Invite your friends and family to this exciting day! We are having the whole service in the community room! We will worship with one another, then Pastor Charlie will deliver the message, and we will go right into communion feast with stories & testimonies.

The Rising has such a unique way of celebrating communion, it is so full of fellowship and joy that you can feel the love of the Lord moving throughout our FEAST! Thats right, as part of our service we feast like the Israelites did in the days of old. We share testimonies, music, and stories while we eat with one another in the community room. It is such a blessing that we look forward to our communion feasts as they near! We want to share that joy just as we are called to, with our friends, family, and neighbors!

Read on to understand the depths and purpose behind our unique way of remembering our Lord.

Communion

The Lord’s Supper – Communion – has its roots in the Passover. I Corinthians 11 makes it clear that the early Christians gathered to eat the Supper as a meal. The New Testament Greek word for supper literally means “a dinner or a meal; a banquet; a ‘pot luck’ dinner that included bread and wine. It was a table communion of the saints, a family festival, a celebration, a fellowship meal.As we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and as we celebrate Communion as a meal, we are remembering the covenant we have with God in Christ. We are participating in the shared memory of what Jesus has done for us and proclaiming our new identity in Christ. The Lord’s Supper is a reaffirmation of our initial commitment to Christ, and through the Lord’s Supper, we reaffirm our faith in Jesus and our identity as a new creation in Christ Jesus.

The Lord’s Supper also represents a last days feast – a type and shadow of the Messianic banquet that will occur at Christ’s future coming. In that context the Supper was never meant to be a somber occasion where Christians mourned over their sins. Instead, the Supper was a cheerful reminder of the amazing Grace of God and who Jesus Christ is and what He has done. It was a reminder and a proclamation of His glorious victory at Calvary. The Lord’s Supper is a celebration! It is a banquet of joy, marked by sharing and thanksgiving throughout the Supper, through partaking of the elements (bread and juice) together, through eating and fellowshipping, and through the sharing of stories and testimonies.

We at The Rising also preach from the New Testament and study the Grace and Love Jesus had for everyone, and we see time and time again His love and desire for family and fellowship that, even when we read the Passover chapter in Luke 22 in verse 15 when it says “ I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” it makes sense that the last thing Jesus wanted before he died was to hang how with the people closest to him. Even when he rose He walked to see his friends, to eat with them, and fellowship with them before He ascended.

We believe that Jesus opened the gospel to the gentiles as well as communion. So, when we look at Jesus words “Do this in remembrance of me” its like Jesus is saying to us gentiles “ When you come to know what I’ve done for you, when you realize what my death on the cross really means, that your sin have been forgiven, that you are no longer a slave to the world like the Israelites were to the Egyptians. Do THIS in remembrance of me. What was this they were doing? Fellowshiping, eating together, sharing stories with one another. Jesus said when your realize what I have done for you go celebrate and tell your story!