WHY DO WE DO THIS?

Valley Chapel is a “non-liturgical church” – meaning, that we do not follow a pre-set liturgy or pattern established by some higher authority. That being said, we do have certain things we do regularly every week, month or year. Because of this, sometimes we simply do things because “we’ve always don’t it that way!” And, this can lead us into acting without understanding why we do what we do!

Like many evangelical churches, one of our “patterns” is that we generally have a communion service on the first Sunday of the month. Not all churches do this. The church I grew up in only observed communion on rare occasions – usually only once or twice a year. There are other churches that observe communion every single Sunday.

When you have communion very infrequently, it can lead to a lack of any real knowledge about what communion is. But when you have it quite often, communion can become so commonplace that it can lose all meaning whatsoever, becoming nothing but a ritual.

In Exodus 12:26-27, we read “And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD.’” The ceremony was not to become a meaningless ritual – its meaning was to be communicated, from one generation to the next.

Knowing what the communion means is important. Proverbs 4:13 tells us to “Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.”

This Sunday at Valley Chapel, as we observe communion together, we will look at the memorial of the Lord’s Supper, and answer the question “Why Do We Do This?”