than that.

If in some future union between Methodists and Anglicans, I feel the Anglican church should sieze the opportunity to free itself from the imposition of practices on congregations that may not be the best for those congregations.

As I said, my background is Methodist and now URC/Congregational (there being very few Methodist churches in Scotland), so perhaps there is some good reason for the imposition of liturgical practice that I fail to see.

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My personal feeling is this - if you are going to have a communion/connexion, and certain theological views are particularly espoused by said communion/connexion, then the services need to reflect this. I'm thinking where specific exclusions are made, rather than inclusions.

The problem with saying "you can't do this, and you can't do that" is that the exclusion list gets longer and longer.

Far simpler to have some loose boundaries of regulation, for good church order.

And to my mind, any liturgy that is going to be used regularly ought to be "authorised" - I'm not talking one off services, but where a church worships like that week in, week out.

Before someone lodges themselves in my throat. I'm not saying that all services should follow an authorised pattern, but that if you are going to use a liturgy with any regularity, then it should be authorised. Ideally the list would be fairly long to start with, and anyone could submit a liturgy to be listed as an available resource.

Does that make the difference clear?

Angel

[tidied ubb]

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Originally posted by Weslian:
What about the tradition of extemporised communion? At our church, Sunday evening communions are always done without any written liturgy at all. Our worship book gives an outline of the required elements, and that is kept to, but the words are different every time as the presider feels led?

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Originally posted by Weslian:
What about the tradition of extemporised communion? At our church, Sunday evening communions are always done without any written liturgy at all. Our worship book gives an outline of the required elements, and that is kept to, but the words are different every time as the presider feels led?

This is a very moving intimate service, and if we were banned from doing that I would find it really difficult.

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speaking for myself, I have no problem with that. And I agree re: it being moving. (Angel remembers st sim's)

the reason I get bugged about liturgy, is that, more than anything, it needs to be theologically "right" (broadest possible meaning of the term). I'd be a bit annoyed if I went to an anglican church and heard chick-type christianity in the liturgy week in, week out. similarly with certain RC marian theology.

it's one thing for it to be preached - that's bad enough. It's another for it to be in a formalised pattern.

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the Angel of the North said:
the reason I get bugged about liturgy, is that, more than anything, it needs to be theologically "right" (broadest possible meaning of the term). I'd be a bit annoyed if I went to an anglican church and heard chick-type christianity in the liturgy week in, week out. similarly with certain RC marian theology.

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Originally posted by seasick:
Surely this comes down to whoever is leading the service? I think in both Methodism and Anglicanism, people who regularly lead worship have to be themselves in some way authorised (e.g. by being admitted a local preacher), which certainly in the Methodist case, involves assenting to 'the doctrines of the Christian faith as this Church has received them' (apologies if the quote isn't exact - I haven't got an MWB here to check it).

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Sadly, in the anglican case, just because they assented to it at one time, doesn't mean they believe it now. not entirely certain of this. - maybe one of the learned fathers could tell us? (or carys )

In practice, this rarely, if ever happens. The only theolgical issue on which people have been forced to leave the ministry in recent years has been over a failure to be prepared to administer infant baptism, and a willingness to baptise adults who had already been baptised as infants.

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Originally posted by Weslian:
but I would want the same recognition for our liturgical practices:

e.g. varieties of clergy dress, from tea shirt to cope,
non-alcoholic communion wine and individual glasses,
using the written eucharistic liturgy as a guide and not a chain,
frequent use of extempore prayer,
the use of the lectionary as an option not a rule.

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Ahem, these sound fairly normal for a Low Anglican church.

I really wish everybody would stop talking about the Anglican church as if it were homogeonous. Steve and I (for example) are both Anglican but have very different views on things.

My views are coloured by being an ex non-conformist who has discovered a bit of the old religion, I may claim that my particular brand of progressive liberal catholicism offers a valid path for the Anglican church, but I can't claim that it is the Anglican Church.

There seems to be some Paranoia.

The reason Anglicans can have such an attitude is they are constantly defending themselves from attacks (real or imagined) from within their own denomination.

The Evangelicals are out to get the Catholics
The Catholics are out to get the Evangelicals
The Liberals ....

And so forth and so on.

I think the Methodists and Anglicans will get on just fine then. If you are really lucky Weslian you will be invaded by a group of 50 Conservative Evangelicals who will then take over the church.

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Originally posted by sacredthree:
If you are really lucky Weslian you will be invaded by a group of 50 Conservative Evangelicals who will then take over the church.

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I presume you are joking!!

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Sadly, in the anglican case, just because they assented to it at one time, doesn't mean they believe it now. not entirely certain of this. - maybe one of the learned fathers could tell us? (or carys )

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Not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be answering. Whether people still assent to what they assented to at one time? How should I know? Actually I think this can be a problem, what do you do if you move away from the faith as set out in the creeds?

But I think what Angel was actually asking was the position about people being authorised in the CofE. Yes they do, Readers are licensed and admitted and I seem to recall they have to make a declaration of intent as do those being ordained, which doesn't involve assenting to the 39 articles (thank goodness their tone is too calvinist for me), but acknowledging their existence at least.

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Originally posted by Carys:
But I think what Angel was actually asking was the position about people being authorised in the CofE. Yes they do, Readers are licensed and admitted and I seem to recall they have to make a declaration of intent as do those being ordained, which doesn't involve assenting to the 39 articles (thank goodness their tone is too calvinist for me), but acknowledging their existence at least.

Carys

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"acknowledging their existence at least" reminds me of the story of the bloke here in Queensland who was candidating for the Methodist ministry. He was supposed to read Wesley's Forty Four Sermons before fronting up to a committee. It was the night before, and he hadn't even started!

"acknowledging their existence at least" reminds me of the story of the bloke here in Queensland who was candidating for the Methodist ministry. He was supposed to read Wesley's Forty Four Sermons before fronting up to a committee. It was the night before, and he hadn't even started!

So he took a drill and bored a hole through the book. When asked if he had read the 44 Sermons, he truthfully replied, "I've looked through them.

He missed a treat. Here in the UK, Local Preachers are expected to read them through and to be able to talk intelligently about them - and there's some pretty powerful stuff there, I can tell you!

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Originally posted by andras:
He missed a treat. Here in the UK, Local Preachers are expected to read them through and to be able to talk intelligently about them - and there's some pretty powerful stuff there, I can tell you!

John

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Bimboy (just starting this week on LP) doesn't have to know the sermons particularly. In fact, he was saying he could get through his course, without having to refer to them at all. To be fair, he also said that wesley's words aren't nearly heard enough.