Arthur Gonçalves
Aug 8, 2025
Teaching Series on Weekly Communion (Part One)
Why This Matters
Church family, one of the most precious gifts our Lord Jesus Christ has given to His people is the Lord’s Supper—a simple yet profound meal of bread and cup that proclaims His death, nourishes our faith, renews our covenant with Him, and unites us together as His body.
From our earliest days as a church plant, your elders have prayed about the frequency with which we celebrate this meal. For practical reasons in those early years—mainly the realities of setup, teardown, and the learning curve of establishing our Sunday rhythms—we decided to observe communion once a month. But the desire for something more frequent has been there from the beginning.
As we have matured as a congregation and continued to study the Scriptures, the conviction has grown. During my sabbatical this summer, the Lord confirmed this in a remarkable way. I visited several churches, each with a slightly different style of worship, but all of them celebrated the Lord’s Supper every week. Experiencing the Word preached and then the Table shared every Lord’s Day was deeply encouraging, spiritually nourishing, and undeniably biblical.
It became increasingly clear that Scripture gives us a strong case for weekly communion—not as a mere tradition, but as a biblical pattern that joins the ministry of the Word with the ministry of the Table for the glory of Christ and the good of His people.
1. The Lord’s Supper Is a Command to Remember Christ Regularly
The Supper was instituted by the Lord Himself on the night He was betrayed:
“Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24–25)
The Lord’s words are not an optional suggestion but a standing command for His church until He returns. The verb “do” here is in the present tense, implying ongoing action—keep on doing this.
When Paul gives further instruction to the church in Corinth, he says:
“As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26)
The phrase “as often” does not set a minimum, but it does set an expectation of frequency. The Supper is a continual proclamation of the gospel—something the gathered church is called to do regularly, not sporadically.
If the gospel is central to every Lord’s Day gathering (and it must be), then the Supper, which visibly proclaims that gospel, naturally belongs in that same weekly rhythm.
2. The Early Church’s Weekly Pattern: Word and Table Together
The book of Acts offers us a snapshot of the church’s life after Pentecost:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
This is not a casual listing of activities—it is the Spirit’s inspired description of the church’s core commitments. The breaking of bread here refers not to ordinary meals, but to the Lord’s Supper. The Supper stands alongside the teaching of the Word and prayer as a central element of Christian worship.
Later, Luke records the pattern of the gathered church:
“On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them…” (Acts 20:7)
Notice the stated purpose of the gathering: to break bread. The apostolic preaching of the Word and the observance of the Supper were not competing priorities—they were companions. One declared the gospel in spoken form; the other displayed it in visible, tangible form.
This consistent linking of Word and Table suggests that the early Christians saw the Supper as integral to their weekly worship, not as an occasional supplement.
3. The Lord’s Supper Is a Present Participation in Christ
In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul writes:
“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16)
The Greek word for “participation” here is koinōnia—fellowship, sharing, communion. The Supper is not merely a backward glance at the cross; it is a present communion with the risen Christ through the Spirit.
As our confession states, in the Supper “worthy receivers… spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death” (LBCF 30.7). This is why the Supper is rightly called a “means of grace.” It does not save, but it nourishes; it does not earn us favor, but it strengthens faith; it does not create unity, but it deepens the unity Christ has already purchased for us.
Given this, why would we withhold from the church a means of grace that Scripture holds out as a regular provision for our spiritual health?
4. The Supper as Covenant Renewal
In 1 Corinthians 10:17, Paul says:
“Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”
Every time we partake, we are visibly reaffirming our covenant with Christ and with one another. This is why Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 11:27–29 that those who partake “in an unworthy manner” or without discerning the body bring judgment on themselves—because the Supper is a solemn reaffirmation of our union with Christ and unity with His people.
Weekly communion keeps this covenant renewal in front of us continually. It calls us to repent quickly, to reconcile with one another promptly, and to rejoice together in the grace that holds us fast. It makes the gospel and our unity visible week after week.
5. Weekly Communion Flows from Reformed Baptist Theology
As Reformed Baptists, we affirm that the ordinances—baptism and the Lord’s Supper—are not empty ceremonies but God-ordained means of grace. They are visible words of the gospel. We reject the notion that they work automatically, apart from faith, but we affirm that when received by faith they truly strengthen believers.
The 1689 London Baptist Confession teaches that in the Supper we “spiritually receive and feed upon Christ crucified” (30.7). That reality is not seasonal—it is needed as often as we gather. Just as we would never intentionally withhold the preaching of the Word for weeks at a time, so we should not intentionally withhold the visible gospel of the Table from God’s people.
Why We Are Pursuing This Together
Our desire is that every Lord’s Day would be a full feast on Christ. The Word preached calls you to faith; the Supper seals that faith. The Word tells you the promises; the Supper lets you taste them.
By joining the Table to the weekly ministry of the Word, we believe we are aligning with the biblical pattern, feeding the flock more faithfully, fostering unity in the body, and keeping Christ central in our worship.
This is why your elders are leading us toward weekly communion. This is not an innovation—it is a return to a biblical, beautiful, and nourishing rhythm of worship that has been part of the church’s life since the earliest days.
Next in This Series: In our next article, we’ll look at the historical case for weekly communion—how the early church and much of the Protestant church practiced this rhythm, and why it has endured for centuries.