Andrew Baldwin is pastor at Petone Baptist Church and in 2025 completed a MAppTheo from Carey Baptist College that looked into how some big ideas about what the church is can shape how people in it treat one another.[1]
This article is the sixth in a series entitled Worship in Community, exploring the interaction between the worship of the church community and the relationships between the people in that community. Previous articles introduced this series, explored the historic Baptist practice of forming church covenants, considered the community formation aspects of baptism and explored ways of reading the Bible in community. This article is the first of two looking at the interpersonal aspects of the communion meal. Read the other columns here.
Communion (or Eucharist in some traditions) is the regular re-enactment of the final meal Jesus ate with his disciples before his death (see for example Matthew 26:17-29). This meal is sometime referred to as the Last Supper and was a celebration of the Jewish Passover meal, itself a commemoration of the Jewish people’s escape from Egypt over 1000 years earlier. Jesus reinterprets this meal to show how his impending death was bringing about a new exodus, one in which all people could escape from sin and death through the new agreement, or covenant, God was making with humanity through Jesus. Throughout the last 2000 years, Christians have continued to celebrate communion as a way of remembering both the freedom that Jesus achieved and his ongoing presence with them.
A Mutual Dependence: The nature of the relationships between communion and community.
I remember as a child, communion was a sombre time. Every person sat with their head bowed, quiet organ music played while the plates of bread and trays of juice were passed around. Communion was a time for quiet personal reflection and introspection; communion between me and God.
While this personal focus is a good and necessary part of communion, it is only part of the story. Communion is not just a time for personal reflection on the individual impact of Christ’s death and resurrection, but also a time in which the social consequences of Christ’s death and resurrection should be considered. This article explores the horizontal dimension of communion by showing how communion and community mutual rely on each other.
Communion relies on community
The occasion of communion needs the presence of the community if it is to take on its proper meaning and significance. In the communion meal, Christ’s presence is mediated to each person in the community in the context of the community. It is not the bread and wine in themselves that are able to mediate God’s presence, but it is their position in the community, empowered by the Holy Spirit, which gives them their significance. The bread and wine only take on meaning and purpose because of the significance by faith through the working of the Spirit that the community gives to them. The real presence of Christ is not in the bread and wine but in the body of Christ, the church gathered together by the Spirit.
Community relies on communion
While communion finds its significance in the context of community, it in turn is a key practice in helping to form the community and strengthen the relationships between the community’s members. It does this in two ways, reinforcing their common reliance on grace and their common identity in Christ.
A common reliance on grace
Communion reminds the community that it is a community based on grace. The church’s unity is found not in their common interest, common commitment, or even their common humanity, but rather in their common need for grace. All come to the table on the same basis, that of the grace of God in Christ. The reminder of salvation by grace through faith, also acts to remind the church that their relationships with each other are based on this same grace.
A common identity in Christ
Communion declares that the identity of those who come to the table is no longer found in their individual characteristics but rather in Christ. The community receives its identity from Christ, being named by Christ as the body of Christ in the communion event. The act of declaring the church to be the body of Christ in turn reminds each individual that their identity is no longer an individual identity, something that comes from their individual characteristics or emanates from within, but rather their identity is a corporate identity. Their primary identity is as a member of the body of Christ. Communion, in the sharing together of the bread and the cup, declares this new reality.
The social implications of communion
The reorientation of identity and the reinforcing of relationships based on grace declared by communion has implications for the social organisation of the church. The social, economic, and racial barriers that keep people separate from each other in the wider society should be overcome within the church’s common identity in Christ. These social implications of communion are demonstrated clearly in Paul’s critique of the Corinthian church’s practice of communion in 1 Corinthians 11.
As Tom Greggs explains, Paul’s concern is not about the lack of theological understanding in the Corinthian church but rather the lack of unity expressed when they come together to share the meal.[2] This lack of unity is less about the spiritual condition of these believers and more about the practical aspects of failing to care for the more vulnerable among them and their perpetuation of the social and economic segregation present in the society around them.
Paul’s concern is that communion should demonstrate the reformed relations between the believers that Christ has brought about. A failure to do so is to weaken, if not destroy, the meal’s significance.
Therefore, the interpersonal relationships within the church are of utmost importance in the celebration of communion. In these relationships the church anticipates the full restoration of relationship with God, each other, and the created world that humanity will enjoy when Jesus appears again. Communion should be an occasion that acts to overcome the barriers that keep people separate, overcoming the social and economic stratification that exists in society.
Putting it into practice
Throughout their history, Baptist practice has sought to reflect this communal understanding of communion by including in the communion service aspects such as interceding for others inside and outside of the church, praying for the sick, taking up a collection for the poor, welcoming new members into the church, remembering those in the community who have died, and even in more practical ways such as seating the church around the table in a circle or sharing a common communion cup. By framing communion as a community-building event, the church can practice communion in such a way that it helps to foster the sort of community where everyone has what they need. Communion can be a time of fostering generosity among the church members and considering where there is a need in the community for forgiveness or reconciliation. In lots of simple ways the church can use communion not just as a celebration of individual salvation but as a declaration of unity in Christ and a commitment to live in relationship with each other as the body of Christ.
More in this series
Worship in community: Setting the scene
Worship in community: What’s membership got to do with it?
Worship in community: How the water of baptism binds us together
Worship in community: Seeking the mind of Christ
Worship in community: Reading the Bible in community [in the printed 150 Years of Baptist Communication publication, August 2026]
End Notes
[1] Andrew’s thesis – God’s own community: a Baptist reading of Tom Greggs’ Dogmatic Ecclesiology and its application to the interpersonal relationships within the church (2025)
[2] Tom Greggs, Dogmatic Ecclesiology: The Priestly Catholicity of the Church (Baker Academic, 2019), 1:228–29.
Sources
Ellis, Christopher J. Gathering: A Theology and Spirituality of Worship in Free Church Tradition. SCM Press, 2004.
Greggs, Tom. Dogmatic Ecclesiology: The Priestly Catholicity of the Church. Vol. 1. Baker Academic, 2019.
Lovett, Ashley. “‘To Become the Future Now’: Baptists Being Shaped by the Table.” Pages 153–71 in Gathering Disciples: Essays in Honor of Christopher J. Ellis. Edited by Myra Blyth and Andy Goodliff. Pickwick Publications, 2017.
Weaver, John. “Spirituality in Everyday Life: The View from the Table.” Pages 135–67 in Under the Rule of Christ: Dimensions of Baptist Spirituality. Edited by Paul S. Fiddes. Regent’s Study Guides 14. Regent’s Park College, 2008.
