A Priest and Her Communion Kit

I’m WAY LATE in posting this entry; I think I’ve been sitting on these pictures for three weeks. :/

One thing Episcopal parishes do better than most Disciples congregations is their emphasis on communion being for the whole church. Most Disciples reading this probably scoff and guffaw at such a claim, but in my experience, it’s true! They build it into the end of the worship service: lay members of the parish come forward and receive the bread and wine to go do home communion ministry to the “shut-in” and hospitalized members of the church. The whole church knows and proclaims “We who are many are one body because we all share one bread, one cup.” In fact, that exclamation is usually heartier and louder than the opening call and response in the services. Any Eucharistic theology that doesn’t include this practice is automatically impaired in its ecclesiology — if the only people who can receive communion are those who can physically get inside the sanctuary, then the sanctuary is protecting those who least need it and the church’s self-portrait will always have someone missing. (Ed Foley, my CTU professor, would have added that ALL churches suffer from this – and that we’ll never have a perfect Eucharist until the eschaton!)

Even though Episcopal churches capture the mission of home communion ministry so well in their worship services, sometimes the emphasis is excessive in other areas: like sinfully expensive “communion kits.” There’s a fine line between the dignity of the ministry and the grotesque financial stewardship equipping that ministry. Take, for example, the sterling silver home communion kit for $1069. RIDICULOUS!!!

Church of the Holy Nativity has some nice, home assembled kits graciously supplied each week by the volunteer members in our Altar Guild.

When Heidi first got to St. Benedict’s, they didn’t have a home communion kit. The ministry was dormant. Luckily, at her ordination in December, the offering was split and given to all the new priests for their discretionary funds. Since Heidi didn’t have a discretionary fund – and since it’d be so wrong to spend that money on herself – she got the communion kit for St. Benedict’s to use. (She also got the Rite Song software that makes it easy to print the music in their bulletin each week!) The problem was: with communion kits being so expensive, she didn’t have many options … until she found Altar Calling, a group in Colorado who do this for affordable prices as their ministry. How cool is that?!?

(Heidi also blogged about this, if you want to read her thoughts and see more pictures!)