Resource Search Results

Chalice and Loaf or Cups and Cubes

Our celebration of the Lord's Supper in the Reformed tradition is sometimes touched with uncertainty. Is there something sacred about wine, or is grape juice an acceptable option? Are there rules about whether the bread should be leavened or unleavened, store-bought or home-baked, white or wheat? Is a single chalice more meaningful than a tray full of small cups? Who should bring the elements to the table—and when? Does it make any difference what we do with leftover elements?

Article | July 20, 2023

A Coherent Ritual Life

What do our daily habits of home and work have to do with weddings, baptisms, or the Lord’s Supper? Dru Johnson and Cory Willson trace the biblical lines of ritual thinking, from the field, office, and factory to worship in the sanctuary and waters of baptism. Recording from the session held in July 2022.

Video | November 09, 2022

Resources by N.T. Wright Related to Christian Public Worship

Nicholas Thomas Wright, known as N. T. Wright or Tom Wright, is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010. He served as research professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary's College in the University of St Andrews in Scotland until 2019, when he became a senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall at the University of Oxford.

Audio | Video | July 19, 2022

Reflections on Online Sacraments

Both before and after the onset of COVID-19, Christian congregations around the world have been exploring the prospects and constraints involved in engaging the Lord's Supper/Eucharist and baptism online--inviting participation either through watching a celebration or participating as a communicant, prayer leader, baptismal sponsor, or in some other way.

Reflection | February 16, 2021

Praying at the Table, Praying at the Font

2020 Calvin Symposium on Worship | Workshop

Video | March 19, 2020

A Sacramental Vision for Public Worship

2020 Calvin Symposium on Worship | Seminar

Video | February 09, 2020

Closing Communion Worship: The Ascension

Closing Communion Worship on Acts 1:1-11: The Ascension at the 2018 Worship Symposium.

Video | June 19, 2019

Trinitarian Sacramental Theology

2019 Calvin Symposium on Worship | Seminar

Audio | April 24, 2019

Serious Play: Insights from Augustine and Other Friends from the Early Church on Leading Worship and Administering Sacraments

Led by Lester Ruth, this workshop explored insights from Augustine and others in the early church that can break open playful, Scriptural imagination for leading in worship.

Audio | May 09, 2018

Means of Grace: Forming New and Sustaining “Renewing” Congregations and Church Plants

In this seminar, veteran practitioners discussed how mission-shaped preaching and sacramental life function as means of grace in their communities. Audience engaged a discussion that sees evangelism and robust worship as beautifully integrated elements of every congregation’s ministry.

Audio | May 04, 2018

Ron Rienstra on the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving

Christian traditions refer to the prayer before communion as the eucharistic prayer, the Great Thanksgiving, or the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving. If your Lord’s Suppers don’t include this prayer, then you very well may be missing out on a rich opportunity for faith formation.

Conversation | July 21, 2017

Ron Rienstra on Liturgical Performance and Improvisation

You might think of performance as totally out of place in Holy Communion. But performance and improvisation can help leaders and worshipers show and tell the gospel with their whole selves.

Conversation | July 21, 2017

Teaching Children about the Meaning of the Lord's Supper

Gathering at God's Table is a new, vividly-illustrated bilingual children's book which introduces young children to the meaning and significance of the Lord's Supper

Audio | February 22, 2017

The Great Prayer of Thanksgiving at Baptism and the Lord's Supper

In the past 40 years, many Protestant communions have recovered a robust, historically-oriented prayer of thanksgiving at celebrations of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Audio | February 14, 2017

Learning to Worship for the Life of the World

For the Life of the World is one of the most influential books ever written on the sacraments.

Audio | February 29, 2016

Invitation to Christ: Sacramentally Centered Worshiping Communities

In worship, Christ is proclaimed to us not only in the Word that falls on our ears, but also in the “visible words” that are set before our eyes. At the font, God’s grace is washed upon our brows, and at the Lord’s Table, it is received into our hands and tasted with our mouths.

Audio | February 25, 2013

Symposium 2012 Photo Slideshow

A slideshow of images from the 2012 Calvin Symposium on Worship, held January 26-28, 2012. The annual Calvin Symposium on Worship is an annual, three-day ecumenical conference that brings together a wide audience of pastors, worship leaders and planners, artists, musicians, scholars, students, and other interested worshipers. This year, the symposium explored praying and worshiping through the Psalms.

Slideshow | February 13, 2012