Converts: What was Protestant Communion Really Like?

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I’m currently a Methodist:

We have communion the first Sunday of every month,

It consists of a single loaf of bread and several round gold holders that contain small individual plastic cups (each of which holds a sip of grape juice). We have carpet around the alter so they use white grape juice 😦

The “Celebration of Holy Communion” begins with a call to confession, group confession and silent confession, and then the paster concludes with assurance that our sins have been forgiven through Christ.

We then pray the “Great Thanksgiving,” which is very similar to the Eucharistic Prayer…it begins with the Lord be With You, etc.

We don’t do “the peace” but it is in our hymnal to do so…the pastor just over looks it. Also, we pray the Lord’s Prayer earlier in service so we don’t do it during the Communion portion. The pastor breaks the bread and lift the cups while the other minister (in our church it’s a deacon, a woman) reads through “he took bread gave thanks to you…” part, instead of where the hymnal says to do so, which is later.

We then are lead by ushers to kneel at the rail and a mixture of lay people and clergy bring tear of for us small pieces of the loaf and another brings us our small cup of white grape juice which we take kneelling. I say “amen” as they say anything from “the body of christ” to “jesus loves you” (depending on who’s serving and also the age of the reciever) but most people say nothing or just say “thank you”. We then pray silently until the minister gives us some kind of blessing, either a benediction or a quote from scripture, so kind of nice saying.

we’re lead back to our seat.

it is typically semi-reverent. however i think the perception is that the elements revert back to just plain bread and juice after the service because i’ve seen then throw the left overs away, which pains me.

i think that’s everything.
 
Communion at a Lutheran Church (ELCA):

Over the weekend I attended a service at a Lutheran Church (ELCA). They had communion at this service. This is how it went.

The congregation read of this passage that acknowledged they are sinners and need forgiveness. The pastor gave them what can best be described as a form of “general absolution”.

The pastor basically told the congregation that “I forgive you of your sins in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

Then he went on to tell the congregation that communion was strictly voluntary and if they wished to receive to come up take a wafer and dip it into the cup then consume.

The wine and bread was placed on a table and the congregation went up and everyone self administer the bread and wine. The pastor sat in his chair as the people came up. People just stood in line and when they got to the bread and wine they took a piece of bread dipped it into the wine and ate.
 
As a UM pastor for 27 years I do remember how if I didn’t catch it in time the grape juice was always reverently poured down the drain and the bread was fed to the birds or eaten by people of the Church. Often even when I did catch it this is what we did with it. Perhaps it didn’t matter then but is sure matters once one is handling the Body of Blood of Christ.

The reality of the Body and Blood of Christ is not in our attitude towards the elements but in the fact that they are the Body and Blood of Christ. Why else would St. Paul worn us away from profaning the Body and Blood? Why else would Jesus call the consecrated elements His Body and Blood?

CDL
 
Randy_Carson said:
It’s been a few years since I last received communion in the Methodist Church in which I was raised. While Protestant, I receive communion in the form of bread cubes, paper thin wafers, and large loaves that were passed from person to person who each broke off a piece to eat. The fact that crumbs (which according to you are the body of Christ) were falling all over the floor to be trampled underfoot didn’t seem to bother anyone at the time.

We received the grape juice in small glasses (I called them thimbles to reflect their small size - that was to avoid calling them “shot glasses”) that were distributed in circular metal trays that had lots of holes to hold each of these glasses and a metal top to cover it. The metal trays were stackable so that one person could carry many of the trays at one time.

After communion on these special Sundays, we kids would race back to the kitchen where we could down all the leftovers we wanted. So much for recognizing the Body and Blood of the Lord and receiving him in a worthy manner. The adults didn’t seem to mind this - they knew that there was no profanation going on - because Jesus is not really, truly and sacramentally present - body, blood, soul and divinity - in the Methodist communion.

Now, have I adequately described the circumstances that are all too common in small Protestant churches or not?

I hope other converts will express their own experiences, as well.

I am especially interested to hear from those who believed that they were actually receiving the Lord in the sacrament only to discover that this was not really true - until you became Catholic.
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I am convert from the Presbyterian USA church but I grew up in the Methodist Church. I’m not sure what the point of your post is Randy :confused: but you will have to forgive me. I don’t like looking back on my Protestant communion experince as something less then what we have as Catholics. It was different, but in my mind profoundly meaningful. Granted we have the real presence as Catholics but it does not diminish how strongly I felt the presence of Christ all around me growing up when taking communion. Frankly, I don’t remember anyone dropping bread but I do remember a profound reverence was always present in both the Methodist church and Presbyterian during communion. Communion was incredibly special as it is a Meal of Remembrance, not a Sacrament, Christ is spiritually, but not really present.

Our Lady is not actually in the beads we hold while praying but this never takes away how strongly we feel about her intercession and the special gift we receive when praying the rosary.

Bringing up things like dropping bread crumbs and no one caring or children running for left over bread loafs implies a disingenuiness to the mainstream Protestant faith. I’m not saying this was your intent 🙂 I’ve just seen far to many posters on CAF mocking the communion experience in the Protestant Church which probably makes me a bit knee jerk :o
 
In my time away from the Catholic church, I attended various other ones and the communions were always quite reverent. I visited the LDS church with a friend of mine and they have communion each Sunday.

That’s one thing I did notice, is that communion is given fewer and fewer times in Protestant churches. A Baptist church I attended for 2 years, had it once a year!

When I began to consider about returning to the Church, that’s something that really impressed me: the opportunity for daily Mass and communion. That’s a real gift and privilege, I think.
 
Beachcomber said:
When I began to consider about returning to the Church, that’s something that really impressed me: the opportunity for daily Mass and communion.
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Interesting to note that Catholic teaching on frequency of Communion has varied from as low as once a year to up to twice daily.

newadvent.org/cathen/05584a.htm (see original for all citations)

“Since Christ has left us no definite precept as to the frequency with which He desired us to receive Him in Holy Communion, it belongs to the Church to determine the Divine command more accurately and prescribe what the limits of time shall be for the reception of the sacrament. In the course of centuries the Church’s discipline in this respect has undergone considerable change. Whereas the early Christians were accustomed to receive at every celebration of the Liturgy, which probably was not celebrated daily in all places, or were in the habit of Communicating privately in their own homes every day of the week, a falling-off in the frequency of Communion is noticeable since the fourth century. Even in his time Pope Fabian (236-250) made it obligatory to approach the Holy Table three times a year, viz, at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, and this custom was still prevalent in the sixth century. Although St. Augustine left daily Communion to the free choice of the individual, his admonition, in force even at the present day, was: Sic vive, ut quotidie possis sumere, i e “So live that you may receive every day.” From the tenth to the thirteenth century, the practice of going to Communion more frequently during the year was rather rare among the laity and obtained only in cloistered communities. St. Bonaventure reluctantly allowed the lay brothers of his monastery to approach the Holy Table weekly, whereas the rule of the Canons of Chrodegang prescribed this practice. When the Fourth Council of Lateran (1215), held under Innocent III, mitigated the former severity of the Church’s law to the extent that all Catholics of both sexes were to communicate at least once a year and this during the paschal season, St. Thomas (III:80:10) ascribed this ordinance chiefly to the “reign of impiety and the growing cold of charity”. The precept of the yearly paschal Communion was solemnly reiterated by the Council of Trent. The mystical theologians of the later Middle Ages, as Tauler, St. Vincent Ferrer, Savonarola, and later on St Philip Neri, the Jesuit Order, St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus Liguori were zealous champions of frequent Communion; whereas the Jansenists, under the leadership of Antoine Arnauld (De la fréquente communion, Paris, 1643), strenuously opposed and demanded as a condition for every Communion the “most perfect penitential dispositions and the purest love of God”. This rigorism was condemned by Pope Alexander VIII (7 Dec., 1690); the Council Trent (Sess. XIII, cap. viii; Sess. XXII, cap. vi) and Innocent XI (12 Feb., 1679) had already emphasized the permissibility of even daily Communion. To root out the last vestiges of Jansenistic rigorism, Pius X issued a decree (24 Dec., 1905) wherein he allows and recommends daily Communion to the entire laity …”

and

therealpresence.org/essentials/sacraments/acc36.htm

"Reception of the Eucharist. We may distinguish four stages in the Church’s history on the frequency of receiving Holy Communion. In the early centuries, the Eucharist was received often, even daily. By the early Middle Ages, neglect of the Sacrament caused a general council of the Church to pass a law that is still in effect. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 A.D. decreed that on reaching the age of discretion, every Catholic should receive Holy Communion after having gone to the Sacrament of Penance.

In the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent repeated the foregoing decree and condemned “anyone who denies that each and every one of Christ’s faithful of both sexes is bound, when he reaches the age of reason, to receive Communion at least every year during the Paschal season according to the command of holy Mother Church” (October 11, 1551).

With the rise of Jansenism in the seventeenth century, reception of Communion reached an all time low. One result was that people were known not to make their First Communion until they were dying. All the while, however, zealous apostles of the Eucharist, like Saints Ignatius Loyola, Vincent de Paul and Alphonsus Liguori, were urging the faithful to receive as often as possible. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius says, we should “praise the reception of the Most Holy Sacrament once a year, and what is much better once a month, and much better still every eight days, always with the requisite and due dispositions” (Rules for Thinking with the Church, 3)."
 
i remember a few times as a kid looking down at my little cracker or whatever and throwing it on the floor, throwing it at my brothers, flicking it and hitting people in the head few rows of pew down… i was a little hellraiser growing up though in AoG and Baptist churches…
 
I am 20 years old, and just joined the Church this past Easter.

I had mostly gone to nondenominational services, but sometimes baptist, methodist, or presbyterian. What I hear a lot of people say on here is true, you get the thimble of grape juice, and either a little square of bread or there’s a large loaf passed around. (The loaf always bothered me a little more, I mean, it was leaven wasn’t it?) They also had those little circular trays which bothered more than I realize now.

Yet, in none of these churches was I ever told it should be the true Body and Blood of our Lord. Now, it was just symbolism. Once I became a teenager I really began looking at what we were given during communion. I would sit there, and despise it. I would be holding that little thing of grape juice and square of bread and wonder to myself if there was something more. I just couldn’t see the point in it being symbolic. It was like, okay, why is there such great signifigance about this when there is nothing great attatched to it. I ended up just taking their communion so my mother wouldn’t get upset, and later so I wouldn’t offend my friends, and since it was just a symbolic thing that they did, I didn’t hurt anything.

About a year before I entered the church, I met a most dear friend who happened to be Catholic. I had always been curious about Catholicism, but the Evangelical Christian in me continued to attack and grill him on his beliefs. I was amazed that he had a logical, thought out, and rational answer to all of my questions. I finally agreed to go to mass with him, only one Tridentine and one Novus Ordo. After going to these I was hooked, I still had questions, but I knew I had found something here. There was something more than symbolic, there was a real Presence.

After many questions, answers, studying, and going to masses I began to crave the real presence in the Eucharist. It is probably one of the main reasons for my conversion (which is something I try to explain to my mother but she doesn’t want or can’t understand when I explain the real presence to her. It is hard for me talking to Protestants who were raised thinking it was symbolic, even though the Bible and tradition run against that. Heck, they don’t even realize that early Protestants didn’t even belief that). I was so very happy to find a communion that wasn’t a dead representation, but what it was always suppose to be. I have been able to partake in the Sacraments since Easter, and I couldn’t be happier in my Coming Home.
 
A lady friend of mine attends an old time holiness church she grew up in and didn’t believe me that her communion wasn’t the true body and blood. I asked her to ask her pastor. I’m working on her slowly. 8)
🙂
 
I grew up on military bases so usually attended military chapels or the local Methodist Churches. In some ways I really miss the way the base chapels/UMC handled communion!

In the Catholic Church communion is held every week and it is simply part of the mass. The priests says his words, you respond, he says some more words, you go up receive communion and return to your seat. People do it without even thinking about it—half of us are probably on autopilot as we go up to receive the elements.

In the protestant churches I attended Communion was something special. We only did it once a month, so if you missed that Sunday, you had to wait a month to receive communion again. Communion Sunday was always a big event that was treated with just a little more reverence than other days.

When it was time for communion, the minister didn’t simply utter some magical words and begin the communion, but it became a opportunity for a mini-sermon. There was never an assumption that you knew the purpose for the communion or what it symbolized. You were reminded of Jesus sacrafice and bond that brought us together as one church in the communion. The ministers always reminded us of why we were there and how we should approach the communion table. It was always done with the utmost of respect.

As a Catholic, Communion often feels like it is done more out of duty than worship. In all honesty, the manner in which Communion is handled in the Catholic Church is my least favorite part about being Catholic. I don’t feel as if we appreciate it as much as many protestants do—and we have more reasons to!
 
pdbroyles said:
I grew up on military bases so usually attended military chapels or the local Methodist Churches. In some ways I really miss the way the base chapels/UMC handled communion!

In the Catholic Church communion is held every week and it is simply part of the mass. The priests says his words, you respond, he says some more words, you go up receive communion and return to your seat. People do it without even thinking about it—half of us are probably on autopilot as we go up to receive the elements.

In the protestant churches I attended Communion was something special. We only did it once a month, so if you missed that Sunday, you had to wait a month to receive communion again. Communion Sunday was always a big event that was treated with just a little more reverence than other days.

When it was time for communion, the minister didn’t simply utter some magical words and begin the communion, but it became a opportunity for a mini-sermon. There was never an assumption that you knew the purpose for the communion or what it symbolized. You were reminded of Jesus sacrafice and bond that brought us together as one church in the communion. The ministers always reminded us of why we were there and how we should approach the communion table. It was always done with the utmost of respect.

As a Catholic, Communion often feels like it is done more out of duty than worship. In all honesty, the manner in which Communion is handled in the Catholic Church is my least favorite part about being Catholic. I don’t feel as if we appreciate it as much as many protestants do—and we have more reasons to!
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Thank you for posting this 🙂 I actually struggled as a convert when I witness that auto pilot sentiment on so many. You have the same memories I do of communion.
 
I used to attend a Baptist church with a lot of young adults before becoming Catholic. They took Communion every Sunday with leavened bread and either juice or wine. It was always an integral part of the service and a great time for introspection and prayer.

After about two or three years, I learned that they believed I should be baptized again since my Lutheran baptism was at four years old and therefore I wasn’t able to profess my faith before being baptized. It didn’t feel appropriate to share Communion with a community that believed I wasn’t baptized (being raised Lutheran, I felt there should be an order to such things: first Baptism, then Communion). So that’s when I started to research Catholicism more in depth, since I had been curious about it for several years.

At any rate, I have been surprised to read the accounts of people from that Baptist church about giving and receiving Communion. They tell some powerful stories of feeling God’s love and peace, reforming their lives, and even using that “Body of Christ” phrase 🙂 If you didn’t know better, you might think they were Catholics talking about the Eucharist.

Of course, without the emotion and feelings, they are still receiving bread and juice or wine. What we receive, regardless of our emotional or spiritual disposition, is nothing other than Christ. But their witness does cause me to withhold from saying their Communion is “just” symbolic, which Catholics and Orthodox are often tempted to do, because it’s obvious that they are very much open to God’s grace even if their theology of Communion is “lower” than ours.
 
After leaving the Catholic Church (I have since returned!), the first communion service I remember attending was at a Christian Missionary Alliance church. They used matzos and the small cups of grape juice. As they were getting ready to distribute the elements, I wondered where the priest was who would consecrate the bread and grape juice!

At Urbana '79, I attended a communion service with a few thousand other college students. It was lead by John R.W. Stott. The singing was amazing! And the service was very moving.

At a Baptist church I attended, the Lord’s Supper was held only a few times a year. When we did have it, we started by singing hymns and songs. Then there was a period of quiet prayer. During this time we were supposed to reflect and if we realized we had offended someone to find that person and ask their forgiveness. Only after that time was communion distributed. So it was like a communal penance service and communion.
It was so powerful to receive communion with a reasonably clear conscience.

Now that I am back in the Catholic Church, I find the best of all those things at Mass. I only wish that it was easier to go to confession before Mass!

Brian
 
Communion in an Episcopal Church is similar to a Catholic Church only with the added feeling of reverence by receving kneeling at an altar rail.

Communion in the Baptist Church takes some getting used to. Oyster Crackers or Maztos and grape juice while sitting in the pew. At first it felt like people playing at communion and it felt rather empty.

North
 
Randy_Carson said:
I am especially interested to hear from those who believed that they were actually receiving the Lord in the sacrament only to discover that this was not really true - until you became Catholic.
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Wow! So many good replies to this thread…where to begin? I wish I could answer your question form the point of view you are looking for. however, I am a revert and the one true thing that brought me back was the Real Presence.

I flat-out refused to participate in the monthly “Memorial Services” of the nondenominational church I was attending, feeling it was just lacking something and was somehow…sacreligious. Once or twice I got caught at a Memorial and we were given these. I felt empty afterwards. 😦

Edited to add: while I was looking for a picture of the communion cups (above), I came across this patent for “an edible cup, drink and a wafer cover prepackaged for sacrament services.”
 
I would like to chime in here, as briefly as possible.

I was raised in the Assemblies of God. My home church had communion once a month. It was a reverent time, but the leftovers were not held in reverence. Leftover crackers or “chiclet-style” bread was returned to its package for the next month. Leftover juice was simply consumed by whoever cleaned up, or was poured back into the juice bottle for the next month. Every pastor I had made it clear that what we were doing was symbolic. I personally always envisioned the presence of Christ with us, but that was not what I was taught. Later, after becoming an adult, and having graduated from an A/G Bible college, an A/G church I attended had a different practice, as far as frequency. We had communion every Tuesday (which was our mid-week), and once a month on a Sunday evening. This allowed more people to partake.

A few years later, my husband was an A/G minister, and we had communion every week, though once a month we’d have it Sunday evening, to allow those who couldn’t be in the a.m. service to partake.

We left the A/G and were part of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC). [This is not a break-off or in anyway tied to the ECUSA church. Separate group.] We had what we thought was Eucharist weekly. We thought it was the true body and blood of Christ.

As for the frequency in some denoms, it is really becoming less frequent in many churches that have no “catholic” leanings (evangelical, mostly). Some take it “whenever the pastor feels like it”. Others have no set schedule. Some only have it at certain holidays. There are a few who still have it monthly or weekly.

When we began RCIA last year, we did not receive Eucharist for several months. This was difficult for our whole family. Finally, at the Easter vigil this year, we were able to receive. And how glorious it was!

I understand what some mean about RC mass becoming just a habit, etc. But to me, that’s not the fault of the Church or even the priest. Any denom can have “run of the mill”, even the “hoopla-loving Charismatics”. (I’ve been one, so I know!) It is up to each of us, as an individual, that we will remember what it is we are doing, and continue to reverence and stand in awe of it. I will NOT rush on, just because the person behind me may want me to. I receive reverently, slowly step aside and cross myself, and then return to my seat when I am ready. The cup is not always offered in every mass, as we don’t have enough available servers. But our priest has made it very clear that no one HAS to receive the cup (if ill, or simply if it isn’t something they want to do). “Old time” Catholics often refuse the cup, because pre-Vatican II, only the priest was allowed to receive the cup.

I think it’s very important that we focus on what we say before receiving Eucharist, too: Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word, and I will be healed.

None of us are worthy. It is only by His death and sacrifice on the cross that we are worthy. He makes us worthy to receive Him.

Sorry this is so lengthy. It is just that after wandering for 40 years on the “wilderness”, it is wonderful to be Home. The Eucharist is incredibly awesome to me in ways my words cannot express.

This thread was meant for us “converts” to share our former experiences. And those are mine.
 
At the church I attended before coming ino full communion we used Jewish Matzah and Grape Juice. We only had the “Lord’s Supper” once every 60 days, what suprised me is that we did call it a sacrament. The ushers would pass around silver plates with the Matzah broken into small pieces and little plastic communion cups with the grape juice. Then Pastor would talk about the last supper everyone would eat the Matzah at the cue of the pastor, “this is my body” and then drink the “wine”, “this is my blood.” “do this in remembrance of me” then we would have a few moments of silent meditation. The Pastor would warn everybody not to take communion if “unworthy”, such as having anything against ones brother, etc.

There was some form - but not the same as the Liturgy of the Eucahrist.

After I came into full communion I went to daily Mass for 90 days straight, I now try to take communion a least 2 - 3 times a week.
 
I was a kid at an old nazarene church and we dipped a piece of bread in grape juice
😊 wonder bread au jus.😊
 
Well, I was a member of the (now closed down)
First Presbyterian Church of Coral Gables (Florida), which was a congregation belonging to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Holy communion in our congregation was once every three months. It was very solemn. As the elders of the church placed trays of thimbles full of grape juice and baskets of diced white bread on the altar (we had a marble altar), there were many prayers and psalms read. Then the elders passed the round metal grape juice thimble holders row by row, and we each took a thimble full of grape juice. The diced bread was passed in the same way, we each took a piece.

We held onto both the bread and the grape juice until the pastor was through giving a benediction, then the whole congregation partook at the same time. The thimbles were placed into
wooden thimble-holders built into the back of the pew in front of us. Then we sang a hymn, and then it was over.

It was pretty, all in all, but way too infrequent (only four times a year), and of course nothing to compare with the Catholic Mass wherein we receive the actual glorified body and blood of the Risen Christ. But I enjoyed the service when I was Presbyterian.
Love,
Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+
 
mary_therese said:
I am 20 years old, and just joined the Church this past Easter.

I had mostly gone to nondenominational services, but sometimes baptist, methodist, or presbyterian. What I hear a lot of people say on here is true, you get the thimble of grape juice, and either a little square of bread or there’s a large loaf passed around. (The loaf always bothered me a little more, I mean, it was leaven wasn’t it?) They also had those little circular trays which bothered more than I realize now.

Yet, in none of these churches was I ever told it should be the true Body and Blood of our Lord. Now, it was just symbolism. Once I became a teenager I really began looking at what we were given during communion. I would sit there, and despise it. I would be holding that little thing of grape juice and square of bread and wonder to myself if there was something more. I just couldn’t see the point in it being symbolic. It was like, okay, why is there such great signifigance about this when there is nothing great attatched to it. I ended up just taking their communion so my mother wouldn’t get upset, and later so I wouldn’t offend my friends, and since it was just a symbolic thing that they did, I didn’t hurt anything.

About a year before I entered the church, I met a most dear friend who happened to be Catholic. I had always been curious about Catholicism, but the Evangelical Christian in me continued to attack and grill him on his beliefs. I was amazed that he had a logical, thought out, and rational answer to all of my questions. I finally agreed to go to mass with him, only one Tridentine and one Novus Ordo. After going to these I was hooked, I still had questions, but I knew I had found something here. There was something more than symbolic, there was a real Presence.

After many questions, answers, studying, and going to masses I began to crave the real presence in the Eucharist. It is probably one of the main reasons for my conversion (which is something I try to explain to my mother but she doesn’t want or can’t understand when I explain the real presence to her. It is hard for me talking to Protestants who were raised thinking it was symbolic, even though the Bible and tradition run against that. Heck, they don’t even realize that early Protestants didn’t even belief that). I was so very happy to find a communion that wasn’t a dead representation, but what it was always suppose to be. I have been able to partake in the Sacraments since Easter, and I couldn’t be happier in my Coming Home.
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Welcome Home:heaven: …God Bless…teachccd:)
 
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