How Often Should We Take Communion?

Question 09008.

How often should we take communion? It is a question I am asked surprisingly often, usually by someone who has moved from a church that observed the Lord’s Supper every week to one that observes it monthly, or the other way round. Some Catholic and Orthodox congregations celebrate the Eucharist daily. Some Protestant churches hold communion four times a year, and in parts of Scotland it was once an annual event preceded by days of preparation. Can they all be right?

The short answer is that the New Testament commands us to observe the Supper and does not tell us how often. That silence is itself significant. But the New Testament does give enough guidance to shape a wise and healthy practice, and I want to set it out.

What the New Testament says about how often to take communion

The key phrase comes from the institution of the Supper itself. Jesus said, “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Paul adds in 1 Corinthians 11:26: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” “As often as” assumes that the church will do this regularly and repeatedly. It does not set a number.

Acts gives us glimpses of the early church’s practice. The first believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Acts 2:46 says that “day by day” they were breaking bread in their homes, which may refer to ordinary shared meals, the Lord’s Supper, or both, since in the earliest days the two seem to have gone together. Later, at Troas, Luke writes that “on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread”, Paul preached to them. The natural reading is that the church gathered each Lord’s Day, and that breaking bread was a regular part of why they gathered.

What the early church did

The writings that come after the New Testament confirm this. The Didache, a church manual from around the end of the first century, tells believers to gather on the Lord’s Day to break bread and give thanks. Justin Martyr, writing in Rome about AD 155, describes a Sunday service in which the Scriptures were read, the president preached and bread and wine were shared. Weekly observance seems to have been the norm.

In the Middle Ages things changed. The Supper was surrounded with so much awe and fear that ordinary people rarely received it, and in 1215 the church had to command the laity to communicate at least once a year. At the Reformation, Calvin wanted weekly communion in Geneva and was overruled by the city council, which settled for four times a year. Many Reformed and Presbyterian churches followed the quarterly pattern for centuries. The Brethren movement restored weekly breaking of bread as the centre of its worship. Baptist churches have varied, and many have settled on monthly. Some hold the Supper at the close of the morning service, others in the evening, and some at a separate gathering, which was once common in English chapels and allowed time for a more thoughtful observance.

The danger when we take communion too rarely

There are real dangers in infrequency. When the Supper comes round only a few times a year, it can take on an air of special solemnity that the New Testament does not give it. People may come to think of it as something for the spiritually advanced, or as an occasion to be dreaded, when it was given as a gift for ordinary believers. They may also simply miss it. If a person happens to be away or ill on one of four Sundays, he may go half a year without it.

There is a loss in teaching too. Every time a church breaks bread, it preaches the gospel. “You proclaim the Lord’s death,” Paul says. The Supper puts the cross at the centre of the church’s life in a way nothing else can, and a church that takes communion rarely loses something of that visible proclamation. The word Jesus used for remembrance, anamnesis, implies more than calling a fact to mind. It means bringing the past into the present so that it shapes how we live now.

The danger when we take communion as a routine

The opposite danger is equally real. Anything done often can become mechanical. A church that breaks bread every week may find that it happens with little thought or self-examination. The Corinthians observed the Supper regularly and still managed to turn it into an occasion for division, greed and drunkenness. Paul warned them that eating “in an unworthy manner” brought judgement, and that some of them were ill because of it.

So frequency alone is no guarantee of blessing. What matters is that the church comes to the table thoughtfully, with self-examination, as Paul commands: “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” The same Supper that nourishes a humble heart becomes an empty ritual when hearts are careless. How often we take communion matters less than how we come.

Preparing to take communion

Paul’s instruction to examine ourselves has sometimes been turned into a reason for staying away. I have known believers who would not take communion for weeks because they felt unworthy. That misunderstands the passage. Paul was rebuking people who ate carelessly, ignoring the poor and getting drunk at the Lord’s table. He was not telling troubled consciences to keep their distance. The Supper is for sinners who know they need the cross, and the right response to self-examination is confession, not absence.

So prepare, and then come. Read one of the accounts of the Last Supper beforehand, perhaps Luke 22:14-20. Ask the Lord to show you anything that needs to be confessed or put right, particularly in your relationships with other believers, since Jesus said that a quarrel with a brother should be settled before an offering is made. Then come to the table gladly. The bread and cup say that the work is finished and that you are welcome. Nobody is ever good enough to take communion, and that is exactly why it was given.

What the Lord’s Supper is and is not

Part of the reason churches differ over frequency is that they differ over what the Supper is. If the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus, or if the Supper is the chief means by which grace is given, then there is a strong reason to observe it constantly. I do not believe either of those things. I hold that the Supper is a memorial ordinance. The bread and cup are signs of his body and blood. They do not become or contain them. I have explained why in is communion just symbolic.

A memorial is not a small thing. The Lord’s Supper is where the church remembers, proclaims and looks forward. We remember the cross, we proclaim the Lord’s death and we look forward to his return, since we do this “until he comes”. We also express our unity as one body sharing one loaf. Paul says that because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Few things in church life display our oneness in Christ as plainly as a congregation eating together at his table. All of that is reason to take communion regularly and to take it seriously. I have set out the meaning of the ordinance in what is the Lord’s Supper.

A reasonable practice

So how often should a church take communion? I would say this. There is a strong case from the New Testament and the early church for weekly observance, and churches that break bread every Lord’s Day are following an ancient and apostolic pattern. Churches that observe the Supper monthly are not disobeying any command, provided it is regular and central. I would gently question a pattern so infrequent that many believers go months without the table, because that seems hard to square with “as often as”.

Whatever the frequency, the church should prepare for it. A word of explanation each time, a call to self-examination and confession, a reminder of what the elements signify, and a clear invitation all help. I hold that the table should be open to every believer who is in a right relationship with God, and as far as possible with others, whatever church they belong to. The reasons are in open and closed communion.

So, now what?

If your church gives you fewer opportunities to take communion than you would like, do not make it a cause of division. Talk to your leaders if you wish, and meanwhile make the most of every occasion. Prepare for it during the week. Come expecting to meet the Lord in remembrance.

If your church observes it often, guard against routine. Before you take communion next time, stop and ask yourself what you are remembering, what you are proclaiming and what you are waiting for. When did the Lord’s table last move you to thank him for the cross?

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:26 (ESV)