Protestants: Does your church have services on Thursday to celebrate the institution of The Lord's Supper?

[blazerdave]

I just joined our board of elders. In a recent meeting, that is the way I responded to this mindset, expressed by another elder. I said that, perhaps we should eliminate the sermon every other week, so it won’t lose its meaning.

Jon

Dude…THANK YOU for saying that! I did the same thing about a year ago at a former Anglican parish of mine. People said that it looked like we “didn’t care” about the Eucharist since we celebrated it at every service, so maybe we should cut it down to once or twice per month at most. And when I said, “If we don’t care about it, why do we do it every time?”, they looked at me like I had 2 heads. That mindset drives me absolutely nuts. But you’re right; if you suggest removing the hymns, or the collects, or the sermon…you’d be considered officially insane. This Evangelical-style compartmentalizing of worship is awful.

 

[gcnuss]

That, and we certainly don’t want to appear too Catholic.
In order to do so, we don’t appear Lutheran, either. We appear Protestant.

This is the one issue - the Eucharist - that could force me out of the Lutheran Church.

Jon

Ah, yes. The old “too Catholic” objection. As I was in the process of trying to move my congregation from once a month and festivals, one of our matriarchs piped up with “if we have communion every Sunday that’s a Catholic Mass and I’m not Catholic.”

I still haven’t been able to move them to weekly communion, but we have at least made it to first, third, and fifth Sundays as well as all Sundays when the liturgical color is white or red. Hurray for the season of Easter.

 

[JonNC]

Dude…THANK YOU for saying that! I did the same thing about a year ago at a former Anglican parish of mine. People said that it looked like we “didn’t care” about the Eucharist since we celebrated it at every service, so maybe we should cut it down to once or twice per month at most. And when I said, “If we don’t care about it, why do we do it every time?”, they looked at me like I had 2 heads. That mindset drives me absolutely nuts. But you’re right; if you suggest removing the hymns, or the collects, or the sermon…you’d be considered officially insane. This Evangelical-style compartmentalizing of worship is awful.

I wasn’t aware that American protestantism had infected Anglican practice like it has Lutheran practice here in America. The thing that’s really nutty is I cite the Lutheran Confessions, or even past LCMS President A.L. Barry’s comment, that the Lord’s Supper is the center of Lutheran worship, and even that doesn’t sway them.
My point is always that individual reception is not and should not be required, but the Church is required to make it available - at least every Sunday.

Jon

Jon

 

[blazerdave]

I wasn’t aware that American protestantism had infected Anglican practice like it has Lutheran practice here in America. The thing that’s really nutty is I cite the Lutheran Confessions, or even past LCMS President A.L. Barry’s comment, that the Lord’s Supper is the center of Lutheran worship, and even that doesn’t sway them.
My point is always that individual reception is not and should not be required, but the Church is required to make it available - at least every Sunday.

Jon

Jon

Absolutely right. This particular parish was an ACNA church plant and was at least 90% Evangelicals who were used to the “4 times per year” model. None of the ACNA parishes around here have many former Episcopalians, so they all deal with this mindset (remaking the church in an American image ) I’ll go ahead and use the excuse “I just worked there” haha. But yeah…I think your guys and my guys are fighting through a lot of the same issues. Now officially I’m at a conservative Episcopal parish right now - mainly over this issue - and they celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday morning, on Sunday evening, and on Wednesday at noon…but who knows what the future will hold. If anything happens to my church, I’ll find myself back in the middle of this mess in an ACNA parish. And your church has far more in the way of authoritative documents than we do :banghead:

 

[JonNC]

. And your church has far more in the way of authoritative documents than we do :banghead:

We’re willing to share.

Jon

 

[blazerdave]

Haha might just have to take you up on that, even if it meant an end to our weird practice of letting people believe whatever the heck they want

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Reading your post brought to mind some experiences I had at my old Anglican parish. I loved that place to death, trust me, but some of their priorities had me cracking up at times. I remember talking to Sheila, this parishoner, and I had been out of my old Anglican parish for about five years at this point. I asked her how everything was going since they broke off from TEC. She said it was tough financially, she wasn’t sure they did the right thing, they’re struggling but praying all goes well, yada yada…then I said, “well I just hope you guys never get women priests in the San Joaquin Diocese…”
She replied, “oh, that’d be fine with me. I’m totally ok with that, no problem. But I will say, if they dare, I mean DARE to alter one word of the Prayer Book, that could send me over the edge…”
LOL LOL

I was thinking, ‘breaking 2,000 years of ecclesiastical discipline and theology heretically ordaining a woman is ok but changing some “thee’s” to “you” and dropping some “vouchsafe’s” is over-the-top diabolical forces at work?’ :banghead:

Of course then there was the mayor of our town who was at our parish when it was Episcopal (who bailed when they became ACNA of course) who told me that homosexuality was illegal in Israel under Moses not because it was sinful but because Moses wanted plenty of procreation in the desert due to the high mortality rate. They needed plenty of replacements for the dead and homosexuality didn’t produce offspring. That was the only ‘beef’ Moses had with it LOL…And this was our city’s mayor…

And ask me sometime about the guy who always, I mean ALWAYS wore a court jester full suit with the bell-hat and everything on Christmas midnight Mass…
The Episcopal Church…good times, man

Dude…THANK YOU for saying that! I did the same thing about a year ago at a former Anglican parish of mine. People said that it looked like we “didn’t care” about the Eucharist since we celebrated it at every service, so maybe we should cut it down to once or twice per month at most. And when I said, “If we don’t care about it, why do we do it every time?”, they looked at me like I had 2 heads. That mindset drives me absolutely nuts. But you’re right; if you suggest removing the hymns, or the collects, or the sermon…you’d be considered officially insane. This Evangelical-style compartmentalizing of worship is awful.

 

[jessep28]

I wasn’t aware that American protestantism had infected Anglican practice like it has Lutheran practice here in America. The thing that’s really nutty is I cite the Lutheran Confessions, or even past LCMS President A.L. Barry’s comment, that the Lord’s Supper is the center of Lutheran worship, and even that doesn’t sway them.
My point is always that individual reception is not and should not be required, but the Church is required to make it available - at least every Sunday.

Jon

Jon

One nice thing about living in a large, Midwestern city is that there are a lot of Lutheran churches from the entire spectrum. We have those on the left who like to imitate a megachurch (King of Kings) and those who are conservative and pay close attention to Divine Liturgy according to the Western Rite (e.g., Lamb of God).

 

[Zach82]

We had a Maundy Thursday Eucharist at my Episcopal parish, along with a vigil at the altar of repose.

Unfortunately, my parish makes it a happy clappy folk mass, but you take the bad with the good, I suppose.

Zach