Worship Services:
Traditional Service- Please check out our YouTube playlist to view our full traditional service.
Contemporary Worship - Please check out our Youtube playlist to view our full contemporary service.
Download the Sermon Notes for today's message.
Communion:
While we are unable to gather together for communion, we encourage you to take communion in your home. Remember, it's not the actual wafer and cup of juice served each week that makes the act of communion sacred, but it's doing it "In Remembrance of Me." Use items you have at home and gather together as a family around the table to remember the sacrifice Christ made for us.
Luke’s account of the first communion service is fascinating. Jesus first shares the cup and then the bread. They then eat supper, and then Jesus again shares the cup.
It has often bothered me that the cup was before the bread or else that they took a meal between the bread and the cup. (But it gives me great comfort for the time, many years ago, when I presided over the Lord’s table and blessed the cup before the bread!)
Today, we argue over whether the bread must be leavened or unleavened, whether the cup must be wine or grape juice, and even how many cups we must have. And yet Luke seemed to make a point of explaining the communion in a way that left the issue confused.
The pattern, of course, is that we are to remember the body and blood of Jesus: honoring God regardless of the cost–which is a much harder pattern to replicate than simply fussing over which aisle in the grocery store I must buy the fruit of the vine.
[prayer for the loaf]
During the Vietnam war, some soldiers in prison in Communist North Vietnam were prohibited from practicing their Christianity. The penalty was a severe beating with rifle butts, if not death. And yet some of these men carefully hoarded leftover apple juice and rice cakes until they had enough to celebrate communion on the rare occasion they found themselves together.
Now, rice was unheard of in First Century Palestine, and apples don’t even grow on a vine. But they followed the pattern–they worshipped God despite threats of beatings and death. They bore witness to the resilience of Christianity during brutal persecution. They kept the pattern–they remembered Jesus by living like Jesus, which is the most important thing.
No one had the luxury to argue and fight over the niceties of how to do it. The apple juice was sour. The rice cakes were old and stale. The prayers were simple and not eloquent, as we think of eloquence. And it was perhaps the finest, truest communion service since Jesus instituted the practice.
[prayer for the cup]
Luke’s account of the first communion service is fascinating. Jesus first shares the cup and then the bread. They then eat supper, and then Jesus again shares the cup.
It has often bothered me that the cup was before the bread or else that they took a meal between the bread and the cup. (But it gives me great comfort for the time, many years ago, when I presided over the Lord’s table and blessed the cup before the bread!)
Today, we argue over whether the bread must be leavened or unleavened, whether the cup must be wine or grape juice, and even how many cups we must have. And yet Luke seemed to make a point of explaining the communion in a way that left the issue confused.
The pattern, of course, is that we are to remember the body and blood of Jesus: honoring God regardless of the cost–which is a much harder pattern to replicate than simply fussing over which aisle in the grocery store I must buy the fruit of the vine.
[prayer for the loaf]
During the Vietnam war, some soldiers in prison in Communist North Vietnam were prohibited from practicing their Christianity. The penalty was a severe beating with rifle butts, if not death. And yet some of these men carefully hoarded leftover apple juice and rice cakes until they had enough to celebrate communion on the rare occasion they found themselves together.
Now, rice was unheard of in First Century Palestine, and apples don’t even grow on a vine. But they followed the pattern–they worshipped God despite threats of beatings and death. They bore witness to the resilience of Christianity during brutal persecution. They kept the pattern–they remembered Jesus by living like Jesus, which is the most important thing.
No one had the luxury to argue and fight over the niceties of how to do it. The apple juice was sour. The rice cakes were old and stale. The prayers were simple and not eloquent, as we think of eloquence. And it was perhaps the finest, truest communion service since Jesus instituted the practice.
[prayer for the cup]
Offering:
If you would like to give online or through our app, please click here to visit our digital giving links. If you would prefer to give in person, offering can be brought to the church office Monday-Friday from 8am to 4pm, or can be mailed to the following address:
First Christian Church
425 N. Broadway St.
Greensburg, IN 47240
First Christian Church
425 N. Broadway St.
Greensburg, IN 47240
Doxology:
Elder of the Week:
Carmelo Velez will be the elder of the week for June 14th-20th. If you need to speak with someone and are unable to reach the office staff, you can contact Carmelo at 347-528-1368.
Family Ministry Resources:
This week, visit our Home Connection page to view downloadable resources for all ages, information about a Virtual Bible Study for junior high and high school, our children's worship set and a video of Kids' Church Online and our Preschool lesson!