History of the Lords Supper at Ravenswood Covenant Church Frequency and Occasions The frequency of Communion at Ravenswood has

been one of the more steady aspects of its worship for the last fifty years. Ravenswood has had a stable practice of monthly Communion over this time. Interestingly, while the frequency is stable, the precise monthly occasion has not been. The bulletins at Ravenswood indicate that the first, second, and third Sundays have all been occasions for having the sacrament over this same period. The reasons for this variety are not clear. The variety often occurred within a single year. If any Sunday in a month has been the most regular occasion over the last half century, it has been the second Sunday of the month. Perhaps the biggest exception to monthly Communion has come in the month of April whenever the then-current regular monthly occasion for Communion has fallen on Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday. Ravenswood has not celebrated Communion on either of those holidays. Whenever those holidays have fallen on the Sundays then being used for Communion, Ravenswood would simply forgo its normal Sunday Communion. Perhaps part of the reason the church omitted Communion on these occasions is that it has a long history of having Communion as part of a special service during Holy Week, the week before Easter. The older practice at Ravenswood was to have a special service on Good Friday that ended with Communion. That practice continued for several decades. Even after a Maundy Thursday was added in the late 1960s (the first indication available was 1970 bulletins), Good Friday remained the setting for Communion. More recently Ravenswood has moved this Holy Week Communion to Maundy Thursday where it has remained through the 1990s until today. Occasionally the Maundy Thursday Communion was done in a dramatic setting as was the case with the Last Supper drama based on the painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 1990s. Beyond this connection to either Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, Ravenswood has very rarely included the sacrament in any of the biggest yearly holidays. It has not included the Lords Supper at any of its Christmas or Easter services. Occasionally, Communion has been included in Pentecost Sunday, Trinity Sunday, or Mothers Day Sundays but that may be because these holidays happened to fall on the then-regular Sunday for the sacrament. There is no regular pattern on having Communion on every one of these holidays. On at least one Pentecost Sunday (June 9, 1957), Communion was moved to the evening service in order to not squeeze out the special items planned for the service. With respect to connection with other occasions or activities, Ravenswood has occasionally attached the joining of new members to Communion. The practice has never been absolutely uniform or mandatory however. Manner of Administering Like many aspects of its worship, the way in which Ravenswood has administered Communion has seen some change in the last fifteen years or so after several decades of relative stability. And like other aspects of its worship, recent changes are not so much radical shifts as expansions and variations on previous

practices. Moreover, some particular dimensions of its administration of Communion seem to have changed little if at all. One of the more stable parts of administering Communion since the early 1990s has been a fairly regular ritual pattern influenced by the denominations 1981 Book of Worship (Holy Communion service 1). This pattern itself has some continuity with that prior to 1981 at Ravenswood, which likewise was influenced by the denominations previous Book of Worship of 1964. In other words, the basic pattern for administering Communion at Ravenswood has been fairly stable internally and fairly comparable to denominational resources externally. The core of this pattern has been the following elements in this order: an invitation to the table, Apostles Creed, the words of Christs institution from 1 Corinthians 11 (addressed to the congregation and including a handling of the elements), a short prayer of thanksgiving, reception of Communion, and a closing song. In other words, most of the spoken parts of this pattern were spoken to or by the congregation. While this has served as the basic pattern in the last decade or so, it has not been an invariable pattern. Different affirmations of faith, whether strictly written as creeds or not, often substitute for the Apostles Creed. On Trinity Sunday in 1990, for example, the congregation affirmed the Nicene Creed, likely chosen because of its more explicit Trinitarian content. Likewise the range and amount of prayer has varied. On occasion, a confession of sin has been included. Frequently in recent years special prayers for healing, anointing, or blessing have been offered for those who request them as part of Communion. It appears that Ravenswood has used a variety of means to have these special prayers including asking those desiring prayer to sit in certain pews. The increasing variety in songs used during Communion is of special note. Whereas most songs of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were often chosen to focus on the death of Christ and tended to reflect a certain limited emotional range, more recent selections have broadened the span of remembrance and the emotional tone. While the contemplation of Christs death in a penitential mood has not been erased, Ravenswood is exploring in its singing at Communion a wider remembrance of Gods activity in Christ and other affections like joy and awe. For example, the hymn Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence has been a standard Communion song during December. This hymn, derived from an ancient liturgy, contemplates the Incarnation of God in Christ. At other times, however, Ravenswood surrounded Communion with the most joyous of praise choruses. With such variety it is no longer possible to simply predict what Ravenswood will sing at Communion. The choices seemed guided by a desire to tease out a variety of remembrances and emotions in creating certain kinds of worship experiences for the congregation. The broadening of music in Communion and the removal of the sacrament from Good Friday to Maundy Thursday seem to parallel a broadening of meanings and associations for Communion in the church. In the manner by which Communion is distributed, the practice at Ravenswood has shifted over the years, paralleling changes in some other Covenant churches. The older manner of distributing Communion tended to make a sharper distinction between the Communion service itself and the rest of worship. The distinction was reinforced by the invitation for all who would not be receiving Communion to leave during the singing of the hymn immediately prior to Communion. Communicants could then

gather in specially designated, alternative pews and be served by the deacons, who had previously been served by the pastor. The deacons would proceed through the empty pews and serve Communicants face-to-face. The result was a way of doing Communion that tended to make it more of a self-contained, distinct unit within all the worship activities on that Sunday. Not all Covenant churches followed this manner of distribution since the 1964 Book of Worship also notes as an acceptable practice the passing of elements down pews, the deacons remaining in the aisles. More recently, Ravenswood has had more variety in how Communion was served, again following trends in other Covenant churches. Most frequently it appears that elements are passed down the pews. Occasionally, communicants have been invited to leave the pew and come forward to receive the sacrament. Recent bulletins do not speak of any dismissal of those not receive. On other occasions, those seeking special prayer (see above) have been invited to gather in several forward pews. These shifts parallel those in other Covenant churches. The 1981 Book of Worship, for example, no longer spoke of the alternative pew method as an acceptable practice, substituting instead the coming forward to receive. Eligibility for Communion has consistently been represented in the bulletins as individual confession of Christ as Savior. In keeping with the denominations longstanding emphasis on a common experience of salvation in Christ as forming an essential bond between Christians, Ravenswood has not insisted on membership in its congregation or denomination to receive Communion. With respect to children, it appears that Communion has been reserved until after confirmation in the early teen years. Part of the confirmation service would have had these youth making a public profession of faith in Christ before the congregation. Beyond the actual Communion itself, one longstanding Communion-related practice at Ravenswood has been the special offering collected on Communion Sundays by its deacons. The bulletins for the last fifty years carry frequent references to the offering that was used to assist the deacons in carrying out their responsibilities for care and service. Charged with the tasks of visitation and caring for those in need, the deacons collected the special Communion offering to assist them to those ends. A 1995 bulletin announcement, for instance, stated that the offering was to be used for emergency needs of the sick and shut-ins, Bibles for military people, a food pantry, and the ministers crisis fund. Most typically the deacons collected the offering at the rear of the space as worshipers were leaving.

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