Ship of Fools: World Communion Sunday

Thread: World Communion Sunday Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Barefoot Friar (# 13100) on :

Is anyone celebrating World Communion Sunday this week? I get the rather distinct impression that this is a Protestant phenomenon.

The UMC has added it to the list of six special Sundays, and my guess is that probably 65-75% of the denomination does anything about it. We even have a Eucharistic prayer in the Book of Worship for it.

I've heard of Baptist churches celebrating it, along with PCUSA and some Cumberland Presbys. Also a handful of Church of God, Church of the Nazarene, and Assemblies of God. But I have no real or perceived numbers on this.

I personally have a couple of (minor) theological questions with it, and I get the rather distinct impression that Anglicans have little or nothing to do with it, so I'm going with Proper 22. We will have the Eucharist, but I'll use the usual Eucharistic prayer for ordinary time.

So, which churches actually do World Communion Sunday? What are your experiences? Do you use a special liturgy on the day, or just mention it in passing?

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :

As to Anglicans paying it no mind, for any church in which the eucharist is the principal act of worship, every Sunday is world communion Sunday.

Despite its theological problems, anything that promotes the eucharist is a good thing, in my humble opinion.

Feast of Corpus Christi anyone?

[ 05. October 2012, 16:10: Message edited by: The Silent Acolyte ]

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

I wonder if that is why one of our "quarterly"* communions is next Sunday, when did it start?

Jengie

*Four times a year not every three months therefore 1st Sundays in July (summer), October(autumn), December(winter) and February(spring) . We also have communion on Easter Sunday (the whole cycle runs from Easter Sunday to Easter Sunday and is totally separate from any other congregational function afaik). I suspect the dates were last revised in the 1970s.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

When my shack schedules Communion, it's as good an excuse as any to pick one particular Sunday.

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

The Lutheran Churches I am aware of will be Observing the Festival of St Francis of Assisi.

Posted by Kayarecee (# 17289) on :

The Lutheran church which I'm doing my seminary internship placement at will be observing the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost. We use the propers from the RCL, so we're actually observing Proper 22, but we still call the Sundays what they would have been in the old calendar, so Xth after Pentecost.

We're celebrating Holy Communion this Sunday, but not because of World Communion Sunday, just because it's the first Sunday of the month, and that's when the congregation celebrates Communion.

I wouldn't have had any idea that such a thing as World Communion Sunday existed, before just now.

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

Same with us. No mention of Francis, only because we are on weekly pulpit supply and didn't want to overwhelm the poor old guy! We never would have changed the Sunday's name to Francis anyway, but I doubt there would be much opposition.

As for World Communion Sunday, one doesn't hear about it all too often in the ELCA. I encounter it frequently in other Mainline churches, though.

[ 06. October 2012, 22:36: Message edited by: Olaf ]

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
When my shack schedules Communion, it's as good an excuse as any to pick one particular Sunday.

Yes it is, probably better than some, but I quite like unpicking bits of assumed church ritual and asking why they originally were formed that way.

Oh I unconsciously innovated this Sunday, I started reordering as opposed to just uncovering the elements in the preparation for communion and again reordering for processing out. It was appreciated but it does mean wine before bread on the procession out.

Jengie

Posted by lianej (# 17326) on :

Right now, watching on Cable Channel ETWN (229) San Mateo County. Watching the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican in Rome. Proclamation of Sts John of Avila and Hildegard of Bingen to the Universal Church. Pope Benedict the man of the hour. I like the music in Latin.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barefoot Friar:
So, which churches actually do World Communion Sunday? What are your experiences? Do you use a special liturgy on the day, or just mention it in passing?

The PC(USA) definitely does it. World Communion Sunday was started at Shadyside Presbyerian Church (Pittsburgh) in 1933, and American Presbyterians were the first to adopt it as a regular observance. I can't say how widely it is obesrved outside American Presbyterianism.

A page at the PC(USA) website says this about it.

quote:
Davitt S. Bell (the late Clerk of Session and church historian at Shadyside) recalled that Dr. [Hugh Thompson] Kerr [pastor of Shadyside] first conceived the notion of World Communion Sunday during his year as moderator of the General Assembly (1930). Dr. Kerr’s younger son, the Rev. Dr. Donald Craig Kerr, who is pastor emeritus of the Roland Park Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, was sixteen in 1933. He has related that World Communion Sunday grew out of the Division of Stewardship at Shadyside. It was their attempt to bring churches together in a service of Christian unity—in which everyone might receive both inspiration and information, and above all, to know how important the Church of Jesus Christ is, and how each congregation is interconnected one with another. When I asked Donald Kerr how the idea of World Communion Sunday spread from that first service to the world wide practice of today, this is what he replied,

"The concept spread very slowly at the start. People did not give it a whole lot of thought. It was during the Second World War that the spirit caught hold, because we were trying to hold the world together. World Wide Communion symbolized the effort to hold things together, in a spiritual sense. It emphasized that we are one in the Spirit and the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

In my experience, it is often observed with hymns from around the world or, at least, hymns, prayers and other liturgical texts that emphasize connectedness with the world, and perhaps paraments, banners or other visual elements from around the world. I know some churches always make a point to have bread that would be common in another part of the world. It ends up being part Pentecost, part Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Clearly, the observance comes from a tradition where weekly communion has historically not been the norm. The point, however, is not so much, I don't think, to say "today, all Christians around the world are celebrating Communion." In my experience, at least, I think it's more that "today, as we and others elsewhere gather to celebrate Communion, we emphasize what is always part of every celebration of Communion -- that what binds us together in Christ trascends language, borders, politics, cultures or anything else that separates us from sisters and brothers around the world."

It is not coincidental that he Peacemaking Offering, one of the four annual denominational special offerings in the PC(USA), is traditionally received on World Communion Sunday. The first Sunday in Otober would have been one of the four traditional quarterly communion Sundays in 1933, but I have often wondered if the folks at Shadyside made the connection with the feast of St. Francis. There are some common themes to draw there.

[ 10. October 2012, 15:35: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]

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