A New Rhythm of Receiving

By Cymone Canada
By Dave Grogan
By Arnie Fenton
By Dan Millner
By Alex Joseph
By Samantha Harton
By Bailey Catone
By Colin Campbell
By Barb Harris
By Mark Mercer
By Sereena Bexley
By Vennecia Jackson
By Mary Lata Thottukadavil
By Michael Agnew
By AJ Jerkins
By Caroline Smiley
By Kathy Whitthorne
By Dawn Johnson
By DJ Newman
By Mary Weyand
By Rob Nickell
By Kathy Whitthorne
By Nila Odom
By Sherene Joseph Rajadurai
By Kristi Sheffy
By Sharon Arrington
By Sarah Crawford
By Betsy Paul
By Angel Piña
By Elizabeth Piña
By Chris Kuykendall
By Matt Holland
By Jessie Yearwood
By Brian Severski
By Brian Arrington
By Will Meier
By Clint Calhoun
By Jen Mayes
By Jim Henry
By Kevin Harwood
By Leah Vanhorn
By Janett Miller
By Isaac Harris
By Chad Golden
By Jonathan Cortina
By Kuruvilla (K.O.) Oommen
By John Dyer
By Abe Paul
By Lauren Geppert
By Jennifer Durrett
By Jill Asibelua
By Jared Barnett
By Paul Martin
By Norm Headlam
By Kristi Herring
By Sissy Mathew
By Shannon Pugh
By Al Palamara
By Michelle Garza
By Armando Galvan
By Camille Holland
By Rod Myers
By Crystal Elwell
By Darcy Peterson
By Jason Elwell
By Barry Jones
By Bryan Eck
By Tricia Kinsman
By Craig Pierce
By Jim Woodward
By Andy McQuitty
By Kevin Dial
By Julie K. Rhodes
By Anonymous
By Jasmine Bibbs
By Debra Fournerat
By Kat Armstrong
By Jeffery Link
By Courtney Faucett
By Lenae Moore
By Tiffany Stein
By Andy Webb
By Catherine Boyle
By Catherine & Elizabeth Downing
By Gerald Ridgway
By Jill Hoenig
By Sunitha John
By Tarrin Henry
By RozeLee Rugh
By Beverly Hogan
By Kendra Cordero
By Lisa Gajewski
By Bonnie Goree
By Young-Sam Won
By Chris Beach
By Tom Rugh
By Nick Vuicich
By Andy Franks
By Lead Team
By Jason Roszhart
By Harvard Medical School
By Justin K. Hughes, MA, LPC
By Sherene Joseph
By Earl Davidson
By Rebecca Perry
By Joe Padilla
By Christian Melendez
By Bruce Riley
By Isaac Harris
By Amy Leadabrand
By Ben Haile
By Shaun Robinson
By Natalie Franks
By Cathy Barnett
By Ryan Sanders
By Casey Pruet, The Grace Alliance
By Sharon Arrington
By Lauren Chapin
By Betsy Paul
By Alberto Negron
By Kelly Jarrell
By Michelle Mayes
By Jenn Wright
By Jill Jackson
By Terri Moore
By Robyn Wise
By Katherine Holloway
By Richard Ray
By Kurtlery Knight
By Bruce Hebel
By Neil Tomba
By Tony Bridwell
By Grayson McGovern
By Luke Donohoo
By Kathy Whitthorne
By Mike Moore
By Wade Raper
By Mike Gwartney
By Jo Saxton
By Dieula Previlon
By Jonathan Cude
By Ken Lawrence
By Jay Hohfeler
By Barb Haesecke
By Lindsay Casillas
By JoAnn Hummel
By Shawn Small
By Alice McQuitty
By Jonathan Murphy
By Peggy Norton
By Brent McKinney
By Irving Bible Church
By Irving Bible Church
By Ashley Tieperman
By Betsy Nichols
By Trey Grant
By Debbie Lucien
By Sue Edwards
By Suzie Robinson
By Paul Smith

You might notice something different about this Sunday’s worship service. In some ways it’s a small shift, and hardly unprecedented, but we believe it’s an important part of who we are as a church and where we’re going. You might not have even noticed this change if we didn’t give you a heads-up ahead of time, but I want you to know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it so that we can all lean in together. But first, a little background.

Last fall we shared what we believe is God’s vision for Irving Bible Church—A Transformed People, A Transformed City. In short, we believe God is calling us to pursue a particular future together: in the next five years we want to see rescue and renewal sweep across our city, sparked by the men, women, students, and children of IBC.

A big vision like ours, a five-year vision like ours, might seem like an invitation to take a single gigantic step, to make one drastic change that turns us from what we were into what we will become. And sure, the story of the people of God is marked by those pivotal moments in history that forever alter the course of the community going forward. But to me these seem like the exceptions that prove the rule.

Conversion can happen in a moment, but transformation rarely does. More often, transformation happens over time as the people of God abide in the presence of the one whose hands are skilled, powerful, and patient. Sure, lightning can strike in an instant and reduce a tree to a charred, splintered husk. On the other hand, mountains and canyons don’t form with a crash and a bang, but rather with persistent submission to a transformative force.

So rather than talk about a dramatic lightning strike, today I’d like to talk about a few minutes. That’s all—a few minutes. Specifically, let’s talk about the few minutes we’re going to spend together every week at the communion table going forward.

Yes, for the foreseeable future, we’re going to receive communion together every week in our worship services.

communion-1280x811

This is new for us, although we’ve often celebrated communion every week in certain seasons such as Lent and Advent. By and large, we’ve celebrated communion about once a month, which may happen to be more or less often than what you grew up with or have experienced at another church. Whatever your past experiences and present reactions with communion may be, we want to establish this weekly practice as integral to the future of the body of Christ called Irving Bible Church.

The transformation we and our city so desperately need is gospel-shaped—have no doubt about that—and communion has always been a formative practice by which the church actively participates in the gospel story.

As followers of Jesus, missionary disciples, to come to his table in earnest is to come empty-handed. Empty-handed, no longer clinging to the sin that so easily entangles, to the masks we wear to make ourselves more presentable to the world, or to the idols we hide away in the dark recesses of our hearts. We come to the table empty-handed, no gifts to offer, no accomplishments to trumpet, no works or worthiness to justify our presence there. We come to the table empty-handed because it's his table, because he has invited us there, and because with empty hands we can receive his mercy and grace. We come to the table as a community to eat with Jesus.

Last week on Maundy Thursday I had the opportunity to talk about the Last Supper and our practice of communion. I mentioned how in the traditional Passover meal—the setting for the Last Supper—the bread was a symbol of the provision of God in the lives of his people. Similarly, the cup of wine was a symbol of God's promise in the lives of his people. And so when Jesus took the bread, the provision of God, he said, “This is my body given for you; do this is remembrance of me.” After the meal he took the cup of wine, the promise of God, and he said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” In communion Jesus was not merely inviting his disciples to consider the provision and promise of God, he was inviting them to take himself as the provision and promise of God—to drink deeply and eat their fill. He was inviting them, and he invites us, to receive that which they could never earn, borrow, or purchase.

This is, in a way, the crux of our faith: Jesus was and is and ever will be the provision and promise of God in the lives of his people. And so for us communion is an opportunity to taste that story, to receive that story, to re-orient our lives around that story, and to let God by his Spirit transform us more and more into people who bring his story to bear on the world. That’s why we’re going to extend this invitation to receive communion as the culmination of our worship each and every Sunday.

Each week we’re going to come to the table to proclaim to the world, to our neighbors, and to our own hearts the good news that the crucified and risen Jesus is our provision and promise—that we are his people, called by his name, redeemed by his blood, and raised to walk in a new life of discipleship, community, and mission.

In the book that accompanies our Foundation discipleship experience, we say it this way:

    Consider what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about the practice of communion:

    For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. — 1 CORINTHIANS 11:23-26

    Do you see how the sacrament makes its practitioners into proclaimers of the good news that God loved the world so much he sent his only son to give his life so that others might be rescued? All the sudden, partakers in bread and wine become storytellers who bear witness to the gospel of grace.

This will be the shape of our worship for this next season in the life of Irving Bible Church. May it be one of the many life-giving practices through which God makes us a transformed people whose work and witness are used by our God to transform our city.

I hope to see you Sunday at the table. 

We Recommend Reading Next: