For those who want to participate in the Lord’s Supper:
Acts 2:42 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Believers in Jesus Christ are welcome to participate in the Lord’s Supper at home. You will need the elements of bread (bread, cracker, non-gluten wafer) and drink. Have the elements ready before service begins.
If you are with an ordained leader, that leader may stop the online Christian service and begin leading this segment of the service.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR ORDAINED CHRISTIAN LEADERS
We are calling all of you Ordained Christian Leaders who are using Christian Leaders Church as an encouragement to those connected to you (family, a small group, a house church, neighbors and/or friends), to actively lead them into the presence of God through the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. This post will help equip you to administer the Lord’s Supper at the end of the Christian Leaders Church Service.
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What is the Lord’s Supper?
For centuries, God’s people celebrated the Passover—a ceremony reminding them that God would one day send a Savior. Jesus is that Savior. At a Passover service, Jesus introduced a new ceremony using bread and wine. We call it the Lord’s Supper or Communion or the Eucharist.
Luke 22:1-20 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover Lamb had to be sacrificed… When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer…” After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you…” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying,” This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
Who is invited to participate?
There is some debate about this. Some Christian fellowships have an open table to include believers and their children. Other denominations only invite professing believers to partake. We at Christian Leaders Church leave who participates up to the description of the Ordained Christian Leader who is administering the sacrament.
How do you prepare the elements (the bread and wine/juice)?
For the bread: You can use an uncut loaf of bread that is passed around to each participant. Each participant would then break a piece off of the loaf for themselves. Or you can cut up the bread into pieces and pass those out during the celebration. You can use wafers or gluten-free bread as well. As you prepare the bread, pray that God would bless it and help participants see Jesus in it.
For the Wine or Juice: In Jesus’ day, all juice quickly became slightly fermented into a very weak wine. Our wine today has a higher alcohol content so many churches use grape juice. If using wine, you can use one cup shared by all participants to dip the bread (some traditions share a common cup). If using grape juice individual cups are appropriate. As you prepare the wine or juice, pray that God would bless it and help participants see Jesus through it.
How do you administer the Lord’s Supper
- Try to use the sermon message watched at Christian Leaders Church as an introduction to the Lord’s Supper Celebration. If the message was on faith, connect the theme of faith to the Lord’s Supper. You could explain how partaking of the bread and wine gives us a visual representation of what Jesus did for us on the cross thus giving our faith something to see, hold, and experience.
- In 1 Corinthians 11 Jesus address a central theme in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper: whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the[body of the Lord] eats and drinks judgment on himself. Notice that Paul here repeats over and over the bread and the cup or the body and blood or eats and drinks. He always mentions one with the other – except when he says, “without recognizing the[body of the Lord].” What is the body of the Lord? It is the church – the gathering you are to administer the Lord’s Supper to. The point: Don’t celebrate God’s forgiving love for you paid for by the body and blood of Christ if you are not going to share that same forgiving love with those whom you celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
- Use the form below as it is written or use the form below as an outline for your own version.
Form for the Lord’s Supper
Say: For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread (take hold of the bread in your hand), and when he had given thanks, he broke it (break the bread as you say these words) and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
Do: Pass the bread to all the participants.
Say: “Take, eat, remember and believe the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was given for the forgiveness of all our sins.”
Do: Eat the bread.
Say: In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Do: Pass the cup (wine or juice) to all the participants.
Say: “Take, drink, remember and believe the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ was shed for the forgiveness of our sins.”
Do: Drink the cup.
Say: A prayer summarizing the theme of the service as it relates to the Lord’s Supper.
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