The Problem With Communion

Eucharist. Communion. The Lord's Supper. Call it what you will - but I reckon there's a problem.

I first spotted it when a friend invited herself to check out this whole "church thing". Only upon arrival did I realise this was 'communion sunday'. On first view, a ceremony that includes drinking "blood" could seem a little cult-ish. So right then I invented an impromptu 30-second 'beginner's guide to communion'. As I did so, I realised my friend would be faced with 2 options:

1. Don't take part
Though we say participation isn't compulsory, there's a social pressure to take part. Abstaining from something that everyone else in the room is doing has the look of a boycott - a slap in the face to everyone else's religious beliefs.

2. Take part
It's a ceremony that proclaims a desire to be connected to Jesus. "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall remain in me and I in him" (Jesus). Clearly for the first time visitor, who has not yet commited to Jesus, this is complete hypocrisy.

"Social faux-pas or religious hypocrisy - take your choice" is our message.

I struggled with this for a while before finding an answer in the bible. Acts 2'46 describes the actions of the members of the early church.

They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper

How about that? The Lord's supper in homes? Presumably more than 3-min bitesize church communion - and it doesn't put church visitors in a nasty Catch-22 situation.

Social Media Stats

This clip on social media was seems targetted towards business, but it also says a lot about the way we communicate now. Fittingly, i read about it on a blog.


So can churches heed the message? There are still churches that don't even have a facebook presence. There are still churches that don't tweet.

For all the churches that advertise christmas and easter services in the local print newspaper, has anyone seen a church advertise on facebook?

Relics of the Past

The other day i was contrasting wikipedia and old-fashioned encyclopedias. Since then, the people at Soul City have done a piece on 4 thing that mattered to our parents - things like phonebooks, home phones and printed newspapers.


The challenge is to let go of the entrenched things that once mattered - but are irrelevant to the current world we live in.

Jesus Good... Church Not-So-Much

That's pretty much the conclusion of the people at Hungry Beast. When the Bible Society and the churches launched their Jesus campaign last year, this was the segment on the ABC's news/satire programme.


Clearly they're bagging out the Catholic church, but the quote about Jesus was interesting...

What's not like about the message of Jesus: compassion, tolerance, good deeds?

Do you reckon churches could learn from this, and quit banging on about how great their denomination is? Any collection of mere human beings is (by definition) not perfect - and is bound to make mistakes, poor decisions, and fall short of the ideals it hopes for.

Perhaps there's a case for being a bit more humble when it comes to ourselves (and our organisations) and leaving the focus on Jesus and his message.

Apart from being less self-righteous, it's also much more credible.

Pink Box Theory

In science, there is a kind of holy grail - known as the theory of everything. It doesn't actually exist - but if it did, it would explain all physical phemonena.

Being the science-type myself, i have constructed a much smaller theory that (for now) i will call pink box theory. It doesn't explain everything, but is useful for illustrating a lot of my thoughts. Best of all it has a really simple diagram.


It's a basic Venn diagram representing society. The oval shape represents the people who believe in God, and value the ideas of Jesus as good concepts to live by. The pink box represents, well .. let's say 'churchgoers'. So what do we notice about the diagram:

1. The Pink Box is far smaller the Green Area
Religion is a question in the census. In my area, there are over 8000 Christians, but only 7 churches of 100 or less. The national stats are Christians 72% Churchgoers 9%.

2. People can be in the Green without being in the Pink Box
Despite the tendency of some churches to draw a straight line between pew-sitting and holiness, Jesus never called anyone to weekly attendance in a pointy-roofed building. In fact some of the people he criticised the most were the most 'religious' - and some of the people he had the most respect for were the people who were turned away by the religious folk.

I'll talk more about Pink Box theory in future entries (see here) because it does help explain a great deal of things. But for now i just wanted to introduce the concept.

Reaching The Next Generation (Mark Driscoll)

Some time ago i was sent this link to an address by Mark Driscoll to the Sydney Anglicans. I've still got the mp3 and have listened to it a number of times.

He can be a bit controversial - tending to tell it like it is, rather than telling people what they want to hear. I like that style. He points out that:

Australian churches suppress young people.
(He started a church at 25. Our churches would never let that happen. At 25 you might be allowed do a bible reading - or take up the offering!)

The parish system is outdated
(after all it was invented in england before a world of cars and the internet)

Denominations are about control - young people are about influence
(perhaps being a friend/mentor/respected elder is better than the dictatorship approach)

Church leaders know their bible inside out, but are less familiar with the culture around them
(and therefore less able to communicate the message of Jesus to people of that culture)

Churches become instutions (or museums) rather than movements
(museum is a good word - remembering how good the past was, but not really doing anything constructive)

One of the major thoughts i took out of if was "What would a church do?" versus "what would a missionary do?". Essentially, a church has a building and gathers already-christians together. A missionary tries to help people by communicating the message of Jesus.

He finishes by referring to the movements of the past:

They were innovative in their day. You need to be innovative in your day. They found a way to faithfully serve God in their day. You need to find a way to faithfully serve God in your day.

Let It Shine

No particular comment on this one, but it did amuse me. Not exactly Matthew 5:16 is it?

Wiki-Ministry

Surely everyone has heard of wikipedia - the world's largest encyclopedia - which pools the combined knowledge of millions of people (donating their time) to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date information on almost any topic you might think of.

Conversely, the old-fashioned encyclopedias (the type that have been sitting on your parents' bookcase since the eighties) have official staff who write on selected topics. They cover a mere fraction of the information, and still list Bob Hawke as Australia's new prime minister.

So how would it be if churches operated more like a wiki - and members could contribute their knowledge, experience, ideas and inspiration for the benefit of all?
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