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Showing posts from April, 2023

The Place of Congregational Song during the Distribution of Communion

A practice to which I was introduced in the mid-1980s, which I introduced at the new church that I helped to pioneer from its pre-launch days on, and which came to characterize our celebrations of the Lord’s Supper was the practice of congregational singing during the distribution of the communion elements and immediately afterward before the post-communion prayer. As well as using very familiar hymns and worship songs such as praise choruses, we also used a number of hymns and worship songs with simple lyrics and melodies and/or refrains or repetitions. These characteristics enabled the congregation to sing without a hymnal or song sheet in their hands as they went to or from the communion stations. Wall screens and multimedia projectors had not yet come on the scene. In addition to singing one or more hymns or worship songs during the distribution of the communion elements, we adopted two other practices. We did not interrupt a hymn or worship song because the distribution had been c...