Attending Church? a Service? or "The Lords Supper"?

First of all, I would like to know where the TERM 'Worship Service" came from. I have never really understood what that really means. Is it that we are performing a service to God? Or proving a "service" to the people who come to the meeting? Or what? It smacks so much of the 15th century clergy/laity thing to me... Like the common fold coming to get a 'service' of blessing from their priest.

Secondly, I don't know that the "Lord's table"/ or Communion or whatever everyone calls it was intended to be such the ritual it is today.

In 1 Cor 11... note that it says in verse 20 & 21: "When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk."

Paul was saying that the disorder and disregard for one another was wrong, this is true. They should not have just attacked the food and left others without... They should be orderly and wait on each other so that they can share together. But note especially that this is not a "here is your little cracker, and here is your little shot glass of juice" sort of thing. If it was I would find it hard to believe then could gorge themselves on those little crackers and get drunk on the little glasses of wine.

This was a real meal... They were gathering to eat a regular full meal.

Jesus told us, and Paul recounts it here in verse 25, " do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."

NOTE: -- WHENEVER YOU DRINK IT--

I guess I look at this remembrance that Jesus gave us like this... He gave us a way to remember Him in something common that we do several times a day... EAT and Drink. In other words, "when you do the things you do every day, remember and proclaim Me!"

But when we gather with other believers, we should especially see that this is not a trivial thing. Don't treat the potluck like a 'munchies table' when we gather... But rather wait for one another and recognize that in this act of eating together and sharing with one another we should be reminded of Him and His sacrifice for us. And that we should love one another enough to wait for each other and eat together.

So, to bring it back to today... I don't want to make the Lord's supper a "lords snack" anymore... I think we should recognize, that like many of the other examples Jesus gave to his simple disciples, that day-to-day practical things should remind us of Him. We don't invite guests over and serve them a cracker and a tiny glass of drink. We treat them to a meal and fellowship with them.

In the same way, I think Jesus was teaching us that we should be remembering His sacrifice and proclaiming him in the everyday things we have to do... Like eating... Much like the Israelites were told to integrate their faith into their daily life... "Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."

So, all that to say that observing the Lord's supper is not an element of a "worship service" (we are not serving people's spiritual need to be a priest to them and provide some priestly service to them in the Lord's supper) but rather it is something that we as believers should be doing together (scheduled or not) as a normal part of life... We have to eat, so eat unto the Lord!

Same goes for the use of gifts and the speaking to one another in 1 Corinthians...

For a moment, step outside of the "worship service" mentality of the current age and imagine a meeting just in the context of people gathered together. Some elements might seem the same as a 'church service' (there would be singing, but it might look different, there might be teaching, but that might look different). I would think the gathering would have much less of a scheduled agenda and the people there would not be coming to sing along to a "worship leader" nor simply sit and listen to a single preacher-man... Rather they would be there to participate in the preaching, encouraging and worship.

I think the main issue with this is the concept of "having church". We don't "have a church meeting"... We don't "do church"... we ARE the CHURCH.

I don't know how to attend "Me"... I don't "go to Me"... Or have a "Me Meeting".... I AM ME. In the same way, I don't understand how to "go to church" or "do church".

Meeting another believer in the parking lot at a grocery store is not "going to church", but it can be BEING THE CHURCH. I don't think we should think about doing the Heb 10:24 things ONLY or even PRIMARILY in some regularly scheduled meeting. We should do it in any planned gathering of the saints, but we should BE THE CHURCH always and anytime we meet, even if that is by 'chance' at the supermarket (where we went to buy some crackers and juice for our communion service on Sunday) -- (Sorry... The sarcastic humor is coming out of me) ;-)

I think maybe the western culture clock-consciousness issues might well be something that hinders a simple and basic understanding of what it means to BE THE CHURCH. We are conditioned to schedule things in our day-planners along with the rest of life. But in reality, being the church is not something you put on a calendar.

You can't attend church

Our culture has misunderstood what the church is. The idea most of us have when we hear the word 'church' is that it is a building, an organization, a corporate entity with a constitution, membership roles and a corporate structure of leadership.

However, if you read your Bible you will find that in reality, the church is simply the believers in Christ who make up his Body. Some will say, "well sure, of course we know that we ARE the church... we know that being in a garage does not make one a car... so attending church does not make us the church..." But, there is more to it than this simplistic idea about the issue. It is still a mistaken notion that you can "attend church".

You can't actually "ATTEND CHURCH". What I am saying is that the organization you are a part of, or the building you visit, the 'services' you sit in on... none of that really has anything much to do with the church. In fact, it may be distracting you from living out what we are supposed to be as the church.

I am not saying that God has not used this system of modeling and understanding "the church" for His kingdom, and I am not saying it is a sin to be a part of a church or "attend church" (if that is what you think you are doing)... I am simply saying that maybe we missed the point. Maybe we have formed the church into something that we model after our corporate structures or our traditions. Maybe we have made it into something it was never intended to be and in the process made it less than it should be.