Weekly presbytery-wide celebrations of the Eucharist

Won’t more frequent celebrations of the Lord’s Supper make our worship services longer?

Not necessarily. The weekly Wednesday Eucharist service at the Presbyterian Center, which includes a full order of worship modeled on the Service for the Lord’s Day, generally takes place within a thirty-minute time period. A Presbyterian pastor recently reported attending a worship workshop in which the same service was celebrated twice: first in an hour, and the second time in half an hour, with only minor adjustments to the content of the liturgy.

Celebrating the Lord’s Supper more frequently will require that pastors and other worship leaders think carefully and critically about their current practices of worship, trimming unnecessary or excessively long aspects of the service. This can be a constructive and helpful exercise however, and will likely lead to a leaner, stronger, more coherent and more worshipful experience for all involved.

Whether considering more frequent celebrations of the Eucharist or not, congregations would be advised to:

• streamline announcements, printing such information in the bulletin or distributing it through an electronic newsletter
• avoid overly lengthy instructions or explanations during worship by planning such introductions in advance, or, wherever possible, by simply allowing the symbols and actions of the liturgy to speak for themselves
• construct sermons in such a way that they attend directly to the Scriptures at hand and allow those texts to speak to the congregation in fresh and immediate ways,
• avoiding lengthy “exegetical reports,” on the one hand, and on the other, merely entertaining anecdotes that don’t proclaim the gospel
• replace long and rambling “pastoral prayers” with a short set of simple and direct petitions (these may still be somewhat spontaneous, as desired, but in any case should be well planned)
• give elders or other communion servers clear instructions about the distribution of the elements, being sure that there are enough servers to minister to the congregation in a timely way
• see that all musical selections serve a specific purpose in the order of worship, and are not included only to feature the talents of the musicians.

Having considered all these things, if the service still runs a bit longer than usual with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, don’t sweat it. After all — giving thanks to God for the ancient and ongoing story of our salvation; remembering the events of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection; praying for the Spirit’s transforming power in the church and in our world; eating and drinking together in the presence of Christ and in joyful anticipation of his coming realm — these things are worth a few extra minutes of our time.