To whom it may concern,
This study of the Lord’s Supper and worship is addressed to all Christians.
You may be a Christian who is looking for a church. You may be a Christian looking for a richer and more fulfilling worship service.
You may be in a pastoral ministry responsible for guiding the worship experience for the members of your church. You may be a pastor seeking to motivate and energize your flock to a deeper faith. You may be a pastor building a church.
We all ask what it is that will satisfy. A great music program? Dynamic teaching? A beautiful atmosphere in a beautiful building? Programs for our many and varied needs? Great preaching? An excellent music program for worship? A fun filled youth ministry for our children? Social activity and fellowship? We’ve all asked questions like these. We’ve all looked at a variety of answers too.
You might be fairly satisfied with worship at your church, but are always interested in improvement and growth, and endeavoring for excellence. Or maybe sometimes something seems to be missing. Many of us have at one time or another felt that dryness in our worship.
In many ways this study is for my own benefit. These are the answers I give to myself in response to my own questions. I make no claim to being an expert on the topic, nor should anyone. Granted, taking the time to think about and study a subject lends some value to one’s opinions. But we live in an age of experts, and the industry of the age is that everyone writes a book to share their expertise and becomes a celebrity, which if we think about it is ridiculous. So don’t think about this study in that way (which is a conceit on my part that anyone would). This is my thinking about these things. If my thinking doesn’t coincide with yours, maybe I have offered something new to you to think about, maybe not. But at least we’re thinking about it. Here is the nub, thinking about it for ourselves. Nobody can be an expert on God for us, or perform our worship for us. We each and all have to individually grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord for ourselves. And we will all give answer to God for ourselves. On the other hand, God has given prophets, pastors, preachers, teachers, and elders (among the many gifts) to the Church to be guides and leaders. Let us avail ourselves of those gifts and those so gifted. But we still need to be like the Bereans to see if these things be so, and to study to show ourselves approved.
The answer offered here starts with the idea that we condition our thinking about the Lord’s Supper by looking at some aspects of it that we all should know, but perhaps have taken for granted. However to do that we will find that a solid understanding of Who God is and what the essence of worship is are a necessary part of a deeper understanding of the the Lord’s Supper. So we also discuss those subjects.
That gives us a base to reexamine the value and place of the Lord’s Supper in our worship. Which is the central point of this work, to enlarge our vocabulary and refresh our thinking of the Lord’s Supper. This is a key that opens up to us richer and more fulfilling worship because we have an enriched understanding of worship, and the place and value of the Lord’s Supper in our worship. There is a dynamic here, study of the Lord’s Supper leads us to study worship which leads us to study who God is which in turn changes our perception of what worship really is and how we ought to worship, which in turn conditions our understanding of the value and place of the Lord’s Supper which in turn conditions our growth and grace in the knowledge of the Lord which in turn …
We shouldn’t make too much of the Lord’s Supper, but neither should we make too little of it. Once we know its value, we will know its place. If we think about it we’ll discover that it is indeed God’s work, and that He purposes through it to direct our worship to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is worshiping Him in spirit and in truth that will be found to be the most truly rich and fulfilling worship.
The Lord’s Supper was given to us by the Lord Himself. That reason alone is sufficient to give it great importance. This striking, simple, eloquent, and therefore elegant testimony to our Lord, devised for us by Him, has a depth and breadth in its many aspects that make it the indispensable center of our worship services. I suggest that if you challenge your thinking, if you reexamine worship and in particular, the Lord’s Supper, if you refresh your vocabulary of it, you will be profoundly affected.
©FH 2012