Public Worship with Communion by Extension

Yesterday's half day training means that I am now available to officiate at a service of Public Worship with Communion by Extension.  The old arrangements have been replaced and a new form of service created.  The service is designed to high light the differences between Holy Communion and what I struggle to resist calling unholy communion - which it most certainly isn't, of course.  We were asked what receiving the bread and wine means to us?  Before you read on, take a minute to think what it means to you.

To me it is the closest experience I have of God.  The time when I can connect with Jesus' death and resurrection more easily and more fully than is normally possible.  It is Jesus' command - "do this in remembrance of me" - just as "love one another as I have loved you" is a command.  It is the one act in a worship service that distinguishes us from other religions singing hymns and praising the same, or a different God.

Many of the Readers there said similar things, and much more.  Eventually the question was raised - the one that really needed discussion.  Where are the benefits from - the bread and the wine, or the priest (who has blessed it)? 
If the sacrament is being transported and is lost, and then eaten by a non-beliver who finds it - do they receive the benefits? - No.  That would make it 'magic' food.  If a priest alone blessed some bread and wine and eats and drinks it does (s)he get the benefit.  No - because there is no communion (no community).  So the benefits come from the act of remembrance, the faith of the believers, and the presence of God.  Everything in the Church must be done in an ordered fashion.  Paul tells the hungry to eat at home, so that everyone may get a share and order be maintained.  That is why we need a licensed member of the clergy to say the prayer of blessing.

Having then completed the process in an orderly fashion we are now talking about the distribution, which is extended from one congregation to another.  (hence by Extension).  The service therefore goes out of its way to avoid looking like a Holy Communion service.

We were asked to look at delivering a Service of the Word as an alternative to communion and to accept that PWCE was the worst of the options.  That is not my view.  At Easter the other year, when Warner was ill we went out of our way to make Easter Day a proper communion service. We recognised that the alternative (by extension, under the old arrangements) was not good enough, but as a very last resort we would have offered communion by extension.  No-one ever suggested a service of the word.  We are just trying to follow Jesus' command as best we can in our imperfect and sinful world.

My personal view is that some form of communion is better than no communion, and judging by the comments of those present at the training I am not alone.