A Pastoral Question
How Often Should We Take
the Lord's Supper?
Among confessional Reformed Baptists, there is genuine disagreement about how often the Lord’s Supper should be observed. Some churches observe it weekly; others, monthly; others, quarterly. Pray’s Mill Baptist Church observes the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day, at the close of the morning worship service. This article explains the biblical and pastoral reasoning behind weekly communion and the considerations that have shaped Reformed Baptist conviction across the centuries.
What Scripture Says — And Does Not Say
“As often as you eat this bread…”
The New Testament does not command a fixed frequency for the Lord’s Supper, but it does describe a clear apostolic pattern. The Lord’s institution charges the church to “do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24), and Paul adds, “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). The earliest believers in Jerusalem “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Luke records the Troas congregation gathering “on the first day of the week…to break bread” (Acts 20:7), which the historic Reformed commentators — Calvin, Owen, Matthew Henry — understood as the ordinary weekly practice of the apostolic church.
The pattern that emerges is straightforward: the early church gathered on the Lord’s Day for Word and Table. Preaching and the Supper belonged together as the twin means by which the risen Christ fed his people. To separate them was unthinkable.
Why Weekly?
The gospel preached, the gospel seen.
Pray’s Mill observes the Lord’s Supper weekly because we believe Word and Sacrament were never meant to be sundered. Every Lord’s Day, the gospel is preached to our ears in the sermon and pictured to our eyes in the bread and the cup. “This is my body, given for you. This is the new covenant in my blood.” The Supper is the visible Word — the gospel preached without words, the seal of every promise of God in Christ. To withhold the Table for weeks at a time is to feed God’s people half the meal he set before them.
John Calvin himself wrote in the Institutes that “the Lord’s Table should have been spread at least once a week,” calling the monthly or quarterly pattern of his day a “vicious custom” that civil authorities had imposed on the church against the apostolic precedent. The Reformed Baptist forebears of the 17th century — including many who subscribed to the 1689 London Baptist Confession — recovered weekly preaching but largely accepted the inherited infrequent observance of the Supper. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century Reformed Baptist churches have increasingly returned to the New Testament rhythm.
Doesn’t Frequency Breed Familiarity?
Reverence is taught, not rationed.
The most common objection to weekly communion is that frequent observance will dull the conscience and trivialize the meal. We take this concern seriously — the Supper must never become rote. But the New Testament’s answer is not to space the Supper out; it is to “examine yourselves” rightly each time we come (1 Cor. 11:28). We do not preach less often because preaching might grow familiar. We do not pray less often because prayer might grow rote. Reverence at the Table is cultivated by sound teaching about the meal, careful self-examination, and the same pastoral seriousness with which we approach every part of corporate worship.
At Pray’s Mill, the weekly Supper is observed in the Sunday morning service. The bread and the cup are distributed to baptized believers in good standing in a Christian church, after the words of institution are read and a pastor leads the congregation in examination. We come not as those who have earned a seat at the King’s table, but as those whom the King himself has summoned, fed by the Christ who gave his body and shed his blood for sinners.
The Climax of Worship
Not a footnote, but a feast.
However often a church practices the Supper, what matters most is that it be celebrated rightly. The Supper is not a memorial sad with longing for an absent Christ. It is the meal of the risen King — the foretaste of the wedding supper of the Lamb. The bread and the cup are not bare symbols, nor are they a re-sacrifice of Christ. They are the spiritual feeding of the saints upon the risen Lord by faith.
If you would like to join us at the Table, you must be a baptized believer who is in good standing in a Christian church and at peace with your brothers and sisters. If you have questions about whether you may participate, please speak with one of the pastors before the Sunday morning service.