Communion

I'm back wondering about communion. I'm always in this mode after a formal communion because I never think I get it right. It's a permanent state at the moment and is there because communion just isn't right at the moment.

I've lots of ideas about what I think would be good and what I would like to do and what I would like to see happen. But that's all about me, not the community. I think communion, at the moment, is very ordinary. You may as well be there as much as not be there and you'd never notice the difference. I'm not sure there was a good old day when it was everything even though people talk as if there was. I'm sure there is a lot of sentimentality wrapped up in it which covers up a dominating reverence for what used to happen when it was a very powerful service because it was surrounded by a scary week of preparation and it was built up to be something it really wasn't. It's about power.

We don't do any of the old stuff now and I think it lacks a whole lot and I'm interested in what folk think: should we change the whole thing lock stock and barrel and do something from scratch designed by the whole community to shape a communion service that is owned by everyone and means something to everyone? I know people won't want to do that because most just don't have the energy or desire for that.

Or should we go right back and do the whole lot as we did it before and make it completely traditional with Great Entrances, big music, preparation before and thanksgiving afterwards and sing only the old hymns. Or does that just feed our sentimentality and offer nothing to the world other than a romance of the past. I know when I did a communion service straight out the book, work for word, it was the most complaints I've ever had about any one service.

So where are we on our communion journey? I feel we are in the middle of transformation in the congregation and it is a difficult place to be. We have lots of great new hymns but no one knows them well enough to sing them like we can sing 23rd Psalm. We have our arts worker project with is gaining an awful lot of people in our congregation and beyond who have the most wonderful gifts that we need and never knew were there, folk trained in raising money, helping communities organise local projects, training volunteers, finding funding etc. How didn't we notice them before. It's really amazing but it's not doing church the way we've ever done it before. So we need to look after folk a little more at the moment as we move through this transition.

I also feel there are a new set of people who have come of age to do things in the congregation. I suppose every generation moves on and the faces that have been the face of the congregation are added to by the next generation and there is a little shuffling as folk take stock of what everyone wants to do with new enthusiasm for different ideas from the ones that have been the mainstay for a while.

So I think we are in flux. And it is a good and healthy place to be. It brings life. Finding our way always brings life. Working out the next step brings life. Discovering gifts brings life. Working out how to shape our communion service brings life. Its just not the most comfortable place to be at times and I have to acknoweldge I am uncomfortable with communion at the moment because I don't feel it is what it used to be but I don't know if that means we've lost something, or are just about to find something. It's easy to hark back, and it is easy to dream. It's difficult to be caught in the junction between the two and I'm wondering if that is where we are in the life of our congregation at the moment. The spirit is doing her thing again. It's life, but not as we know it...