Four things you always incorporate:

1. Remembrance – taking time to remember what Christ has done for us
2. Prayer as a group or individually
3. Quiet moment to allow people to engage with God.
4. Bread and Cup

It doesn’t have to be bread and wine/juice.

• If your group is meeting online, encourage your group members to use whatever they have available.
• The posture of your heart is what is important.

Do not go long winded. Keep the focus.

Walk your group through the practice before you do it. It will allow them to know what will take place and allow them a chance to prepare.

You have options! You can walk your group through communion as part of your Dinner Group night or as the focus of the whole evening with prayer.

This is a great opportunity to bring someone else in on the process.

• Have others grab the supplies
• Ask others to pray or read scripture (we encourage making an individual ask ahead of Dinner Group)

Our monthly communion practice based on our meditation passage can be found at hobokengrace.com/rhythms or on the Hoboken Grace App. This is an example from May 2020.

Leader: The Lord’s Supper is another rhythm of remembrance and a rhythm we can experience in community. Tonight we will be practicing communion using our monthly rhythms meditation passage.

Read through our meditation passage together. Psalm 23:1-6

Leader: What shadows are diverting your attention from Him?

Where have you seen Him protecting and guiding this month?

(Hand out the bread and cup.)

Read the meditation passage again.

Leader: “As we take the bread, we remember that our Shepherd came to find us giving His life to bring us home.”

(Take the bread.)

Leader: “As we take the cup we remember that He took the death we deserve so we would never fear it.”

(Take the cup.)

Spend time reflecting and praying on the ways in which God shepherds us and thank Him for it!

At the outset, have a person in the group read a Bible passage about the Lord’s Supper:

• Matthew 26:26-30
• Mark 14:22-26
• Luke 22:14-23
• 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Tell the group as the bread and cup are passed they are each going to answer a question.

With the bread: How have you seen Jesus sustain you this past year?

With the cup: Where have you experienced Christ’s forgiveness in your life this year?

Allow a few minutes of reflection for people to think about their answer.

As the bread is passed and each person takes a piece, have each person answer this question: “How have you seen Jesus sustain you this past year?” After each person has shared and has a piece of bread in his/her hand, pray a blessing over the bread, thanking Jesus for sustaining us. At the end of the prayer, you can say, “The body of Christ broken for you, do this in remembrance of him.”

As the cup is passed, have each person answer this question: “Where have you experienced Christ’s forgiveness in your life this year?”. Have the person to the right/left pray for that individual. Wait until everyone has shared, drink the cup together.

Close the time in prayer, and afterwards allow a little time to debrief the experience, especially if the group has never done this before.

Leader reads the script and walks the group through communion together.

We are here for many different reasons.

It says in scripture that…

A crowd of 5,000 people were following Jesus wherever he went. Some of them wanted to be healed like others had been. Some of them wanted to hear the stories he was telling. Some of them were just curious as to what all the fuss was about. But it didn’t matter WHY the people were there. It only mattered THAT they were there, and that they needed food.

We are here for many different reasons.

Whether we are brimming with faith, or comfortably resting in a moderate pool of faith, or clinging to that tiny speck of faith, or living with no sense of faith at all, we are here. But it doesn’t matter WHY we’re here. It doesn’t matter HOW we’re here. It only matters THAT we’re here. You don’t have to be “good enough” to come to this table. No one in this room is “good enough”, that’s what this meal is all about. Because of what Christ did for us over 2,000 years ago, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. And nothing that keeps us from being invited to this table.

Because HERE is a place where we are ALL welcome. HERE is a place where there are no walls dividing us. HERE is a place where Christ simply says, Take…Eat…Drink…and Remember…ALL of you!

Invitation:

Come to this table, not because you must, but because you may, not because you are strong, but because you are weak. Come, not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to come, but because you need mercy and help. Come, because you love the Lord a little and would like to love Him more. Come, because He loved you first and gave himself for you. Come, and meet the risen Christ, for we are his Body.

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus had a meal with his friends. He took a loaf of bread and after giving thanks to God, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and He said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way also he took the cup of wine; and after giving thanks, gave it to them and said, “Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Whenever you drink it, remember me. For as often as you eat this bread, and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

(1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Matthew 26:26-28, Mark 14:22-24, Luke 22:19-20)

Thanksgiving Prayer:

Loving God, we praise and thank you for your love shown to us in Jesus Christ. We thank you for his sacrificial death upon the cross for our redemption and the redemption of the world, and for raising him to life again, as a foretaste of the glory we shall all share. We give you thanks for this bread and wine, symbols of our world and signs of your transforming love. Send your Holy Spirit, we pray, that we may be renewed in the likeness of Jesus Christ and formed into his Body.

We pray in His name, Amen.

Sharing the bread: (break bread, pass and wait till everyone has a piece. Then share with these words

Jesus said, “This is my body which is for you; do this in memory of me.”

Sharing the cup: (Pass the cups and wait till everyone has one. Then lift up the cup and share with these words:)

In the same way, he took the cup after supper, and said: “this cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this in memory of me.”

Acclamation and Prayer:

God our Creator, thank you for the gift of your son Jesus Christ, whose love pursues us our whole life long. Thank you Jesus, for giving your life to us in word and deed, even unto death, even death on a cross. Come Holy Spirit, feed us with your love that we may be filled with power to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds. Keep us firm in the hope you have set before us, so we and all your children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise your name;

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen

Additional Resources

Along the way we have picked up some helpful group leader resources that you may also find helpful.