Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

I learned a new word at church yesterday. At the contemporary service I attend, during communion, everyone walks to the front and tears off a piece of bread and dunks it in a large cup of juice. The minister called this "intinction". I had never heard that word before, so I googled it when I got home. At the traditional service, they do communion the regular way by passing it out, but everyone holds it and takes it at the same time.

Taking it at the same time with the group sounds very nice to me. It adds an element of ceremony and 'togetherness'.

I prefer it being served to me and I get pick out what I want. I sit up front and don't want a bunch of hands touching it before I get mine. And yes I keep hand sanitizer with me and clean up before I "dig in"...but most everyone is wiping their nose and eyes and passing it along...I do not want that much community or communion.

Nor do I care for the Chiclet-sized bits or as I call it "Christian Chow" where you know in the back they are just shaking it out like puppy chow.

And I do not care for the everyone goes up to the feeding trough concept to grad some grub, just pass it around. The "all take it at once" thing always reminds me of a toast or taking shots together...."Salud" and then toss it back

What they need is individually sealed packs, maybe bring your own, and then you got a game changer.

FinallyFree wrote:I learned a new word at church yesterday. At the contemporary service I attend, during communion, everyone walks to the front and tears off a piece of bread and dunks it in a large cup of juice. The minister called this "intinction". I had never heard that word before, so I googled it when I got home. At the traditional service, they do communion the regular way by passing it out, but everyone holds it and takes it at the same time.

I have been attending various Methodist churches for over 30 years now. Intinction is the most common method used, and the pastor usually explains the method in advance for the benefit of visitors. (Methodists practice open communion, meaning anyone who wishes can participate.) I have attended other Methodist and Presbyterian churches that pass the plates and the shot cups like we used in the COC. Episcopal churches I have visited offer the option of intinction if you don't want to drink directly from the shared cup of wine.

The bread at Methodist services has never been unleavened crackers unless they are passing the plate around. The ritual includes the words "because there is one loaf.." Which doesn't fit at all with tiny crackers.

I prefer the services where kneeling is involved, either while receiving the elements or afterward kneeling at the rail for prayer. I also prefer the real wine, but Methodists don't do that, because of their history of supporting temperance.

I never heard the word intinction before attending a Methodist church. Apparently my spell-checker has never heard the word either, since it tries to change the word to "instinct."

This might have a home in New Paths, people - it is very different from coc 'Lord's Supper'. Want to start a thread on something like 'various approaches to communion' or something?

Just so not 'me'.

I have never heard of this word, either.

I've heard it but it isn't really part of my working vocabulary!

I was just reading yesterday something about how the communal meal of the Christian communities in the first century - which was an evening meal (dinner) and basically a potluck, evolved over time to a ritually consumed bread and wine in the MORNINGS (morning 'mass'). Apparently the evening dinner sort of tended to devolve into - dinner, and the ritual remembrance aspect was not being paid much attention. So the ritual part was moved separately from the communal meal, and eventually ended up very formal and ritualized, conducted only by special persons (priests) and surrounded by ceremony. It took only a hundred or two hundred years or less.

The RC church still does this ceremony every morning, every day, although people aren't really expected (any longer) to show up on a daily basis. As part of the ceremonial ritual aspect, people would fast from the time they woke up until after the ceremony of the bread and wine, and then eat their first meal of the day - a 'break fast' meal, the origin of our 'breakfast'.

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Moogy wrote: shot cups

I know a Mexican woman who goes to Mass everyday, or at least goes to church every day to pray if there is no formal mass.