09/04/2006
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My First Communion in quite a while
Today, I partook of the Lord's Supper at Westminster Presbyterian Church, the church I'm visiting on the Lord's Day afternoons. The first time in at least a year. What a joy it was to remember and receive Christ and commune with fellow Reformed Christians and especially Christ!
(For 2 years now, on Scriptural principle and conviction, I have declined to take the Lord's Supper at any church that has Open Communion or Latitudinarian Communion or any church that is a false, heretical church. The teaching of Covenant Life Church, my member church, is officially Closed Communion, but its practice is Latitudinarian.)
Open Communion = anyone in the world may approach the Lord's Table
Latitudinarian Communion = any sincere Christian may approach the Lord's Table
Session-controlled Communion = any sincere Christian may approach the Lord's Table after meeting with and being examined by the Elders/Pastors (i.e, the Session)
Closed Communion = only sincere Christian members of that local church may approach the Lord's Table after being examined by the Session (or in a large church, delegated representatives of the Session)
(My position is Closed Communion, and I am tolerant to Session-controlled Communion.)
Comments (3)
Flying Irish,
Would you believe it, but I too shared with you that sweet time of communion this Lord's Day! What a wonderfully small world we share! This is Jon Mattull, from St. Louis. Oh the wonder of God's providence!
I share with you the joy of this communion. What a wonder to receive Christ and share together in the body of our Lord, by faith! It was a blessed time together, one which I hope never to forget. What a foretaste of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!
Please keep in touch.
JM
Why are you a member of Covenant Life if you're not partaking with us in the Sacraments? I think you're straining at a gnat here. This is part of why we attend the church we do. There are different ways of doing Communion, but if you have moral objections to how CLC does it, why are you at this church?
I'm not trying to be hard on you, I just want you to consider what membership in a local church means. For me, I think it means being able to partake in the administration of the Sacraments, which at CLC means baptism by immersion and - as you call it - Laditudinarian practice of the Lord's Supper. This is a serious issue, since the administration of the sacraments is one of the main functions of the local church.
I'll answer this more when I return from the UK. Membership is not the only factor on whether or not to take the Lord's Supper. Latitudinarian Communion may be one of the ways of Communion, but it is not the Scriptural way. Nor is Believers Only Baptism and immersion-only Baptism Scriptural. According to Pr. Isaac, it is not a serious enough issue to be a matter of discipline or preclusion of retaining membership (which brings up another point: Church Unity and Terms of Membership and Communion at CLC).
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